23. März 2026
Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) represents the most recent escalation of attacks on multilateral cooperation in the peace and security domain. However, instead of sounding the death knell for multilateral organizations, the BoP helps illustrate their durability. While Trump’s speech at the inaugural BoP conference may seem counterintuitive – advocating for future cooperation with the UN – this article argues that it reveals a persistent pattern: ad hoc organizations like the BoP must the co-opt funding, legitimacy, and organization capacity of other institutions to succeed. Rather than disappearing, multilateral organizations may be instrumentalized, subordinating them to the will of nation states.
Ad Hoc Coalitions: The Limits of Multilateral Retreat
Established in January 2026, the Board of Peace (BoP) is an international body currently consisting of 22 member states, tasked with reconstruction and peacekeeping in Gaza. Though authorized by UNSC Resolution 2803, the independent leadership of the BoP by President Trump, its billion-dollar membership fee, and its bypassing of many processes traditionally handled by the UN, has led many countries to reject its legitimacy and sound the alarm on the new dangers it poses to multilateral cooperation. Indeed, the mandate of the BoP seems to represent a new stage of this retreat from international institutions that is of particular concern for those wishing to maintain cooperation and accountability in peacekeeping processes.
Prior to the formation of the BoP, the retreat from multilateralism in the security domain has been realized through the gradual proliferation of ad hoc coalitions. Typically task specific and short lived, ad hoc coalitions operate outside the institutional purview of an international organization (IO) or a regional organization (RO). While ad hoc coalitions – or ad hocs – have existed since the creation of the UN, they are increasingly replacing multilateral cooperation. The UNSC has not authorized a new peacekeeping mission since 2014, yet there have been at least 10 ad hoc organizations created during this period. Given a persistent gridlock in the UNSC, it is unsurprising that flexible and rapid organization on an ad hoc basis has become particularly appealing. Yet because of their task-specific nature and lack of institutional resources, ad hocs are frequently deployed for counterinsurgency and without broader mandates, including for peacekeeping initiatives expected from the UN. In this way, ad hoc coalitions further marginalize – but are rarely in direct competition with – IOs.
Though it is easy to equate the replacement of multilateral missions with the decay of multilateral organizations, it would be better to view this process as the instrumentalization of international cooperation and the subordination of its institutions. As has been extensively observed among modern ad hocs, these coalitions are often authorized by, receive funding from, and cooperate with IOs. This dependency is underscored by substantial administrative overlap. The same pools of resources and personnel are often utilized by both types of coalitions; the difference lies in the extent to which this pool of resources is drawn from.
Take for example the G5 Sahel Joint Force. In its military efforts against jihadism, it was authorized by the African Union and UN (UNSCR 2359), substantially funded by the EU, and worked extensively with the UN MINUSMA mission. We observe this phenomenon because cross-institutional overlap offers massive practical benefits. Authorization confers legitimacy and diverse forms of cooperation, along with funding, provide ad hoc coalitions with the requisite institutional capacity. With their hastily built-up bureaucracy and procedures, the co-opting of IO structures may confer huge benefits to ad hocs. This is especially true when a coalition seeks to expand beyond counterinsurgency, as existing relationships with NGOs and other civil society actors becomes more critical.
The Board of Peace: Accelerated Multilateral Retreat Meets Similar Constraints
Similar to ad hoc coalitions, the BoP exists outside the institutional purview of an IO or RO. However, unlike ad hocs, the BoP directly competes with existing multilateral structures, potentially posing a greater threat to multilateralism. Unlike transitional administration bodies in previous conflict zones (e.g. UNAMET in East Timor, UNSCR 1272), the BoP, mandated by UNSCR 2803 as a “transitional administration”, has no expiry date. Instead, UNSCR 2803 calls for the redevelopment of Gaza until the Palestinian Authority (PA) completes the reform plans set out for it in Trump’s 2020 Peace Plan and the more recent New York Declaration. The reforms demanded from the PA in both documents are long-ranging, spanning from improvement of governance and self-rule to property rights and gender equality. Implementing these will surely come with difficulties and delays, ensuring that the BoP can operate indefinitely and autonomously.
More concerningly, looking at the BoP Charter it is evident that the organization perceives its mission to be broader than just the particular conflict for which it was mandated. The BoP “seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”. According to President Trump, the BoP is set to serve as a supervisory body to the UN, seemingly expropriating from the UNSC much of its role in multilateral peacekeeping bodies. This basically fits into Trump’s approach to a quid pro quo multilateralism, while putting the UN on a “diet”.
Despite the BoP’s ambitions to serve as an independent body led by the US and run by nation-states, complex peace missions are exceedingly difficult to execute independently. Recent precedents in the Middle East illustrate that, successful or not, missions that expand from military aims to broader redevelopment goals require additional organizational capacity. Afghanistan’s Operation Enduring Freedom, initially conceived as a unilateral American military operation, quickly became extensively run in coordination with NATO and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), as the mission’s scope expanded beyond counterinsurgency to include state-building and civilian reconstruction.
Similarly, Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which attempted to govern post-invasion Iraq independently of established international institutions, proved short-lived precisely because it lacked the institutional capacity, legitimacy, and expertise necessary for complex post-conflict governance. These examples demonstrate that any peacekeeping mission extending beyond narrow military objectives requires collaboration with IOs that possess the humanitarian expertise, diplomatic legitimacy, and institutional resources, all of which ad hoc arrangements cannot replicate on their own. This means that while ad hocs are to some extent dependent on multilateral structures, the BoP’s more ambitious mandate actually creates a paradox: by seeking to replace international organizations, it necessitates a reliance on the resources only institutions can provide.
Trump’s opening speech at the BoP inaugural conference tacitly acknowledged this reality. Instead of a real partnership, the BoP’s approach to managing these dependencies reveals a strategy for co-opting the UN. During his speech, Trump claimed the BoP “is going to be working with the United Nations very closely” and that the UN has “tremendous potential”. Yet Trump’s stated desire to supervise the UN’s work and ensure that it “runs properly”, reveals that his belief in the organization’s “tremendous potential” refers only to the extent that it can serve his own ends. As observed with ad hoc coalitions co-opting UN mechanisms, leveraging its institutional legitimacy and peacekeeping expertise offers great practical benefits. Even though these benefits may be realized through the subordination of the BoP-UN relationship, Trump’s speech reveals a deep reliance on the UN’s established credibility and operational capacity.
Simultaneously, the US administration seems intent on leveraging the BoP for opportunistic financing from Transnational Organizations like the FIFA, the International Federation of Football Association. FIFA is already set to raise 75 million USD for football-related projects in the Gaza Strip. However, this financing strategy creates a significant accountability problem. By drawing funds from private actors with their own structures and interests, the BoP leaves IOs like the UN with little capacity to oversee how resources are deployed or whether missions align with established international standards.
Conclusion & Takeaways
There are of course, a variety of obstacles to the BoP ever cooperating with the UN and accomplishing its stated objectives. Many already question President Trump’s true motivation for the Board’s creation, suggesting peace catalyzation, demonstrating resolve to the Nobel committee, a display of prestige, business prospecting, or some combination thereof. If the first of these is true, Trump may indeed lose interest after the demanding complexities of peacekeeping become apparent. And even if Trump overcomes these hurdles, there is no telling how cooperative the UN will be, given the BoPs unpopularity among many member states. However, what is important is not the low practical viability of the BoP, but what it might help reveal about the future of multilateralism.
- Firstly, the BoP represents a new phenomenon in the global retreat from multilateralism. While ad hoc coalitions have become a new norm, the BoP represents an entirely new mechanism, where its organizational mandate directly competes with existent international organizations. Its subjugation of the UN to the board’s decisions undermines the Liberal International Order and the IOs that populate it.
- The BoP also seems to bring novelty in the incorporation of Transnational organizations and actors into peacekeeping and conflict resolution—spaces traditionally reserved for states, IOs and NGOs (of a non-profit nature). FIFA’s involvement in projects in the Gaza strip could be the first indication of many more for-profit actors (including some disguised as non-profit) seeking opportunities within peacekeeping endeavors.
- The incorporation of such actors into conflict resolution mechanisms raises profound accountability issues. Unlike state-based actors or traditional UN organizations with established oversight mechanisms and accountability structures, transnational actors like FIFA operate according to their own institutional logics and commercial interests not conducive to sustaining long-term just peace.
- Finally, the BoP and other such ad hoc coalitions demonstrate the quickening demise of the old multilateral system. Gone are the days of international cooperation and intervention on security issues. However, even though this form of multilateralism is dying, this does not mean the institutions will follow suit. These institutions serve a great practical purpose for independent organizations, in that they lend legitimacy, institutional capacity, and potentially funding. As long these institutions continue to serve some interests of dominant states of the international system, they are likely to persist.
