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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

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

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

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

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It 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 later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”