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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal 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.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”