Norway cares deeply about its image as a “peace nation”, and one of the clearest symbols of this is the Nobel Peace Prize, whose winners were announced on Friday, 9th of October, 2026.
However, while speaking about peace out of one side of its mouth, the norwegian state allows companies like Nammo and Kongsberg Gruppen to profit from war and genocide. It also plans to build Europe’s largest military explosives factory in Hurummarka, and is funding the company behind this, Chemring Nobel, with almost 390 million kroners of public money throughout 2026 and 2027. Chemring Nobel produces explosives which are critical to the US, german and israeli military industry, including the genocide in Palestine, and in supporting them the norwegian state expands militarisation at all costs.
How ironic that Chemring Nobel and the peace prize both lead back to the same Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who created this prize to wash the blood off his hands.
But what does peace even mean if norwegian companies produce crucial components for the bombs, fighter jets and missiles used on Gaza, Venezuela and Iran? If Norway as a nation state is built on the ongoing colonization of Sápmi? If the state owned Statkraft profits from the colonization of Indigenous territories in Latin America through hydropower development? If Equinor is operating and extracting in nearly 30 countries?
If we open our eyes, we understand that peace is a concept invented and maintained by those in power only to preserve their power. Through the eyes of oppressed peoples, peace can not exist before there is justice. In the oppressor’s narrative, peace is when oppression is not confronted and everything is “in order”. Resistance, on the other hand, is framed as violent and extremist, although this rupture is neccessary for liberation.
The Norwegian state’s attempt to uphold its image as a peace nation whilst actively contributing to and profiting from war, colonization, and genocide is nothing but a farce, meant to blind us from the reality that the war industry is soon Norway’s second biggest industry after oil and gas. Within this context, the Nobel Peace Prize becomes nothing more than a distraction and a symbol of Norwegian hypocrisy.
But even worse than a mere distraction, the peace prize itself becomes a tool of war and domination by giving legitimacy to powerful political figures. Just last year, a US-government-funded far-right coup leader won the peace prize and tried to pass it on to Trump. Awarding the peace prize to Machado gave her politics public legitimacy, which built the neccessary foundation on which the US could use F-35 fighter jets (partly norwegian made) during the coup.
Behind the scenes we also see that the Oslo diplomats Terje Rød Larsen (also leader of International Peace Institute) and Mona Juul were part of the corrupt Epstein-class. Torbjørn Jagland, former Prime minister of Norway and chair of the Nobel Committee also kept a close relationship with Epstein for 8 years. The ethno-nationalist Asle Toje, deputy leader of the Norwegian Nobel committee, is a member of the Swedish far-right think tank Oikos which sponsored the nazi-founded Sweden Democrats with 5 million SEK anonymously and continues to fund the party. Toje also has been a supporter of the identitarian movement in Europe.
The peace prize and the production of weapons or explosives are part of the same military-industrial complex and its agenda of global domination and control over people, land and resources.
Even if this year’s winner can be seen as a (more) legitimate holder of a peace prize, the institution of the Nobel Peace Prize itself must be understood as what it is: a distraction from what all states uphold and reinforce, namely violent borders, resource wars and genocides. Through this mechanism, the Nobel peace prize becomes a weapon in itself.
Come to the forest now to fight for a more just world, one without war factories and the industries of genocide, which no (peace) state will ever dismantle itself.
Knus Krigsmaskinen! Knus the peace prize!