The chances of this widening into a much more devastating conflict demands the West explore what may be possible.
By Harry Kazianis, Responsible Statecraft
U.S. foreign policy is filled with overused and tiresome cliches designed to resonate with a preferred partisan audience. For example, hawks like to label any resistance to aggressive strategy “appeasement,” or say that world leader X is “weak” or Y politician has “no strategy” towards whatever the foreign “threat” of the day may be.
We hide behind these phrases and tropes and often substitute toughness and machismo for what is needed most of the time — and that’s talking, complicated negotiations, and compromise.

All of this is precisely what is happening today with regard to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and why the United States and its allies won’t do the one thing that might help end the bloodshed: talk to Moscow.
Clearly, Washington and its allies should be finding ways to open up communications with Russian President Putin to try to end the fighting — hard and politically difficult that will be, given his latest annexation of Ukrainian territory and jeremiad lambasting the United States and the West on Friday. But it is nonetheless clearly in our national interest to do so. Right now, new sanctions and and even a new U.S.-led military command are being set up for the long hard slog, but what about back-channel diplomacy?
Recent Posts
New Poll: Democratic Socialism Is Now Mainstream
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now A national poll from Jacobin, DSA Fund, and Data for Progress finds broad support for democratic socialist leaders and left-wing…
Gerrymandering & The War On Democracy
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now It’s one piece of a much larger democratic breakdown.By RJ Eskow, The Zero Hour Report A few days before the Charlie Kirk…
What Happened To Silverio Villegas González
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now Immigration agents shot and killed an unarmed 38-year-old father outside Chicago on Friday—and their initial narrative of events was…
Talk World Radio: Sam Rosenthal On The Occupation Of DC And What’s The Matter With Democrats
September 16, 2025
Take Action Now War, peace, and politics with RootsAction’s Political Director Sam RosenthalBy David Swanson and Sam Rosenthal, Talk World Radio…