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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful 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 terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan 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 proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”