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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal 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 non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

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

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”