Donald Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace,” unveiled as a mechanism for global conflict management, is portrayed less as a genuine peacebuilding institution than as a symbolic assertion of power that reflects a deeper erosion of multilateral governance and institutional legitimacy.

On January 20, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled an initiative he calls the Board of Peace - a self-styled global body intended to oversee diplomatic efforts from Gaza to the wider world. Initially pitched as a mechanism to shepherd a ceasefire and reconstruction plan for Gaza, the Board has quickly expanded into an ambition that some observers see as a rival to the United Nations itself. Trump has even said, without a clear definition, that it “might” replace the U.N., while insisting that the U.N. “continue” at the same time.

The contradictions here are revealing. A board that bills itself as a peace forum is already deeply entangled in the very structures of power it claims to supersede: invitations to controversial figures, opaque financing arrangements, and a chairmanship that could last a lifetime. Countries have been told they can secure permanent membership only by paying $1 billion for a seat, reinforcing the sense of this body as less a neutral peace architecture and more a global club with Trump at its apex.

The Asylum of Peace

Whether or not the initiative ever functions effectively - and acceptance from many governments remains uncertain - the spectacle reveals something deeper about the state of American geopolitical direction. In recent months, the U.S. has engaged in actions that suggest a restorationist drive rather than a coherent strategy grounded in law, multilateral consensus, or predictable norms:

The United States toppled Venezuela’s government and detained its president, actions that raised alarm internationally and revived comparisons to Cold War–era interventionism. Trump’s rhetoric around Greenland - suggesting annexation or possession under the banner of “national security” - has triggered sharp rebukes from European allies who see this as a throwback to imperial rivalries rather than contemporary diplomacy.

Meanwhile, in domestic law enforcement, federal agents operate with nearly complete impunity in controversial shootings and enforcement actions that have drawn widespread criticism, prompting fresh debate about accountability and the use of force.

Taken together, these episodes display a pattern: a refusal to operate within existing institutional constraints, and instead, a tendency to create ad hoc instruments of authority that only appear to function like international norms. The Board of Peace, in this sense, feels less like peacebuilding and more like an imperial court without constitutional accountability - a body that claims universality but is deeply particular in its composition and control. Critics have underscored this point, labelling the new board an arena where wealth and loyalty determine influence rather than collective legitimacy.

It is worth asking, “Why this impulse toward symbolic structures that lack credible mechanisms or broad buy-in?” A plausible interpretation is that this reflects a broader political dynamic - one in which governance loses coherence as institutions are eroded from within. When formal systems of global governance, like the United Nations, are publicly decried, attacked, or sidelined, leaders are left seeking alternatives that affirm personal authority rather than international legitimacy.

On the domestic stage, we see the same logic playing out, where enforcement increasingly substitutes for governance. As institutional legitimacy erodes, coercive capacity is elevated from a last resort to an organizing principle. Agencies such as ICE, originally designed for administrative enforcement, begin to function as symbolic instruments of sovereign will - untethered from meaningful accountability and insulated by political loyalty. In this context, the recurring invocation of the Insurrection Act is not incidental but diagnostic. It represents a legal bridge between civil administration and military-style authority, allowing the executive to bypass fractured institutions in the name of restoring order.

Historically, such mechanisms are activated not when systems are strong, but when leaders conclude that persuasion has failed and compliance must be compelled. The danger lies less in the statute itself than in the conditions that make its use appear necessary: a political environment where force is cheaper than consensus, and enforcement is asked to perform the work that legitimacy once did.

World Domination, Domination, Domination…

There is a historical echo here. Great powers in decline do not simply lose influence; they reinterpret the frameworks of power in ways that justify their actions while undermining shared norms. They create parallel architectures that mimic the forms of order while hollowing out the content. The sequence is familiar: fragmentation of attention, erosion of shared truth, substitution of force for consensus, and then the proliferation of alternative organs that claim universality but answer only to those who shape them.

In the present moment, this pattern is visible not just in foreign policy posturing but also in domestic politics and law enforcement. When enforcement agencies operate without transparent frameworks, when multilateral institutions are openly questioned by their strongest proponents, and when new structures are proposed outside existing legal and diplomatic channels, the cumulative effect is a system that operates on symbols rather than substance.

For the rest of the world - especially nations committed to the principles of multilateral cooperation - this is not simply destabilizing, it’s a form of despotism not seen since WW2. Allies grow uncertain about where commitments stand; adversaries are tempted to test boundaries; institutions designed to constrain conflict are weakened. Power does not disappear, but it becomes unmoored.

The Board of Peace, whatever its ultimate fate, may be symptomatic rather than exceptional. Not a bold new architecture, but a reflection of a broader moment in which the United States - and perhaps other established powers - attempt to rewrite the rules of engagement not by consensus but by assertion of will. That impulse has appeared before. In the early nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to reorder Europe not through negotiated legitimacy but through administrative decree.

Borders were redrawn, legal codes standardized, and rulers installed or removed - all justified as rational modernization in the name of stability and peace. The Continental System, imposed rather than agreed upon, was meant to discipline the entire European economy through sheer assertion of imperial will. Its failure was not merely military; it was cognitive. The system could not absorb local realities fast enough to function, and enforcement replaced coordination. What followed was not durable order but accelerated fragmentation, resistance, and over-extension - the predictable consequence of mistaking command for coherence.

If the purpose of peacebuilding is reconciliation, cohesion, and durable cooperation, it cannot be built on structures that reflect contested authority as a default. When the instruments of power are overtaken by impulses of control, spectacle, and unilateral management, they reveal the deeper instability of the political order that created them.

Phil Butler is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, and an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2026/01/23/trumps-board-of-peace-and-the-theater-of-unchecked-power/