There are mixed reactions to the Presidents Nobel nomination, but I want to look at past presidents who won and figure out why they received such a respected prize.
Let’s start with the first President and first American in general to win the Nobel Peace Prize…Theodore Roosevelt. For almost 2 years Russia and Japan were at war over who would own the Korean Peninsula. Wars have losers and that loser was Russia. Japan won the war, but both sides lost many. President Roosevelt wanted to make sure that Japan didn’t get too excited and potentially leading to the destabilization of the Pacific. He wanted Japan and Russia to know that we were not the quiet country on the other side of the ocean. So he gathered representatives from Russia and Japan to meet in New Hampshire to compromise. Obviously, Russia and Japan were not best friends as they just fought for two year long war. Japan was asking for a reimbursement from Russia for costs of war and Russia still claimed to rule Korea. Roosevelt and the representatives came to a compromise. Russia would drop all claims to Korea and Japan would stop pushing for reimbursement. A few other successful negotiations took place as well. I guess you could say it’s a win-win-win!I still believe Roosevelt’s greatest feat was giving us the idea for the teddy bear!
Now let’s talk about Woodrow Wilson, President during the First World War.
He won the award by creating the League of Nations. A group of countries joined together to help prevent a Second World War. The Senate voted against the US joining! The league the United States President created wouldn’t even have the US in it! Without us the League of Nations failed. Wilson was still honored as the second President to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jimmy Carter was the only President to receive the Nobel Peace prize after leaving office.The Nobel Peace Prize 2002 was awarded to Jimmy Carter “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
President Obama is the most recent President to have won. The funny thing is the deadline to be nominated was only 11 days after his inauguration in 2009. Which is a little funny because the chairman of the Nobel Prize said this “We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do.” None the less, President Obama received the award and it had mixed reactions from both the left and the right. In response of the award Obama said this “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
That was a look at the past, but I’m curious to see the future! Do you think President Trump should and or will win?