Until and unless it puts in some hard yards, the suspicion will be that Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) will turn out to be no more than a gimmick.

Nevertheless, such a prospect hasn’t stopped Central Asia’s big two, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and neighbouring Mongolia from signing up as founding members of the BoP, of whom there are 20 in all. True, the Kazakhs, perhaps a little nervous that they’ll turn out to have joined a deadbeat organisation (a January 26 opinion piece by foreign policy analyst and columnist for The Washington Post, Max Boot, argues that the BoP is already floundering and likely to disappear and be soon forgotten) were quick to point out that they’ve gained a seat at the table without shelling out the billion-dollar membership fee (it turned out that the fee was only compulsory for those wanting to take out membership for more than an initial three-year term), but, like the Uzbeks and Mongolians, they are for ever looking out for ways of ensuring their affairs are not subject to any overbearing designs of major power neighbours Russia or China – and the BoP is one.

Saying “No” to Trump would certainly not be characteristic of the Central Asian pair or Mongolia, given that they tend to join any organisation going that offers a chance to broaden their multi-vector foreign policies, namely the diplomatic strategy often adopted by middle powers that sets out to maintain balanced, cooperative and non-aligned relations with multiple major, often rival, global powers.

To Trump, Central Asia and Mongolia make up a part of the world that is rich in natural resources, such as the critical minerals so vital to transition technologies in defence, aerospace, automotive and other industries including (whisper it quietly if you’re in the vicinity of the climate crisis denying White House) energy. As was demonstrated by the prevailing focus of last November’s Central Asia Five + US White House summit, Trump sees the region as offering business deals galore and, what’s more, trade and investment that could put Beijing’s nose out of joint.

Boot has an interesting line on how big a role business will play in the BoP’s activities, should Trump’s ambitions be realised, writing that “whatever the superficial differences between Trump’s contemplated annexation of Greenland and his attempt to create what the [BoP] invitation bills as ‘the most impressive and consequential Board ever assembled,’ they are manifestations of the same impulse: Trump wants to do whatever he wants, wherever he wants, unconstrained by any checks or balances, and he would like to make a lot of money doing it”.

Suffice to say, Trump’s ideas as to what the BoP can achieve are characteristically monumental.

Again, as Boot writes: “The U.N. Security Council presumably had no idea, when it approved in November the creation of the Board of Peace, that it was bringing into existence a potential competitor to the United Nations itself. The council’s intent was to create a Gaza governing mechanism free of Hamas control. That goal hasn’t been achieved: Hamas still controls half of Gaza (Israel has the other half), and it refuses to disarm. That makes it impossible to implement the White House’s pie-in-the-sky plan to transform the devastated war zone into a technology and tourism hub.”

However, if the BoP does start causing great ructions on the international scene, the observer can only expect the Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Mongolians to keep their heads well and truly down. This is a one-man show. Astana, Tashkent and Ulaanbaatar know the score – they should be seen, but not heard – and that suits them fine.

On the business side in Central Asia-US relations, Washington has lately stepped up its bid to lay claim to much of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s tungsten resources in the face of sharp Chinese rivalry, while the end of last week even saw two senior US officials – US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and US Presidential Special Envoy for South and Central Asia Sergio Gore – visit the “hermit” nation of Turkmenistan, with both regional security and economic issues on the agenda (and perhaps also “Iran”, given Turkmenistan borders it to the north).

There are numerous deals to be done, but Trump will not get it all his own way – neither the Central Asian stans or Mongolia are in the business of unduly upsetting either Moscow or Beijing.

On the other hand, they certainly won’t want to unduly upset Trump. As political scientists Austin Sarat and Ruxandra Paul on January 26 wrote for The Hill: “Not since Woodrow Wilson conceived of a League of Nations in the wake of World War I has a single figure imagined himself capable of reordering the world. But, unlike Wilson’s design for the League, which contemplated shared decision-making, Trump’s Board of Peace ratifies his desire to run the world in accordance with his own morality and his own mind.”