October 12, 2007
The Nobel Peace Prize Posted by John Steele Gordon at 11:50 AM EST To no one’s surprise, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Al Gore and the United Nations Committee on Climate Change for their work on global warming. Let’s take a look at previous American Peace Prize winners and what they received the prize for. 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt, for leading negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. 1912 Senator (and former Secretary of State) and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Elihu Root, for his work in advancing arbitration as a means of settling international disputes. 1919 President Woodrow Wilson, for advocating the establishment of the League of Nations. 1925 Charles G. Dawes, member of the Allied Reparations Committee (and later Vice President of the United States), for developing the Dawes Plan to help Germany stabilize its economy and meet its reparations obligations. 1929 Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, for his work on the Kellogg-Briand Treaty to end war. 1931 Jane Addams, international president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, for his advocacy of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. 1945 Secretary of State Cordell Hull, for his work establishing the United Nations. 1946 Emily Greene Balch, honorary international president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and John R. Mott, chairman of the International Missionary Council and President of the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations. 1947 American Friends Service Committee, on behalf of the Society of Friends (the Quakers). 1950 Ralph Bunche, principal secretary of the United Nations Palestine Commission and chief mediator to end the first Arab-Israeli war. 1953 Former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for the Marshall Plan. 1962 Linus Pauling, for his crusade against nuclear testing above ground. 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr., for leading the American civil rights movement. 1970 Norman Borlaug, for leading the “green revolution” that greatly increased food yields. 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, for the Vietnam peace accord. 1985 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, for its campaign on the dangers of nuclear war. 1986 Author Eli Weisel, for his “practical work in the cause of peace” and for delivering a powerful message of “peace, atonement, and human dignity.” 1997 Jody Williams, jointly with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which she headed. 2003 Former President Jimmy Carter, “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” 2007 Former Vice President Al Gore, for his work on global warming. It seems to me that this list can be divided into groups. There were those, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Bunche, and Henry Kissinger, who accomplished something in the cause of peace by ending a war. Then there were those such as Woodrow Wilson, Charles Dawes, Frank Kellogg, Cordell Hull, George Marshall, and Norman Borlaug, who made (or attempted to make—neither the League of Nations nor the Dawes Plan nor the Kellogg-Briand Treaty worked) future wars less likely by specific actions, policies, or scientific accomplishments. Then there are those, such as the Society of Friends, Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King, Jr., the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Eli Weisel, who opposed war (or violent means to obtain domestic political goals) or particular aspects of war and who were given the prize for their eloquence or symbolic value in the cause of peace. Finally there were the political peace prizes. Had Jimmy Carter shared the 1978 prize with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin for achieving the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation, I doubt that anyone would have objected. It was a huge advance toward bringing peace to the world’s leading powder keg, and Carter contributed significantly to achieving it. But since leaving the presidency, Carter has been drifting ever further leftwards and has wallowed in the moral smugness that has always been his most prominent characteristic. (Just the other day he said that the only thing he regrets about his Presidency was not having sent one more helicopter to rescue the hostages in Iran. Really. Running for reelection, he carried only as many states as Herbert Hoover had carried in 1932 and won even fewer electoral votes. But he has no regrets having, I guess, made no mistakes other than failing to send enough helicopters.) Had he possessed the gift of eloquence he might have contributed something to the cause of peace since 1981. But no one has ever accused President Carter of that. The only speech of his that has lasted in the national memory is one of the most disastrous in recent presidential history, the “malaise speech.” Violating the longstanding and wise unwritten rule that ex-Presidents should give their opinions in private, he has publicly opposed American foreign policy at nearly every turn. And that was what he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for. As for Al Gore, his prize, too, seems more political than anything else. Has he brought about peace anywhere? No. Has he instituted a policy, treaty, or scientific revolution that makes war in the future less likely? No. Has he been unusually eloquent in the cause of peace? No. He has instead advocated, often by tendentious means, a scientific hypothesis that is by no means settled and a political program predicated on that hypothesis’s being fact. The political class (the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian parliament) loves that particular program because it would greatly increase the power of politicians. Ergo the prize. Other programs might accomplish much more at far, far less cost and disruption to the world economy (see here for another approach). Indeed, Al Gore’s approach to solving global warming might well increase the chances of future war by bringing fast-rising world prosperity to an end. Prosperity is good for peace. Alfred Nobel wanted the peace prize he established awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” How Al Gore and his crusade for one particular approach to combat global warming fits that bill is a mystery to me.
| 
