The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, described in news reports as “a Japanese organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The organization received the award for its “activism against nuclear weapons.” Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chairperson of the committee, explained the award by noting the current weakening of the “taboo” against the use of nuclear weapons. European Union President Ursula von der Leyen added that “the spectre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still looms over humanity. This makes the advocacy of Nihon Hidankyo invaluable.”
The selection of an anti-nuclear weapons organization for the Nobel Peace Prize is nothing more than symbolic, and this isn’t the first occasion where the Nobel Committee chose symbolism over substance. Back in 2009, the Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to Barack Obama, who had been in office as president for less than a year, for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The committee’s press release noted Obama’s “vision” for a more peaceful world and his ability to give the world’s people “hope.” Obama had at that time done nothing of substance to implement his “vision” and fulfill the “hope” he apparently created, other than embarking on an apology tour in the Middle East and other places where he expounded on America’s past sins. In reality, after the eight years of the Obama presidency, the Middle East was in chaos as terrorists and Islamists gained the upper hand in Libya, Yemen, Egypt, parts of Iraq, and Syria during the so-called “Arab Spring” and Iran’s geopolitical reach expanded in the region. Hardly the stuff of “peace,” but Obama’s criticism of the United States during his apology tour was reason enough to give him the “peace” prize.
The Nobel Committee’s selection of an organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan is meant to highlight the evils committed by the United States. President Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016, and while he did not expressly apologize for the dropping of the atomic bombs, he did note the suffering that resulted from the “terrible force unleashed” by the United States. He did not say that the bombings were justified, nor that they saved many more lives than they took.
The “spectre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” doesn’t haunt the world. The dropping of those two atomic bombs ended a terrible war and saved both American and Japanese lives. During the Cold War, the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons protected half the continent of Europe from communist enslavement. Today, it protects parts of eastern and northern Europe from Russian aggression. That same nuclear stockpile protected the freedom of Japan and South Korea during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and today protects those countries from communist China and North Korea.
But the committee doesn’t want to consider nuclear weapons in historical context. Nuclear weapons helped prevent the outbreak of a third global war, yet the committee would not dare to give the peace prize to, say, Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb — a weapon that helped keep the general peace during crises that absent the H-bomb would likely have resulted in much larger and destructive wars. Today, Israel’s survival depends on its unrivaled nuclear stockpile in the Middle East, which is why its leaders acted to prevent Iraq from obtaining a nuclear weapon in 1981 and Syria from obtaining one in 2007. And it is why Israel will never knowingly allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Instead of praising the people and organizations who provide for and support deterrence of war, the Nobel Committee gives awards to people and organizations who advocate for the end of nuclear deterrence. Perhaps if they looked back at pre-nuclear history they might appreciate the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. The Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century claimed between 3.2 million and 6.5 million lives. The First World War resulted in more than 18 million deaths. World War II caused between 35 million and 60 million deaths. There has been no global kinetic war since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear deterrence has thus far worked to avoid the kind of global war that in the past produced such enormous casualties.
The nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Global wars are avoided by what Albert Wohlstetter called the “delicate balance of terror.” Too bad the Nobel Committee refuses to acknowledge this reality.
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