Ambivalence, Idealism, and the Nobel Peace Prize

by Peter Henne

This time last year, I was celebrating Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. What most impressed me with this speech was his emphasis on the ambivalence of world politics; we must strive to make the world better, but also realize that we will never completely succeed. For me—and I suspect many others—that ambivalence has turned into disappointment, in both domestic and international politics. Even with this jaded outlook, however, I could not help but be angered by the contrast between the stirring—but guarded—rhetoric of last year’s speech, and this year’s ceremony.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee gave the award to Liu Xiaobo, a pro-democracy dissident currently imprisoned in China. China did not allow Liu, his family, or his supporters to attend the ceremony, and the chair reserved for the Peace Prize recipient was left empty. The last time something like this occurred was, literally, in Nazi Germany.

Human Rights Watch's Nicholas Bequelin has a good piece in Foreign Policy on the incident, highlighting the extreme measures China has taken to prevent the award from resonating domestically. He argues that China's broad crackdown surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize will be counterproductive. Bequelin is right to commend the Nobel committee for their choice, but I'm not sure I agree that China's moves will ultimately harm its interests internationally.

This is due to the obvious fact of China's immense economic clout. Few countries--weak or strong--are willing to upset China and risk economic retaliation. This can be seen in the countries that boycotted the ceremony. Yes, Serbia reversed its decision to boycott under pressure to live up to European Union standards (it is currently a candidate for membership). But many other states went through with the boycott. These aren't just the usual anti-West/anti-American states either. It was no surprise that Cuba, Kazakhstan and Venezuela boycotted. But so did Iraq and Afghanistan, whose governments exist because of the United States. Then there were several states who have received significant aid and security assistance from the United States; this includes Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.

Examining this list of states can provide some insight into why they were willing to cross the human rights community. All of these states have significant trade ties with China, or want them. They are also, with the exception of the Philippines, non-democratic states, and thus have an incentive to dissuade dissidents. And the democratic outlier--the Philippines--is very close geographically to China, giving it an even greater interest in keeping Beijing happy.

We are thus witnessing the distressing convergence of economic interests, regime type, and security concerns. These represent three sets of pressures leaders face: the desire to maintain their country’s wealth, the fear of losing power to domestic rivals, and the need to protect the country. These often push in different directions: steps taken to ensure economic growth could increase domestic dissent, while security enhancements could undermine economic activity. In this case, they all point in the same direction: boycotting the ceremony makes China happy—which helps both a state’s economy and security—and sends a signal to would-be domestic critics. This makes it much more difficult to pry these states away from China than would be the case if they had to balance divergent interests.

There is little the United States can do to address the economic issues. China will likely keep growing, and its economic power will be difficult to undermine, or counter. And—as evidenced in the countries boycotting the ceremony—security guarantees will be of minimal effectiveness. This might be due to China’s lack of overt threats to its neighbors, or the fact that leaders in states like Afghanistan and Pakistan realize the United States needs them as much as they need the United States, giving them some freedom of action. There may be some potential when it comes to regime type, as the pressure to follow democratic norms could outweigh economic interests, as seen in Serbia’s decision.

Ultimately, this brings us back to Obama’s Nobel speech. The United States’ ability to improve the world is limited. Economic incentives, military actions, and pro-democracy rhetoric will not push the international community into demanding Liu Xiaobo’s release, or prevent other countries from following China’s lead. But that does not justify a cynical, amoral approach to world politics. Democratic norms and the promise of membership in an economic bloc brought Serbia around; it is this type of subtle, incremental change that will socialize states like China into a liberal international order. And it this nuanced approach to the world that so perfectly meshes with Obama’s strengths as a leader.

Obama's Nobel Prize? ... I'm with Will Bunch ...

By J. Thomas Duffy

Much was made of President Obama's Nobel Prize speech last week, the World Wide Web was abuzz, with mostly pro reviews (See Glenn Greenwald's post - "The strange consensus on Obama's Nobel address")

And, let's face, it was Bizzareville, having a sitting president, who is conducting two wars, escalating one of them, up there, accepting a Peace Prize, for Peace that he hasn't actually accomplished (Yeah, I know, wait a few years, for after the escalation in Flintstonevilleastan).



Of all the megabytes and pixels, bloviating on it, there was one that stood out, cut to the chase, nailed it - Will Bunch, on his Attytood Blog;

Maybe U.S. presidents shouldn't get peace prizes

Hey, I didn't say which president. You know what? I hate to say it, but sitting American presidents are never a good choice for the Nobel Peace Prize, period. Since 1901, the honor has been bestowed on three White House occupants.

[snip]

The world needs uncompromising fighters for real peace and for meaningful justice -- people like a Martin Luther King -- who can go to Oslo and remind the world of what we must eternally strive to make it. Such worthy Nobel recepients are truth-tellers, and people they are telling that truth to are the world's kings and potentates and, yes, the American president -- a job that is engineered for compromise, and disappointments. If the world is to become a better place, we need more people who risk jail, risk pain, and risk death -- people like Dr. King or Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi -- have done, for the eternal ideals of peace that are uncompromising. The Nobel Peace Prize can be a valuable tool to remind us who these people are, and that you are going to find them in the streets, not in the White House.

Now, that, certainly, is something hopeful we can believe in.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Reflections on Obama's Nobel speech

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't have all that much to add to Carl's post. Suffice it to say that I thought it was a fantastic speech comparable to the best he's ever given, including last year's speech on race in Philadelphia. (Video below.)

We can argue over the particulars, over the substance, but the speech revealed Obama to be, well, what we knew he was, which is as close to a genuine philosopher as we are likely to get in the White House, a man of profound thought who wrestles with some of the key issues facing America and the world today -- issues of war and peace, of life and death -- some of the issues that have been central to the human condition from the very beginning.

Allow me to quote a few commentators who, in my view, got it right:

Michael Crowley:

[T]his may have been the deepest and most elegaic speech of Obama's presidency. But what a strange one it was. Obama is a man trapped amongst the contradictions created by America's awkward place in the post-Bush world...

The rest of Obama's speech was movingly inspirational. Having conceded that war can't be wished away, Obama laid out a vision of human nature and progress that is fundamental to his view of the world.

See also Jonathan Chait on Obama's "foreign policy worldview."

James Fallows:

[T]his was a very good and serious speech, which like many of his major addresses -- the Inaugural address, the one in Prague about nuclear weapons, the one in Cairo on relations with the Islamic world -- will stand re-reading and close inspection, and which shared an obvious intellectual and structural architecture with all his other major addresses. Those trademark elements include:

The embrace of contradictions (in this case, a defense of war as a means to peace); the long view; the emphasis on institution-building; the concern about the distortion of religious and ethnic loyalties; and above all a consciousness that was once called Niebuhrian and at this rate will someday be "Obamian," which emphasizes the importance of steady steps forward in an inevitably flawed world.

Taylor Marsh:

That was our president today and I couldn't have been prouder. Unflinching, reversing the muddled message of last week, once again regaining the moral authority of why we fight... Today's speech unraveling last week's tangled rhetorical mess that had Pres. Obama talking about 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, which I remain against, while simultaneously talking about a draw down by July 2011, which came off cravenly political, while ignoring the importance of why we're in Afghanistan, which is in large part humanitarian, and the genesis of what brought us there.

The speech today begins a righting of what went terribly wrong on Obama's Afghanistan strategy speech. The tone and content was pitch perfect, including the bravery of taking on whether he deserves the Nobel or not.

This is not to say -- and I must stress this -- that I agreed with everything in the speech. Like Chait, I found Obama's discussion of genocide weak. What is needed there is an aggressive commitment to fight genocide, as in Darfur, not just a desire to stand together in righteous opposition to it. And while I appreciate the careful distinction between just and unjust wars, and while the Afghan War may for a time have been just, I continue to oppose Obama's Afghan surge, the 30,000-troop increase he announced just last week, and to think that the Afghan War is not just unwinnable but untenable, that the U.S. and its NATO would do well to withdraw now and to give up on the unlikely possibility of achieving political and social stability in that country, keeping some military presence in the region to target Taliban and al Qaeda forces. (I'm not against nation-building, as I was not against the Afghan War early on. I just don't think it makes much sense to stay there without a clear purpose and achievable goal.)

And yet, I found the tension in the speech between realism and idealism, with Obama searching for the right balance, compelling and persuasive. Indeed, what the speech revealed is that Obama gets it -- maybe not in policy terms, where there is room for disagreement, but in philosophical terms, which is deeply reassuring. It just remains to be seen whether Obama can find that right balance by reconciling the contradictions, if that is even possible, and then whether he can actually translate his Niebuhrianism into a cohesive foreign policy that adequately addresses not just the Iraq and Afghan wars but Iran, North Korea, Darfur, and the world's other hotspots, the myriad challenges facing America, including global terrorism.

Awkward moments

By Carl

So how does one accept an award for peace while waging war?

With aplomb and humility, apparently:

OSLO — President Obama, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize here on Thursday, acknowledged the age-old tensions between war and peace but argued that his recent decision to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan was justified to protect the world from terrorism and extremism.

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth,” Mr. Obama said. “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

[...]“I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage,” Mr. Obama said. “Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”

This was your basic "damned if you do, damned if you don't" moment: Obama could not possibly have said anything that would have satisfied his critics.

From the left:

Obama refused to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying defiantly that "I face the world as it is" and that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States.

From the insane asylum right:

They wounded two doves with one stone. No matter how much you like Obama and his foreign policy, it is patently ridiculous that a man who's served less than nine months as President should earn a prize that eluded even Mahatma Gandhi.

Nevermind, shithead, that non-northern hemisphereans were ROUTINELY denied the Peace Prize by your forefathers in feigned enlightenment! No! But a black man wins in America and suddenly you find the cojones to stand up for Gandhi, someone you've probably mocked as wearing a really bad toga.

My take on it is this: 

Matt. 10:13: "And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you."

We are human. Barack Obama is human, but he stands for more to the rest of the world as well as to this great nation. His symbolism is profound. His election is a demonstration that, despite the hatred from the bigots and ignorant of the right, the country is healing from the terrible shame of slavery and discrimination. We have far to go, and so we cannot make it to Dr. King's Promised Land in one stride, but we must continue to take the steps, small and large, halting and fluid, until we do get there.

Likewise, the Promised Land of Peace beckons us on. Some would criticize this award as undue, as a down payment on a promise.

So? IF ONLY FOR THE HEALING HIS ELECTION BROUGHT TO THE SHAME OF AMERICAN HISTORY, he has earned the prize. He accepts it on behalf of us all, black and white, who voted for him and against him, for bringing the United States finally into the latter 20th Century. And if there is more to come, if indeed he can make inroads in the Middle East conundrum, or calm the waters in Pakistan and Afghanistan, if he can persuade Iran and North Korea to use atoms for peace, if he only brings China into the fold of fighting global warming, he will have accomplished more for peace than the sum total of every President up to this point.

Of course, there's no rule that says he can't win a second one...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)