Samuel Charap's "Peace" Plan for Putin

Hi All,

I started writing this piece to go into my weekend update tomorrow—but frankly it became too long and evolved into a stand alone piece in its own right. I thought I would sent it out separately now. Its about the latest Peace Plan being proposed by Samuel Charap in Foreign Affairs, which gives Ukraine none of its prime strategic objectives and Putin basically all of his.

I would say enjoy—but I don’t think you will.

Getting Invited to the White House

I’ve learned a great deal about how Washington works over the last few years, frankly more than I would have liked. For instance, what is clear is that knowing your subject seems to have an inverse relationship with the policy making influence you have.

When it comes to Ukraine policy, its worth noting that those who were screaming the loudest and the longest that Ukraine should not be armed and should basically be handed over to Putin, have been the ones, since the full-scale invasion was launched, who have regularly traipsed into the White House to see senior members of the National Security Council and even the President himself.

How do we know? Well the White House is kind enough to actually put online its visitor logs—and you can look up who has been signed in to visit, when they signed in, and even who they were down to visit.

Btw, these are fascinating historical records when you go back in time. One of the most fascinating that I’ve spent time working on is the visitor logs of Franklin Roosevelt as president, which you can access here. Why are they important—well the more you study policy-making the more you realize “face-time” is what matters. Access to senior policy makers matters more than anything—its how you get ideas across, how different scenarios are hashed out, etc.

The Biden White House and NSC has a fascinating profile when it comes to advisers on the Russo-Ukraine war—its been overwhelmingly slanted towards those who were taking the most extreme anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian positions before February 24, 2022. And Charap might be the best example of this.

Charap, btw, along with regular White House visitors like Christopher Chivvis and Michael Kofman, was one of if not the loudest “expert” proclaiming that Ukraine should not be aided to defend itself against Putin. He was co-author of arguably the most infamous article on the subject, released just a few weeks before the Russian army started its invasion.

This article was no one-off. Since the invasion occurred, Charap has bent over backwards to present Russian actions in as positive light as possible. In the Spring of 2022 (in an article heavily reliant on the commentary of Dmitri Trenin—of which the New York Times should be ashamed) Charap was one of those who argued that Putin was showing “restraint” in his war with Ukraine.

Another one of Charap’s consistent lines from the start is that support for Ukraine should be limited because of “escalation” concerns. In the summer of 2022 (two and a half years ago) Charap proclaimed that US aid for Ukraine was already causing dangerous escalation (and we know where that would end). We must compel Ukraine to talk to Russia—”before its too late”.

We are witnessing a classic spiral in which both sides feel compelled to do more as soon as the other side begins to make some progress. The best way to prevent that dynamic from getting out of control is to start talking before it’s too late.

Finally, in Charap’s world, Russia would have been happy to take a deal with Ukraine in 2022, it was just the stubborn, destructive Ukrainians who could not see that Putin was a reasonable person.

So the Charap line is consistently sympathetic towards Putin and Russia, and consistently skeptical towards Ukraine. This makes it a little surprising how often he has been invited into the White House. Here is just one run of his appearances in the White House logs—where he meets with a series of policy makers such as Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer.

And in case you wondered—yes he has met with President Biden—interestingly (and depressingly) in August 2022 when Ukraine was in need of the kind of aid that could have helped it win and the Russian army was at its weakest.

So Charap has been a regular in the Biden White House, which makes sense when you consider the terrified way in which POTUS and his advisers have supported Ukraine.