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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

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

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”