The Peace Prize Committee’s methodology is not known, nor are its deliberations ever made public. The defense of this year’s decision by the committee’s chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, is manifestly unconvincing.
He blabbered (the only appropriate word for a statement that borders on the nonsensical) that “ that a last-minute switch wasn’t made because the US leader doesn’t live up to it.
“In the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think this committee has seen many types of campaign, media attention,” Frydnes said, without naming Trump. “We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what, for them, leads to peace.”
One can fairly ask what it means to say of Trump that “the US leader doesn’t live up to it”?
Frydnes was born in Norway in 1984. For eight years he worked for the strongly leftist organization Médecins Sans Frontières and for three further years served on their board of directors. The organization has been deeply involved in Gaza, often supporting Hamas, the terrorist organization. It has been on the front line saying that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Frydnes also served on the board of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and led the council of the Arkivet Peace and Human Rights Centre in Kristiansand.
The one scholar on the Committee is Asle Toje, a political scientist with a PhD from Cambridge University. Toje has published widely on European security and foreign policy. Among his last works are America, the EU and Strategic Culture (London, Routledge); The European Union as a Small Power (London, Macmillan, 2010) and Neoclassical realism in Europe (Manchester University Press, 2012). He has also authored two monographs in Norwegian on the economic and political crisis in Europe: Rødt, Hvitt & Blått and Jernburet (Dreyer 2012, 2014).
Asle Toje, deputy leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee speaks at Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, California, January 2023. Photo: Marina Inoue / Soka University of America.
There is at least one conservative member of the Peace Prize Committee. She is Kristin Clemet. In the past she was the chief editor of the Conservative Party’s journal Tidens Tegn 1993–1997 and vice managing director of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises from 1997 to 2001. Now she is the leader of Civita, a liberal think tank in Oslo. Civita receives support from the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise.
Instead of President Trump, the Peace Prize Committee chose María Corina Machado, an anti-Maduro pro-democracy advocate who is in hiding in Venezuela. The choice was not a bad one in the sense that Machado is a courageous woman; but her qualifications needsto be compared with others fighting for freedom and democracy, and with the considerable successes under Trump’s leadership ending conflicts.
Members of the Peace Prize Committee have whispered to the press that not only did Trump not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but that he lobbied for it, something they found offensive and resisted. To tie a decision to such a small-minded consideration, when the evidence far outweighs the lobbying, tells a lot about the immaturity of the Peace Prize Committee.
Trump has played a major role in a number of deals and agreements. On the list, beyond Gaza, are Armenia and Azerbaijan, Congo and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, Egypt and Ethiopia and Serbia and Kosovo. There are others in progress, most notably the Ukraine war.
The Peace Prize Committee rejection undermines Trump’s work in trying to end the Ukraine war. The explicit determination that Trump was not worthy of the Peace Prize Committee’s consideration undermines Trump’s credibility at a crucial time. This is a sad result of the extreme bias shown by the Peace Prize Committee.
The Nobel Peace Prize no longer sets the standard for honoring those who try to save lives and promote peace.
Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
