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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials 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 conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team 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

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

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 legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”