Opinion Here’s what Donald Trump doesn’t get: Peace is the prize
US President’s Nobel obsession highlights a failure to grasp diplomacy, restraint, or peace itself
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presents her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump during a meeting at the Oval Office, in Washington, DC. (Photo: PTI) A day before completing one year of his second term, Donald Trump presented the world with yet another gem. Upset at losing out on last year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela’s María Corina Machado — who, much to the Nobel committee’s annoyance, had already handed her prize to Trump — the most powerful man in the world now claims to feel unburdened by any obligation to think “purely of peace,” not that he was doing quite the job of it as he insists.
In a letter to the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, he declared with his usual brazenness: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace…”
Only 29 words, but so much to unpack.
First, Norway does not award the Nobel Peace Prize; it is decided by an independent committee. If the Norwegian government were actually in charge, it might have felt compelled to placate Trump in order to keep the West united against Russia. Sidenote: In the same letter, Trump claims that “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China” while inviting Vladimir Putin the very next day to sit on his so-called Gaza Board of Peace.
Second, as countless observers with expertise have noted, the US President has not “stopped eight wars.” Between Israel and Iran, it is hard to claim credit for stopping a war in which the US participated. Between Egypt and Ethiopia, there was no war in the first place — only diplomatic tensions over a dam. And between India and Pakistan, New Delhi’s clarifications make any supposed claim of intervention irrelevant.
Third, Trump’s claim that he no longer feels an obligation to think of peace because he did not receive the award reflects perhaps the narrowest possible view of both peace and the Prize. He mistakes the Peace Prize for peace itself. It is the opposite: Peace is the prize. Human lives preserved, families kept intact, cities spared from destruction. The diplomatic work that makes all that possible is hardly as glamorous as a medal. By the way, the message that prompted this extraordinary response was a rather innocent and polite text from the Norwegian PM pleading with Trump to de-escalate his threats over Greenland: “We believe we all should work to take this down and de-escalate – so much is happening around us where we need to stand together.”
Perhaps the irony detector would not have exploded into smithereens if the prize Trump is fuming over was not the Peace Prize — and if his anger was not accompanied by threats of military force and the erosion of Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty. After all, in his will, which introduced the Nobel Prizes, Alfred Nobel wrote that one part of his realisable assets shall be distributed annually “to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.”
Of course, the prize has not always gone to those who deserved it. Take Henry Kissinger, awarded for negotiating in Vietnam while the war raged, not long after the US had sprayed Agent Orange over forests and inflicted irreversible harm on generations of people. Surely, it cannot reasonably go to a man who does not even feign negotiating for peace. It would have served Trump better to wait another year. Conflicts in the world are plenty — from Eastern Europe to Sudan and Myanmar — all of which could urgently use the US President’s attention.
The writer is deputy copy editor, The Indian Express. saptarishi.basak@expressindia.com
Share
