Posted originally on Jan 20, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

The Board of Peace was established in November 2025 to champion the Gaza-Israel ceasefire. Donald Trump will act as the first chairman and has begun inviting nations to join, including Russia. The headlines are reacting as if this is some radical, unprecedented concept.

I have said repeatedly that the real objective for decades has never been “defense.” It has been control. NATO was transformed from a Cold War alliance into a political weapon, and once you turn something into an instrument of power, you can no longer negotiate honestly because your entire structure depends upon having an enemy. That is why every peace proposal gets attacked by the very people who claim they want peace. Their careers, budgets, and political relevance depend on conflict.

Here is what the press will not tell you. Russia was asked to join NATO in the 1990s. I have seen the declassified documents from the Clinton Administration and provided them in my book, The Plot to Seize Russia. Russia was offered the chance to join NATO. That was viewed internally as a surrender to the United States, and it fueled political backlash inside Russia. Yeltsin standing on the tank was not some Hollywood moment. It was the turning point where Russia’s internal struggle over its future collided with how the West was positioning itself behind the scenes.

The West had a window where it could have ended the Cold War properly. Instead, it pivoted into expansion, not because it was “necessary,” but because it was profitable and politically useful. They wanted a unipolar world. They wanted Russia down permanently. They wanted Europe locked into dependence. And now they stand there shocked that Russia will not play the role of obedient subordinate.

The Board of Peace is a public relations attempt to manage a crisis that has spiraled beyond anyone’s control. The bankers, the politicians, and the bureaucrats are all trapped. Europe is collapsing economically, and war has become the only policy tool they have left to distract the population from the failure of their fiscal mismanagement, their censorship, their energy suicide, and their endless taxation.

Trump’s instinct here is not wrong: peace comes from aligning interests, not moral posturing. If you want to stop wars, you have to remove the incentive structure that rewards war. Bringing Russia into a broader security framework is not a “gift” to Russia. It is a way to remove the excuse for escalation. It is what should have happened decades ago. But the Neocons cannot allow that because the moment there is peace, the public starts asking where all the money went, why their standard of living is falling, and why government debt has exploded to levels that cannot be sustained.

Europe claims Russia is the threat, yet they have been pushing NATO to Russia’s border for decades while pretending it was “defensive.” If Russia had placed a military alliance on the US border, Washington would have responded the same way. This is not complicated. It is human nature and geopolitics.

The world is moving into a Sovereign Debt Crisis. That is the real backdrop to all of this. Governments are desperate because they cannot fund themselves honestly anymore. They will use war to justify capital controls. They will use war to justify surveillance. They will use war to justify anything. That is why the trend is becoming far more hostile globally. This is not about one man, one country, or one election. It is the cycle of government itself. Confidence rises and falls, and when confidence collapses, governments always reach for force.

If Trump is serious about a new peace structure, it will not be popular among the establishment because it threatens the entire war machine. And if Russia joining NATO is even discussed, it will expose the biggest lie of the last 30 years — that this was ever about defense rather than domination. They had the chance in the 1990s. They rejected real peace then, because peace did not 

Posted originally on Jan 20, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

Trump is requesting that Board of Peace member states pay $1 billion for permanent membership. This kind of blunt, transactional policy is misread by those who believe peace should come without a price tag, but it exposes the core hypocrisy that has infected NATO and the entire post-war alliance structure.

For decades, Europe has behaved as if the United States is some endless ATM that exists to underwrite its defense, its bureaucracy, and its political fantasies. They lecture the world about morality, human rights, and “shared values,” while simultaneously refusing to pay their own bills. NATO has become the perfect example. The United States supplies the overwhelming share of the money, the hardware, the logistics, and the risk, while Europe holds press conferences and tells America what it “must” do. That is not an alliance.

The press will portray this $1 billion idea as extortion. There is no such thing as collective security without collective contribution. If a country wants a seat at the table permanently, wants access to intelligence, protection, diplomacy, crisis response, and the prestige of being “in the club,” then they should have skin in the game. Otherwise, what you get is what we have now where countries demand war because they know someone else will pay for it.

Members can participate for three-year stints without the lump sum, but a lifetime membership is bought at a fixed price. That is far more honest than the current arrangement, where membership becomes a permanent entitlement, and the bill gets dumped on the United States through political pressure. At least this is transparent. Pay for permanence or rotate in and out.

The real issue here is that NATO was never designed to be a welfare system. It was created in a very different era, and like every bureaucracy, it evolved into something that exists for its own survival. Once an institution has payrolls, pensions, contractors, and political status, it will find reasons to continue forever. That is why NATO has expanded rather than dissolved after the Cold War. That is why there is always a new “existential threat.” If there is no enemy, there is no justification for the budget.

Trump treats alliances like contracts. Contracts require terms, enforcement, and payment. The Europeans want the benefits of an American security, but they do not want the obligations. That is why they always scream “America First” as if it is some crime to defend your own national interest.

But Europe cannot pay. That is the underlying reason for the entire crisis. They are sinking under socialism, overregulation, and endless taxation. Their energy policy has been economic suicide. Their debt is rising while their economies stagnate. Their demographic trend is collapsing. They have built a model where productive people are punished to subsidize bureaucracies and political promises that can never be honored. And the establishment now seeks war because it distracts the people, justifies emergency powers, and provides an excuse for confiscation.

The media will claim this makes diplomacy exclusive or pay-to-play. But diplomacy is already pay-to-play. It always has been. The difference is that now the payment is explicit rather than hidden through backdoor pressure, debt issuance, and American taxpayers financing Europe’s defense while Europe spends money on welfare programs and lectures America about climate taxes. When an alliance becomes a one-way street, it will not last. Trump is simply forcing the accounting that everyone else has refused to do.