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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate 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 peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, 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 ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think 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 stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”