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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart 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 primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”