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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”