For his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize during his first year as president of the United States. In his acceptance speech, after recognizing the paucity of his accomplishments on the world stage as U.S. president, Obama notes the irony of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the leader of the world’s largest miliary, which was then engaged in both a war in Afghanistan and the so-called war on terror. In support of those efforts, Obama examines the concept of a just war. While a just war used to mean simply a war of last resort or for self-defense, Obama uses this speech to broaden that definition. Most of the speech centers on justifying the way that the United States was then projecting military force around the globe.