Not a Trump anomaly: The Board of Peace and America’s crisis-driven power plays

The history of American power is, in many ways, the history of reinventing rules—or designing new ones—to fit US strategic interests. This may sound harsh, but it is a necessary realization, particularly in light of US President Donald Trump’s latest political invention: the so-called Board of Peace. Some have hastily concluded that Trump’s newest political gambit—recently unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos—is a uniquely Trumpian endeavor, detached from earlier US foreign policy doctrines. They are mistaken, misled largely by Trump’s self-centered political style and his constant, though unfounded, claims that he has ended wars, resolved global conflicts, and made the world a safer place. At the Davos launch, Trump reinforced this carefully crafted illusion, boasting of America’s supposed […]