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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative 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 critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”