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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit 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 turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

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

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal 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 presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”