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The Role for Ethics in Bush's New World Order*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Steve Brinkoetter
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Abstract

The end of the Cold War and the reduction of tensions between East and West have generated talk of a “new world order” in which greater cooperation between states might be possible. These developments also raise the possibility that state behavior might be constrained more than ever before by shared moral standards, contributing further to the reduction in international tensions. Brinkoetter investigates the potential role that shared moral standards - and international ethics in general - may play in this new world order. The role that one finds for international ethics in the new world order depends upon whose version of it is being evaluated - in this case George Bush's.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 6 , March 1992 , pp. 69 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1992

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References

1 Robin Wright, “Old Ways Falling But ‘New World Order’ Is Still Murky,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1991, p. H-1.Google Scholar

2 One “senior State Department official,” when asked about what is meant by the new world order, replied, “Go ask them upstairs…. Nobody around here knows what it is.” (Quoted in Doyle McManus, “Bush's Vision of a ‘New World Order’ Still Unclear,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1991, p. A-9).Google Scholar

3 Steve Brinkoetter, “Bush's New World Order: Identifying It and Making It Work” (Paper delivered at the International Studies Association West Regional Conference, Los Angeles, California, November 1, 1991).Google Scholar

4 Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 27 (March 2, 1991), p. 246Google Scholar.

5 The most significant departure from the UN Charter during the Gulf War was probably with respect to Article 46, which states simply, “Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.” The UN enforcement action in Korea, having been authorized during the Soviet boycott of the proceedings, was less of an agreement between Security Council members than it was an exploitation of a member's absence.Google Scholar

6 Presidential Documents 26 (August 20, 1990), p. 1275.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. (September 19, 1990), p. 1409.Google Scholar

8 Ibid. (September 21, 1990), p. 1417.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. (October 23, 1990), p. 1640.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. (November 30, 1990), p. 1948.Google Scholar

11 Ibid. (October 23, 1990), p. 1644.Google Scholar

12 Presidential Documents 27 (March 2, 1991), p. 245Google Scholar.

13 Pettman, Ralph, ed., Moral Claims in World Affairs (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), p. 9Google Scholar.

14 Brinkoetter, “Bush's New World Order,” p. 4.Google Scholar

15 Luard, Evan, The United Nations (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), p. 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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21 An aide that closely observed Bush during the Gulf crisis has been quoted as saying about the President: “I think he's genuinely offended by what happened—there's a sense of principle, his own sense of international order and his sense of morality….Yes, he's interested in energy and the rest. But that's more cerebral. The more gut-type thing is that what these guys did was wrong—and what they're doing inside Kuwait is wrong—and it just can't stand.” James Gerstenzang, “The President ‘What These Guys Did Was Wrong,’”Los Angeles Times, November 25, 1990, p. T-10.Google Scholar

22 Bush's most extensive reference to just-war doctrine was in his speech at the National Religious Broadcaster's convention on January 28, 1991. (Presidential Documents 27, pp. 87–88.).Google Scholar

23 See Articles 24(1) and 39 of the UN Charter.Google Scholar

24 Some authors deny that there is any significant moral distinction between positive and negative moral duties, meaning, that morality requires adherence to positive duties just as strictly as negative duties. For a recent argument to this effect, see Kagan, Shelly, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989)Google Scholar. For an argument at the opposite end of the spectrum, claiming that morality requires adherence to negative moral duties only, see Gert, Bernard, Morality: A New Justification of the Moral Rules (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 70–73, 160–62.Google Scholar