Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
1AC
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Leadership
Contention one is leadership U.S. Dominance in space is quickly dissipating
Valerie Neal 7-6-11, writer for the Economic Times, “End of space shuttle, end to US
dominanceofspace?<http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-0706/news/29743674_1_valerie-neal-space-shuttle-shuttle-era>
WASHINGTON: The flight into space by NASA's space shuttle Atlantis on this Friday will mark
end of the shuttle era, but many believe it may also mean the end of US hegemony in the
space. Although NASA has led numbers of manned flights into space for three decades, no additional such flights are planned for
the moment. Top officials at the space agency, however, maintain this isn't the end of this country's manned effort in space, rather just the beginning of a new chapter.
"I don't think this means the end of US crewed flights, but we're in a period of
uncertainty and we don't know for how long," Valerie Neal, the official in charge of the shuttle area at the National Air and Space
Museum in Washington, said. "I think that what's a little disappointing is that we really don't have a
clear vision of what it is that's going to come after," Neal said. "There's uncertainty in NASA
and among the general public." After this NASA shuttle flight, private companies will be in charge of
developing the technology for future space vehicles. This will enable the US space
agency to focus on other projects, like working out the logistics of a manned Mars mission or travelling to an asteroid, two of the goals President
Barack Obama set out in his new space strategy, says NASA director Charles Bolden. Although, the companies with which NASA
has signed agreements to develop new spacecraft "are making some optimistic predictions" about when the new space vehicles
will be ready, Neal said, "the truth is that they have still not been prepared". As a nation, we are in "the final
part of the second great era of space exploration," similar to what we went through in the 1970s after the last Apollo mission, the
programme that succeeded in putting men on the moon, he added. NASA took almost a decade to develop and launch the shuttle programme, and it was not until April 12, 1981 20 years after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space - that Columbia was sent into orbit, followed by Challenger (1983), Discovery (1984),
Atlantis (1985) and Endeavour (1992). Neal, whose museum will receive the Discovery to exhibit to the public in April 2012, said that
the shuttles had been
great spacecraft.
This makes challengers inevitable and threatens critical space assets. That
risks war
A. THOMAS YOUNG ET. AL 2008, DIRECTOR OF THE GOODRICH CORPORATION AND SCIENCE
APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, “LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND ORGANIZATION FOR
NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE: REPORT TO CONGRESS OF THE INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT PANEL ON THE
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE”
Potential adversaries inevitably will employ available advanced capabilities to challenge
current U.S. preeminence in space operations. The Russians are still the most capable spacefaring people aside from us. They are not our enemy, and indeed we are working together with the Russians on the International Space Station. Still,
available Russian technologies pose the most important potential threat to American space operations. Over
the years, they have developed an extensive stable of capable launch 6 LTC John L. Thurman, “National Security Space Industrial Base Study,” OSD Cost Analysis Improvement
Group, September 19, 2006. See also Final Report of Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry (Walker Report, 2002) on aerospace industry
China is clearly on the path to
developing the capability to conduct sophisticated space operations. In 1964, they detonated their first nuclear
consolidation. vehicles, and in 1977 they demonstrated their capability to shoot down Earth orbiting satellites.
weapon. This was followed by the “Long March” series of missiles, built first to carry nuclear weapons and then to achieve the capability to reach Earth orbit. Since 1999, China
has initiated a national navigation system, launched a 3-meter-resolution imagery satellite, conducted its first manned space flight, exported a satellite to Nigeria, and launched its
In
assessing the potential vulnerability of U.S. space systems, it is also essential to factor in
potential adversaries’ growing cyber-attack capabilities, as well as the potential
employment of land-based directed energy weapons that could attack satellites in lowearthorbit. At this time, we do not believe either Russia or China poses a major threat, but the United States must be prepared to face
first lunar probe.7 China also demonstrated the capability of an anti-satellite weapon when it destroyed one of its aging weather (Fengyun 1-C) satellites on January 11, 2007.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
adversaries who have obtained the available advanced capabilities. Both the Chinese and
the Russians have an interest in common— to eventually remove the United States from its current dominant military and economic position in the world. They
will continue to develop capabilities to deter or deny the employment of U.S. space
assets, and they may also use surrogates to accomplish this objective. Continued investments in technical
capabilities to attack space systems, and the proliferation of associated technologies, signal the capability and intent to intimidate, deter, and perhaps attack space-based systems.
the United States must be prepared to face challenges to our freedom of action in
space, and perhaps actual conflict in space.
Ultimately,
Scenario A—Power Projection
Securing and developing space capabilities is key to every facet of military
activity and locks in hegemonyA. Thomas Young et. al 2008, Director of the Goodrich Corporation and Science Applications International Corporation,
“Leadership, Management, and Organization for National Security Space: Report to Congress of the Independent Assessment Panel
on the Organization and Management of National Security Space”
spacebased capabilities are essential elements of the nation’s economic infrastructure and
provide critical underpinnings for national security. Space-based capabilities should not
be managed as derivative to other missions, or as a diffuse set of loosely related
capabilities. Rather, they must be viewed as essential for restoring and preserving the health
of our NSS enterprise. NSS requires top leadership focus and sustained attention. The U.S. space sector, in
supporting commercial, scientific, and military applications of space, is embedded in our
nation’s economy, providing technological leadership and sustainment of the industrial
base. To cite one leading example, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is the world standard for precision
navigation and timing, directly and indirectly affecting numerous aspects of everyday life. But other capabilities such as
weather services; space-based data, telephone and video communications; and television
broadcasts have also become common, routine services. The Space Foundation’s 2008 Space Report indicates that
The IAP’s assessment, our findings, and our recommendations for aggressive action are based on the understanding that
the U.S. commercial satellite services and space infrastructure sector is today approximately a $170 billion annual business. Manned
space flight and the unmanned exploration of space continue to represent both symbolic and
substantive scientific “high ground” for the nation. The nation’s investments in the International Space
Station, the Hubble Telescope, and scientific probes such as Pioneer, Voyager, and Spirit maintain and demonstrate our determination
They also spark the interest of the technical, engineering, and
scientific communities and capture the imaginations of our youth. The national security
contributions of space-based capabilities have become increasingly pervasive, sophisticated, and
important. Global awareness provided from space—including intelligence on the military capabilities of
potential adversaries, intelligence on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and missile warning and defense—enables
effective planning for and response to critical national security requirements. The communications
and competence to operate in space.
bandwidth employed for Operation Iraqi Freedom today is over 100 times the bandwidth employed at the peak of the first Gulf war.
Approximately 80 percent of this bandwidth is being provided by commercial satellite capacity. Military capabilities at all levels—
strategic, operational, and tactical— increasingly rely upon the availability of space-based capabilities. Over the recent decades,
Space systems,
have increasingly
navigation and precision munitions were being developed and refined based on space-based technologies.
including precision navigation, satellite communications, weather data, signals intelligence, and imagery,
provided essential support for military operations,
including most recently from the very first days of
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Similarly, the operational dominance of coalition forces in the initial phase of Operation
Iraqi Freedom provided a textbook application of the power of enhancing situational awareness through the use of space-based
These capabilities
are continuing to provide major force-multipliers for the soldiers, airmen, sailors, and
marines performing stabilization, counter-improvised explosive device (IED), counterterrorism, and
other irregular warfare missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. As the role and
importance of space-based capabilities for military operations grows, the users are
services such as precision navigation, weather data management, and communications on the battlefield.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
demanding that they be more highly integrated with land-, sea-, and air-based capabilities.
During the first decades of the Cold War, the premier applications of space could be exemplified by the highly specialized systems
that enabled exposed photographic film to be parachuted from space, developed and analyzed by intelligence experts, and rushed to
the situation room in the White House for strategic purposes. Space-based capabilities were uniquely capable of providing visibility
into areas of denied access. Today and in the future, the employment of space-based capabilities will increasingly support military
operations. And for all users, the employment of spacebased capabilities will be more accurately exemplified by sophisticated
database searches of a range of relevant commercially available and specialized national security digital information, using tools that
there
can be no doubt that continued leadership in space is a vital national interest that merits
strong national leadership and careful stewardship.
integrate such information across all sources. For all the reasons cited here—military, intelligence, commercial, scientific—
And, credible power projection stops all wars from going nuclear
Kagan ‘11. Jan 24, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 18. Robert Kagan. Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“The Price of Power: The benefits of U.S. defense spending far outweigh the costs.”<http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/pricepower_533696.html?page=1>
Today the international situation is also one of high risk. • The terrorists who would like to kill Americans on U.S. soil constantly search for safe havens from which to plan and carry out their attacks. American military actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen,
and elsewhere make it harder for them to strike and are a large part of the reason why for almost a decade there has been no repetition of September 11. To the degree that we limit our ability to deny them safe haven, we increase the chances they will succeed. •
American forces
prevented outbreak of major war
China seeks
to push the
U.S. military’s area of operations back to Hawaii and exercise hegemony over the world’s most rapidly
growing economies.
North Korea threatens war with South Korea and fires ballistic missiles
over Japan that will someday be capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. Democratic
nations in the region, worried that the United States may be losing influence, turn to Washington for
reassurance that the U.S. security guarantee remains firm. If the United States cannot provide that
assurance because it is cutting back its military capabilities, they will have to choose between accepting
Chinese dominance and striking out on their own, possibly by building nuclear weapons
Iran
seeks to build its own nuclear arsenal
deployed
in East Asia
and the Western Pacific
have
for decades
the
, provided stability, and kept open international
trading routes, making possible an unprecedented era of growth and prosperity for Asians and Americans alike. Now the United States faces a new challenge and potential threat from a rising
which
eventually
Meanwhile, a nuclear-armed
.
• In the Middle East,
, supports armed radical Islamic groups in Lebanon and Palestine, and has linked up with anti-American dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere. The prospects of new
instability in the region grow every day as a decrepit regime in Egypt clings to power, crushes all moderate opposition, and drives the Muslim Brotherhood into the streets. A nuclear-armed Pakistan seems to be ever on the brink of collapse into anarchy and radicalism.
nations
look to Washington for reassurance if
U S cannot be relied upon they will
succumb to Iranian influence or build their own nuclear weapons to resist it.
Turkey, once an ally, now seems bent on an increasingly anti-American Islamist course. The prospect of war between Hezbollah and Israel grows, and with it the possibility of war between Israel and Syria and possibly Iran. There, too,
increasingly
, and
they decide the
nited
tates
in the region
have to decide whether to
In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union had collapsed and the biggest problem in
the world seemed to be ethnic conflict in the Balkans, it was at least plausible to talk about cutting back on American military capabilities. In the present, increa singly dangerous international environment, in which terrorism and great power rivalry vie as the greatest
Would we increase the risk of strategic failure in an already risky world,
despite the near irrelevance of the defense budget to American fiscal health
threat to American security and interests, cutting military capacities is simply reckless.
, just so we could tell American voters that their military had suffered its “fair
share” of the pain? The nature of the risk becomes plain when one considers the nature of the cuts that would have to be made to have even a marginal effect on the U.S. fiscal crisis. Many are under the illusion, for instance, that if the United States simply withdrew
from Iraq and Afghanistan and didn’t intervene anywhere else for a while, this would have a significant impact on future deficits. But, in fact, projections of future massive deficits already assume the winding down of these interventions.Withdrawal from the two wars
would scarcely make a dent in the fiscal crisis. Nor can meaningful reductions be achieved by cutting back on waste at the Pentagon—which Secretary of Defense Gates has already begun to do and which has also been factored into deficit projections. If the United
States withdrew from Iran and Afghanistan tomorrow, cut all the waste Gates can find, and even eliminated a few weapons programs—all this together would still not produce a 10 percent decrease in overall defense spending. In fact, the only way to get significant
savings from the defense budget—and by “significant,” we are still talking about a tiny fraction of the cuts needed to bring down future deficits—is to cut force structure: fewer troops on the ground; fewer airplanes in the skies; fewer ships in the water; fewer soldiers,
pilots, and sailors to feed and clothe and provide benefits for. To cut the size of the force, however, requires reducing or eliminating the missions those forces have been performing. Of course, there are any number of think tank experts who insist U.S. forces can be cut
by a quarter or third or even by half and still perform those missions. But this is snake oil. Over the past two decades, the force has already been cut by a third. Yet no administration has reduced the missions that the larger force structures of the past were designed to
meet. To fulfill existing security commitments, to remain the “world’s power balancer of choice,” as Leslie Gelb puts it, to act as “the only regional balancer against China in Asia, Russia in eastern Europe, and Iran in the Middle East” requires at least the current force
structure, and almost certainly more than current force levels. Those who recommend doing the same with less are only proposing a policy of insufficiency, where the United States makes commitments it cannot meet except at high risk of failure. The only way to find
substantial savings in the defense budget, therefore, is to change American strategy fundamentally. The Simpson-Bowles commission suggests as much, by calling for a reexamination of America’s “21st century role,” although it doesn’t begi n to define what that new
role might be.
Others have. For decades “
realist
” analysts
have called for
a strategy of “
offshore balancing
.” Instead of the United States providing security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would
withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and
Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher Layne has long proposed “passing the mantle of regional stabilizer” to a consortiu m of “Russia, China, Iran, and India.” In East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others manage
their own problems, without U.S. involvement—again, until the balance broke down and war erupted, at which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if necessary, intervene with its own forces to restore peace and stability.
Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the only genuine alternative to the one the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit, Layne and others who support the concept of offshore
balancing have eschewed halfway measures and airy assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either the United States is actively involved in providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western
Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are frank in calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II, perpetuated through the Cold War, and continued by four
The idea of relying on Russia, China, and
Iran to jointly “stabilize” the Middle East and Persian Gulf will not strike many as an attractive proposition.
Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to have a stabilizing effect on that region. The
prospects of a war on the Korean Peninsula would increase. Japan and other nations in the region would
face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking unilateral steps for self-defense, which in
Japan’s case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable nuclear arsenal
successive post-Cold War administrations. At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy.
. Layne and other offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John Mearsheimer, point
to two notable occasions when the United States allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years against Iran in the hope that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in
the 1920s and 1930s, when the United States allowed the great European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out. Whether this was really
American strategy in that era is open for debate—most would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered strategic judgment but as an end in itself. Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first
decades of the 20th century, however, would we really call that strategy a success? The United States wound up intervening with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful wars in human history. It was
with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar years had been mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy that the United States has pursued ever since.
Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, American leaders determined that the safest course was to build “situations of strength” (Acheson’s phrase) in strategic locations around the world, to build a “preponderance
of power,” and to create an international system with American power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air bases to enable the rapid projection of force to strategically
important parts of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the offshore balancing strategy, and they did so because they believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again.
They believed their new global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and less expensi ve in the long run. Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the proper course in many areas of
foreign policy, have all agreed on this core strategic approach. From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious and too expensive. At the dawn of the Cold War, Walter Lippmann railed against Truman’s containment strategy as suffering from an
unsustainable gap between ends and means that would bankrupt the United States and exhaust its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of “imperial overstretch,” arguing that American decline was inevitable “if the trends in
national indebtedness, low productivity increases, [etc.]” were allowed to continue at the same time as “massive American commitments of men, money and materials are made in different parts of the globe.” Today, we are once again being told that this global strategy
needs to give way to a more restrained and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face in coming years is not caused by the present, largely successful global strategy. Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy that is taken for granted.
The enormous benefits that this strategy has provided, including the financial benefits, somehow never appear on the ledger. They should. We might begin by asking about the global security order that the United States has sustained since Word War II—the prevention
of major war, the support of an open trading system, and promotion of the liberal principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order worth? What would be the cost of its collapse or transformation into another type of order? Whatever the nature of
the current economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global prosperity than any time in hu man history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-backward nations have become economic dynamos. And the American
economy, though suffering ups and downs throughout this period, has on the whole benefited immensely from this international order. One price of this success has been maintaining a sufficient military capacity to provide the essential security underpinnings of this
order. But has the price not been worth it? In the first half of the 20th century, the United States found itself engaged in two world wars. In the second half, this global American strategy helped produce a peaceful end to the great-power struggle of the Cold War and then
20 more years of great-power peace. Looked at coldly, simply in terms of dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs. The danger, as always, is that we don’t even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided. Many assume that the
world has simply become more peaceful, that great-power conflict has become impossible, that nations have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is what counts. This belief in progress and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions
of international order is always alluring to Americans and Europeans and other children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the first years after World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people
It is always tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained
with its power can exist in the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden
spoke of the “end of history.”
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
assumption of those who call for a change in American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its
role and yet all the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in. This is a great if recurring
illusion, the idea that you can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not fall over.
Much of the present debate, it
should be acknowledged, is not about the defense budget or the fiscal crisis at all. It is only the latest round in a long-running debate over the nature and purposes of American foreign policy. At the tactical level, some use the fiscal crisis as a justification for a different
approach to, say, Afghanistan. Richard Haass, for instance, who has long favored a change of strategy from “counterinsurgency” to “counterterrorism,” now uses the budget crisis to bolster his case—although he leaves unclear how much money would be saved by such
a shift in strategy. At the broader level of grand strategy, the current debate, though revived by the budget crisis, can be traced back a century or more, but its most recent expression came with the end of the Cold War. In the early 1990s, some critics, often calling
themselves “realists,” expressed their unhappiness with a foreign policy—first under George H.W. Bush and then under Bill Clinton—that cast the United States as leader of a “new world order,” the “indispensable nation.” As early as 1992, Robert W. Tucker and
David C. Hendrickson assailed President Bush for launching the first Persian Gulf war in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. They charged him with pursuing “a new world role . . . required neither by security need nor by traditional
conceptions of the nation’s purpose,” a role that gave “military force” an “excessive and disproportionate . . . position in our statecraft.” Tucker and Hendrickson were frank enough to acknowledge that, pace Paul Kennedy, the “peril” was not actually “to the nation’s
purse” or even to “our interests” but to the nation’s “soul.” This has always been the core critique of expansive American foreign policy doctrines, from the time of the Founders to the present—not that a policy of extensive global involvement is necessarily impractical
but that it is immoral and contrary to the nation’s true ideals. Today this alleged profligacy in the use of force is variously attributed to the influence of “neoconservatives” or to those Mearsheimer calls the “liberal imperialists” of the Clinton administration, who have
presumably now taken hold of the Obama administration as well. But the critics share a common premise: that if only the United States would return to a more “normal” approach to the world, intervening abroad far less frequently and eschewing efforts at “nationbuilding,” then this would allow the United States to cut back on the resources it expends on foreign policy. Thanks to Haass’s clever formulation, there has been a great deal of talk lately about “wars of choice” as opposed to “wars of necessity.” Haass labels both t he
war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan “wars of choice.” Today, many ask whether the United States can simply avoid such allegedly optional interventions in the future, as well as the occupations and exercises in “nation-building” that often seem to follow. Although
the idea of eliminating “wars of choice” appears sensible, the historical record suggests it will not be as simple as many think. The problem is, almost every war or intervention the United States has engaged in throughout its history has been optional—and not just the
Bosnias, Haitis, Somalias, or Vietnams, but the Korean War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and even World War II (at least the war in Europe), not to mention the many armed interventions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean over the course of the
past century, from Cuba in 1898 to Panama in 1989. A case can be made, and has been made by serious historians, that every one of these wars and interventions was avoidable and unnecessary. To note that our most recent wars have also been wars of choice, therefore,
is not as useful as it seems. In theory, the United States could refrain from intervening abroad. But, in practice, will it? Many assume today that the American public has had it with interventions, and Alice Rivlin certainly reflects a strong current of opinion when she
says that “much of the public does not believe that we need to go in and take over other people’s countries.” That sentiment has often been heard after interventions, especially those with mixed or dubious results. It was heard after the four-year-long war in the
Philippines, which cost 4,000 American lives and untold Filipino casualties. It was heard after Korea and after Vietnam. It was heard after Somalia. Yet the reality has been that after each intervention, the sentiment against foreign involvement has faded, and the United
States has intervened again. Depending on how one chooses to count, the United States has undertaken roughly 25 overseas interventions since 1898: Cuba, 1898 The Philippines, 1898-1902 China, 1900 Cuba, 1906 Nicaragua, 1910 & 1912 Mexico, 1914 Haiti, 1915
Dominican Republic, 1916 Mexico, 1917 World War I, 1917-1918 Nicaragua, 1927 World War II, 1941-1945 Korea, 1950-1953 Lebanon, 1958 Vietnam, 1963-1973 Dominican Republic, 1965 Grenada, 1983 Panama, 1989 First Persian Gulf war, 1991 Somalia, 1992
Haiti, 1994 Bosnia, 1995 Kosovo, 1999 Afghanistan, 2001-present Iraq, 2003-present That is one intervention every 4.5 years on average. Overall, the United States has intervened or been engaged in combat somewhere in 52 out of the last 112 years, or roughly 47
. Since the end of the Cold War
the rate of U.S. interventions has increased, with an intervention
roughly once every 2.5 years and American troops intervening or engaged in combat in 16 out of 22 years,
or over 70 percent of the time
The argument for returning to “normal” begs the question: What
is normal for the U S
percent of the time
, it is true,
, since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
nited
tates? The historical record of the last century suggests that it is not a policy of nonintervention. This record ought to raise doubts about the theory that American behavior these past two decades is the product of
certain unique ideological or doctrinal movements, whether “liberal imperialism” or “neoconservatism.” Allegedly “realist” pr esidents in this era have been just as likely to order interventions as their more idealistic colleagues. George H.W. Bush was as profligate an
intervener as Bill Clinton. He invaded Panama in 1989, intervened in Somalia in 1992—both on primarily idealistic and humanitarian grounds—which along with the first Persian Gulf war in 1991 made for three interventions in a single four-year term. Since 1898 the
list of presidents who ordered armed interventions abroad has included William McKinley, Theodore Roose-velt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush,
Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. One would be hard-pressed to find a common ideological or doctrinal thread among them—unless it is the doctrine and ideology of a mainstream American foreign policy that leans more toward intervention than many imagine or
would care to admit. Many don’t want to admit it, and the only thing as consistent as this pattern of American behavior has been the claim by contemporary critics that it is abnormal and a departure from American traditions. The anti-imperialists of the late 1890s, the
isolationists of the 1920s and 1930s, the critics of Korea and Vietnam, and the critics of the first Persian Gulf war, the interventions in the Balkans, and the more recent wars of the Bush years have all insisted that the nation had in those instances behaved unusually or
irrationally. And yet the behavior has continued. To note this consistency is not the same as justifying it. The United States may have been wrong for much of the past 112 years. Some critics would endorse the sentiment expressed by the historian Howard K. Beale in
the 1950s, that “the men of 1900” had steered the United States onto a disastrous course of world power which for the subsequent half-century had done the United States and the world no end of harm. But whether one lauds or condemns this past century of American
foreign policy—and one can find reasons to do both—the fact of this consistency remains. It would require not just a modest reshaping of American foreign policy priorities but a sharp departure from this tradition to bring about the kinds of changes that would allow
the United States to make do with a substantially smaller force structure. Is such a sharp departure in the offing? It is no doubt true that many Americans are unhappy with the on-going warfare in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent in Iraq, and that, if asked, a majority
would say the United States should intervene less frequently in foreign nations, or perhaps not at all. It may also be tru e that the effect of long military involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan may cause Americans and their leaders to shun further interventions at least for
a few years—as they did for nine years after World War I, five years after World War II, and a decade after Vietnam. This may be further reinforced by the difficult economic times in which Americans are currently suffering. The longest period of nonintervention in the
past century was during the 1930s, when unhappy memories of World War I combined with the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression to constrain American interventionism to an unusual degree and produce the first and perhaps only genuinely isolationist
period in American history. So are we back to the mentality of the 1930s? It wouldn’t appear so. There is no great wave of isolationism sweeping the country. There is not even the equivalent of a Patrick Buchanan, who received 3 million votes in the 1992 Republican
primaries. Any isolationist tendencies that might exist are severely tempered by continuing fears of terrorist attacks that might be launched from overseas. Nor are the vast majority of Americans suffering from economic calamity to nearly the degree that they did in the
Great Depression. Even if we were to repeat the policies of the 1930s, however, it is worth recalling that the unusual restraint of those years was not sufficient to keep the United States out of war. On the contrary, the United States took actions which ultimately led to
Today there are a number of obvious possible
contingencies that might lead the U S to substantial interventions overseas
a war with Iran
is not implausible
this president—might find himself in a
situation where military conflict at some level is hard to avoid.
the greatest and most costly foreign intervention in its history. Even the most determined and in those years powerful isolationists could not prevent it.
nited
avoid them. Few Americans want
tates
, notwithstanding the preference of the public and its political leaders to
, for instance. But it
that a president—indeed,
The continued success of the international sanctions regime that the Obama administration has so skillfully put
into place, for instance, might eventually cause the Iranian government to lash out in some way—perhaps by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz. Recall that Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor in no small part as a response to oil sanctions imposed by a
Roosevelt administration that had not the slightest interest or intention of fighting a war against Japan but was merely expressing moral outrage at Japanese behavior on the Chinese mainland. Perhaps in an Iranian contingency, the military actions would stay limited.
the possibility that a military
exchange between Israel and Iran, initiated by Israel, could drag the U S into conflict
Other possible contingencies include a war on the Korean Peninsula, where the U S is
bound by treaty to come to the aid of its South Korean ally and possible interventions
for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups
But perhaps, too, they would escalate. One could well imagine an American public, now so eager to avoid intervention, suddenly demanding that their president retaliate. Then there is
nited
tates
with Iran. Are such scenarios so farfetched that
they can be ruled out by Pentagon planners?
nited
;
tates
in Yemen or Somalia, should those states fail even
. And what about those “humanitarian” interventions that are first on everyone’s list to be avoided? Should
more than they already have and become even more fertile ground
another earthquake or some other natural or man-made catastrophe strike, say, Haiti and present the looming prospect of mass starvation and disease and political anarchy just a few hundred miles off U.S. shores, with the possibility of thousands if not hundreds of
thousands of refugees, can anyone be confident that an American president will not feel compelled to send an intervention force to help? Some may hope that a smaller U.S. military, compelled by the necessity of budget constraints, would prevent a president from
intervening. More likely, however, it would simply prevent a president from intervening effectively. This, after all, was the experience of the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both because of constraints and as a conscious strategic choice, the Bush
administration sent too few troops to both countries. The results were lengthy, unsuccessful conflicts, burgeoning counterinsurgencies, and loss of confidence in American will and capacity, as well as large annual expenditures. Would it not have been better, and also
cheaper, to have sent larger numbers of forces initially to both places and brought about a more rapid conclusion to the fighting? The point is, it may prove cheaper in the long run to have larger forces that can fight wars quickly and conclusively, as Colin Powell long
ago suggested, than to have smaller forces that can’t. Would a defense planner trying to anticipate future American actions be wise to base planned force structure on the assumption that the United States is out of the intervention business? Or would that be the kind of
The debates over whether and how the U S should respond to
the world’s strategic challenges will and should continu
history
has provided some lessons, and for the U S the lesson has been fairly clear: The world is better off, and
the U S is better off, in the kind of international system that American power has built and defended
it is not reckless American activity in the world that jeopardizes American solvency but
American profligacy
The U S may be in peril because of its spiraling deficits and mounting debt, but
it will be in even greater peril if,
we weaken ourselves even further
penny-wise, pound-foolish calculation that, in matters of national security, can prove so unfortunate?
nited
tates
e. Armed interventions overseas should be weighed carefully, as always, with an eye to whether the risk of inaction is greater than
the risks of action. And as always, these judgments will be merely that: judgments, made with inadequate information and intelligence and no certainty about the outcomes. No foreign policy doctrine can avoid errors of omission and commission. But
nited
nited
tates
tates
. As Haass
and Roger C. Altman have correctly noted, “
at home.”
nited
tates
out of some misguided sense that our national security budgets must “share the pain,”
.
Unfortunately, decline in leadership causes lash out—The U.S. will go down
fighting.
Goldstein, 2007 Avery, Professor of Global Politics and International Relations @ University of Pennsylvania, “Power
transitions, institutions, and China's rise in East Asia: Theoretical expectations and evidence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume
30, Issue 4 & 5 August
Two closely related, though distinct, theoretical arguments focus explicitly on the consequences for international politics of a shift in
power between a dominant state and a rising power. In War and Change in World Politics, Robert Gilpin suggested that peace
prevails when a dominant state’s capabilities enable it to ‘govern’ an international order that it has shaped. Over time,
however, as economic and technological diffusion proceeds during eras of peace and development, other states are empowered.
Moreover, the burdens of international governance drain and distract the reigning hegemon, and challengers eventually emerge
who seek to rewrite the rules of governance. As the power advantage of the erstwhile hegemon ebbs, it may become desperate
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
enough to resort to the ultima ratio of international politics, force, to forestall the increasingly urgent demands of a
rising challenger. Or as the power of the challenger rises, it may be tempted to press its case with threats to use force. It is the rise
and fall of the great powers that creates the circumstances under which major wars, what Gilpin labels ‘ hegemonic wars’,
break out.13 Gilpin’s argument logically encourages pessimism about the implications of a rising China. It leads to the expectation
that international trade, investment, and technology transfer will result in a steady diffusion of American economic power, benefiting
the rapidly developing states of the world, including China. As the US simultaneously scurries to put out the many brushfires that
threaten its far-flung global interests (i.e., the classic problem of overextension), it will be unable to devote sufficient resources to
maintain or restore its former advantage over emerging competitors like China. While the erosion of the once clear
American advantage plays itself out, the US will find it ever more difficult to preserve the order in Asia that it
created during its era of preponderance. The expectation is an increase in the likelihood for the use of force – either by a Chinese
challenger able to field a stronger military in support of its demands for greater influence over international arrangements in Asia, or
by a besieged American hegemon desperate to head off further decline. Among the trends that alarm those who would look at Asia
through the lens of Gilpin’s theory are China’s expanding share of world trade and wealth (much of it resulting from the gains
made possible by the international economic order a dominant US established); its acquisition of technology in key sectors
that have both civilian and military applications (e.g., information, communications, and electronics linked with the ‘revolution
in military affairs’); and an expanding military burden for the US (as it copes with the challenges of its global war on
terrorism and especially its struggle in Iraq) that limits the resources it can devote to preserving its interests in East Asia.14 Although
similar to Gilpin’s work insofar as it emphasizes the importance of shifts in the capabilities of a dominant state and a rising challenger,
the power-transition theory A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler present in The War Ledger focuses more closely on the allegedly
dangerous phenomenon of ‘crossover’– the point at which a dissatisfied challenger is about to overtake the established leading state.15
In such cases, when the power gap narrows, the dominant state becomes increasingly desperate to forestall,
and the challenger becomes increasingly determined to realize the transition to a new international order
whose contours it will define. Though suggesting why a rising China may ultimately present grave dangers for international
peace when its capabilities make it a peer competitor of America, Organski and Kugler’s power-transition theory is less clear about
the dangers while a potential challenger still lags far behind and faces a difficult struggle to catch up. This clarification is important in
thinking about the theory’s relevance to interpreting China’s rise because a broad consensus prevails among analysts that
Chinese military capabilities are at a minimum two decades from putting it in a league with the US in Asia.16
Their theory, then, points with alarm to trends in China’s growing wealth and power relative to the U nited
States, but especially looks ahead to what it sees as the period of maximum danger – that time when a dissatisfied China could be in a
position to overtake the US on dimensions believed crucial for assessing power. Reports beginning in the mid-1990s that offered
extrapolations suggesting China’s growth would give it the world’s largest gross domestic product (GDP aggregate, not per capita)
sometime in the first few decades of the twentieth century fed these sorts of concerns about a potentially dangerous challenge to
American leadership in Asia.17 The huge gap between Chinese and American military capabilities (especially in
terms of technological sophistication) has so far discouraged prediction of comparably disquieting trends on this
dimension, but inklings of similar concerns may be reflected in occasionally alarmist reports about
purchases of advanced Russian air and naval equipment, as well as concern that Chinese espionage may have
undermined the American advantage in nuclear and missile technology, and speculation about the potential military purposes
of China’s manned space program.18 Moreover, because a dominant state may react to the prospect of a crossover
and believe that it is wiser to embrace the logic of preventive war and act early to delay a transition while
the task is more manageable, Organski and Kugler’s powertransition theory also provides grounds for concern about the period
prior to the possible crossover.19
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Scenario B—China
Locking in airpower and Upgrading conventional capabilities is key to
strategic stability to combat ChinaGrant ‘9 Rebecca. Ph.D. Senior fellow of the Lexington Institute, a non-profit public-policy research organization based in
Arlington, VA. “U.S. needs to deter China's mobile missile launchers.” UPI
<http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/03/25/US-needs-to-deter-Chinas-mobile-missile-launchers/UPI75531237999938/>
China is a world power, a major trading partner and, without question, a potential military competitor for the United States. With
China, the United States may face a decades-long balance between confrontation and cooperation.
Conventional deterrence will be a big part of calibrating the balance. For the United States, relying on
airpower's conventional deterrent will be a prime tool. China has already demarcated the realms of air, space
and cyberspace as arenas for competition and de-emphasized its land forces. In 2004, China's defense white paper
stated bluntly: "The army is streamlined by reducing the ordinary troops that are technologically backward while the navy, air force
and Second Artillery Force (China's nuclear-weapons unit) are strengthened." Instead, current Chinese military doctrine
focuses on local, or regional, war under high-technology conditions, which they define as "a limited war,
fought in a restricted geographic area for limited objectives with limited means and a conscious effort to
curtail destruction." Rapid defeat of the enemy is the main objective, and the preferred tool is to inflict strategic and operational
paralysis or even defeat the enemy with one strike. The Chinese do not much worry about global power projection,
stability operations or major land campaigns. Deterring China will be all about providing persistence to
make clear that the armed forces of the United States and its allies will not back off until goals are met.
Credible deterrence will include the ability to target mobile launches like the one China used to shoot a
missile into orbit to destroy its defunct weather satellite. That launch brought home how difficult it could
be to track, target and kill mobile launchers.
Otherwise unchecked Chinese expansionism collapses hegemony and risks
war
Fisher ‘8. Richard Fisher, Senior Fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, 2008.
“China’s Military Modernization,” p. 250-251
In a brief but provocative book, journalist James Mann identifies and takes down one of the commanding myths in the American debate over policy toward China: “if we treat the like an enemy they become one.” It is a fear that has been oft repeated and one that Mann
regards as part of a “Lexicon of Dismissal” in which China and its supporters conspire to deflect criticism and isolate critics. It is a fear that has riven U.S. policy debates on China, from economic policy, to strategic military engagement, to the more recent Bush
by giving in to this fear in the mistaken
“hope” that China would behave responsibly or even as a “friend,” the United States has consistently lost
leverage over China and has helped facilitate outcomes that may in the future threaten Americans, Chinese,
Taiwanese, and many others
Beijing shows little inclination to reverse highly protectionist trade
policies
. After
decades of U.S. “engagement” witch China regarding nuclear and missile weapon proliferation Beijing
shows little inclination to halt traffic to rogue states such as Iran. It also shows no willingness to reverse
enabling of secondary nuclear proliferation from Pakistan and North Korea, which could lead to
nuclear-armed terrorists.
the PLA shows little inclination to become as
“transparent” militarily as its democratic neighbors and shows the potential of becoming more hostile to the
United States as its military power increases
administration policies to limit its support for Taiwan’s potential desire for “independence,” even though it may emerge from a legitimately democratic process. But
. After debates over “Most Favored Nation” status of the early 1990’s that led to American approval for China’s membership in the World Trade Organization on very favorable ter ms,
and financial
which produce massive trade surpluses
nearly two
,
this
its
previous
And after nearly three decades of U.S. “military engagement,”
. It is hard for this analyst to conclude that, since the opening to China in the early 1970s, the United States has even approached treating China “like an
enemy.” To the contrary, America’s welcome has facilitated China’s post-Mao integration into the world economy and has thus enabled China to gather the integration into the world economy and has thus enabled China to gather the indicators of power that may soon
China has used this period, especially since the early 1990s, to gather a
level of military power that may soon place it in the predominant position among Asian powers and then,
within the next two decades, give China a greater ability to exercise military power on a global scale. This
transformation has occurred along with consistent criticisms from American as well as many others about
the CCP’s opposition to democratic reform, its suppression of most dissent, and its support for dictatorial
regimes around the world. China is not likely to change these attributes as long as the Communist Party
remains in power. There is thus a clear danger that China’s gathering of a globally capable military will be
wedded to an anti-democratic and even anti-American foreign policy agenda. In 2008 the United States
may have a clear superiority in most measures of military power, but American power is
policy makers have little choice but to sustain a large investment in ever more modern military capabilities
lest the United States lose even more potential to deter China, first on the Taiwan Strait, and then perhaps
well beyond
math or exceed those of the United States. This volume has sought to document how
also stretched dangerously thin. U.S.
.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
War with China would go nuclear and culminate in extinction
The Strait Times, 2000 (“No one gains in war over Taiwan”, June 25, Lexis)
The high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and
China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a
full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near
and
-raise the possibility of a nuclear war.
If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on
fire.
. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine
Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes
of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal,
could enter a new and dangerous phase.
-horror of horrors
Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking
China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore.
And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order
Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in
the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign
policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability,
there is little hope of winning a war against China
50 years later,
short of using nuclear weapons.
The US estimates that China possesses about 20
nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons. MajorGeneral Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures
Ridgeway said that should that
come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilization. There would be no victors in such a war. While
the prospect of a nuclear Armageddon
cannot be ruled out entirely, for China puts
sovereignty above everything else.
from the military to drop it. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. G en
over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it
And, The plan will revolutionize the Armed Forces—Space elevators improve
military readiness and provide unsurpassable battlefield advantages locking
in airpower.
Jason R. Kent, Major, USAF, PE, 2007, Getting to Space on a Thread …Space Elevator as Alternative
Access to Space April 2007 Blue Horizons Paper Center for Strategy and Technology Air War College.
The USAF will be able to use a space elevator to accomplish and
enable current space missions and leverage this new capability for move into new
mission areas
It [space elevator] will change the world economy. It’s
worth what ever it costs to put it up space elevator changes everything in space
Why the USAF should be interested in a space elevator
. Eric Westling, a space elevator consultant says, “
.”37 The
. For the Air Force, space
elevators are all about the mission, and it will indeed be worth whatever the cost. Why should the USAF take the lead in developing a space elevator? Air Force Doctrine Document 1 provides an answer to this question quite well as it sums up the directives from DODD
The USAF has the key organizational function to “organize, train, equip, and provide
forces for…air and space support
USAF is “to provide launch and space support
for the Department of Defense.”
Improve
responsive space access, satellite operations, and other space enabling capabilities such as
the space industrial base, space science and technology efforts and the space professional
cadre.
need for the actions mentioned
– including
national security, space management, remote
sensing, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism – have underscored the increasingly
critical role that intelligence capabilities, including those in space, play in supporting
military operations, policy and planning and acquisition in the Department
The Department [DoD] will continue to develop responsive space capabilities in order to
keep access to space unfettered, reliable and secure
improving space
situational awareness and protection, and through other space control measures.”42
5100.1.
…”38 Furthermore, the
39 While AFDD 1 lays out the responsibilities of the USAF, the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) tasks the DoD to: “
”40 But why the
number of studies and commissions chartered by the Congress and the President
above? The QDR explains: 11 “Experience from recent operations, supported by the findings and recommendations in the 2001 QDR and a
those
on
[DoD].”41 The QDR goes on to say:
“
. Survivability of space capabilities will be assured by
The tasks laid
before the USAF are daunting: responsive, unfettered, reliable access to space while supporting the wide range of satellite missions the DoD relies upon for its operations and in support of decision making. The writers of the QDR are asking for a space elevator and
didn’t even know it! Just how would a space elevator answer all these tasks? Of the nine principles of war laid out in AFDD 1, three apply directly to the space elevator: mass, maneuver, and security. Mass means to “concentrate the effects of combat power at the most
space elevator would enable a
commander to easily build up communications, surveillance, and other space assets over
his theater for use when and where he deems necessary
Maneuver is
simply the “flexible application” of air and space power.44 Again, with the ability to
quickly place satellites into orbit or to have the logistics support in orbi
to move
advantageous place and time to achieve decisive results.”43 This means all the tools at the commanders fingertips are applied effectively not simply in overwhelming numbers. A
. Current methods of redistributing space assets are time consuming and drain away the life of those
assets as precious fuel is expended to change orbits. Adding to existing capabilities today is also challenging as surplus communications links or additional assets are simply in short supply or not available at all.
t (enabled by an elevator)
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
assets around as needed, the space elevator satisfies this basic principle of war. The space
elevator provides the flexibility to use space in the precise manner a commander wishes
to configure his battlespace. Along with mass and maneuver, one can not forget the
principle of security.
With a space elevator and
the sheer access to space it would provide, no enemy would be able to acquire an
unexpected advantage either on the ground, in the air, or especially in orbit.
Security means “never permit the enemy to acquire unexpected advantage” and “embraces physical and information medium”45
Physical patrol and protection of space-
borne assets would be possible while a massive increase in information transfer capabilities could be constructed cheaply meaning he could have all the bandwidth and information he could desire. Assets placed in orbit by the elevator would help a commander no matter
While the principles of war provide general
guidance on the application of military forces, the tenets [of air and space power] provide
more specific considerations for air and space forces space elevator supports many of
these tenets
space systems advance and proliferate; they
offer the potential for permanent presence over any part of the globe
bring air and
space power together to produce a synergistic effect”
space elevator
allows the placement and servicing of satellites allowing full battlespace awareness and
support capabilities which serve as force multipliers.49
where he was located on the globe through increased communications, reconnaissance, surveillance capabilities. “
.”46 A
, especially persistence and balance. Persistence as used here can be summed by saying, as “
”47. The persistence provided by today’s systems should be
considered at risk, as mentioned earlier. The space elevator would provide greater numbers of more capable, more robust systems and a means to augment and easily replace systems lost to enemy actions. The tenet of balance is to “
48 In other words, finite assets must be used to the best effect. The
Every other method will be vulnerable to attacks—The plan avoids them
Jason R. Kent, Major, USAF, PE, 2007, Getting to Space on a Thread …Space Elevator
as Alternative Access to Space April 2007 Blue Horizons Paper Center for Strategy and
Technology Air War College.
Should the U.S. Air Force pursue construction of a space elevator as an alternate means
for accessing space? This question is critical considering the importance of space assets to the U.S. military and the nation.
Today, the military relies on satellite communications, reconnaissance, surveillance, weather,
and global positioning systems in orbit to perform even the most basic of missions.2 The
systems U.S. forces uses are not limited to government assets. Commercial and allied communications and imaging systems are
routinely used to bolster bandwidth and coverage areas.3 Unfortunately,
these crown jewels of the military and
commercial world are becoming increasingly vulnerable to enemy actions. Jamming4,
direct attack using high powered lasers5 or kinetic kill weapons6, as well as attacks on
ground sites7 are but a few of the dangers faced by space assets used by the U.S. military.
What happens when an adversary is able to deny U.S. forces of its eyes, ears, timing, and maps (no e-mail!?) provided by satellites?
The current method of replacing an orbital asset requires months if not years of lead time
and is extremely costly. In the mean-time, the loss of even a single satellite in orbit can greatly impact U.S. air, land, and
sea operations. There are neither rockets standing on call to launch nor many replacement
satellites in the barn ready for a ride to orbit. It is imperative that the U.S. be prepared to
maintain the readiness of its space forces. Launch on demand merely provides a stop-gap means to maintain those
capabilities already in place should they fail or be attacked . In order to maintain its superior position in space
and to ensure the orbital assets it requires are available at all times, the U.S. must look 2
beyond conventional capabilities to provide cheap, easy, quick, and assured access to
space. This method is the space elevator. ____________ Slamming the last crate into the cargo
pod of the lifter, the loadmaster stepped back to admire his work. Ten dull gray packing
crates crowded the pod. Each one bore the emblem of the United States Air Force. 8 - Thread
to the Stars
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
And, first one up wins—they can build multiple elevators before anyone else
Brad Lemley, July 2004, “Going up,” Discover Magazine, Vol. 25, Issue 7, ebscohost.
THE FIRST PROJECT UNDERTAKEN BY A COMPLETED space
elevator should be building more elevators. While he estimates that constructing the first one would be a six-year
$6 billion task, the second could cost as little as $2 billion and take just seven months because it could
employ the first to boost construction materials into space. The requisite time and money
would shrink for each subsequent elevator, and payload size could increase dramatically.
IN EDWARDS'S VISION,
Edwards's long-term plan calls for climbers on the third and fourth elevators, each hoisting 140 tons. He says that's why NASA needs
who builds the first one can have several built before anybody
else can build a second one. Now the first guy has so much capacity, his payload price is
down to zero. He can run the other guy out of business. Talk about grabbing the brass
ring." And Edwards emphasizes that the United States is by no means fated to win this race. The first builder might not even be a
to get serious now: "The guy
government. "We have actually been told by private investors, 'If you can reduce the risk and prove it can be done, getting $10 billion
is nothing.'" Having an international consortium of public and private entities pitch in may be the best scenario for ensuring the
common good. A world blessed with a half-dozen space elevators constructed cooperatively, radiating from the equator like lotus
In the long run, "you
wouldn't want the elevator only on Earth. A similar system would work on Mars or some
other planetary body," says NASA's David Smitherman. Indeed, says Edwards, any large object
in the solar system that spins could become a candidate for a space elevator. But for now,
petals, could provide near-universal access to space at a payload cost of as little as $10 a pound.
Edwards remains focused on getting the first one built. Along with all the other boons it would deliver to humankind, the elevator also
has the potential to realize Edwards's personal dream of voyaging into space. "In 20 years, I'll be 60. I should still be plenty healthy
enough to go on the space elevator. Maybe it will turn out that the only way I can get into space is to build the way to get there
myself."
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Rockets
Contention two is Rockets
Rockets make exploration and development impossible—Reducing payload
cost is critical to future projects and reducing dependence on Launch
vehicles.
Jonathan Coopersmith, 2001, March 9, Texas A&M University, “The cost of reaching
orbit: Ground-based launch systems,” Space Policy, Volume 27 Issue 2, ScienceDirect.
The high cost of launching payloads into orbit – roughly $20,000/kg – continues to deter large-scale
exploration and exploitation of space. Ground-based launch systems may radically reduce costs to $200/kg,
drastically altering the economics of spaceflight. Low costs will encourage the creation of new markets,
including solar-based power satellites and disposal of nuclear waste. The US government should
establish a goal of $200/kg by 2020 and provide the resources needed to develop such systems.
Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. Why chemical rockets?
3. Alternatives to chemical rockets
4. Creating demand: if you build it, will they come?
4.1. Space-based solar power
4.2. Nuclear waste disposal
5. The challenge
6. Conclusion
1. Introduction
When I fly from North America to Europe, I pay $6–12/ kg of me. When a satellite is
launched into space, the customer (or taxpayer) pays roughly $20,000/kg. That figure is the major challenge
facing space flight: until the cost of reaching orbit drastically decreases, the large-scale
exploration and exploitation of space will not occur. These high launch costs have restricted access to
space to those governments, corporations and organizations which can afford millions of dollars to launch a satellite. As a result,
half a century after Sputnik, the annual total of all satellite launches is only a few hundred
tons, the equivalent of two 747 freighter flights.1
Ground-based alternatives to chemical rockets exist, such as beamed energy propulsion and space
elevators. While promising, they are all technically immature and will not develop without a substantial
government investment. Just as it pushed the development of rocket technology in the 1940s
and 1950s, the US government should set a grand challenge to radically reduce the cost
of reaching orbit to $200 a kg by 2020. Meeting this goal must be accompanied by resources
and institutional support to move the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) of these technologies
from the laboratory to commercial fruition.
2. Why chemical rockets?
Since Sputnik launched the Space Age on 4 October 1957, chemical
rockets have propelled every payload into
Rockets have two major problems: cost and
reliability. Reaching orbit today costs about $20,000/ kg, a daunting barrier.2 While very reliable, rockets are not
fully reliable even after five decades of experience: the failure rate of rockets carrying
communications satellites to geosynchronous orbit (GEO) in 1997–2006 was 8%. One consequence is insurance
rates of 11–20%, two orders of magnitude greater than for a Boeing 747.3
The high cost of reaching orbit means satellites are built to maximize yield per kilogram
with the tradeoff of high costs to develop, assemble, and test them. The ISS cost $115,000 a kg and NEAR
orbit, a monopoly that will continue for the foreseeable future.
$181,000 in 2009 dollars, while the scores of Iridium satellites cost only $7300 a kg 4.
If chemical rockets cost so much and are unreliable, why use them? The reality is that they work well enough and the entire
infrastructure for space exploration and exploitation has developed around rockets. Nor is the technology static. Rockets and satellites
have improved greatly in capability while the cost/kg has dropped. A 2010 Tauri Group study found that sending a kg to GEO
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
New generations of
rockets will lower costs, but not radically. The SpaceX Falcon 9 will cost some $5000 a
kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), almost twice the $2850 per kg expected in 2003 for its cancelled Falcon 5.6 Similarly, the 1997 Cassini
dropped from $32,000 to $21,000 (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) or by 34% from 1999 to 2008.5
cost $300,000 a kg in 1999 dollars compared with $480,000 for the 1975 Viking and $935,000 for the 1962 Mariner 4.7
What rockets have not done and cannot do is radically reduce the cost of reaching orbit.
Lack of effort is not the problem. Billions of dollars have been spent over the past
decades in exploring rocket-based alternatives such as single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO),
reusable launch vehicles (RLVs), and other unsuccessful lines of development.8 As Jim Maser,
President of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, stated in 2009, the technological base for reaching orbit in 2020
will be “Much like it is today. And that is not much different from what we were doing
50 years ago.”9
Scenario 1 is Ozone
Reducing reliance on launch vehicles is key to stop ozone depletion
Foust ‘9, Editor of the Space Review (Jeff, June 15, “Space and (or versus) the
Environment”, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1395/1)
While the current rate of ozone loss is considered insignificant, the paper examined what would happen if there was a
sharp increase in launch rates. If launch rates doubled every decade, they found, rising emissions from rockets
would offset the decline in other ozone-depleting substances by around 2035, causing ozone depletion rates
to rise again. The effect would be sooner and sharper if launch rates tripled every decade. The authors conclude that, in such a
scenario, there would be a move to regulate rocket emissions that could, in the worst case, sharply restrict
launch activity. With today’s launch systems, though, such an outcome seems unlikely: most forecasts for the
next decade project relatively flat levels of launch activity—about 60–70 orbital launches a year—that is far short of a
doubling or tripling. However, a wild card here is space tourism and other suborbital launch activity, which is
projected to grow from effectively zero today to hundreds or even thousands of launches a year by the end
of the next decade, if systems enter service as planned and demand for such flights matches existing projections.
The Astropolitics paper doesn’t take such missions, or interest in point-to-point suborbital or hypersonic travel, into account. Martin
Ross, lead author of the paper at the Aerospace Corporation, said in an email last week that this is an area they will be looking at.
They will also be studying the effect on ozone by emissions from hybrid rocket motors like the one being developed for SS2,
something that he said there currently isn’t any information about. In an op-ed in last week’s issue of Space News, Ross urged the
space industry to address this issue head-on rather than avoid it in the hopes it might go away on its own. “It is clear that the risk
of regulation that would cap or even tax space systems according to the amount of ozone depletion they
cause is small, but it is real,” he wrote. He added: “Historically, technical activities with high visibility—such as space
operations—often excite unpredictable public and regulatory attention. Combined with a lack of scientifically reliable
environmental effects data, the risk of idiosyncratic and overly restrictive regulation is high.”
OZONE DEPLETION CAUSES EXTINCTION
Greenpeace, 1995 Full of Homes: The Montreal Protocol and the Continuing
Destruction of the Ozone Layer, http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/holes/holebg.html.
When chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina first postulated a link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone layer depletion
in 1974, the news was greeted with scepticism, but taken seriously nonetheless. The vast majority of credible scientists
have since confirmed this hypothesis. The ozone layer around the Earth shields us all from harmful
ultraviolet radiationfrom the sun. Without the ozone layer, life on earth would not exist. Exposure to
increased levels of ultraviolet radiation can cause cataracts, skin cancer, and immune system suppression in
humans as well as innumerable effects on other living systems. This is why Rowland's and Molina's theory was taken
so seriously, so quickly - the stakes are literally the continuation of life on earth.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Scenario 2 is Space Junk
Dependence on launches means debris cascade effect is inevitable—this will
make space unusable
Lynda Williams 10, Professor of Physics @ Santa Rosa Junior College, “Irrational
Dreams of Space Colonization” Peace Review, The New Arms Race in Outer Space 22.1
Spring 2010 [HT]
Available Online @ <http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf>
Since the space race began 50 years ago with the launch of Sputnik, the space environment around Earth
has become overcrowded with satellites and space debris, so much so, that circumterrestrial space has
become a dangerous place with an increasing risk of collision and destruction. Thousands of pieces of space
junk created from launches orbit the Earth in the same orbit as satellites, putting them at risk of collision.
Every time a rocket is launched, debris from the rocket stages are put into orbital space. In 2009 there was a
disastrous collision between an Iridium satellite and a piece of space junk that destroyed the satellite. In 2007 China blew up
one of its defunct satellites to demonstrate its antiballistic missile capabilities, increasing the debris field by
15%. There are no international laws prohibiting anti-satellite actions. Every year, since the mid 1980s, a treaty has
been introduced into the UN for a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), with all parties including Russia and China
voting for it except for the US. How can we hope to pursue a peaceful and environmentally sound route of space
exploration without international laws in place that protect space and Earth environments and guarantee
that the space race to the moon and beyond does not foster a war over space resources? Indeed, if the space
debris problem continues to grow unfettered or if there is war in space, space will become too trashed for
launches to take place without risk of destruction.
This independently causes miscalculation and accidental nuclear war
David Ritchie, IT Business Relationship Manager at SELEX S&AS, 1982, Spacewar,
http://spacedebate.org/evidence/1768/
the greatest danger posed by the militarization of space is that of war by accident . At any given time,
several thousand satellites and other pieces of equipment -- spent booster stages and the like -- are circling the
earth, most of them in low orbit. The space immediately above the atmosphere has begun to resemble an expressway at rush
hour. It is not uncommon for satellites to miss each other by only a kilometer or two, and satellites crashing into each
other may explain some of the mysterious incidents in which space vehicles simply vanish from the skies .
Perhaps
One civillian TV satellite has been lost in space; it never entered its intended orbit, and no signals were heard from it to
indicate where it might have gone. Collision with something else in space seems a reasonable explanation of this
disappearance. Even a tiny fragment of metal striking a satellite at a relative velocity of a few kilometers per second would
wreck the satellite, ripping through it like a Magnum slug through a tin can. Now suppose that kind of mishap befell a
military satellite -- in the worst possible situation, during a time of international tension with all players in the
spacewar game braced for attacks on their spacecraft. The culpable fragment might be invisible from the ground;
even something as small and light as a paper clip could inflict massive damage on a satellite at high velocity.
Unaware of the accident, a less than cautious leader might interpret it as a preconceived attack. Wars have
begun over smaller incidents.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Plan
Thus my partner and I present the following plan: The United States federal
government should construct a space elevator
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Solvency
The space elevator has lower costs, environmental, and exploration benefits.
Kate Burkett and Nari Kim, 2010, University of Kansas, Celestial Railroad – The
Space Elevator, http://www.kateburkett.com/SpaceElevator.pdf
Why
build
a
space
elevator?
Reduced
costs
the cost of transporting the
cargo to space would decrease significantly. Instead of costing $10,000 per pound, supporters of the space
elevator predict that the invention will lower the price tag by 99- percent, to $100 a pound (Chang, 2003).
Although the space elevator takes longer to reach GEO than a traditional space shuttle,
In addition, the advancement of recent research has lowered the estimate for building the elevator to $6 billion. This is in comparison
to the estimated total cost of the International Space Station, which has exceeded $100 billion (Chang, 2003).
If Dr. Edwards were to receive $5 billion in funding today he estimates that, "In 15 years we could have a dozen cables running full
steam putting 50 tons in space every day for even less” than $100 a pound. Each
space elevator built will make the
next one cheaper,
lowering the cost to $2 billion, because the first elevator would be the vehicle lifting the materials into
space (Dorneanu, 2007).
The
green
elevator
The easier economical access to space would also allow important projects not currently practical to be further considered.
Undertaking actions helpful to the environment like sending large numbers of solar
powered satellites into space to collect sunlight and beam energy back down to Earth
would be seen as less lavish. Others suggest that the elevator could be used to shuttle and
dispose of nuclear waste (Steere, 2008). Earth’s
orbit
and
beyond
Much like the transcontinental railroad, proponents of the space elevator believe it will usher in a new era of
human civilization. Like the American west was opened by the transcontinental railroad, the space elevator has
the capability to open up transportation to the stars and revolutionize space travel by
creating a permanent connection between Earth and space. Since the problem of defeating
Earth’s gravity will be overcome, trips beyond the moon will become actual possibilities. If
supported, the space elevator could become the vehicle to explore a new frontier.9
And, the elevator can overcome all technical and security problems—no risk
of their case turns
B.C. Edwards, 2005, “A hoist to the heavens [space elevator],” director of research at
the Institute for Scientific Research in West Virginia and president of Carbon Designs,
Inc., ieee spectrum, volume 42 issue 8, UT Austin Library.
Some of these challenges would be met merely by locating the elevator’s Earth anchor in the
eastern equatorial Pacific, west of the Galápagos Islands, where the weather is unusually calm and
the threats from hurricanes, torna-does, lightning, jet streams, and wind are greatly
reduced. This location is also about 650 km from any current air routes or sea lanes,
significantly reducing the chance of an accidental collision and making the site easier to
secure against terrorists. An anchor in the Pacific obviously implies a floating platform, but such structures are already
commer- cially available, thanks to the offshore oil industry [see illustration, “Elevator Ahoy”].
These platforms would be mobile, which would allow the elevator, with sufficient warning, to
avoid orbiting satellites and debris by moving the anchor end of the cable back and forth about 1 km,
pulling the ribbon out of the path of an oncoming object. While debris and other objects down to 10 cm in
diameter are currently tracked, objects with diam- eters as small as 1 cm are a potential threat to the elevator. As a
consequence, the current ele- vator system design includes a high-sensitivity ground-based radar
facility to track all objects in low-Earth orbit that are at least 1 cm wide [see illustration, “Watching the Skies”]. A
system like this was designed for the International Space Station but never implemented.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator
Eliminating erosion from atomic oxygen at altitudes of 100 to 800 km would be the job of thin metal coatings applied to the cable.
Radiation damage would be mitigated by using carbon nanotubes and plastic polymer materials
that are inherently radiation resistant.
To avoid problems with cable oscillations induced by tidal forces, my ribbon design calls
for a natural resonant period--7.2 hours--that does not resonate with the 24-hour periods of the
moon and sun. Any oscillations that do occur would be damped by the mobile anchor station.
Induced electrical currents would be generated only if the ribbon cut through Earth's, or an interplanetary, magnetic field. Because
the ribbon would be stationary relative to Earth's magnetic field, only dynamic changes in
the magnetic field could cause currents in the ribbon, and these would be small. The
interplanetary magnetic field is also small, except in cases of extreme solar activity, and even then, the
currents generated would be on the order of milliwatts and easily dissipated. Currents caused by
charged plasma in Earth's ionosphere would also be negligible, because the ribbon's composite
material would have high electrical resistance.
The last challenge, and the one that sparks the most interest in today's geopolitical climate, is terrorism. Despite the elevator anchor's
an attack that severs the elevator cable--for example, by detonating a bomb planted
on an elevator car--is a possibility. So what would happen if the cable were cut?
Science-fiction scenarios have portrayed a space-elevator cable failure as a global disaster,
but the reality, for my design, would be nothing of the sort. Remember that the ribbon's center of gravity is in
geostationary orbit, and the entire cable is under tension as the counterweight swings around Earth. If the ribbon were to
be severed near the bottom, all the cable above the cut would float up and start to drift.
Calculations show that the ribbon and counterweight would most likely be thrown out of Earth orbit into open space. Of course, the
cable below the severed point would fall. But because the linear density of the rib- bon would be just
8 kg/km, literally lighter than a feather, proportionally speaking, it would be unlikely to do much, if any,
physical damage. In the worst- case scenario, where the cable is severed near the top, in
space, the released counterweight would fly out of Earth orbit and nearly the entire ribbon would
begin to fall down and wrap around the planet. As the ribbon fell it would gain velocity, and any rib- bon above the
first 1000 km would burn up when it hit the atmosphere, producing long, light ribbons that are meters to
kilometers in length. It would be a mess and a financial loss, and probably an impres- sive light show in the upper
atmosphere, but nothing like a planetary disaster. Some toxicity issues are being investigated in connection with
remoteness and defensibility,
inhalation of ribbon debris, but initial results indicate that the health risks would be small.
Ruston Debate 11
Novice Space Elevator