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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy 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 wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation 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 Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. 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 proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”