Foreign Affairs
A New Nobel Prize for War
Finally there’s an award that President Trump deserves to win.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
With the Middle East in flames, President Donald Trump’s desperate lobbying campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize looks ever more bizarre. Of course, his claim to have ended and prevented numerous wars is more fantasy than reality.
Worse, his surprise bombing of Iran amid negotiations, twice, demonstrated that his goal is anything but peace. Moreover, his proposal for a massive military buildup with no connection to American security suggests he is preparing even more reckless wars of choice. He has ostentatiously flouted Alfred Nobel’s desire to reward those who did “the most or the best work within the past year for building fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies.” Rather, the president has threatened to commit war crimes, wreck countries, and destroy civilizations.
However, it would be a shame to disappoint someone so desperate for public acclaim. It is time to create a Nobel War Prize, to denounce rather than praise the year’s most ostentatious warmonger or warmongers. Although 2026 is far from over, Trump would be a strong favorite this year.
Unfortunately, the 20th and 21st Centuries are filled with atrocious wannabe awardees. For instance, after sparking the Russo-Japanese War, Czar Nicholas II and Emperor Meiji should share the 1904 prize. The two Balkan Wars began in 1912, launched by a gaggle of ambitious, nationalistic leaders of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia, all of whom deserve the high (dis)honor.
In 1914 the winner would be Gavrilo Princip, the young Serbian terrorist who assassinated the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, lighting the fuse to World War I. The conflict killed 20 million people, ravaged Europe, consumed three empires, undermined leading democracies, spawned communism, fascism, and Nazism, and led to World War II.
Three years later the prize would have gone to President Woodrow Wilson, who was reelected for keeping America out of war and then deceitfully plunged the nation into the continental abattoir. Washington’s entry set up the unbalanced Versailles Treaty, which French Marshall Ferdinand Foch reportedly warned was merely “an armistice for 20 years,” with another big war to follow.
Militaristic generals and pliant politicians deserved a Nobel War Prize in 1931, when Tokyo began its disastrous attempt to coerce and conquer China with its invasion of Manchuria, and in 1937, when Tokyo expanded its campaign. Preventing the otherwise likely victory of the Kuomintang, or Nationalists, over the Communist Party enabled the “Red Emperor,” Mao Zedong, to triumph and become the greatest mass killer in human history.
The 1935 war medal would go to Italy’s Benito Mussolini, who began his drive to create a new Roman empire by attacking Ethiopia. The resulting international opposition and isolation ultimately led him to become an ally of Nazi Germany.
In 1939 Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin jointly deserved the award after agreeing to erase Poland as a nation and divide the rest of the geographic spoils. In 1941 Hitler would be the sole recipient, launching Operation Barbarossa against his former Soviet partner. The result was one of history’s worst conflagrations, followed by a divided Germany and Europe.
Charles de Gaulle, though a national hero, nevertheless deserved the prize in 1945 for seeking to reconstitute the French empire in Southeast Asia. This ultimately led to Paris’ humiliating defeat and exit from Vietnam. Tragically, American intervention soon followed.
Three years later the first of a series of Arab–Israeli conflicts erupted. An ensemble cast of British officials, Jewish refugees, and Arab nationalists deserves medals for the series of wars between Israel and its neighbors that continue to this day, with Washington’s involvement.
In 1950 North Korea’s Kim Il-sung would get the nod. The peninsula’s division persists, made more threatening by Pyongyang’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Mao deserved the medal in 1951 for taking his nation into the Korean War.
President Lyndon Johnson would have earned the award in 1964 for dramatically escalating America’s involvement in Vietnam. His predecessor, President John F. Kennedy, shared blame for entangling America in the conflict. Despite tens of thousands of American battle deaths, the Vietnamese people remain under a unified communist government today.
In 1965, Pakistani Gen. Akhtar Hussain Malik would have won the medal. He planned a covert military offensive in the disputed territory of Kashmir, controlled by India. However, his campaign misfired, triggering a brief but losing war.
President Richard Nixon deserved the nod in 1969. While promising to exit Vietnam he bombed even more and expanded the conflict to Cambodia and Laos. Although primary responsibility for the resulting slaughter in the former remains with the victorious rebel leader, Pol Pot, his worst crimes occurred after the conflict.
Pakistani President Yahya Khan earned a Nobel War Prize in 1971 after his murderous political crackdown in what became Bangladesh, leading India to plan military intervention. Khan then staged a preemptive attack on New Delhi’s forces, but lost the ensuing fight. The Nixon administration “tilted” toward Islamabad, gaining at least an honorable mention.
Somalia’s President Mohamed Siad Barre deserved a medal after invading Ethiopia in 1977, seeking territorial gain. He lost after the latter received support from Cuba and the Soviet Union, leading to an eventual civil war in Somalia and dissolution of the Somali state.
In 1979 China’s “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev would have claimed the award. The former rejected Maoist chaos but launched an offensive to “teach” recently reunited Vietnam a lesson. Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan, fueling Islamic radicalism, which ultimately drew in America.
A year later Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the most obvious claimant with his invasion of Iran. The eight-year conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people before ending in stalemate. He deserved another medal in 1990 for his invasion of Kuwait, which was soon brutally reversed by the U.S. in the Gulf War.
In 1982 President Ronald Reagan earned the award for foolishly entering the tragic, multi-sided Lebanese Civil War. After America’s embassy and Marine Corps barracks were bombed, Reagan withdrew and acknowledged his mistake.
Although Yugoslavia’s breakup began as a civil war, the struggle went international when the U.S. intervened, first in Bosnia in 1994, and later in Kosovo in 1999. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic deserved the prize both years, along with President Bill Clinton, who needlessly made these conflicts America’s own.
The Rwandan genocide resulted in greater carnage than most wars, but the slaughter originated within rather than without that nation. (Similar was the later murderous campaign in Darfur, which began as part of Sudan’s civil war.) However, in 1996 Laurent-Desire Kabila led a revolt in neighboring Zaire, later renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo, in an attempt to pacify remnants of the Hutu insurgents that had fled there after being defeated in Rwanda. Years of fighting ensued with a gaggle of other nations joining. The conflict killed some 5.4 million people, mostly civilians, and displaced two million more.
The era of “what we say goes” ended for America when President George W. Bush intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, making him another two-time winner. Although he rightly targeted the Taliban regime for hosting al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, he expanded the mission to promote a centralized, democratic government, which had never existed there. The Iraq war was based on the lie of an active nuclear program and resulted in the deaths of thousands of American and allied troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, while loosing the Islamic State upon the region.
President Barack Obama would also be a double winner, having intervened in Libya’s civil war in 2011 and Syria’s much lengthier and bloodier contest in 2014. Neither conflict, in which numerous European and Middle Eastern states also meddled, implicated vital U.S. interests or warranted American participation.
In 2022 the undisputed victor would be Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Although the U.S.-led West had recklessly antagonized Moscow, ignoring its security fears, there was no justification for its invasion of Ukraine. Putin is responsible for the resulting mass destruction and death in both nations.
Two winners would have emerged in 2023. Hamas political leader Yahya Sinwar launched a brutal attack on Israel, killing more than 800 civilians, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with much deadlier retaliation, killing tens of thousands of civilians. He also expanded his campaign to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Eventually the U.S. was drawn in, with a one-off attack on the latter in 2025 and this year’s full-scale campaign.
President Trump obviously is not the worst militaristic offender. But he need not despair. His misbegotten attack on Iran would still place a Nobel War Prize within reach. Better, however, for him to repent and promote peace, putting America first. Americans elected Donald Trump to represent them, not another government. And what they—we—most need is peace. Starting in the Middle East.
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(@christopherrufo) 