As President Trump heads to Alaska for his momentous meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he seems to have one thing on his mind — not peace in Ukraine, but a prize for peace.
Trump has been obsessed with winning the Nobel Peace Prize for some time now. Even those not cynical about the president must concede that his foreign policy moves to end conflicts are less about ending the conflicts and more about looking like is the one ending them.
We will see what Trump demands of Putin in Alaska and if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will even have a seat at the table. But we do know that Trump is very keen to end the war because he thinks that the Nobel Committee will come calling if he does.
Now some might argue, what’s the big deal? If Trump wants the prize and it makes him eager to force solutions to end conflicts, then maybe he does deserve it. Yeah, he might be self-serving, but ultimately, we can see an end to conflicts in places like Ukraine, Gaza, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caucasus and South Asia. And what would be wrong with that?
Well, if it’s a peace made in bad faith that will ultimately break apart, then there is a lot wrong with it.
Allowing Russia to keep the territory it seized in its invasion and forcing Ukraine to go along with it, doesn’t promote peace. It encourages war. It lets Russia and Putin claim that they were justified to invade and take territory. It bolsters their arguments against the sanctions and embargoes that have made them the pariah of the world. And it would also tell them that they could invade other places (Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Central Asian states) take territory and just nominate Trump for a peace prize when he tells them to stop, after they have taken what they wanted.
World leaders have noticed and teased Trump with nominations for the peace prize just to get him eager to settle conflicts on their terms. The Pakistanis and the Israelis have presented Trump with official nominations, even though he had nothing to do with the cessation of hostilities in South Asia and the war in Gaza. Expect to see more of this.
Meanwhile, there is a McCain who has been working for the last two years to feed starving populations around the world.
Cindy McCain has been the executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Program and has been advocating for the end of the blockade of humanitarian aid by the Israelis on the people of Gaza. She has met with officials around the world, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push for the end of the blockade. A Republican (even if some people aren’t happy about it), McCain has been more outspoken about the treatment of Gazans than many Democrats.
What makes McCain interesting is that, like many high-level political appointees, she initially sought to play it safe and not overtly talk about the plight of the Palestinians. Like many in the U.S. and Western Europe, she probably felt she had to walk a fine line, so as to not insult the Israeli government. She was even confronted by her own staff for not having spoken out enough. McCain could have just played it safe, but she listened to her staff and her own heart and has pushed for the end to famine, not just in Gaza but in Africa and other parts of the world.
Now, we all know she isn’t the only one. Chef José Andrés, the founder of the World Central Kitchen, may be even more deserving of the Peace Prize. His organization, which lost seven employees in an Israeli airstrike has helped mitigate the fallout from worldwide disasters, famines and wars.
The common denominator between McCain and Andrés — and what separates them from Trump — is that their actions are more likely to ensure peace. Go anywhere in the world and people just want to have security, food, water and stability. The aims of the World Food Program and the World Central Kitchen do just that. Trump is trying to force ceasefires without solving the underlying reasons for conflicts which means the conflicts will eventually go on.
It must be said that the Nobel Committee can just be content with Trump’s politicking because they just want world leaders to just stop fighting, even if the underlying issues are not addressed. They have awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to dubious recipients in the past. Henry Kissinger, Yassir Arafat, Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres all got the award, even though it’s hard to attach the word peace to their names.
President Obama received the award early in his first term on the mere hope that he would bring peace. He went on to set new records with drone strikes in several Muslim-majority countries. And infamously, the Nobel was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired quite a few Nobel Laureates in their own quests for peace.
So, we can’t pretend that the award isn’t a political award. There is definitely a lot of bias that comes to selecting the winner, and there will always be a controversy around the award.
But the Nobel Committee can look at the current conflicts and decide what will ensure proper peace in the world. If it’s a choice between bullying people into accepting injustice, or feeding children and working to bring stability to the world so that peace can prosper, I think the answer is clear.
Jos Joseph is a published writer and is a graduate of the Harvard Extension School and Ohio State University. He is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.
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