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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, 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 mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. 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 deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone 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 ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”