Jan Oberg
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Nobel Committee: A Prize for US Military Regime Change
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Rewards Militarism, Defies Alfred Nobel’s Will
The board of the Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research (TFF) strongly condemns the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has once again violated Alfred Nobel’s original mandate by honouring a figure who openly advocates foreign military intervention.
In a CBS News interview, Machado declared:
“The only way to stop the suppression is by force—U.S. force.”
Maria Machado meeting with one of her natural class allies in the US.
She has also appealed directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him to use “force and influence” to help dismantle Venezuela’s government—a move documented in her 2018 letter and widely circulated among peace researchers.
In CNN-aligned reporting, Machado praised U.S. naval deployments off Venezuela’s coast and described the Maduro government as a “criminal organization” threatening regional stability. She warned military leaders:
“Either they sink with Maduro and his criminal system, or they contribute to saving Venezuela and save themselves as well.” — CiberCuba coverage
What Nobel Actually Intended
Alfred Nobel’s will, signed in 1895, defines that his peace prize shall go to work:
“…the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Machado’s record violates all three – while the Committee chairman twisted it beyond recognition to make it look like Ms Machado was relevant. Her calls for foreign military pressure, silence on the humanitarian impact of sanctions, and alignment with interventionist agendas stand in stark contradiction to Nobel’s vision.
Militarising Ourselves to Death
Global military expenditures are rising faster than at any point since 1945. Europe now invests more in weapons than in anything else. The Trump regime openly proposes military deployment to suppress domestic dissent. We are, de facto, militarising ourselves to death.
In this perilous moment, the Nobel Committee rewards someone who calls for military force. It deliberately ignores Nobel’s intent to reduce war and militarism.
From Laureates to Lobbyists
Machado joins a troubling lineage of laureates whose actions contradict the spirit of peace: Kissinger, Obama, the EU, and the Ukrainian human rights activists who advocated for more weapons imports.
Each award diluted the meaning of peace, replacing it with strategic symbolism and, as usual and without exception, aligned with US/NATO interests.
A Prize in Crisis – Time for an international legal investigation
The Nobel Peace Prize was meant to uplift those dismantling the machinery of war—not those seeking to recalibrate it. By honouring Machado, the Committee sends a dangerous message: that peace can be pursued through coercion, that sovereignty is negotiable, and that militarised resistance is worthy of global acclaim.
This year’s award is not just a misstep. It is a betrayal.
TFF calls for an independent legal investigation into the Nobel Committee’s repeated violations of its mandate. The Committee must be held accountable—and its work suspended until a verdict is reached.
Peace cannot be entrusted to those who confuse force with fraternity.
*****
The Lay Down Your Arms Foundation has just awarded its true-peace prize aligned with Nobel’s spirit and words to UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories to Francesca Albanese. But that does not get anything like the media attention this peace-betraying Committee does. You guess why…
BELOW: The obscenity behind this prize, long used by Washington as a legitimating tool for its imperialist work. Why, you may ask, are Norway and Sweden collaborating with Washington in these farcical antics? The answer is simple: Like Germany and the rest of Europe, the Scandinavians sold out to the Empire a long time ago, victims of their ruling classes and political elites' corruption. (The report below is by Fox News, a pro-Trump/Zionist and openly imperial/hegemonist media outfit) :
Addendum / MEDIA WATCH
A well-written commentary marred by liberaloid flim-flam
THE NATION / WORLD / OCTOBER 13, 2025
The Nobel Peace Prize Just Surrendered to Trump
Trump is mad that he didn’t win. But by honoring María Corina Machado, the Nobel Committee has endorsed his war against Venezuela—and continued Europe’s MAGA groveling.
María Corina Machado appearing on Fox News after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.(Fox News)
Donald Trump’s narcissism is truly a force of nature—a black hole that consumes everything around it and can never be filled. His neediness is insatiable: No amount of grovelling praise can ever be effusive enough, no defeat of his political enemies total enough, and no worldly achievement can ever allow him a moment of satisfaction. Now, having twice won the presidency, Trump set his eyes on a new prize, one all the more desirable because, like the title of commander in chief, it was also once held by Barack Obama: the Nobel Peace Prize.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has “fixated on the prize” and openly lobbied for it for months, his hunger so naked that “domestic supporters and international leaders seeking his favor have joined him in a vociferous campaign.” Trump claimed he deserved the prize because he “solved eight wars in a period of nine months.” (In a twist that will shock no one, it turns out that this is not true.) And it’s widely rumored that part of the reason Trump engineered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was to have the deal sewn up in time for a last-minute award in this year’s Nobels.
But on Friday, Trump got the disappointing news that he’d been snubbed. Instead, the prize went to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan politician who has challenged the autocratic regime of her country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Some in the White House couldn’t hide their bitterness. White House communications director Steven Sheung grumbled, “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.” Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, sneered, “Nobel Prize died years ago.”
These scoffing words are exceptionally shortsighted. While Trump’s winning the Peace Prize would’ve been the best outcome for the White House, Machado was the second-best possible result. Nor was it a small consolation prize.
Over the past two months, the Trump administration has become increasingly belligerent towards Venezuela, repeatedly attacking Venezuelan boats with the unproven (and legally irrelevant) claim that they were smuggling drugs. Every indication is that the United States is preparing for a regime-change war. Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize, ironically, makes this pending war more likely.
A New York Times headline captured the irony: “Peace Prize Winner Has Supported Trump’s Military Actions in the Caribbean.” To the famous Orwellian slogan “War is peace” we can now add a new variation: “Peace Prize justifies war.”
Machado’s prize can be seen as both a product of Trump administration diplomacy and a green light for war. Last fall, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a senator, signed a letter nominating Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize. The letter was signed by seven Republican lawmakers, including Michael Waltz, who is now the US ambassador to the United Nations after a contentious and brief term as Trump’s national security adviser. These Republicans supported Machado because she fundamentally shares their vision of counterrevolution and neoliberal restoration in Venezuela. Among other policies, she’s committed to privatizing the nation’s immense oil reserves.
Upon winning the prize, Machado cannily posted on the social media site X that she wanted to “dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” Speaking on Fox News on Friday, Machado said Trump “deserves” the prize for his self-proclaimed efforts in ending eight wars and championing of democracy in Venezuela.
Machado’s brand of democracy promotion, reliant as it is on US military intervention, deserves skepticism. Speaking on Democracy Now! on Friday, Yale historian Greg Grandin described her winning of the Nobel as a “really a shocking choice.” Grandin noted that Machado supported a coup against democratically elected President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Her hard-line position on economic matters has both hampered and divided the anti-Maduro coalition. And the fact that she’s praised both the bombing of Venezuelan boats and welcomed further American interventions into Venezuela is likely to strengthen Maduro’s hold on power, since it vindicates his claim that the opposition is filled with US puppets. Grandin also pointed out that if the Nobel committee had wanted to legitimize the anti-Maduro opposition, they could’ve given the award to feminist leaders who are both critics of the regime and oppose US intervention.
Aside from currying the support of Trump, Machado has repeatedly sought out alliances with authoritarian leaders such as El Salvador’s El Nayib Bukele, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. In February, she was a virtual participant in a conference in Madrid called Patriots of Europe, a meeting of far-right groups steeped in racism.
The danger of Machado’s victory is that she can now use her prestige as a Nobel Peace Prize winner to organize mainstream support for a regime-change war. Notably, the awarding of the prize has drawn praise from Barack Obama and in the pages of The Washington Post. Centrist liberals, already reluctant to criticize Trump’s bombing campaign against Venezuelan boats, are likely to be even more cowed now. As with George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, a bipartisan consensus could support regime change in Venezuela. The imprimatur of the Nobel Peace Prize will make such a war more likely.
Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize falls into a larger pattern of European elites aligning themselves with Trump’s foreign policy. Trump’s America First rhetoric and trade war threats seem to have scared NATO allies. In theory, this fear could have led the European ruling class to work toward a more independent, post-American foreign policy. In practice, the Europeans have chosen instead to grovel as much as possible in hope of winning Trump’s favor.
Special Addendum
The Nobel Peace Prize Watch Has Been LaunchedOn March 3, 2015, The Telegraph and a few other major news surces broke the quite extraordinary story that the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee – the body that decides who is awarded the Prize – former Norwegian PM Thorbjoern Jagland had been demoted; it’s the first time it has ever happened. It was during his chairmanship that the will of Alfred Nobel was ignored most systematically; e.g., by awarding the world’s allegedly most prestigious prize to President Obama, the EU and Chinese human rights (but pro-war) Liu Xiaobo. It’s about seven years ago that a small group of Scandinavian scholars decided to investigate how this prize is managed. The basic research can be found in a book by Norwegian lawyer and author, Fredrik S. Heffermehl, The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted which was the first major result of the group’s work. It documents how this prize is “prestigious” only for those who either a) have never read Alfred Nobe’s will; b) don’t believe it should be interpreted with respect for his motives and goals and c) have very little knowledge about peace and peace research. Nobel’s formulation in his will is short and clear – the Peace Prize shall go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” He calls such people “champions of peace”. More here. Thus, the Nobel Peace Prize is not a do-good prize, not a human rights or environmental prize and not a pro-war prize. But it is a reward work for disarmament, anti-militarism and the abolition of warfare and people – be it politicians, scholars, activists – who are pro-peace, champions of peace. The legal challenges that the Nobel Peace Prize Watch has raised over the years can be found here. The Nobel Peace Prize Watch Over the years, the criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s work has increased. Seven years ago, I cannot remember that any journalist who interviewed me about the Prize had read the will. Now about 75% of them seem to have before they call. Fredrik Heffermehl, Oslo, and Tomas Magnusson, Gothenburg, have now established the Lay Down Your Arms Association which was incorporated and registered in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014 with a Scandinavian and an International Advisory Board. The Association’s first project has been to set up the Nobel Peace Prize Watch where you can acquaint yourself with the Prize, its history, background, the criticism over time, etc. The Nobel Peace Prize Watch has written a detailed letter, dated February 20, 2015, to the Norwegian Parliament, The Nobel Foundation in Stockholm and to the Norwegian Nobel Committee outlining what must be done and why a watch has become necessary. These initiatives have, with few exceptions, been ignored by the media, media which profess to practise freedom of expression and freedom of the media but seem to hesitate to challenge the political establishment that preserves this prize as an emblem for Norway and its security and foreign policy. Why? Few seem to be aware that the Nobel Committee, in contrast to other Nobel prize selection bodies, consists of former MPs and not of experts in the broad field of peace. It is worth also mentioning that Nobel in his will stipulated that the Norwegian Parliament should appoint a qualified committee; he did not say it should consist of its members. These circumstances place the “prestigious” Prize in danger of being tied to Norwegian political interests. Whether this danger is big or small can be debated but not the fact that it is peculiar that the Peace Prize is the only one that doesn’t require any particular scientific or other competence – as if peace was not an area of knowledge, research and professionalism. Breaking the secrecy: The candidatesA global research effort has been made to break the secrecy surrounding the selection process for the Prize and publish a list of known candidates for 2015 with documentation. Transparency makes it possible for everyone to see for themselves which candidates satisfy Alfred Nobel’s criteria, which candidates are selected by the Committee and whether or not some were available who do satisfy the criteria. Allegedly there are around 300 for 2015 and here is the result of the research – a list of the so far 25 known, documented candidates.* You can read about each candidate, see who nominated them and with what motivations. And if you know about nominations not mentioned here, please alert the Nobel Peace Prize Watch. The Prize must come back to Alfred Nobel’s champions of peaceThe work, begun seven years ago, to create debate about the Nobel Peace Prize has gained momentum. It is unacceptable that the millions of people around the world who work for peace in the sense Alfred Nobel intended have been deprived of what is truly the most prestigious and noble thing: to be rewarded for their struggle against militarism and for a world with much fewer weapons and wars. That work will be intensified and continue to develop a critical mass in support of Alfred Nobel’s will. I kindly urge you to spread this message through traditional media, social media and your various communities. * TFF is immensely proud to see that four of its Associates are among the Candidates for the 2015 Prize: Richard Falk, David Krieger, Evelin Lindner and Jan Oberg. |
Jan Oberg is a peace researcher, art photographer, and Director of The Transnational (TFF) where this article first appeared. Reach him at: oberg@transnational.org. Read other articles by Jan.
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