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In 2024, Brian Petit wrote, “Send in the A Team: A Graduated Response for Ukraine,” where he argued for sending the Green Berets into Ukraine for training and assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces. We asked Brian to revisit his argument after talks of a peace deal have yet to produce fruitful change.Image: Sgt. Patrik Orcutt via DVIDSIn your 2024 article, “Send in the A Team: A Graduated Response for Ukraine,” you argue that sending the Green Berets to Ukraine to help train, advise, and assist Ukrainian troops “requires little imagination, no adaptation, and few modifications. It does require political will and a fresh calculation of risk.” Do you still hold that same assessment today? How has both the political will and the risk calculus of the United States changed since you wrote this article? In 2026, America’s political will to aid Ukraine and to meaningfully contest Russia is on life support. My 2024 article gave a military-policy prescription that offered a controlled escalation path, detailing an indirect option to limit provocations. The argument holds up well but the political will is absent. The United States had a window to reset President Vladimir Putin’s calculations in that June 2023 to June 2024 period, when Russia was taking hits internally and externally. Recall the facts: Ukrainian front-line units holding or counter-attacking aided by U.S. Patriot missile systems, High Mobility Artillery Rockets, and European weapons; the Prigozhin mutiny; the sacking and killing of so many Russian generals; Ukraine sinking one third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet; 50+ countries supporting the Ukraine Contact Group; and sanctions starting to show effects. The Kremlin responds to power and to pressure. Adding American A-teams to that pressure cooker would not have won the war, but it would have reset the political landscape as a precursor to negotiations. We built