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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state 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 Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled 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 peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”