Prize

Gary Schmitt writes that Nobel Peace Prize committee snubbed NATO:

On Monday, the Nobel Peace Prize was presented to the European Union, with the claim that the EU was essential for post-World War II reconciliation and “probably the most dramatic example in history to show that war and conflict can be turned so rapidly into peace and cooperation.” Prize committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland handed the Nobel diplomas and medals to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, and President of the EU Parliament Martin Schulz at a ceremony of in Oslo’s City Hall, saying that the EU was instrumental in making “a continent of war (become) a continent of peace.”

As others have noted, given the crisis over the Euro, the acrimony among various states, and the growing sentiment in the United Kingdom over EU membership, there is a bit of an air to the award looking like one of those life-time achievement awards given out at the Oscars for aging movie stars who have had a long career but no awards to show for it. But that’s being a bit churlish. The EU has indeed helped bond a continent together that, in the past, was wracked by wars large and small and seemingly one after the other.