Much of the reaction to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama has been characterized by amazement or amusement. For those who have long since given up on the International Community as a bastion and defender of a corrupt and deadening status quo, the Peace Prize comes as little surprise, though the alacrity with which it has been rewarded is certainly noteworthy. Even in the precincts of the liberal left, there is an awareness that this Prize is not yet deserved and some concern as to its impact.
John Podhoretz gets it exactly right that Barack Obama has, in fact measured up tot he ideals of the Nobel Prize Committee:
I can’t agree with my colleagues here on CONTENTIONS that a) Barack Obama should reject the Nobel Peace Prize or b) be embarrassed by it. The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.
He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s the most obvious choice, once you think about it, since Michael Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.
Yet since the President will be the leader of the United States for another three years, the Commander in Chief of the world's most powerful military, and the Chief Executive of the world's most robust economy (despite the recent recession), there is good reason to be quite concerned with the impact of this award on our young President.
Game Theory is a rigorous construct that has had important real world implications since its presentation the 1940s by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. One of its simple yet powerful rules is that when a negative behavior is either rewarded or left unpenalized, it increases the risk of future conflict. Thus far Barack Obama's foreign policy appears to be designed to prove to our enemies (ie, "friends we just haven't talked to yet") that we are not only not a threat but that we will actively and publicly eschew any efforts to punish behavior which once upon a time was considered wrong. Thus, we remain silent when the Iranian Mullahs murder their own people, subvert their own election, and actively kill our military men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, we actively muzzle our military leaders when they take exception to Iran's behavior. And Iran is only one example of a feckless foreign policy that aims to disarm America while empowering the enemies of all that this country once stood for.
Every parent knows intuitively, and Game Theory has shown empirically and experimentally, that behavior that is left unpunished is behavior that is repeated. Further, Game Theory shows that the reward for "nice" behavior in a zero sum game is not Peace, but increased conflict.
In the "Bizarro World" of the "International Community" the Nobel Peace Prize is given to those whose behavior makes Peace less likely and War more likely.
Recent Comments