While Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has publicly voiced support for diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia, other Biden administration officials are against the idea, CNN reported on Friday.
Citing unnamed administration officials, the report said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disagree with Milley and don’t think it’s time to make a serious push for peace talks.
In a speech to the Economic Club of New York last week, Milley said that he saw an opportunity for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate when peace can be achieved, seize it,” he said. “Seize the moment.”
The CNN report said that Milley has in recent weeks “led a strong push to seek a diplomatic solution” to the fighting. But his position is not a popular one in the administration, and one official said that the State Department has the opposite view of Milley.
The report reads: “One official explained that the State Department is on the opposite side of the pole from Milley. That dynamic has led to a unique situation where military brass are more fervently pushing for diplomacy than US diplomats.”
Throughout the war, Blinken and his State Department have shown little interest in diplomacy with Russia. Blinken has only held one known phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since the February 24th invasion, and the conversation was focused on a potential prisoner swap, not the war in Ukraine.
According to media reports, Sullivan had held recent talks with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, and the White House has confirmed there’s been high-level communication with Russia. Sullivan also encouraged Ukraine to soften its stance on talks with Russia, but he still does not agree that it’s time to push Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.
Russia on Friday announced it completed its withdrawal from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Friday. According to other media reports, some US officials see the coming winter and Ukraine retaking Kherson as a good opportunity for peace talks.
While there are now growing calls for diplomacy, the US and NATO still have big plans to arm and train Ukraine for years to come. The US recently announced it was opening a command in Germany to oversee its mission in Ukraine that will be staffed by 300 military personnel and led by a three-star general. The command is set to open in 2023.
What a surprise! The neocons with no reverse gear NEVER want even a suggestion of peace ever. Nuland, Blinken etc are the main reason all of this conflict “erupted” under Obama and Biden in 2013 if not before, and their influence seems unstoppable. Pentagon and others who know a bit about wars are ignored.
As expected, peace is not on the menu when you have neocons in charge.
Or neolibs, Pal.
Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy, Neoconservativism is an foreign policy philosophy. They’re NOT mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary.
This is a war of national resistance. Any peace talks will have to be between Russia and the Ukrainian resistance. The US cannot make commitment for the Ukrainian people. The US provoked the war and the US is funding the Ukrainian side. But the US has no more authority to negotiate for Ukraine trhan the Us had to negotiate on behalf of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. It is really up to to the Ukrainians to decide what the conditions are for peace talks and it is up to the Russian people to get a government that will have the courage to withdraw from Ukraine.
Ukrainian nationalists have made their country a US vassal state and its leaders US puppets. There is no point of negotiating with puppets. Puppets do what the puppet master tells them to do. Ukrainians will have to die as long as Uncle Sam decides that they have to die. Ukrainians don’t get to have a say in this. Is this fair? No, but when you sell your soul to the devil, that’s what you get.
The Russophone part of Ukraine will reunite with Russia, but there is nothing Russia can do about Russian-hating Banderites. They will emigrate to the West or get themselves killed as long as they serve Uncle Sam in his effort to destroy the Russian Federation.
Nobody knows what the Russians will do because that depends on how the West is going to react. Anyways, my guess is that, unless there is a peace treaty, the Russians will take everything from Kharkov to Odessa right up to Dnipro river and then shell restUkraine until they get tired of being shelled and settle for a peace treaty, which will require neutrality. By that time, most Russophone Ukrainians will have fled to the Russian-controlled oblasts. So the issue of the Banderites’ favorite past time of massacring ethnic Russians becomes less of a problem.
Why do you think that the Ukrainians have to fight where the Afghans did not?
Because the US hasn’t yet cut the strings of its Kyiv puppets yet.
The US had not cut the strings to the Afghans when they decided to have a say – i.e. the individual Ukrainian unit has just as much freedom to act as the individual Afghan unit had all the US did was to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and things fell apart – the US has fewer people in Ukraine than they had in Afghanistan when that fell apart – i.e. the notion that Ukraine does not have a say is just wrong.
I’ve used this analogy before. But it fits so nicely. From the Beach Boys: “and she’ll have fun fun fun… till her daddy takes the T-bird away.”
I’m still laughing, lol…..
Ukraine resistance? What about the residence of Donbas that were shelled for eight years. 14,000 DEAD, countless maimed by the “resistance”.
“resistance”? It is the people in Donbass who have resisted an invasion by Ukraine. Donbass and Crimea have always been Russian.
“the US has no more authority to negotiate for Ukraine”
LOL You regurgitate the media propaganda so easily. It is Biden who is PAYING for the war. With the American people’s tax money. He is PAYING Zelensky and the entire Ukie parliament, which voted themselves a 40% pay increase in the summer, courtesy of Americans. It is Biden who is SUPPLYING the mass murderer Zelensky with the weapons he uses for his planned invasion.
It is Biden who approved of the Azov Battalion using the Russian people in Mariupol as human shields, forcing them into the theater building where Azov’s basement headquarters was located. Azov put their artillery next to the Mariupol people’s bomb shelters. Azov forced the people into the tunnels under the Mariupol steel plant as human shields.
Before that the Azovs posted a video of civilians they forced to lie on the floor in a building, tied up to be human shields, while the Azovs laughed and played the piano and pointed weapons at them.
You support those who massacred hundreds of people in Buchma and blamed it on Russia. The victims wore white armbands, meaning they worked with Russia against the dictator Zelensky. You support those who have been bombing Donbass EVERY SINGLE DAY for more than seven years. Even now they are shelling the people in Donetsk. With U.S. weapons.
ALL Russia and the Donbass defenders asked for in February was that Zelensky’s invasion of Donbass would be stopped and scrapped, and that they would stop murdering people every day. They didn’t ask for any more land, not even the land in Donbass that Ukraine occupied. They only asked for the aggression to stop.
And you lie and say “Ukraine is resisting”. Disgusting. Go watch some more Starwars shows on Disney+, “Skywalker”.
“the US has no more authority to negotiate for Ukraine”The mother of all jokes. We stopped negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
Hear hear.
Well said Jon!!!
A convenient history, but like most histories concocted here in the home of the Hegemon, a false history.
Mark Milley seem to be saying fairly different things on this, or that this suggestion for negotiations is supposed only to apply to the Ukrainians i.e. that he believes in keeping the sanctions on – hard to say but in this interview from the same day he is telling a different story.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/11/10/gen-mark-milley-the-u-s-will-continue-to-supply-ukraine-with-equipment-to-defeat-russia.html
I don’t listen to him because he doesn’t make policy.
That’s because he doesn’t make sense…
Good one 😉
But wait a minute. If that were true, what of Blinken 😉
You mean Nimrod?
He sure is a piece of work, and one of Biden’s closest advisors for (more than?) 30 years.
Explains a lot… Some of these people got their brains out of cracker jack boxes….
One of our local schools calls themselves the “Nimrods”. I always laughed at how they could call themselves something so degrading until someone asked me if I knew what the word Nimrod meant. So I looked it up and lo and behold it means a great hunter. So, not Tony.
I remember when Bugs Bunny used to call Elmer Fudd, Ehhhh, ya little Nimrod…
You mean it might be premature to expect a war monger and all around Yes Man, to change his stripes? Milley’s got not One but Four finger in the wind at all times, he plays both sides and hopes that when it’s time to jump off the fence he’s straddling, he lands on the right side. (to mix a lot of metaphors)
Possibly.
How do stop a war? You stop fighting and talk.
Well said…!
Thanks. we all know it. We were taught this when we were children. Problem is now the kids who should be adults are kids who refuse to learn the lesson…
Too simple for the likes of Blinken, Sullivan.
blinken&sullivan Most Horrid Opera Show is a stone-cold killer enterprise acting in unison on behalf and for the benefit of ..
There is no point in talking to or hearing them.
But why stop when you can make so much money?
Cynic… 😉
It’s a great gift..
Realist, skeptic?
That is one way, another is to go back to the agreed upon border.
agreed upon] At the end of a smoking gun?[Do away with borders then…No excuse for stealing/war.
Would the Russians even trust Biden? He and Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland, and the Kagans in State have demolished all the china in the china shop, only broken pieces left, there is nothing to base trust on left.
Why not go back even further to when the words “not one inch eastward” were uttered? You know, when the belligerence started.
The Pentagon brass don’t want to see the Pentagon GONE from a hit by an unstoppable hupersonic missile fired from ten or 20 miles off shore giving them maybe two or three minutes to get out of the blast zone. Even at a subsonic 600 MPH it would only give them two minutes if 20 miles out. Russian Hypersonics operate at 1000s of MPH. Easy to see why they might like to avoid facing Russian hypersonics…!!!!!
How does the other side know that a hypersonic missiles has a conventional and not a nuclear war head?
“Citing unnamed administration officials, the report said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disagree with Milley and don’t think it’s time to make a serious push for peace talks.”
In off the record comments by one unnamed official, the principal view of Biden foreign policy advisors at present continued to be, “Daaaah….I wan’ kill Russkies!!!……Daaaaaaaaahhh…..”
If they were serious for peace talks, the talks would not have been stopped in April. Russia be warned. Our leerless feeders are not serious.
Seriously. We just little children and do not know that they talk to each other and are trying on.some tricks for size.
The two idgets said what?
Is that a trick question or is that rhetorical?
“Blinken, Sullivan Don’t Agree With Milley’s Push for Diplomacy on Ukraine War CNN reports the State Department is on the ‘opposite side of the pole’ as Milley, who says now is a good time for peace talks”
Bizarro World when the leading military men are calling for deplomacy and the diplomats are all calling for war and fomenting other wars around the world!
This is stranger than fiction.
Confucius said: “the people lose their freedom when the words lose their meaning.”
We live in a world in which the words have effectively lost their meaning. We have moved from fake news to fake reality. In our world, peace means war and vice versa. So-called peace activists called for a no-fly zone that would have led to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon. In Germany, a Ukrainian writer was given a “peace price” who has supported the neo-Nazi Azov regiment and who has called for the extermination of Russians, which he calls animals or garbage in his writing.
The traditional left and greens that grew out of the peace movement of the 1980s have become so bloodthirsty in their ideological quest for forcing their values on other people that even the traditional war hawks recoil in terror.
I predicted 20 years ago that the US would go to war with China, but I honestly never suspected that things would get so bad so quickly.
Exactly. In the post-truth Orwellian world words are simple non-valent instruments. Very likely Milley, Blinken & Co. are all in agreement, his ‘tentative’ intended only to sow a little confusion in the Kremlin.
Well said,
In educated parlance William Butler Yeats said it this way:
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Perhaps in a more plebeian parlance Credence Clearwater Revival said the same this way:
Run Through the Jungle
By CCR
Whoa, thought it was a nightmare
Lord it was so true
They told me don’t go walking slow
The devil’s on the loose
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Whoa, don’t look back to see
Thought I heard a rumblin’
Calling to my name
Two hundred million guns are loaded
Satan cries, “Take aim”
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Whoa, don’t look back to see
Over on the mountain, thunder magic spoke
Let the people know my wisdom
Fill the land with smoke
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Better run through the jungle
Whoa, don’t look back to see
I once wrote a short story called: “The Second Coming” and it was about Armageddon…
“And thru the pukish haze emerges, the hideous grotesque shape of man, standing naked in the nature of our beginnings”…
Credence rocks though!
When a great proportion of Americans want a negotiated end of the war, and are ignored, it becomes evident that democracy is just a figment of the imagination. Blinken and Sullivan may get their wish and have the “big one”, which will take us out. When everyone is dead, who will the MIC sell their wares too? Apparently, they have not considered that. I have read that iodine is hard to find. Miami Herald: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article259428954.html
There may be cockroaches left to sell to, but also they will not live long enough to enjoy all the profits they made either.
Blinken is lucky he’s not being paid by the number of times he engages in diplomacy. He’d be paid handsomely if he were secretary of offense, er, I mean defense.
Jeez, this a surprise!?
Miley is a putz and has never shown any inclination towards peace. One mild statement when asked directly how you get to peace isn’t something to pin your hopes on, especially since he pinned that hope on the believe that neither Ukraine nor Russia can win the war militarily. Which frankly speaking, that’s a joke, Russia can absolutely escalate further and further and force a settlement. It’s not without great danger, lets say they nuke Livov. I have little doubt that this would “win” the war militarily. It would do more damage to them politically and it could set off WWIII, but to claim that Russia CAN’T win militarily and this is why it might, possibly, maybe, just be time to negotiate, is stupid. On the one hand he’s telling Ukraine that Russia can not defeat them militarily and then he’s saying it might be time to negotiate. Seriously, that’s supposed to be a big statement pushing for peace?
Why not just stick to the first part? Ukraine has no ability to win this war militarily and never did, therefore the only logical move is negotiations, which should have taken place before Russia annexed these new territories.
If Negotiations take place now and Russia keeps the territory they have won, that amounts to a massive part of Ukraine’s total wealth and would without a doubt be a “win” for Russia and a loss for Ukraine.Which means of course that negotiations early on would have been the best thing for Ukraine, the same goes for now. The sooner the better for Ukraine.
Furthermore, if Miley is running around telling Blinken that Russia can’t win, then he’s hardly a useful part of the negotiating process. Why? Because the stated goal is to weaken Russia and a protracted war does just that. If Miley does want to negotiate, you can bet it’s because he thinks Russia CAN and WILL win, otherwise he’d be saying the opposite.
My question isn’t whether or not he was serious about negotiations, nothing in his statement, when read in full context, suggest this to be true. My question is whether or not he’s telling his boss in no uncertain terms that Ukraine can NEVER win but Russia CAN, because they have the ability to escalate further and further until they have forced negotiations Militarily. If he’s telling Joe that Russia can never win, then they will never push for negotiations, why would they? Negotiations right now, can’t be spun as a win, not even with the Russians giving them the right back of the Dniper. It’s still a loss for Ukraine and big win for Russia because most of the natural resources are in the area already conquered.
When will our leaders accept a loss in Ukraine? Probably not until they are forced to by circumstances out of their control. The US can’t negotiate because to do so is to admit they messed up big time by asking Ukraine to fight rather than surrender and ask for good terms. Miley and his ilk talked Ukraine into fighting while knowing fully well they could never win, he’s simply trying to find a way to spin this so he doesn’t look like an idiot. He’s now trying to be the one guy who knew they couldn’t win, but he’s only half way there, because Russia CAN win and he knows it.
He’s still an idiot and he’s still pushing Ukraine down the garden path towards destruction. If you don’t think your enemy can “Win” why would you surrender? You won’t, especially not when it’s other nations paying to fight the war, while your nation’s leaders get to line their pockets, right? According to Miley the new status quo is endless war in Ukraine, which to a guy like Zelensky means simply that he can continue to put away money, without the risk to himself personally that would come with a collapse of his military. It means the same exact thing to our dear leaders as well. An endless war is better for them both politically and in regards to their own financial success.
If Russia Can’t win, as Miley says, where is the upside for Zelensky to give in and allow Russia to take land that amounts to 70% of their GDP, especially considering he can continue to line his own pockets as long as the war rages on. If Russia can’t win, why should Biden given in and hand a Win to Russia?
I don’t think an off the cuff statement by Miley in response to a question about how to get peace means a hell of a lot and I know it means nothing if he honestly still thinks Russia Can’t Win.
The price, win or lose, for both parties is too high, it is why this war like all wars should never have happened and should be stopped and ended immediately.
Only the miserable Biden administration does not get it, the war serves the war profiteers only, the only winners in the endless slaughter.
No doubt, that’s why I usually put “win” within quotation marks. The people of Russia and Ukraine both lost the day the war started. But geopolitics are a different game and dear leaders around the world, including within Russia play chess with human victims as pawns. A win for Putin is likely to be seen politically as anything that adds territory to the Russian Federation, especially land this rich in natural resources. I’m also afraid that this is the reason Russia will continue to fight longer each time we make it more expensive for Russia. The next big prize is the black sea itself and it’s resources are on the line when it comes to Odessa, which only seems off the table now because we haven’t seen the results of what a full out war mobilization could accomplish sometime next year. Right now Russia might feel the price they have paid to take over these new regions is worth it. If it costs them more they might very well double down and go for the big prize too. Time will tell and there are no real crystal balls in sight.
Putin is not even a hardliner. His administration wants border security and autonomy for the Russian speaking Ukrainians in East Ukraine, in return Ukraine would be a neutral country. USA/NATO is encircling Russia, the Ukrainian people wanted peace and not die for NATO membership. NATO was created to keep Russia out of Europe and down. The Ukrainian people are the real losers, Zelensky and company are profiting from throwing their country under the train. It was and still is the most corrupt nation in Europe. It now is another failed nation. The Americans will just destroy and walk away, just like they did in Vietnam, Libya, Afghanistan and so many other nations. This is a ruthless war against the Ukrainian people and all provoked by the neocons in the state department, starting with Bush in 2008. For the Biden war criminals the words diplomacy and negotiations is breaking a taboo.
“…That dynamic has led to a unique situation where military brass are more fervently pushing for diplomacy than US diplomats.”
this news is not at all surprising… the neo-con lunkheads in DC, headed by Sully and Blinkey are gung ho pro-war, while the warrior class, represented by Milley and other generals are pro-negotiation. One can wonder why
Perhaps it is because they know, up to a point, what the Russians are planning to do in Ukraine militarily, and what the Russians are currently capable of with their well advanced new technology. and the US military are probably cognizant that there are also a number of systems the Russians have developed which the US and Nato are not really aware of yet, but which they are frightened of nonetheless.
so they figure now is a good time to negotiate, because when the Russians launch their big offensive soon, well, that’s the end of Ukraine as we know it.
All true plus the small matter of a potential for accidents that may lead to Armageddon … whenever nuclear powers face off like this, there’s always a risk of mistakes and escalation and so a prudent man wants to end that risk asap.
To call that triumvirate mediocre would be grossly insulting to the truly mediocre. Mediocrity for Milley, Blinken and Sullivan is a post graduate pursuit. They are still in pre-school.
Been watching and following American foreign policy for over 50 years. Blinken and his pal, and their boss are just more idiots to add to the pile.
Children are losing their daddies.
Mothers are losing their sons.
Wives are losing their husbands.
Sisters are losing their brothers.
This is what happens when one side is too recalcitrant to negotiate peace.
Gen. Milley should do the honorable thing and request his retirement. At least one man with honor in the Biden administration. Last time a high official resigned was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in the Carter administration. He followed his conscience, he was a man with character.
While i understand that the Russian Federation was reluctant to intervene in the post-regime change Ukraine of 2014. And i understand it always hoped that negotiations and diplomacy would overcome Western aggression. How stupid are they to think this when they also know the USA is not agreement capable, broke both minsk1 and Minsk2 agreements (the West knew when they signed the agreement it was going to be broken) that they could negotiate a way out.
The government of the Russian Federation knew that the USA through its NATO vassals was pumping the Ukraine full of arms and training its troops for the eight years between 2014 and 2022. Therefore the Russian Federation had eight years in which to plan for this conflict. Putin did a great job in preparing the Russian Federation and he had defeated the Ukraine by the end of March 2022. Which resulted in a peace agreement that was negotiated. Again the West reneged on the agreement and chose war instead, i never saw that coming.
NATO countries have now had to step in, their officers and vast numbers of NATO troops and mercenaries are being used to prolong this conflict. Again the Russian Federation had eight years in which to plan for this conflict. So now the Russian Federation has to defeat the USA and its NATO allies.
Make no mistake this is now an existential fight for Russia, and the West. If Putin cant accept this reality its time a hardliner took over. Putin must accept that there is no possible path to an agreement and defend Russia. If there is one more surrender by Putin then he must be removed and a hardliner put in place to prosecute the war by any means necessary.
I think the problem is primarily political. Putin has known for years that the US is at war with him and his nation. Syria made that clear, if nothing else did. Although I suspect he was fully aware after the debacle in Libya. That’s not the same as being able to convince his people that they should give up their dreams of Westernization. That took time and it took the US’s Xenophobic attacks on Russian Culture to finally solidify the understanding that the West is not Russian friendly, into the minds of his people. They needed to be shocked into this realization and that has finally taken place. No more dreams of Metallica concerts and the “Wings of Change” are being roasted over and open pit BBQ.
It’s hard to get an entire nation to give up on a dream and it doesn’t happen overnight. I myself find it hard to believe that it’s come to this and keep thinking that there must be some kind of mistake that can be fixed if calmer heads prevail. But clearly that’s a pipe dream, we are at war with Russia and will remain at war with them, probably for the rest of my life at least in one form or another.
If I can remain in a state of complete disbelief and trust me, I know better, imagine what it’s like for people who so wanted to believe it could be true? Russians wanted what they saw in our movies, they wanted it with all their hearts and that dream is dead, what a terrible shame for all of us this is.
Not sure I agree with your assertion, BOV.
Now granted, I am speaking of one individual. I had a friend a few years back whose parents emigrated from Russia. Her cousin in Russia came to visit her, and didn’t like it here at all. My friend said her cousin couldn’t wait to go back home.
Exactly. But the problem is that the Russian public doesn’t realize the gravity of the situation and the effort they’ll have to put into the war. They support Putin and his “limited operation” in Ukraine.
Russia will eventually be forced to mobilize all its human and economic resources for a massive war effort, or it will have to retreat and accept defeat.
The State Dept wants war, and the Defense Dept wants diplomacy.
Dysfunction and incompetence screams out of this.
Worse, it is the ones who want war who will go to China soon to do the diplomacy we are told is meant to avoid starting another war there. Heartwarming.
DoD knows the truth — this is as good as it can get for Ukraine, and it is all downhill from here. Grab the peak, or suffer the slide.
The State Dept is run by fools who want wars, lots of them, in an ego driven concept of total power.
Roots of all ours problems is only one country. We all established that by now.
Question is : what we can do to get rid off this blood thirsty country? It’s rethorical question ⁉️