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The dude who invented the MAD doctrine did not get the award despite nuke deterrance doctrice being related to the least amount of wars in any century since WW2.
But his platform of deescalation and his plans for american foregin diplomacy were rewarded. He ultimately failed to reach those goals (specially with the escalation on Afghanistan and the emergence of groups like ISIS), but tbh the Iran agreement and the Pacific trade agreement, killed and buried by the next administration, would have created a massive buffer and solution for the 2 hotspots we currently experience around the middle east (where terrorism is largely sponsored by Iran) and the Taiwan takeover by the CCP (would also be partially neutralised by the Pacific trade talks).
He was naive, in the way the world was naive to the ability to sacrifice prosperity that some leaders are capable of. He underestimated how dumb and suicidal putin could be, he underestimated how much China would be willing to sacrifice in terms of potential, he underestimated how much violence was latent and capable in the middle east. but his nobel peace prize was due to his campaign running on nuclear proliferation treaties and closer relationships with the muslim world which had been entirely antagonistic since Bush
It’s called a Nobel prize and it was established by the will of Alfred Nobel. So yes it’s the same
That is nothing compared to past controversies.
People left the assembly and resigned when it was awarded to Kissinger and Arafat in the past. regret is way milder than calling the receipient a terrorist in the floor of the award ceremony
:/
Also, WW2 being so utterly destructive, back to back after an arguably even worse global war, skews the stats a little.
But it triggers ww2 because the treaty is too hard on Germany. And crazy people has its soil prepared for their madness.
No, he didn't win the award, because MAD doctrine (aside from it being immoral) doesn't actually work in the real world.
It's an idealized model based on game theory, which doesn't deal with pesky complexities such as irrationality, salami tactics, short-range CBMs, anti-missile defenses, tactical nukes and so on. (That's why many of these things used to be banned by treaties, to continue to pretend that MAD is actually required for peace. In reality many nations do not have nukes and live in peace.)
not many of them are superpowers, or strategic interests of superpowers. See Taiwan, a country that until recently felt safe and at peace and is no longer unthreatened.
Most studies show that MAD allows for strategic peace for large superpowers and more regional wars for smaller countries. Ultimately it still decreases overall violence under all empirical studies on the subject.
The point I was making though was that the achivements of MAD are not measured when giving the award. However Israel and Palestine sitting down to talk in the 90s was, despite the talks ultimately going nowhere and being worse off now than before the Nobel Peace award
And if the real Nobel prize doesn't want the confusion around its name to happen... it should do something about it?
which is why he got it based on his plans and not his actions
> and Libya does actually cancel every point you mention by the way.
it really doesnt. Lets begin with the main reasons, he was awarded the award for nuclear profileration agreements and a new american policy in the middle east. Lybia is not a nuclear power and its in north africa not the middle east.
secondly the military intervention of Lybia came at the behest of a UN security council resolution that put NATO in charge of securing the no fly zone to prevent Gadafi to bomb his own citizens after he had shot protestors during the arab spring. The NATO mission was led by France. The USA involvement ended the day the UN security council ended the mission despite the new Lybian goverment wanting them to remain. It is not Obama's fault that half the arab world exploded in protests in 2011, or that the UN voted to intervene, or that the French led mission was a bit of a clusterfuck. So no, Lybia does not affect any point I mentioned, or any of the reasons for the comittee to vote for him years earlier.
> it's actually not hard to have presidents not start wars at all- both presidents since Obama did just that.
Trump started a war, Iran just didnt follow through. Killing Soleimani is casus belli and Iran had every right to retaliate against america. The fact they didn't does not somehow exonarate Trump from his actions. That was way more belligerent than any action taken under Obama's 8 years.
Biden did not start any wars but 100% would have intervened if ISIS had begun under his presidency, the same way Obama did. Obama did not start any war against any country, he just had missions in countries america was already in, like Afghanistan, or contributed in international efforts like the Syrian civil war, or lybia intervention after Gadaffi's Un resolution.
His reputation as war mongering is artificial and designed by the same people who told Trump that if you dont test for Covid you get less cases. America started reporting less the drone strikes they carried, but carried them more often under Trump for example. Its the same sleight of hand that people use to say Sweden is worse off because they have more rape cases. They simply report them more often. Obama was more open than further admins on their interventions, that does not make it happen more or less often.
> it should do something about it?
They did not award it to Gandhi and gave it to Kissinger. The fact people still care about that award is bonkers
Losing the TPP (Minus the IP parts)/Asia Pivot and the focus away from Nuclear Non Proliferation are terrifying. Obama is directly the reason why Myanmar had its democracy for as long as it did, and most people in South East Asia have not found anyone nearly as inspirational as him from America since 2016 and likely won't for awhile longer.
Obama was awesome, and his legacy has been unfairly malingered. He was not the "warmonger" president that revisionists like to portray him as.
Its deliberate. Conservative PACs designed that legacy and pushed it hard. Trump quickly stopped reporting drone strikes, so that way he could pretend Obama was a big bad shooting at everyone. Not reporting != not happening.
> Losing the TPP (Minus the IP parts)
I actually see the point to the IP parts. Its a complicated mess, but China has abused it in the past so being able to sue goverments has its uses. For example when Lenovo was accused of IP theft to HP computers, the CCP bought stock in lenovo and made it impossible to take them to trial. Those kind of abuses are an issue when you try and promote fair competition due to high RD costs.
Obviously the can of worms it opens is huge and an issue in itself, but I see the point in why it was added to the TPP agreement and can't imagine how hard it was to put that in, before Trump came and broke the whole thing.
> Obama was awesome
Dealing with the worst recession in a century, passing the largest US healthcare change in history, preventing the arab spring from exploding everywhere, stopping ISIS, swift to the pacific etc. The amount of achievements its hard to point out when after that came a circus clown who would salute north korean generals.
If anything it stains the reputation of the Nobel prize to me. How seriously can you take the Nobel committee after this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmIUm1E4OcI
so you can arguably add ukraine crisis to that list
A bit different from "started a war".
I don't think he started any new wars, but he inherited some and continued. Anyway, the point here should be the absurdity of a lot of Nobel awards and that stands - especially in his case.
I mean Trump was nominated for the award for fuck's sake! More than 2 or 3 times iirc. So anyway.
The only Nobel prize that is separate is the Economics one, which was established much later and has no connection to Alfred Nobel (it is paid for by Sweden's central bank instead of the Nobel estate). But even that one is administered by the same Nobel foundation.
Obama specifically won the Nobel Peace Prize for talking about his "vision of a world free from nuclear weapons" as a candidate. As President, he initiated a massive program to upgrade the US' nuclear arsenal. It made a complete mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize, though Kissinger also won the Nobel Peace Prize, so it's not as if the prize has any credibility anyways.
Either way Libya operation was spearheaded by France with Obama joining only reluctantly later.
A direct American intervention in Syria probably would have made things even worse. Droning Assad, as you suggest, probably would have led to an even greater amount of chaos (besides being totally illegal). It's bad enough as it is that the US funded Sunni extremists in Syria.
Don't see the point arguing with you further. Some day both Putin and Assad are going to be dead and I hope they suffer in their last minutes. I will be cheering while you will be mourning your tyrants.
Just imagine the chaos in Syria if the Sunni extremist groups that the US supported had won. How would the various religious minorities, like the Shiites, Alawites and Christians, have fared? What's the chance that the Sunni extremists would have carried out genocide against religious minorities? It's one thing to say that Assad is a tyrant, but another to say that everything would be better if the US toppled him.
In Iraq, supporters of a US invasion made the exact same argument. "Saddam is a tyrant? Why don't you want to get rid of him?" The US toppled him, and half a million people died as a result.
Your analysis - everything will be better if the US topples tyrants (and realistically, empowers people who might be even worse) - is very simplistic, and has a terrible track record in the real world.
The Syrian Civil war was clearly (in parts) engineered by the west. Here is some evidence.
- Western government spokesperson in 2003: https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328
- In 2014, the West officially intervened in the Syrian civil war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intervention_in_the_Syrian_...
- Western government spokesperson in 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/...
- As of 2024 the West still has at least 1000 military personnel in Syria: https://theconversation.com/us-military-presence-in-syria-ca...
See the sibling comment for human toll perspective.
> The United States completed its prior withdrawal of troops in December 2011, concluding the Iraq War.[9] In June 2014, the United States formed Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) and re-intervened at the request of the Iraqi government due to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
> On 9 December 2017, Iraq declared victory against ISIL, concluding the 2013–2017 War in Iraq and commencing the latest ISIL insurgency in Iraq.
Perhaps those troops should have been withdrawn for the second time in early 2018. Alas, it took place after messier circumstances.
> On 31 December 2019 through 1 January 2020, the United States Embassy in Baghdad was attacked in response to the airstrikes.[6] On 3 January 2020, the United States conducted an airstrike that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and Kata'ib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.[6] Iraq protested that the airstrike violated their sovereignty.[13] > > In March 2020, the U.S.-led coalition, Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR), began transferring control over a number of military installations back to Iraqi security forces, citing developments in the multi-year mission against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Or perhaps the second withdrawal has never actually completed.
> In February 2021, NATO announced it would expand its mission to train Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIL,[14] partially reversing the U.S.-led troop withdrawals. In April 2021, U.S. Central Command stated that there were no plans for a total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, citing continued threats posed by the ISIL insurgency and Iran-backed militias.[3]
Being nominated only means that one of thousands of people allowed to nominated candidates wrote your name on a piece of paper and mailed it in. There is at least one right wing Swedish politician who's been sending in Trumps name every year for a while now.
The Nobel peace prize committee is not really responsible for nominating candidates[1], only for selecting a winner from the list of nominated candidates.
[1] Although I believe they are allowed to suggest names.
Just one of the many things Obama did that upsets me so much. The precedent he set with that is criminal.
Of course I’m against terrorism, but our government MUST NOT have the right to classify Americans as terrorists and just execute them without a trial—via drone strikes!
Most Americans likely don’t even know about what happened to the al-Awlaki’s, which is unfortunate.