When ‘Peace’ serves power: The Nobel prize’s enduring double standard

Despite its global reputation, the Nobel Peace Prize continues to face widespread criticism and controversy. Alfred Nobel originally envisioned the award as a tribute to those who had made “the greatest contribution to fraternity between nations.” Yet, over time, it has increasingly lost its essence as a universal symbol of peace and has instead become an instrument of political leverage and Western soft power.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated aspirations to win the Nobel Peace Prize — displayed in his speeches and even at the UN General Assembly — alongside the recent history of the prize, has underscored how political motivations have overtaken the original moral purpose of the award.

The deviated path of the Nobel Peace Prize

Since its inception in 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has annually awarded the Peace Prize — except during years of global conflict or crisis, such as World Wars I and II, Gandhi’s assassination, and other interruptions between 1914 and 1972.

While Nobel Prizes in fields like chemistry and physics are based on measurable scientific achievements, the Peace Prize’s subjective nature has allowed for manipulation. Rather than honoring genuine peacebuilding, it has often served symbolic or strategic ends.

This politicization is embedded in the committee’s very structure: its members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament to reflect the legislature’s political composition. Consequently, Norway’s national interests and political climate inevitably influence the selection process.

Although current government members are prohibited from serving, the committee remains composed primarily of retired politicians — not independent peace scholars or international experts.

Moreover, the 50-year secrecy rule shielding the committee’s deliberations effectively prevents transparency and accountability. This opacity fuels persistent suspicions that political considerations shape its decisions.

The Nobel Committee’s Eurocentrism and enduring Western bias — reflected in the disproportionate number of Western laureates or Western-aligned narratives of peace — have further intensified global criticism.

Controversial laureates: From Peres to Obama

The list of Peace Prize laureates itself strengthens critics’ claims of politicization.

The 1994 award to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres — a key architect of Israel’s nuclear arsenal and illegal settlement expansion — exemplified the contradiction between the prize’s stated ideals and the realities of war and occupation.

Peres also bore political responsibility for the 1996 Qana massacre in Lebanon, where at least 100 civilians sheltering in a UN compound were killed by Israeli attacks.

Critics argue that awarding Peres effectively legitimized genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and Lebanese civilians — the result, they claim, of powerful Western and pro-Israel lobbying rather than genuine peace efforts.

Similarly, when the Nobel Committee granted the 2012 Peace Prize to the European Union, European nations were simultaneously exporting arms, enforcing exploitative foreign policies, and pursuing harsh anti-immigrant agendas that destabilized regions across the Global South. Critics rightly asked whether the prize honored “humanity” or merely “Europe.”

Another infamous case was Barack Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize — awarded just nine months into his presidency. Even Obama himself later admitted he never understood why he received it, as U.S. forces continued wars across Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen during his tenure.

Perhaps the most striking example of contradiction was Henry Kissinger’s 1973 Peace Prize, despite his direct role in organizing coups and military interventions across the globe. Two members of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest, and many mockingly dubbed it “the Nobel War Prize.”

Likewise, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi — awarded in 1991 as a symbol of democracy — later oversaw ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Despite international calls to revoke her prize, the committee claimed it bore “no responsibility” for laureates’ later actions — exposing its flawed standards of accountability.

Conversely, figures like Mahatma Gandhi — the quintessential symbol of nonviolent resistance — were denied the Peace Prize altogether. The committee later admitted this was its “greatest historical omission,” a confession that has done little to restore credibility.

Trump’s failed pursuit of the Peace Prize

Donald Trump’s failed efforts to secure the Nobel Peace Prize have further exposed the contradictions at its core.

His conception of peace was transactional — driven by spectacle, coercive diplomacy, and media theatrics. Rather than fostering stability, his approach deepened divisions and emboldened aggressors such as Israel.

Yet, Trump’s behavior was not exceptional. It merely reflected a broader post–World War II trend, where the ideal of peace has been supplanted by the doctrine of “peace through power” — where force and optics replace justice and dialogue.

This shift is evident in the global silence toward Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies and its aggressive actions — including the recent 12-day war against Iran. Military force has become the default tool of diplomacy, pushing genuine peacebuilding to the margins.

Trump’s obsession with the Nobel Prize fits seamlessly within a pattern where even perpetrators of war, occupation, and oppression have been honored as “peacemakers.” His case is not an anomaly — it is a symptom of the prize’s ongoing moral decay.

The Nobel’s diminished integrity

The fact that the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize went to Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado — celebrated for her “tireless pursuit of peace” — does not indicate a return to neutrality. Rather, it reflects the continuation of Western interventionism by other means.

Machado, closely aligned with Washington’s agenda in Venezuela, even offered to “dedicate” her award to Trump in a phone call — a gesture seen by many as symbolic payment for U.S. interference in Venezuelan affairs.

So long as “peace” continues to be pursued through drone strikes, media propaganda, and coercive diplomacy — while true justice and human rights are sidelined — the Nobel Peace Prize will remain hostage to politics, far removed from the vision of Alfred Nobel himself.