Are too many cooks spoiling the broth? The question has come to the fore as US President Donald Trump now seems to have sent the entirety of his closest advisers to try to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Last week, US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll became the latest to be added to an already crowded list of dealmakers, flying to Ukraine to present Kyiv with a new US peace proposal after having met a Russian delegation in the United Arab Emirates.
“US Army secretaries are not usually involved in negotiating peace deals,” The New York Times remarked in an analysis looking at the possible reasoning behind the unusual move.
Read moreWhat we know about the revised US plan for peace in Ukraine
Whirlwind diplomacy
Just days before Driscoll was assigned his new diplomatic role, the Financial Times revealed that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had been added to the mix too, having attended a November 23 meeting with Ukraine and its European backers in Geneva.
But the new have not replaced the old. At least not yet. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special peace envoy, is continuing to play a leading role and is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next week.
In parallel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in Geneva that there was “still some work to be done” on the plan that had just been put forward by Witkoff. Trump has not argued against it.
The mixed messaging and increasing number of negotiators stands in stark contrast with the Kremlin's decision to task just one man with doing the same job: Russian sovereign wealth fund boss Kirill Dmitriev.
“They look like amateurs,” René Lindstaedt, an expert in US politics at the University of Birmingham, said of the US diplomatic team. “They don’t look like they’re in control, like they’re representing a super power.”
Washington's approach has raised eyebrows within Trump’s own camp. “Senators like (former Republican Senate leader) Mitch McConnell have criticised the ‘mess’, fuelling media narratives of turmoil,” said Inderjeet Parmar, a professor in international politics at City St George’s University of London.
Three-front offensive
Analysts, however, caution that there may be a type of Trumpian logic to the apparent cacophony.
Parmar said it aligns with “Trump's style of letting the ‘all-stars’ test ideas independently.”
Lindstaedt agreed: “He kind of sends several people running and then just sees who comes back with the best ideas or best results.”
This means that until Trump has decided on his favourite strategy, American diplomats are working on three different fronts: the talks in Geneva led by Rubio’s more Ukraine-leaning sympathies, the army secretary’s negotiations with the Russians in Abu Dhabi, and finally, Witkoff’s upcoming meeting with Putin in Moscow.
But the three paths of negotiation do not carry the same weight. Lindstaedt said that it would have been “natural” for Rubio, as the top US diplomat, to coordinate the different talks, but noted “I don’t think Rubio is aware of all the activities that are going on, and so he’s not really able to”.
He added that Witkoff is – at least on paper – meant to carry out his negotiations in close coordination with Rubio, but that this does not seem to be happening.
“(Rubio) seems to have been caught off guard,” he said, pointing also to Driscoll’s sudden appearance on the diplomatic stage.
‘The adults in the room’
The secretary of state’s time in the spotlight could soon be over, suggested Scott Lucas, a specialist in international relations and US foreign policy at the University of Birmingham.
He described Rubio as one of "the adults in the room", along with special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who helped reestablish US military assistance to Ukraine over the summer, albeit through the sale of equipment through NATO countries, and to resume intelligence sharing.
But Rubio has since suffered from “Kellogg having been pushed out”, Lucas added.
It does not help that the “Rubio line”, which calls for bolstering Ukraine's defences, rhymes badly with Trump’s aim of signing a peace deal “as soon as possible”. At one point, the US leader said he wanted to see an end to the fighting by Thanksgiving (November 27), but later backed away from that goal.
Driscoll – the 'JD Vance guy'
Lucas said that Trump’s new diplomatic reinforcements are “not necessarily pro-Kremlin in the sense that they like the Russians” but that they think “it’s a win-win situation in terms of the economic projects” they can secure by reviving trade relations with Moscow. Even if that would mean that Ukraine would have to cede territory to its Russian aggressor.
This is why Witkoff, the man behind the controversial 28-point peace plan that was recently put on the table, suddenly experienced plenty of wind in his sails.
At least until Bloomberg this week exposed his negotiation tactics. The news agency sparked shock waves after publishing the transcript of a telephone conversation Witkoff allegedly had with his Russian counterpart Dmitriev, coaching Moscow on how to get Trump onboard the more pro-Russian peace plan.
Read moreUS envoy Witkoff advised Russia on getting Trump to Ukraine deal, Bloomberg reports
The revelation was not good news for Trump, Lindstaedt said, noting it could hurt his pro-Ukrainian Republican constituencies.
This could explain why Kushner and Driscoll suddenly entered the picture, injecting some fresh – but different – blood into the situation.
Driscoll is a “JD Vance guy”, he said. The two went to Yale together, and share the same vision of what potential peace in Ukraine should look like.
“Basically he’s JD Vance's proxy,” Lindstaedt said, and will likely open up for the vice president to get involved in any deal-making on the war in Ukraine indirectly.
This could spell trouble for Kyiv. “Vance is very anti-Ukraine,” he noted.
All the more reason for Trump to usher Kushner onto the scene.
“If Trump is unsure of whether he can trust his people in government, he reaches out to family,” Lindstaedt said.
As Trump himself put it in a speech to the Israeli Knesset in October following the US-engineered Gaza ceasefire deal, “we always bring Jared when we want to get that deal closed”.
Lindstaedt said Trump views his son-in-law as his “natural successor” and considering Kushner also has business dealings in Russia, it is ultimately in his interest “to make sure there’s peace between Ukraine and Russia so that they can resume normal relations” with Moscow.
Parmar, of City St George’s, said “Kushner has quietly re-emerged as an informal but influential ‘fixer’” in the administration's push for a peace deal.
But, he concluded, “his involvement—unofficial yet central—has added to the chaotic optics of the negotiations, drawing criticism for bypassing traditional diplomatic channels and raising questions about conflicts of interest tied to his business ties”.
This article was adapted from the original in French by Louise Nordstrom.
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