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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly 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 administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”