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President Trump is increasingly leaning on military leaders to tackle some of his administration’s most challenging diplomatic tasks. These high-ranking officials are being entrusted with delicate negotiations, such as seeking a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, pursuing a renewed nuclear agreement with Iran, and strengthening ties with nations in the Western Hemisphere.
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, a seasoned Iraq War veteran and ally of Vice President Vance, has emerged as the administration’s chief envoy to Ukraine in efforts to broker peace with Russia. Meanwhile, Adm. Brad Cooper, who commands the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), recently participated in nuclear negotiations with Iranian representatives in Oman. Additionally, Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been actively engaged in diplomatic missions to Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago, preceding a U.S. military operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
“Diplomacy typically requires a unique set of skills—tact, patience, and experience,” noted Larry Haas, a senior fellow specializing in U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, during an interview with The Hill. “The expertise of military leaders traditionally revolves more around command and direction rather than negotiation, making it unusual for presidents to depend on them for diplomatic endeavors.”
Haas further observed that Trump seems more inclined to appoint individuals he trusts for these critical roles, rather than focusing strictly on their diplomatic credentials.
He said Trump appears less concerned about the credentials of his envoys to conduct diplomacy, and more worried about choosing people he trusts.
“He will assume that the person, based on his relationship with them, will take general direction and get the job done,” Haas said. “It’s an interesting phenomenon.”
Cooper sat alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff, a longtime associate of Trump during his career in real estate, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Muscat for a discussion regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The administration has established a massive military presence near the Islamic Republic, dispatching the USS Abraham Lincoln, along with its three accompanying destroyers, fighter jets and other military assets.
Haas said the utility of Cooper’s presence in Oman was twofold: sending a message to Tehran and tapping the admiral’s deep knowledge of the region and Iran.
“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” he said. “I mean, this is in line with him sending the warships and the other weaponry and personnel to the region as a warning sign.”
Driscoll, who served in the Army for less than four years and earned the rank of first lieutenant, was thrust into the diplomatic sphere late last year when Trump sent him to present Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with the 28-point proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war, which has been raging for nearly four years.
The Army secretary’s involvement in talks has continued this month with participation in discussions in the United Arab Emirates. In Abu Dhabi, he was with Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of the U.S. European Command, who announced the U.S. and Russia would resume high-level communication between their armed forces.
Justin Logan, the director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, said the Trump administration is trying to run a “big” foreign policy with a small team, and “they’re discovering it’s hard.”
“Someone like Driscoll is an asset because he aligns with the president’s foreign policy, and he’s both competent and well-connected with the White House,” Logan told The Hill. “Cooper being present at U.S. talks on Iran strikes me as somewhat more ordinary, particularly given the role that the threat of military force is playing in U.S. Middle East policy.”
Logan said Trump was clearly seeking a new personnel strategy in foreign affairs during his second term, but risked creating new roadblocks to achieving his ambitious goals.
“The first term’s foreign policy was ruined by a large team of people who worked to undermine the president’s foreign policies,” he said. “It’s not much better to have a tiny team of loyalists who can’t reasonably handle the workflow you’re giving them.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also Trump’s national security adviser, the first to hold the double role since Henry Kissinger. Witkoff has taken on an ever-expanding role as a Trump’s global negotiator, with Vance and Rubio taking the lead on discussions over the future of America’s relationship with Greenland, which Trump wants to control outright.
Past presidents have at times entrusted unusual emissaries to conduct diplomacy. Former President Truman planned in 1948 to dispatch then-U.S. Chief Justice Fred Vinson to Moscow to meet Joseph Stalin to hash out the Berlin crisis, but the effort fell through after hard opposition from then-Secretary of State George Marshall. Former President Carter made an unauthorized trip to North Korea to meet with Kim Il Sung in 1994, during the Clinton administration, to discuss the escalating nuclear crisis.
The White House said Trump has an “extraordinarily qualified national security team, including high-level representatives from the US military.”
“Many countries have long-standing, strong relationships with our men and women in uniform. Ultimately, the President is the Dealmaker-in-Chief and final decisionmaker on any agreement,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Hill in a statement on Wednesday.
Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in late November last year, discussing strengthening ties in a joint effort to counter drug trafficking cartels in the region. Persad-Bissessar played down reports that the U.S. was installing new military hardware at an airport on the island.
Elisa Ewers, who has served as a national security official in both Republican and Democratic administrations, argued the president’s reliance on military leaders “underscores the fact that the Trump administration devalues skilled diplomats and the tools of diplomacy, which often take a lot of time and hard work to show outcomes.”
“The through line in these decisions is that the administration approaches complex negotiations, especially with adversaries, very differently,” Ewers, who is now a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, told The Hill on Wednesday.
Updated at 7:01 a.m. EST