The Wall Street Journal‘s editors missed on this one. Their editorial’s headline and subheadline lay out the editors’ case.

NATO Is the Board of Peace
Trump’s new coalition couldn’t do better than the Atlantic alliance.

Their editorial goes on in that vein, and that’s the editors’ miss.

NATO looked good for a while, maintaining the bluff that the alliance members, acting collectively, could respond to a Soviet Union- (read Russia-) led Warsaw Pact invasion, and by that capability deter such an invasion. The alliance’s apparent deterrent capability did, in fact, deter the Warsaw Pact. Or successive Russian leaders of the Pact recognized how weak its military establishment was, in fact, offering no guarantee of victory in an invasion even in the absence of NATO. That’s speculation regarding a history that didn’t occur.

However, with the demise of the Soviet Union, an unfettered even a little bit Russia has shown no reluctance to expand by force, as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his open threats against NATO members that used to part of Russia’s Soviet empire has shown. NATO, far from an operational alliance, has been exposed an aspirational alliance only.

For all that, NATO as an avowed defensive alliance was even operationally only a reactive one, intended to win a war already in progress that it had failed prevent. Deter, then fight.

Trump’s Board of Peace is an entirely different kettle of fish, with an entirely different imperative. The proposed Board of Peace does not have as its DOC either deterrence or fighting. The Board is intended to broker peace between conflicting nations on the brink of war or during their war.

However well or poorly NATO functioned and however well or poorly the Board of Peace will function once it’s stood up, the two are not comparable. The allegation that the Board would do no better than NATO is a non sequitur.