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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”