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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous 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 accept a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”