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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

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

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”