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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration 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 Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a 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 officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”