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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new 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 under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

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 traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this 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.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be 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 legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”