America has lost its moral authority
29 October 2008
There was a time when America spoke with a semblance of moral authority – not because the world believed the rhetoric, but because Americans did.
Thus, America received the benefit of the doubt – even when self-interest was evidently mixed with a just cause.
However, has America lost legitimacy? If so, then how did this happen and does it even matter?
Does power really need legitimacy? If so, then can the situation be reversed?
And in any case, why should we care?
Watch this debate:
Speakers
Chair:
Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre. Simon spent five years studying and working as a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Having won scholarships to study at Cambridge, he read for the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. He was inaugural President of The Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics and is a Director of a number of companies. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, based in New York. Simon has been Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre since shortly after it was founded.
For:
The Honourable Bob Carr is the longest continuously serving Premier in New South Wales history, having served for ten years until he retired from politics in 2005. Early in his career, he was a journalist with ABC Radio and The Bulletin. He is the author of several books and is now a consultant to Macquarie Bank. He’s been a long-time supporter of the Australia-US alliance. In 1999 he received the Fulbright Distinguished Fellow Award Scholarship for a significant contribution to Australian-American relations. For many years he was a regular participant in the annual American-Australian Leadership Dialogue and has served as Honorary Scholar of the Dialogue.
Owen Harries is a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney. His research interests include US foreign policy, the US-Australia alliance and morality and foreign policy. He is a graduate of Oxford University, and during the late-1970s became head of policy planning in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and senior adviser to the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser. In the mid-1980s he was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, where he became editor in chief of The National Interest, a leading Washington-based foreign policy quarterly, from its founding in 1985 until 2001. He has published over 200 articles in leading journals and magazines and is author of several books examining American policies. He delivered the 2003 Boyer Lectures for the ABC, published under the title, Benign or Imperial? Reflections on American Hegemony.
Paul McGeough is a former Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and is now its chief correspondent spending much of his time in conflict zones – Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. He was in Afghanistan just before September 11 and in New York on that day and has written several books about his reporting experiences, including Manhattan to Baghdad: Despatches from the frontline in the War on Terror and In Baghdad: A Reporter’s War. A hallmark of McGeough's writing is the human dimension he brings to world affairs. He is currently finishing his next book on the Middle East. Apart from being twice named Australian Journalist of the Year, his work has been acknowledged with five Walkley Awards.
Against:
Mark Carnegie is an investment banker who co-founded Carnegie, Wylie & Company, one of Australia’s leading independent corporate advisory and investment firms. He is currently in the US advising on the ramifications of the financial crisis. He has had a near twenty year career as an investor and corporate adviser in New York, London, and Sydney. Mark is a Director and CEO of Lazard Carnegie Wylie, a private equity firm, and a director of Macquarie Radio Network Ltd and a large number of investee companies. He is a former Director of Lonely Planet Publications, Chairman of STW Communications Group Pty Ltd (formerly Singleton Group Ltd and Australia’s most profitable advertising and marketing group) from 1993-2005. Amongst other investments Mark has been a participant in groups that have acquired major stakes in the Courage Pub Estate, John Fairfax Holdings, Hoyts Cinemas, Formula One Holdings, SCTV, Macquarie Radio Network and Lonely Planet Publications. Mark holds a BA from Oxford University and is a former Treasurer of the Oxford University Union.
Geoff Garrett is Professor of Political science and CEO of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, the mission of which is to increase understanding of the United States and to foster new opportunities for collaboration across the Pacific. He was previously President of the Pacific Council on International Policy and has held academic appointments at Oxford, Stanford and Yale universities. Geoff was born and raised in Canberra and holds a BA (Hons) from the Australian National University. He earned his MA and PhD at Duke University in North Carolina, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is a dual citizen of Australia and the US, and lived and worked in the US for twenty-five years before coming back to head the US Studies Centre. Garrett is an expert on US politics and foreign policy and the causes and consequences of globalisation, and is one of the most cited political scientists of his generation.
Martine Letts is Deputy Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. She spent four years as the Secretary General (CEO) of Australian Red Cross following a seventeen year career with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She specialised in arms control and disarmament on postings in Geneva, Vienna and as a policy officer in DFAT. She served as Australian Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. She was Deputy Head of Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and was an adviser to Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans from 1992 to 1994. Martine serves on two advisory committees to the Australian Government: including the National Consultative Committee on International Security Issues (NCCISI).
