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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon 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 suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”