From NATO to the ‘Board of War’

US President Donald Trump gestures aft speaking astir the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House successful Washington, DC, US, connected 1 April 2026. [Alex Brandon/EPA]

To understand where Donald Trump is going with his attacks connected NATO, we should look astatine his Board of Peace, which was established to negociate Gaza’s reconstruction but which, astatine a deeper level, is aimed astatine breaking the United Nations. This is not lone due to the fact that Trump ne'er saw a corporate enactment that helium did not want to destroy, so arsenic to person each of its members successful his pocket, nor due to the fact that the US president seems acceptable connected fulfilling his Russian counterpart’s wildest dreams. It is chiefly due to the fact that Trump wants to enforce connected everyone his phantasy of omnipotence.

The “prayer meetings” of favored “religious leaders” who state similarities betwixt Trump and Jesus Christ (while Pope Leo is fiercely captious of his chap American’s policies, including migration, and the war), printing his likeness connected money, tearing down portion of the White House, unleashing war without the support of Congress and without notifying allies, among galore different acts, each amusement that Trump recognizes nary authorization beyond his ain caprice and self-interest.

The Board of Peace is neither a corporate assemblage nor funny successful peace. (Just think of Trump’s hostility toward a radical of nations that succeeded successful achieving lasting bid and prosperity connected a blood-soaked continent, the European Union). The board’s charter is perfectly clear: This is simply a nine of friends and flatterers, where Trump (personally, not ex officio arsenic US president) decides who joins, when they are defenestrated, what is discussed, what is decided, and, if we tin justice from Gaza, however overmuch wealth helium and his friends will make.

With America’s large weight successful NATO, its president could enactment arsenic arrogantly and unpredictably arsenic helium pleased. But then Trump would ne'er beryllium capable to boast that helium instituted the assemblage and selected its members connected the ground of their serving his whims. This is possibly the deepest basal of his effort to interruption up the strongest and astir successful confederation successful history: He wants to regenerate it with different plaything, a “Board of Defense” – or, much successful keeping with his fantasies, a “Board of War.”