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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients 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 moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”