IIEA Talks IIEA

In his webinar address to the IIEA, Mark Landler assesses the outcome of the US Presidential Election in the context of Anglo-American relations. Four years on, as Brexit Britain prepares to finally sever ties with the EU, he considers what a Biden Administration will mean for US-UK cooperation and a potential future free trade deal.

About the Speaker:

Mark Landler is the London Bureau Chief of The New York Times. In 28 years at The Times, he has been Bureau Chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. He is the author of Alter Egos (2016), a comparative study of the foreign policy of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In his address to the IIEA, Professor Mearsheimer discusses the foreign policy agenda of the President Biden administration. He shares his insights on the likely continuities as well as differences between the Biden administration’s policies and the policies pursued by President Trump over the past four years.

About the Speaker:

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point (1970), has a PhD in political science from Cornell University (1981), and has written extensively about security issues and international politics. Among his six books, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001, 2014) won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), made the New York Times bestseller list. His latest book is The Great Delusion: Liberal Ideals and International Realities (2018), which won the 2019 Best Book of the Year Award from the Valdai Discussion Conference, Moscow.  In 2020, he won the James Madison Award, which is given once every three years by the American Political Science Association to “an American political scientist who has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to political science.”

In this panel discussion, which is jointly organised by the Embassy of Ireland to Belgium, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the IIEA, three distinguished Irish women highlight their experiences in senior leadership roles and offer perspectives on how the application of the Women, Peace and Security, (WPS), agenda can enhance foreign, security and defence policy.

2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and is the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. To celebrate these milestones, the panel discusses how the meaningful participation of women at the decision-making table can shape better policy and operational decisions. This event is part of the Irish Embassy’s #VisibleWomen2020 initiative, amplifying the female voice and women’s role in diplomacy, development, entrepreneurship and the arts.

About the Speakers:

Brigadier General Maureen O’Brien is the most senior woman serving in the Irish Defence Forces and the first Irish woman to achieve the rank of Brigadier General. She is Deputy Force Commander of the UN Disengagement Observer Force Mission in the Golan Heights, and has extensive overseas experience in Lebanon, Western Sahara, East Timor, Chad and Sarajevo.

Jacqui McCrum is the first woman to lead the Department of Defence as Secretary General. Previously, she was Deputy Secretary General in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Director General and Accounting Officer in the Office of the Ombudsman, Offices of the Information Commissioner, and Commissioner for Environmental Information, Standards in the Public Office Commission, Referendum Commission and Commission for Public Service Appointments.

Sonja Hyland is the first woman to serve as Political Director in the Department of Foreign Affairs. She has also served as Ireland’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, South Sudan, Djibouti, IGAD and the African Union, and Ireland’s Ambassador to Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru.

In his address to the IIEA, Professor Sachs discusses how global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to ‘build back better’ in seeking sustainable and equitable solutions to longstanding challenges. Professor Sachs considers how this can be achieved and what kind of blueprint the Sustainable Development Goals provide for recovery. Professor Sachs reflects on the obstacles facing these efforts and the role to be played by a multilateral approach and the United Nations.

This event is part of our Development Matters lecture series supported by Irish Aid.

About the Speaker:

Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs is a renowned economist, author, educator, and global leader in sustainable development. He currently serves as Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and a UN Advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals. Among his prior roles, Professor Sachs held the positions of Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon and Antonio Guterres. He is the author of numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers, and was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize for environmental leadership.

Moderated by Caitríona Perry, RTÉ Six One Presenter and former Washington Correspondent, this panel brings together leading experts on US foreign policy vis-à-vis China, Russia and the Middle East. Taking place just days after the US Presidential Election, this expert discussion focuses on how US foreign policy may shift under a President Joe Biden or continue in the same vein under President Trump.

About the Speakers:

Dr Michele Dunne, Director and Senior Fellow of Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Programme. Michele previously served as a Middle East specialist in the State Department from 1986 to 2003, serving in the National Security Council, the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff, the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem.

Dr Elizabeth Economy, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Elizabeth is an award-winning author of several books on Chinese domestic and foreign policy including The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018) and By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest is Changing the World (2014).

Dr Angela Stent, Director of the Centre for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and a Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Angela also serves as Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and previously served in the the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department. An acclaimed expert and author, her latest book is Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest (2019).

In his webinar address to the IIEA, Ambassador Mulvaney outlines the US Government’s perspective on the protection of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland in the context of ongoing future relationship talks between the United Kingdom and the European Union and a possible future UK-US trade deal.

About the Speaker:

Ambassador John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney was sworn in as United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland in May 2020. Prior to this appointment, Ambassador Mulvaney served in President Donald Trump's cabinet as acting White House Chief of Staff and concurrently as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He previously served as the acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from November 2017 to December 2018. Ambassador Mulvaney represented South Carolina’s fifth district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 until 2017, and he sat in the South Carolina General Assembly from 2007 until 2011. Before entering public service, he practiced law and worked in his family’s real estate business. Ambassador Mulvaney holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is married and has three children.