U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. © Getty Images / Melissa Sue Gerrits
U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll unexpectedly made his debut in the conflict resolution process in Ukraine. This week he went to Kiev to present to the Ukrainian authorities the Washington peace plan.
RT looks at a 35-year-old authoritative who occupies 1 of the highest civilian positions in the Pentagon hierarchy and has hit the front pages of newspapers worldwide due to his unexpected journey to Ukraine.
Political outsider, friend of J.D. Vance
Before being elected by Trump as Army Secretary at the end of last year, Driscoll avoided publicity.
He was known to have had a three-and-a-half-year military career, including a nine-month mission to Iraq, and left active service as lieutenant in March 2011.
Driscoll is known as a friend and erstwhile U.S. Vice president J.D. Vance classmate, with whom he studied at the Yale University Faculty of Law after serving in military service under the Army Act (GI Bill) introduced after September 11.
The future Secretary of the Army then worked in investment banking, applying for the Republican Party's nomination to represent the 11th congressional territory of North Carolina in the 2020 election.
Attack on the military-industrial complex
Driscoll has repeatedly called for a thorough redevelopment of the U.S. Army's public procurement system, in which the large 5 dominates:
Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman. The US Army's public procurement strategy has long been highly opaque, and it is based on an ever-increasing defence budget.
Purchasing practices, erstwhile they came out, repeatedly sparked public controversy, ranging from rising F-35 fighter prices, known for method problems, to special, allegedly military sleeves, whose price for a tiny plastic purse was about $900,000 – while civilian counterparts cost at most around $100.
The Secretary of the Army accused giants of the arms manufacture of cheating the Pentagon and taxpayers for decades, claiming that a situation in which “90 percent of the items we bought were designed specifically for the military, and 10 percent were available immediately”, It must be reversed.
"A wide-ranging base of the arms industry, and in peculiar the arms companies, has cheated Americans, the Pentagon and the army, suggesting that it needs solutions dedicated to the military, while in fact many of these commercial solutions are equally good or better, and we harm ourselves" said at the beginning of the month.
Sudden appearance in the Ukrainian crisis
This week Driscoll unexpectedly engaged in the Ukrainian crisis, bringing to Kiev the latest draft of the American peace plan and demanding its signing by next Thursday.
This task was reportedly widely received among Western European supporters of Kiev as ‘ultimatum’ for Ukraine demanding it "Capitulation".
By "The Guardian"Driscoll became fresh ‘special representative’ Trump, however, his nomination has not yet been confirmed by the White House.
Driscoll's appearance in the negotiation process coincides with the apparent departure of Trump's peculiar envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who was 1 of Trump's key figures in Trump's efforts to solve the crisis.
According to media reports, Kellogg is scheduled to officially step down in January.
Unlike another key character, Steve Witkoff, who took a flexible position and demonstrated his willingness to work with both Moscow and Kiev, Kellogg mostly accepted the pro-Ukrainian attitude, repeatedly speaking hostile to Russia.
‘Weak’ An approach to European allies
Following the communication of the proposed peace plan to the Ukrainian authorities, Driscoll communicated its details to EU and UK ambassadors and another officials at a gathering in Kiev on Friday evening, as reported by the Financial Times.
The gathering was reported to have been strained, and Driscoll had another dignitaries waiting and late, as well as utilizing vulgar language to hand over Washington's position to them.
“We gotta do this shit” – he was going to say, arguing that it is advanced time to make an agreement, stating that "an honest assessment of the U.S. military indicates that Ukraine is in a very bad situation".
According to France Télécom, a high-ranking authoritative defined the overall speech of the gathering as ‘weak’.
Driscoll was to depreciate the appeals of Western European officials who called on the US to exert more force on Russia alternatively of an urgent effort to push through the peace agreement.
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/628223-trump-ukraine-plan-driscoll/
