1
Security K Answers
2
Security K Answers
AT: Gilligan/Structural Violence=>War
Statistical studies prove poverty is not the root of war
Nicholas Sambanis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, 20 04, Brookings Trade
Forum, p. 201-203
Importantly, preliminary evidence presented here suggests no significant effect of poverty on
within-country variation in civil war onset. This may suggest that only long-term differences
across countries' levels of poverty matter in explaining cross-national differences in the onset of
civil war. A related conjecture is that short-term fluctuations in the level of poverty should not
increase the risk of violence (though there was some evidence from instrumental variables models
that find a significant correlation between income shocks and violence in African countries). It may
be the case that violence risks are magnified in countries with chronic poverty (these poverty
rates are more stable and more likely to be picked up in cross-national studies). But these
macrolevel results are suggestive at best. Data from microlevel studies are still not sufficient to
confirm whether the socioeconomic characteristics of those who actually engage in violence
conform with the theoretical interpretations given to empirical analyses that use macrolevel data. A
serious challenge to the microfoundations of rational choice economic theories of political violence
(notably the opportunity cost theory) was presented by a recent study on terrorism.166 That
study revealed that terrorists are on average more educated and have a higher standard of
living than the rest of their society. This is consistent with relative deprivation theories that were
reviewed early on in this paper, but it may also be a region-specific effect. This finding can be
reconciled with theories of civil war if one views terrorism as proto-civil war, fought by elites with
more education and greater commitment to their cause than the average rebel in a civil war. A final
conjecture is that economic incentives and opportunity are not the only explanations of political
violence. Ideology, ethnicity, coercion, and religion can all motivate participation in
insurgency. The type of insurgency (ethnic versus nonethnic) and the form the violence assumes
(coup, terrorism, civil war) influence the mix of recruitment incentives. Thus, while there is ample
evidence that increasing the level of economic development will reduce the overall prevalence of
political violence in the world, this alone will not be sufficient to eliminate political violence.
Violence changes forms over time and across space and forms a cycle that stops recurring only with
successful nation-building, combined with high levels of economic development. Policy
interventions aimed at reducing violence should indeed have an economic core. But a strategy to
eliminate, or reduce, organized political violence must necessarily be complex, targeting the various
forms that violence might take at different stages in the political evolution of different countries
We have to solve large-scale violent conflicts before we can focus on everyday forms
of violence – they’re a key barrier to peace
Joshua Goldstein, Int’l Rel Prof @ American U, 2001, War and Gender, p. 412
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace.
Many peace scholars and activists support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.”
Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war one can work for gender justice
specifically (perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach brings strategic
allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that
injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs at least as strongly
the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or
any other single cause, although all of these influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war
has in part fueled and sustained these and other injustices.9 So,”if you want peace, work for
peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace. Causality does not run
just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up
to war. It runs downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the
military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s oppression.” The dilemma is that
peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding,
yet, in light of this book’s evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be
empirically inadequate.
3
Security K Answers
AT: Gilligan/Structural Violence=>War
We indict their methodology—the argument that structural violence causes violence
is an unprovable tautology
Roland Paris, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of
Colorado, Boulder, Fall 2001, International Security
For those who study, rather than practice, international politics, the task of transforming the idea of human
security into a useful analytical tool for scholarly [End Page 92] research is also problematic. Given the
hodgepodge of principles and objectives associated with the concept, it is far from clear what academics should even be
studying. Human security seems capable of supporting virtually any hypothesis--along with its
opposite--depending on the prejudices and interests of the particular researcher. Further, because the concept of human
security encompasses both physical security and more general notions of social, economic, cultural, and psychological wellbeing, it is impractical to talk about certain socioeconomic factors "causing" an increase or
decline in human security, given that these factors are themselves part of the definition of
human security. The study of causal relationships requires a degree of analytical separation
that the notion of human security lacks. 21 To illustrate these problems, consider John Cockell's efforts to apply
the human security concept to the phenomenon of international peacebuilding operations in countries at risk of slipping into,
or just emerging from, civil war. 22 After embracing the open-ended UNDP definition of human security, Cockell states that
"peacebuilding is a sustained process of preventing internal threats to human security from causing protracted, violent
con(integral)ict." 23 Yet because the UNDP definition of human security includes safety from violence as a central
component of human security, Cockell is effectively saying that peacebuilding seeks to prevent a decline in human security
from causing a decline in human security, which makes little sense. He then identifies "four basic parameters," based on the
principles of human security, for the conduct of peacebuilding operations: Peacebuilders should focus on root causes of
con(integral)icts, pay attention to the differences in local conditions from one operation to the next, seek sustainable and
durable results, and mobilize local actors and resources in support of peace. Although these guidelines seem reasonable, the
sprawling concept of human security could support many more--and quite different--principles for peacebuilding. Indeed
Cockell himself acknowledges that his policy prescriptions are "arbitrary," which belies the notion that human security entails
a particular "orientation" toward peacebuilding, as Cockell claims. 24 More generally, if human security means
almost anything, then it effectively means nothing.
National security is a prerequisite for human security—the DA comes first
Edward C. Luck, director of a new center on international organization of the School of International and
Public Affairs at Columbia University, January 20 02, Global Governance
In this respect, it should be recognized that the recent emphasis on human security, though welcome, cannot
be conceptually or operationally divorced from the parallel pursuit of national security. The latter
may not be a sufficient condition to ensure the former, but it tends to be a necessary one. Secure
states, it appears, are less likely to abuse their citizens or to permit others to do so than are insecure ones. In an
age of intrastate and transnational conflicts in which civilian casualties are abhorrently high, it is generally where states
are weakest that human security is most gravely threatened . In most cases, the first steps toward
restoring human security will involve rebuilding or reshaping national institutions so that they are
more capable, democratic, inclusive, responsive, transparent, and tolerant. Both international institutions and transnational
civil society can play important supporting parts in these efforts--but again as supplements, not substitutes, for the state. For
one thing, they can begin by acknowledging the need for stronger, not weaker, states. An underappreciation of the
centrality of the state has also encouraged exaggerated rhetoric about the capacities and purposes
of international organization and of civil society, as well as about the nature of their relationship. Most serious
students of international organization, myself included, are also its advocates. As such, we need to take care not to confuse
what we are seeking with what we are assessing. In our fascination with what is new in the world, we must not neglect the
enduring importance of what is not. Nonstate actors matter, for example, largely because of the ways they influence the
priorities and behavior of states. Likewise, international institutions play a critical role in many fields today precisely because
we are still in the midst of the nation-state era. In a time of weapons of mass destruction and of economic globalization, the
capacity of states for good or ill is such that the moderating influences of transnational civil society, global norms, and
international organization ca n sometimes make a critical difference. But they cannot substitute for the state or for the
domestic political processes that ultimately determine its policy choices. The powers of nonstate actors are derivative, their
operational capacities limited, and their legitimacy compromised by their lack of accountability, sovereignty, and democratic
structures.
4
Security K Answers
AT: Cuomo
Cuomo isn’t suggesting we shouldn’t talk about large-scale conflicts too
Chris J. Cuomo, assistant professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the university of Cincinnati,
Hypatia Special Issues: Women and Violence Volume 11 Number 4, 1996, pg. online
I propose that the constancy of militarism and its effects on social reality be reintroduced as a
crucial locus of contemporary feminist attentions, and that feminists emphasize how wars are
eruptions and manifestations of omnipresent militarism that is a product and tool of multiply
oppressive, corporate, technocratic states.(2) Feminists should be particularly interested in making
this shift because it better allows consideration of the effects of war and militarism on women,
subjugated peoples, and environments. While giving attention to the constancy of militarism in
contemporary life we need not neglect the importance of addressing the specific qualities of
direct, large-scale, declared military conflicts. But the dramatic nature of declared, large-scale
conflicts should not obfuscate the ways in which military violence pervades most societies in
increasingly technologically sophisticated ways and the significance of military institutions and
everyday practices in shaping reality. Philosophical discussions that focus only on the ethics of
declaring and fighting wars miss these connections, and also miss the ways in which even declared
military conflicts are often experienced as omnipresent horrors. These approaches also leave
unquestioned tendencies to suspend or distort moral judgement in the face of what appears to be the
inevitability of war and militarism.
We have to solve large-scale violent conflicts before we can focus on everyday forms
of violence – they’re a key barrier to peace
Joshua Goldstein, Int’l Rel Prof @ American U, 2001, War and Gender, p. 412
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace.
Many peace scholars and activists support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.”
Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war one can work for gender justice
specifically (perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach brings strategic
allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that
injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs at least as strongly
the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or
any other single cause, although all of these influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war
has in part fueled and sustained these and other injustices.9 So,”if you want peace, work for
peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace. Causality does not run
just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up
to war. It runs downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the
military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s oppression.” The dilemma is that
peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding,
yet, in light of this book’s evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be
empirically inadequate.
5
Security K Answers
AT: Cuomo
National security is a prerequisite for human security—the DA comes first
Edward C. Luck, director of a new center on international organization of the School of International and
Public Affairs at Columbia University, January 20 02, Global Governance
In this respect, it should be recognized that the recent emphasis on human security, though welcome, cannot
be conceptually or operationally divorced from the parallel pursuit of national security. The latter
may not be a sufficient condition to ensure the former, but it tends to be a necessary one. Secure
states, it appears, are less likely to abuse their citizens or to permit others to do so than are insecure ones. In an
age of intrastate and transnational conflicts in which civilian casualties are abhorrently high, it is generally where states
are weakest that human security is most gravely threatened. In most cases, the first steps toward
restoring human security will involve rebuilding or reshaping national institutions so that they are
more capable, democratic, inclusive, responsive, transparent, and tolerant. Both international institutions and transnational
civil society can play important supporting parts in these efforts--but again as supplements, not substitutes, for the state. For
one thing, they can begin by acknowledging the need for stronger, not weaker, states. An underappreciation of the
centrality of the state has also encouraged exaggerated rhetoric about the capacities and purposes
of international organization and of civil society, as well as about the nature of their relationship. Most serious
students of international organization, myself included, are also its advocates. As such, we need to take care not to confuse
what we are seeking with what we are assessing. In our fascination with what is new in the world, we must not neglect the
enduring importance of what is not. Nonstate actors matter, for example, largely because of the ways they influence the
priorities and behavior of states. Likewise, international institutions play a critical role in many fields today precisely because
we are still in the midst of the nation-state era. In a time of weapons of mass destruction and of economic globalization, the
capacity of states for good or ill is such that the moderating influences of transnational civil society, global norms, and
international organization ca n sometimes make a critical difference. But they cannot substitute for the state or for the
domestic political processes that ultimately determine its policy choices. The powers of nonstate actors are derivative, their
operational capacities limited, and their legitimacy compromised by their lack of accountability, sovereignty, and democratic
structures.
Their concept of security sacrifices stability—difficult choices are necessary to
maximize peace
Yuen Foong Khong, a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and senior research adviser at the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2001, Vol. 7, Global Governance
A strong case for taking human security seriously is its assumed impact on international peace and
security. As Axworthy puts it, "Human security puts people first and recognizes that their safety
is integral to the promotion and maintenance of international peace and security." However, how
valid is this generalization? One problem with this causal generalization is its reluctance to
make distinctions between people. Are there certain people who forfeit their right to protection
because of their direct or indirect actions? Would it not be foolhardy to put the safety of Slobodan
Milosevic and his supporters on par with that of the Bosnian Muslims? The former threatened not
only the security of the latter but the peace and stability of the entire Balkans. NATO's bombing of
Serbia suggests that states seldom do what the human security agenda recommends. NATO put
itself and its organizational credibility first and the plight of the Kosovars second. By bombing
Serbia, NATO sought to undermine the safety of the Se rbs and to force Serbian leaders to cease
their policy of ethnic cleansing. This example suggests that the human security approach is far
too universalistic. Like the earlier criticism of its inability to prioritize threats, it is also unable to
discriminate among people. Thus, the approach's universalism robs it of much of its productive
policy content. The assumption that "putting people and their safety first brings peace" can also be
questioned from a second, related perspective. Is not the real issue how much of our safety we are
willing to trade off for how much peace? Consider the case of nuclear deterrence and its
contribution to general peace and security during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans
and Russians lived under the constant fear of nuclear war while their leaders continued to build
weapons with more powerful and versatile warheads. U.S. schools held drills where students ducked
under their desks in anticipation of a nuclear explosion nearby. From the human security
perspective, this psychological terror should be addressed by eliminating nuclear weapons.
Would the elimination of nuclear weapons contribute to greater peace among nations? Nuclear
deterrence, however insecure it made individuals and states, has been critical in maintaining
general peace. The alleviation of human insecurity does not necessarily mean greater peace
6
Security K Answers
and security. As the nuclear deterrence example shows, some measure of human psychological
insecurity may be necessary for maintaining peace.
7
Security K Answers
AT: Cuomo
Preventing nuclear war is the absolute prerequisite to positive peace
Folk, Professor of Religious and Peace Studies at Bethany College, 1978 [Jerry, “Peace Educations –
Peace Studies : Towards an Integrated Approach,” Peace & Change, volume V, number 1, Spring, p. 58]
Those proponents of the positive peace approach who reject out of hand the work of
researchers and educators coming to the field from the perspective of negative peace too easily
forget that the prevention of a nuclear confrontation of global dimensions is the prerequisite
for all other peace research, education, and action. Unless such a confrontation can be avoided
there will be no world left in which to build positive peace. Moreover, the blanket condemnation
of all such negative peace oriented research, education or action as a reactionary attempt to support
and reinforce the status quo is doctrinaire.
Conflict theory and resolution, disarmament studies, studies of the international system and of
international organizations, and integration studies are in themselves neutral. They do not
intrinsically support either the status quo or revolutionary efforts to change or overthrow it.
Rather they offer a body of knowledge which can be used for either purpose or for some purpose in
between. It is much more logical for those who understand peace as positive peace to integrate
this knowledge into their own framework and to utilize it in achieving their own purposes. A
balanced peace studies program should therefore offer the student exposure to the questions and
concerns which occupy those who view the field essentially from the point of view of negative
peace.
We should focus on both negative and positive aspects of peace
Johan Galtung, Peace Researcher and Originator of “Positive and Negative Peace,” 1985, Journal of
Peace Research, v. 22, n. 2
That peace has something to do with ‘absence of violence’ is so widespread as an idea that any
concept of peace research would have to accommodate this notion. However, from the very
beginning this was seen as too negative. In a sense the inspiration was taken from medical science
where health can be seen as the absence of disease (meaning absence of symptoms of disease), but
also as something more positive: as the building of a healthy body capable of resisting diseases,
relying on its own health forces or health sources. Correspondingly a concept of ‘positive peace’
emerged, build around such ideas as ‘harmony’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘integration5 The role of peace
research was to consider both the negative and positive aspects of peace, both the conditions
for absence of violence in general and war in particular, and the conditions for peace building
— perhaps referring to the action needed for negative peace as peace-keeping; peace-making could
then be used to cover both (Galtung 1967). Again, exactly what is put into the twin ideas of
negative and positive peace is not so important as the broad agreement that peace studies
should cover both, thereby expanding the field of study from prevention and control of war to
the study of peaceful relations in general. In a sense constructive (as opposed to critical)
development studies take care of the latter.
8
Security K Answers
AT: Human Security/State Security Bad
We have to solve large-scale violent conflicts before we can focus on everyday forms
of violence – they’re a key barrier to peace
Joshua Goldstein, Int’l Rel Prof @ American U, 2001, War and Gender, p. 412
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace.
Many peace scholars and activists support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.”
Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war one can work for gender justice
specifically (perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach brings strategic
allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that
injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs at least as strongly
the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or
any other single cause, although all of these influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war
has in part fueled and sustained these and other injustices.9 So,”if you want peace, work for
peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace. Causality does not run
just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up
to war. It runs downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the
military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s oppression.” The dilemma is that
peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding,
yet, in light of this book’s evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be
empirically inadequate.
National security is a prerequisite for human security—the DA comes first
Edward C. Luck, director of a new center on international organization of the School of International and
Public Affairs at Columbia University, January 20 02, Global Governance
In this respect, it should be recognized that the recent emphasis on human security, though welcome, cannot
be conceptually or operationally divorced from the parallel pursuit of national security. The latter
may not be a sufficient condition to ensure the former, but it tends to be a necessary one. Secure
states, it appears, are less likely to abuse their citizens or to permit others to do so than are insecure ones. In an
age of intrastate and transnational conflicts in which civilian casualties are abhorrently high, it is generally where states
are weakest that human security is most gravely threatened . In most cases, the first steps toward
restoring human security will involve rebuilding or reshaping national institutions so that they are
more capable, democratic, inclusive, responsive, transparent, and tolerant. Both international institutions and transnational
civil society can play important supporting parts in these efforts--but again as supplements, not substitutes, for the state. For
one thing, they can begin by acknowledging the need for stronger, not weaker, states. An underappreciation of the
centrality of the state has also encouraged exaggerated rhetoric about the capacities and purposes
of international organization and of civil society, as well as about the nature of their relationship. Most serious
students of international organization, myself included, are also its advocates. As such, we need to take care not to confuse
what we are seeking with what we are assessing. In our fascination with what is new in the world, we must not neglect the
enduring importance of what is not. Nonstate actors matter, for example, largely because of the ways they influence the
priorities and behavior of states. Likewise, international institutions play a critical role in many fields today precisely because
we are still in the midst of the nation-state era. In a time of weapons of mass destruction and of economic globalization, the
capacity of states for good or ill is such that the moderating influences of transnational civil society, global norms, and
international organization ca n sometimes make a critical difference. But they cannot substitute for the state or for the
domestic political processes that ultimately determine its policy choices. The powers of nonstate actors are derivative, their
operational capacities limited, and their legitimacy compromised by their lack of accountability, sovereignty, and democratic
structures.
9
Security K Answers
AT: Human Security/State Security Bad
An expanded conception of security leads to complete policy paralysis
Yuen Foong Khong, a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and senior research adviser at the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2001, Vol. 7, Global Governance
The policy rationale for securitizing any given issue--the environment and individuals, for
example--is to inform relevant audiences (one's own bureaucrats and citizens, the so-called
international community, as well as the victims of environmental degradation) that an issue has
priority and that it is high on the policymakers' agenda. When business-class passengers' bags get
tagged "priority" by airline companies, they expect their luggage to be among the first to emerge on
the carousel. A priority issue is thus one that gets special attention, better resources, and a higher
chance of satisfactory resolution. The question is whether we get these positive payoffs when we
securitize the individual or end up prioritizing everything and therefore nothing? When we
securitize the individual, we are making the security of each and every individual on the
planet the object of our concern. The teenager in California who trembles at the slightest crackling
sound, women in Africa subjected to genital mutilation, flood victims in China, earthquake victims
in India, and Kosovo Albanians are but a few examples of human beings whose physical survival or
integrity are being threatened by natural as well as unnatural forces. If, as Axworthy argues, human
beings have become the fundamental referents of security, it follows that we need to give
priority to them by diverting resources from other nonsecurity areas in the hope of
ameliorating or resolving these human security predicaments. The result of such an approach is
(total) paralysis of our ability to prioritize. In other words, which of the above deserve priority
attention and on what grounds? Is it not the case that, from the human security perspective, every
threat to the well-being of every individual in every state is a security issue? Ironically, in making
all individuals a priority, none actually benefits. It is like the airline company giving a priority
tag to everyone's luggage, with the result that the bags come out in a completely random order at the
destination. At a minimum, proponents of human security need to specify criteria for distinguishing
between the kind of security fears experienced by the California teenager and those felt by the
Albanian in Kosovo. A related, but equally important, point is that the human security approach
must also lead to intervention fatigue and overstretch. No state, NGO, or combination thereof
has the stamina and resources to attend to even a tiny fraction of such human security
demands. The basic issue related to the false sense of hope that is created by efforts to securitize
individuals is whether doing so actually increases the probability that their plight will be lightened.
The assumption of proponents of human security is that securitization increases that probability,
compared to a situation where it has been left unsecuritized. To be sure, this assumption remains
unproven. For every Bosnia or Kosovo, where external actors came to the aid of peoples
suffering from ethnic cleansing, there are many more Chechnyas, Rwandas, and Myanmars.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo in the name of
humanitarian intervention, but, as many analysts have pointed out, what really was at stake was
NATO's own credibility. In areas outside of NATO's sphere of influence, no amount of
securitization of individual well-being is likely to alleviate the plight of the repressed. Thus,
securitization might lead to improvement only in the most special of cases; in the va st majority of
cases, securitization will not lead to any significant improvement. Speaking loudly about human
security but carrying a Band-Aid only gives false hopes to both the victims of oppression and the
international community.
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Security K Answers
AT: Human Security/State Security Bad
A state centered conception of security is the only way to improve human well-being
Yuen Foong Khong, a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and senior research adviser at the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2001, Vol. 7, Global Governance
However, too many individuals in the twenty-first century reside in makeshift shelters and
thatched homes. What difference will it make to their lives for us to insist that they have become
the referents of security? Not very much. It would be more advisable for them to cast their lot
with their government--and their state--if they want a way out of their privation, which need not
be seen in security terms. In the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping regained control of the reins of
state power, he freed the Chinese peasant from the dictates of central economic planning and
set in motion the virtuous cycle of economic growth that continues to this day. No amount of
securitizing of the Chinese peasant could have secured for them what Deng, who saw the issue
in terms of improving their livelihoods and making China strong, did. It has to be acknowledged
that states in turmoil and those controlled by bad leaders are capable of despicable acts against their
own citizens. However, to label the misery of citizens as a se curity problem that deserves
international attention and response is not the wisest way to go, lest it gives citizens false hopes
premised on false priorities and causal assumptions. Therefore, without the capacity and
willingness to prioritize the countless human security dilemmas and devote the requisite
human, economic, and military resources to make a dent in ameliorating these problems, it is
probably not remiss to caution against the uncritical extension of the concept of security to the
individual.
Any reconceptualization of security takes decades
Dan Henk, Associate Professor of Leadership on the faculty of the Air War College, 20 05, Parameter,
Vol. 35
By almost any definition so far proposed, human security is achievable only in synergistic
collaboration across social, institutional, and sectoral boundaries. This is much easier to
advocate than to accomplish, and if it ever truly occurs, achieving it probably will require a
remarkable ability on the part of its participants to discard some older models of human
relationships. For instance, an implicit assumption is that participants are able to defer the
gratification of partisan short-term gain for the long-term common benefit, and can trust other
participants to behave likewise. This kind of security is gained, not imposed. This kind of trust is
given grudgingly, not readily. The model probably will work only if rich and powerful actors
willingly renounce pride of place in organizing the effort and in reaping the prestige they otherwise
are inclined to expect. Conceivably, obscure actors from civil society or from the community of
nongovernmental and international organizations may play the leading roles in the effort. Whatever
role the US government assumes in such an effort, US motives constantly will be suspect and the
behavior of US personnel will be heavily scrutinized. US government engagement--civilian or
military--in any effort to build human security probably requires a willingness to work with local
partners whose values and behavioral norms are diverse and very different from the norms of
Western industrial societies. In fact, the paradigm itself suggests that it is important to maintain a
constant search for civil-society partners and to look for them in unusual places such as kinship
systems, business networks in the informal economy, youth gangs, sports clubs, women's advocacy
groups, and religious cult groups. It also is conceivable that a human security partnership may
include countries whose interests are otherwise at odds, such as the United States and Iran. It is
important that participants take a very long-term view of future benefits. A human security agenda
almost by definition requires consistency and patience. The coherence and comprehensiveness of
the effort must be matched by its persistence. It may take years, possibly decades, to see
tangible results. However, for practical purposes it is appropriate to develop mechanisms by which
success can be measured: it is unlikely that US policymakers will sustain a long-term commitment
of resources without some reasonably concrete indicators that the risk is reasonable and the
investment is sound. Finally, a human security approach probably will not succeed unless many of
its participants are willing to reject false dichotomies and are sensitive to the limitations of their own
11
Security K Answers
cultural preferences, including a tendency to prioritize what should not be subject to prioritization.
For instance, all societies and groups--including US military organizations--have a tendency to
value some forms of leadership and progress above others. The human security paradigm argues
the importance of simultaneous progress in a variety of domains: economic, health,
environmental, political. This requires a degree of holistic thinking somewhat at odds with the
dictates of Western military efficiency.
12
Security K Answers
AT: Human Security/State Security Bad
A reconceptualization of security away from the state leads to political paralysis and
ignores the most pressing problems of Third World states
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 126-127
It has also become fashionable these days to equate security with other values that some analysts
consider intrinsically more important than, and morally superior to, the political-military
phenomena and objectives traditionally encompassed by the concept of security. For example, Ken Booth
has argued that security should be equated with “emancipation. ” According to him, “emancipation is
the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from the physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what
they would freely choose to do….Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin. Emancipation, not power or
order, produces true security. Emancipation, theoretically, is security.” 17 The problem with such semantic jugglery is
that by a sleight of hand it totally obfuscates the meanings of both the concepts of security and emancipation.
Booth’s definition refuses to acknowledge that a society or group can be emancipated without being secure and vice versa.
The emancipation of Kurds in northern Iraq from the Iraqi regime or of the Chechen from Russian rule did not necessarily
enhance the security of either population, even though it may have brought them closer to their cherished goal of
independence or emancipation for which they may have been willing to sacrifice the security provided to them, in however
imperfect a measure, by the Iraqi or the Russian state. Similarly, the citizens of Damascus under the repressive rule of the
Assad regime may have felt more secure in the period from 1975 to 1990 than their emancipated brethren in Beirut next door,
who suffered immensely during the Lebanese civil war because of the weakness of the Lebanese state and its inability to
provide them with even a minimum degree of order and, consequently, of security. As the cases cited above demonstrate,
such semantic acrobatics tend to impose a model of contemporary Western polities—of national states that have by and large
solved their legitimacy problem and possess representative and responsive governments, which preside over socially mobile
populations that are relatively homogeneous and usually affluent and free from want—that are far removed from Third World
realities. It may therefore be possible to equate emancipation with security in Western Europe (although one has grave
reservations even on that score), but it would be extremely farfetched and, indeed, intellectually disingenuous to do the same
in the case of the Third World, where basic problems of state legitimacy, political order, and capital
accumulation are not only far from being solved but may even be getting more acute. This is why to posit
emancipation as synonymous with security and the panacea for all the ills plaguing Third World states can be
the height of naïveté. Emancipation, interpreted as the right of every ethnic group to self-determination, can
turn out to be a recipe for grave disorder and anarchy as far as most Third World states are
concerned. This would result from a combination of two factors. First, ethnicity is a fluid and flexible concept and is
subject to change depending on the context in which it operates at any point in time. Examples ranging from the secession of
Bangladesh from the state of Pakistan to the failure of the state in Somalia bear adequate testimony to “the dynamic and
changing character of contemporary ethnicity…[which] is in major respects contextual, situational, and circumstantial.” 18 In
the former case, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan when the majority of its population decided to define their identity in
ethnolinguistic terms as Bengalis rather than in ethno-religious terms as Indian Muslims, a definition that had led to the
creation of Pakistan in 1947. In the latter case, Somalia, not so long ago considered to be the only nation-state in Africa, has
fallen prey to interclan warfare that has led to the virtual disintegration of the state itself, thus exposing the mutable nature of
Somalian ethno-national identity. Therefore, to link such a potent ideology as that of self-determination, which can be
considered a major manifestation of emancipation, to a malleable idea like that of ethnicity and then legitimize this
combination by reference to the principle of human rights of groups is bound to increase disorder in the Third World because
of the multiethnic character of almost all Third World countries. Furthermore, the breakup of existing Third
World states on the basis of the emancipation of ethnic groups is bound to increase rather than
reduce ethnic strife and political intolerance because there are no pure ethnic homelands existing in the
world today. As the example of the former Yugoslavia has demonstrated, minorities in ministates, which are dominated by
one particular ethnic group that arrogates to itself the right to define the national identity of such a state, can be expected to
receive much more brutal treatment—ranging from perpetual oppression to ethnic cleansing—than is the case with ethnic
minorities in most Third World states that exist within their colonially determined boundaries. In the context of the Third
World (which means the large majority of states), where the legitimacy of states and regimes is constantly challenged and
where demands for economic redistribution and political participation perennially outrun state capacities and create major
overloads on political systems, the concept of security should not be confused with that of emancipation, as Booth tends to
argue. In such a context an explicitly state-centric definition of security is likely to provide an
analytical tool of tremendous value that should not be sacrificed at the altar of Utopian
thinking, even if Booth would prefer to call it “Utopian realism.”
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AT: Human Security/State Security Bad
Their concept of security sacrifices stability—difficult choices are necessary to
maximize peace
Yuen Foong Khong, a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and senior research adviser at the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2001, Vol. 7, Global Governance
A strong case for taking human security seriously is its assumed impact on international peace and
security. As Axworthy puts it, "Human security puts people first and recognizes that their safety
is integral to the promotion and maintenance of international peace and security." However, how
valid is this generalization? One problem with this causal generalization is its reluctance to
make distinctions between people. Are there certain people who forfeit their right to protection
because of their direct or indirect actions? Would it not be foolhardy to put the safety of Slobodan
Milosevic and his supporters on par with that of the Bosnian Muslims? The former threatened not
only the security of the latter but the peace and stability of the entire Balkans. NATO's bombing of
Serbia suggests that states seldom do what the human security agenda recommends. NATO put
itself and its organizational credibility first and the plight of the Kosovars second. By bombing
Serbia, NATO sought to undermine the safety of the Se rbs and to force Serbian leaders to cease
their policy of ethnic cleansing. This example suggests that the human security approach is far
too universalistic. Like the earlier criticism of its inability to prioritize threats, it is also unable to
discriminate among people. Thus, the approach's universalism robs it of much of its productive
policy content. The assumption that "putting people and their safety first brings peace" can also be
questioned from a second, related perspective. Is not the real issue how much of our safety we are
willing to trade off for how much peace? Consider the case of nuclear deterrence and its
contribution to general peace and security during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans
and Russians lived under the constant fear of nuclear war while their leaders continued to build
weapons with more powerful and versatile warheads. U.S. schools held drills where students ducked
under their desks in anticipation of a nuclear explosion nearby. From the human security
perspective, this psychological terror should be addressed by eliminating nuclear weapons.
Would the elimination of nuclear weapons contribute to greater peace among nations? Nuclear
deterrence, however insecure it made individuals and states, has been critical in maintaining
general peace. The alleviation of human insecurity does not necessarily mean greater peace
and security. As the nuclear deterrence example shows, some measure of human psychological
insecurity may be necessary for maintaining peace.
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EXT: Human Security Leads to Paralysis
Broadening the concept of security leads to paralysis
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 121
Recent attempts at broadening the definition of the concept of security beyond its traditional
realist usage have created a major dilemma for students of International Relations. On the one
hand, it is clear that the traditional definition of security that has dominated the Western literature on
the subject is inadequate to explain the multifaceted and multidimensional nature of the problem of
security as faced by the majority of members in the international system. On the other, the often
indiscriminate broadening of the definition of security threatens to make the concept so elastic
as to render it useless as an analytical tool. 1 It is in this context that I attempt in this chapter to
provide an alternative definition of security that, while preserving the valuable insights of the
realist paradigm, goes beyond its ethnocentric obsession with external threats to state security.
It does so by incorporating into the definition the principal security concerns of the majority of
the members of the international system (the subalterns—those that are weak and of inferior rank).
These states’ major security preoccupations are primarily internal in character and are a
function of the early stages of state making at which they find themselves. Interestingly, these
concerns mirror the major security concerns evinced by most West European state makers during
the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, when these states were at a stage of state building
corresponding to that at which most Third World states find themselves today. 2 Unfortunately,
these historical concerns of West European states—the earliest to have attained the status of
sovereign national (and, therefore, modern) states—have been lost sight of by the neorealists
because of their obsession with the anarchic structure of the international system. This has led to a
consequently glaring neglect on their part of domestic variables that have major (often determining)
impact on the way state elites perceive and define the security problems of the large majority of
states that inhabit the international system today. I shall return to a discussion of my concept of
“subaltern realism” and its application to the field of security studies at the end of the chapter after
having made the necessary arguments demonstrating its superiority as an analytical tool, both over
neorealist as well as fashionably expansionist definitions of the concept of security.
Conceptually broadening security leads to policy incoherence
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 125
At the same time, it is important to guard against the temptation to make the concept of
security so broad that it comes to mean all things to all people because this is certain to render
the concept analytically useless. This latter tendency, however, has become very visible in the
new critical discourse about security during the past decade. Such a discourse has tended to
include everything from the violation of human rights to environmental degradation as a part of the
security problematic. Thus, adjectives like human and environmental, in addition to economic, have
been attached to the term security in an attempt to bring these diverse phenomena under the rubric
of security. However, there are major intellectual and practical hazards in adopting unduly elastic
definitions of security. For example, Jessica Tuchman Mathews’s attempt at portraying
environmental decline and climatic change as major sources of insecurity in the last decade of the
twentieth century, while valuable in pinpointing important challenges facing the human race as we
move into the twenty-first century, confuses the issue by wrapping these problems in the security
blanket. 14 It does so by attempting to make global management problems part of the national and
international security agendas. This is the danger that an author as sympathetic to environmental
concerns as Daniel Deudney warned against when he argued that national-security-from-violence
and environmental habitability have little in common…. The rising fashion of linking them
risks creating a conceptual muddle rather than a paradigm or world view shift—a de-definition
rather than a re-definition of security. If we begin to speak about all the forces and events that
threaten life, property and well-being (on a large-scale) as threats to our national security, we
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shall soon drain them of any meaning. All large—scale evils will become threats to national
security.
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EXT: Human Security Leads to Paralysis
Expansive conceptions of security gut its utility
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 139
At the same time, it should be recognized, by those critics of the concept who consider it to be too
narrow and who would like it to be broadened to encompass a very diverse set of human activities,
that the concept of security is not designed to explain the entire human reality. It is but a
conceptual tool that has the potential, if utilized with adequate discrimination and scholarly
restraint, to explain an important part of that reality pertaining to the political domain. In other
words, the concept of security must not be broadened to such a degree that it loses all
analytical usefulness. While it is essential to move beyond an exclusively ethnocentric Western
definition of security to include domestic and nonmilitary dimensions, especially issues of intrastate
conflict and political legitimacy, in the construction of security paradigms, one should not, as I
have stated earlier, run away with the concept to make it all things to all people. Scholars are not
supposed to be in the business of expanding the constituency for security, although they must
recognize that there are important constituencies that may be interested in just such an expansion;
our only obligation is to sharpen the concept as an analytical tool so that it may help provide some
of the answers, or at least help ask some of the right questions, in our study of the political realm.
Intellectual modesty can in this case turn out to be the beginning of wisdom.
Redefining security makes it meaningless—a state level focus is the best balance
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 128-129
To begin with, this definition of security, as I have stated earlier, purports to be state-centric in
character, thus emphasizing both the primarily political connotation of the term and the major
enterprise in which the large majority of countries in the international system are currently engaged,
namely, state building. My definition of the political realm is based above all on the acceptance of
David Easton’s logic that “however diffuse political science may appear to be, there can be no doubt
that ‘political’ refers to a separable dimension of human activity.” Further, he explains that
“political life concerns all those varieties of activity that influence significantly the kind of
authoritative policy adopted for a society and the way it is put into practice.” In other words, “the
political” refers to that arena of human activity that is concerned with “the authoritative allocation of
values for a society.” Because it is the state that is (or, where it is not, is supposed to be) engaged
in the authoritative allocation of social values within territorially defined political and
administrative entities, it becomes the primary referent of security in my definition. 21 Expanded
definitions of the political, like elastic definitions of security, do not help in clarifying the security
problematic; they tend to obfuscate issues, confuse the discussion about security, and end up by
de-defining rather than redefining the concept. This emphasis on the primacy of the political
realm in the definition of security, however, does not mean that the political realm can be, or
should be, totally insulated from other realms of human and societal activity when it comes to
dealing with or analyzing security issues. It means that while retaining its primacy in the definition
of security the political realm must be informed by these other arenas of human activity. Yet, the
influence of the other realms on matters that pertain to, or have a bearing on, security must be
filtered and mediated through the political arena and must be directly relevant to that realm. In
other words, when developments in other realms, ranging from the economic to the ecological,
threaten to have immediate political consequences, or are perceived as having the potential to
threaten state boundaries, political institutions, or governing regimes, then these other
variables have to be taken into account as a part of a state’s security calculus. Short of that,
the political and security realm must maintain its distinctiveness from other realms.
Phenomena like economic deprivation and environmental degradation should be analyzed as events,
occurrences, and variables that may be linked to, but are essentially distinct from, the arena of
security as defined here
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EXT: State Security Key to Human Security
Stability in inter-state relations is a prerequisite to re-conceptualising security
Heidi Hudson, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of the Free State,
June 2005, Security Dialogue, p. 165
While those who want to see human security as an alternative to state security and those who view
human and state security as complementary continue to battle it out, it does appear as though
pragmatism is beginning to win the day. The contemporary wisdom, represented by the report of the
United Nations Commission on Human Security (2003), accepts security between states as a
necessary condition for the security of people, but is also conscious of the fact that individuals
require protection from the arbitrary power of the state. While human security requires strong
and stable institutions, a high degree of human security may also shed legitimacy on governments.
Human security thus complements state security by providing a more comprehensive emphasis on
human development, human rights and the role of non-state actors. This, in my view, is a marriage
of convenience – but not necessarily one that needs to be rejected in a self-conscious moralistic way.
For the sake of meaningful implementation, human security should not be reified. A paradigm shift
achieved through incremental consensus-building could, in the long run, mean a reversal of
ends and means. The challenge lies in the way in which state security is transformed from an
end to a means of promoting human security. Like it or not, the state remains the political
actor with the largest capacity to mobilize resources.
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EXT: State Based Security Key to Solve 3rd World
Domination
A state based definition of security is essential to solve domination of the Third
World
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 135
Looking at the political realities in the Third World, especially at the early stage of state building
at which most Third World countries find themselves, and comparing this situation with the
relatively advanced stage of state making in the industrialized world, one can conclude that states
can afford the luxury of stable, liberal democratic governance only if they are territorially and
politically satiated, that is, finished with the process of state building: having concentrated
coercive capacity in the hands of the agents of the state and achieved unconditional legitimacy
for state boundaries, state institutions, and governing regimes; being socially and politically
cohesive; and having reached a high level of industrialization, and, therefore, of affluence that is
distributed relatively evenly. They can do so because only marginal differences remain in the
population on the fundamental issues of political and economic organization of the society, and on
the basic identity of the state. Furthermore, societal demands no longer threaten the integrity or the
viability of the state. The absence of major differences on fundamental issues explains why
“political struggles in a democracy do not need to degenerate into an all-or-nothing fight for the
control of the state; prosperity and the enjoyment of economic and political rights do not depend on
a life—and—death conflict over which group controls the government.” The historical evolution of
the industrialized democracies also explains the absence of conflict among them. These states have
completed their process of state making over three hundred to four hundred years and are
territorially satiated in relation to one another. They do not have residual state—making claims
outstanding against each other. 37 Also, they have too much at stake in the global capital—ist
economy to go to war with each other, thereby upsetting the global economic apple cart. The nuclear
factor, which has ruled out war in the global strategic heartland where most industrial democracies
are located, provides further explanation for their pacific behavior toward each other and toward the
members of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact. The comparison with the industrialized democracies raises
the question of whether these variables can come together in the same mix for most Third World
countries so that they can also become stable democracies and maintain pacific relations with each
other. Even if some or many Third World states have formally instituted or are likely to institute
democratic forms of government, this is unlikely to signal that their state-making processes are
complete, nor will it necessarily reduce their vulnerabilities to the extent that they can be considered
internally stable and externally pacific. They may be democracies in the formal sense of the term,
but they will be neither satiated nor stable democracies and will therefore be far from reaching the
goal of democratic maturity. Territorial satiation, societal cohesion, and political stability—all part
of successful state making—have determined the generally pacific nature of the industrial
democracies’ relations with each other. In Western Europe and North America liberal democracy is
a function of these factors, when they are present in the right combination, not their cause. As long
as Third World states are not able to achieve these three goals, their formally established democratic
institutions will continue to be vulnerable to internal challenges, and the gains of democratization
could be reversed. This is why it is wise to heed Robert Rothstein’s warning: “It is a mistake to
jump too easily from the observation that democracies do not fight each other to the notion that a
world of mostly democracies (many of them weak and potentially unstable) will necessarily be more
peaceful, either internally or internationally.” 38 The adoption of a state-centric definition of
security that is inti- mately tied to the understanding of the process of state making is therefore
likely to provide us with valuable clues to sorting out the puzzle about the pacific nature of
democratic societies in relation to each other, and the real reasons behind what has come to be
known as democratic peace. It would also set the debate regarding the relevance of the democratic
peace theory in proper historical perspective by bringing in the data for Third World states that
happen to be at a stage of state making at which most industrial democracies were in the sixteenth to
the nineteenth centuries. It would enrich the traditional realist model by going within the black box
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called the state and examining evolutionary and historical processes that determine state behavior in
major ways. This, I believe, will be a major contribution to the field of international security studies.
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Ext: Poverty Is Not the Root Cause of Violence
Poverty is not a contributor to war
Morris Miller, adjunct economics professor at the University of Ottawa, January-March 2001, Peace
Magazine, http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v17n1p08.htm
Library shelves are heavy with studies focused on the correlates and causes of war. Some of the
leading scholars in that field suggest that we drop the concept of causality, since it can rarely be
demonstrated. Nevertheless, it may be helpful to look at the motives of war-prone political leaders
and the ways they have gained and maintained power, even to the point of leading their nations to
war. Poverty: The Prime Causal Factor? Poverty is most often named as the prime causal factor.
Therefore we approach the question by asking whether poverty is characteristic of the nations or
groups that have engaged in wars. As we shall see, poverty has never been as significant a factor
as one would imagine. Largely this is because of the traits of the poor as a group - particularly
their tendency to tolerate their suffering in silence and/or be deterred by the force of repressive
regimes. Their voicelessness and powerlessness translate into passivity. Also, because of their
illiteracy and ignorance of worldly affairs, the poor become susceptible to the messages of war-bent
demagogues and often willing to become cannon fodder. The situations conductive to war involve
political repression of dissidents, tight control over media that stir up chauvinism and ethnic
prejudices, religious fervor, and sentiments of revenge. The poor succumb to leaders who have the
power to create such conditions for their own self-serving purposes. Desperately poor people in
poor nations cannot organize wars, which are exceptionally costly. The statistics speak
eloquently on this point. In the last 40 years the global arms trade has been about $1500 billion, of
which two-thirds were the purchases of developing countries. That is an amount roughly equal to
the foreign capital they obtained through official development aid (ODA). Since ODA does not
finance arms purchases (except insofar as money that is not spent by a government on aid-financed
roads is available for other purposes such as military procurement) financing is also required to
control the media and communicate with the populace to convince them to support the war. Largescale armed conflict is so expensive that governments must resort to exceptional sources, such
as drug dealing, diamond smuggling, brigandry, or deal-making with other countries. The reliance
on illicit operations is well documented in a recent World Bank report that studied 47 civil wars that
took place between 1960 and 1999, the main conclusion of which is that the key factor is the
availability of commodities to plunder. For greed to yield war, there must be financial opportunities.
Only affluent political leaders and elites can amass such weaponry, diverting funds to the
military even when this runs contrary to the interests of the population. In most inter-state
wars the antagonists were wealthy enough to build up their armaments and propagandize or
repress to gain acceptance for their policies.
Unequal distribution of wealth does not cause war
Morris Miller, adjunct economics professor at the University of Ottawa, January-March 2001, Peace
Magazine, http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v17n1p08.htm
Increasing Inequality? If armed conflict is not caused by, or correlated with, poverty or economic
crises, another explanation is possible: Perhaps it is that war results when the poor become
aware of the increasing gap between themselves and the rich. And certainly the gap is shocking.
In 1960 there was a 30:1 gap in average per capita incomes between the fifth of the world's people
who live in the rich industrialized countries and the fifth who live in the poorer countries. By 1990
the gap was 60:1, and as we enter the new millennium, it is over 74:1. The contrast is now between
$30,000 annual average income per person and less than $400. This troubling dynamic has created
societal tensions that frequently take the form of riots and insurgencies. Commentators warn of
impending armed conflicts on the scale of war, especially when extreme inequality coincides with
ethnic or cultural divisions that create "triggers" or "flash points." However, the historic record
reveals that there has not been - and there is not now - a significant tendency for countries with
high inequality to be more often engaged in war. Nor do developing countries with low degrees
of inequality escape the scourge of war. To be sure, if we identify developing countries with high
degrees of inequality, there are some that have been wracked by civil war. (Sierra Leone and
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Colombia are prime examples.) But if we look at the poor countries with a much fairer
distribution of wealth and income, some have undergone the same civil war traumas as Sierra
Leone and Colombia. Rwanda is an example. There one fifth of the population possesses about
40% of the total income.
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Ext: Poverty Is Not the Root Cause of Violence
Poverty is not the root cause of terrorism
lan B. Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and Jitka
Maleckova, associate professor at the Institute for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Charles
University in Prague, 6-24-2002, The New Republic
In the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, several prominent observers and policymakers
have called for increased aid and educational assistance as a means for ending terrorism. "We fight
against poverty," President George W. Bush has declared, "because hope is an answer to terror." But
a careful review of the evidence provides little reason for optimism that a reduction in poverty
or an increase in educational attainment would, by themselves, meaningfully reduce international
terrorism. Any connection between poverty, education, and terrorism is indirect, complicated,
and probably quite weak. Instead of viewing terrorism as a direct response to low market
opportunities or lack of education, we suggest it is more accurately viewed as a response to
political conditions and long-standing feelings of indignity and frustration (perceived or real)
that have little to do with economics. An understanding of the causes of terrorism is essential if an
effective strategy is to be crafted to combat it. Drawing a false and unjustified connection between
poverty and terrorism is potentially quite dangerous, as the international aid community may lose
interest in providing support to developing nations when the imminent threat of terrorism recedes,
much as support for development waned in the aftermath of the Cold War; and connecting foreign
aid with terrorism risks the possibility of humiliating many people in less developed countries,
who are implicitly told that they receive aid only to prevent them from committing acts of
terror. Moreover, premising foreign aid on the threat of terrorism could create perverse incentives
in which some groups are induced to engage in terrorism to increase their prospects of receiving aid.
In our view, alleviating poverty is reason enough to pressure economically advanced countries to
provide more aid than they are currently giving. Falsely connecting terrorism to poverty serves only
to deflect attention from the real roots of terrorism.
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Key 2AC Cards
Rejection of securitization causes the state to become more interventionist—
turns the K
Tara McCormack, ’10, is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and has a PhD in International Relations
from the University of Westminster. 2010, (Critique, Security and Power: The political limits to emancipatory approaches, page 127129)
The following section will briefly raise some questions about the rejection of the old security framework as it has been taken
up by the most powerful institutions and states. Here we can begin to see the political limits to critical and
emancipatory frameworks. In an international system which is marked by great power inequalities between states, the
rejection of the old narrow national interest-based security framework by major international institutions, and the
adoption of ostensibly emancipatory policies and policy rhetoric, has the consequence of problematising weak
or unstable states and allowing international institutions or major states a more interventionary role, yet
without establishing mechanisms by which the citizens of states being intervened in might have any control
over the agents or agencies of their emancipation. Whatever the problems associated with the pluralist
security framework there were at least formal and clear demarcations. This has the consequence of
entrenching international power inequalities and allowing for a shift towards a hierarchical international
order in which the citizens in weak or unstable states may arguably have even less freedom or power than
before. Radical critics of contemporary security policies, such as human security and humanitarian intervention, argue that we see
an assertion of Western power and the creation of liberal subjectivities in the developing world. For example, see Mark Duffield’s
important and insightful contribution to the ongoing debates about contemporary international security and development. Duffield
attempts to provide a coherent empirical engagement with, and theoretical explanation of, these shifts. Whilst these shifts, away from
a focus on state security, and the so-called merging of security and development are often portrayed as positive and progressive shifts
that have come about because of the end of the Cold War, Duffield argues convincingly that these shifts are highly problematic and
unprogressive. For example, the rejection of sovereignty as formal international equality and a presumption of nonintervention has
eroded the division between the international and domestic spheres and led to an international environment in which Western NGOs
and powerful states have a major role in the governance of third world states. Whilst for supporters of humanitarian intervention this is
a good development, Duffield points out the depoliticising implications, drawing on examples in Mozambique
and Afghanistan. Duffield also draws out the problems of the retreat from modernisation that is
represented by sustainable development. The Western world has moved away from the development policies of the Cold
War, which aimed to develop third world states industrially. Duffield describes this in terms of a new division of human life into
uninsured and insured life. Whilst we in the West are ‘insured’ – that is we no longer have to be entirely self-reliant, we have welfare
systems, a modern division of labour and so on – sustainable development aims to teach populations in poor states how to survive in
the absence of any of this. Third world populations must be taught to be self-reliant, they will remain uninsured.
Self-reliance of course means the condemnation of millions to a barbarous life of inhuman bare
survival. Ironically, although sustainable development is celebrated by many on the left today, by leaving people to fend for
themselves rather than developing a society wide system which can support people, sustainable development actually leads
to a less human and humane system than that developed in modern capitalist states. Duffield also describes
how many of these problematic shifts are embodied in the contemporary concept of human security. For
Duffield, we can understand these shifts in terms of Foucauldian biopolitical framework, which can be
understood as a regulatory power that seeks to support life through intervening in the biological, social and
economic processes that constitute a human population (2007: 16). Sustainable development and human security are for
Duffield technologies of security which aim to create self-managing and self-reliant subjectivities in the third world, which can then
survive in a situation of serious underdevelopment (or being uninsured as Duffield terms it) without causing security problems for the
developed world. For Duffield this is all driven by a neoliberal project which seeks to control and manage uninsured populations
globally. Radical critic Costas Douzinas (2007) also criticises new forms of cosmopolitanism such as human rights and interventions
for human rights as a triumph of American hegemony. Whilst we are in agreement with critics such as Douzinas and Duffield that
these new security frameworks cannot be empowering, and ultimately lead to more power for powerful
states, we need to understand why these frameworks have the effect that they do. We can understand that these frameworks have
political limitations without having to look for a specific plan on the part of current powerful states. In new security frameworks such
as human security we can see the political limits of the framework proposed by critical and emancipatory theoretical approaches.
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Alternative fails – critical theory has no mechanism to translate theory into
practice
Jones 99 (Richard Wyn, Lecturer in the Department of International Politics – University of Wales,
Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, CIAO, http://www.ciaonet.org/book/wynjones/wynjones06.html)
Because emancipatory political practice is central to the claims of critical theory, one might expect that
proponents of a critical approach to the study of international relations would be reflexive about the
relationship between theory and practice. Yet their thinking on this issue thus far does not seem to have
progressed much beyond grandiose statements of intent. There have been no systematic considerations of
how critical international theory can help generate, support, or sustain emancipatory politics beyond the
seminar room or conference hotel. Robert Cox, for example, has described the task of critical theorists as
providing “a guide to strategic action for bringing about an alternative order” (R. Cox 1981: 130). Although
he has also gone on to identify possible agents for change and has outlined the nature and structure of some
feasible alternative orders, he has not explicitly indicated whom he regards as the addressee of critical
theory (i.e., who is being guided) and thus how the theory can hope to become a part of the political process
(see R. Cox 1981, 1983, 1996). Similarly, Andrew Linklater has argued that “a critical theory of
international relations must regard the practical project of extending community beyond the nation–state as
its most important problem” (Linklater 1990b: 171). However, he has little to say about the role of theory
in the realization of this “practical project.” Indeed, his main point is to suggest that the role of critical
theory “is not to offer instructions on how to act but to reveal the existence of unrealised possibilities”
(Linklater 1990b: 172). But the question still remains, reveal to whom? Is the audience enlightened
politicians? Particular social classes? Particular social movements? Or particular (and presumably
particularized) communities? In light of Linklater’s primary concern with emancipation, one might expect
more guidance as to whom he believes might do the emancipating and how critical theory can impinge
upon the emancipatory process. There is, likewise, little enlightenment to be gleaned from Mark Hoffman’s
otherwise important contribution. He argues that critical international theory seeks not simply to reproduce
society via description, but to understand society and change it. It is both descriptive and constructive in its
theoretical intent: it is both an intellectual and a social act. It is not merely an expression of the concrete
realities of the historical situation, but also a force for change within those conditions. (M. Hoffman 1987:
233) Despite this very ambitious declaration, once again, Hoffman gives no suggestion as to how this
“force for change” should be operationalized and what concrete role critical theorizing might play in
changing society. Thus, although the critical international theorists’ critique of the role that more
conventional approaches to the study of world politics play in reproducing the contemporary world order
may be persuasive, their account of the relationship between their own work and emancipatory political
practice is unconvincing. Given the centrality of practice to the claims of critical theory, this is a very
significant weakness. Without some plausible account of the mechanisms by which they hope to aid in the
achievement of their emancipatory goals, proponents of critical international theory are hardly in a position
to justify the assertion that “it represents the next stage in the development of International Relations
theory” (M. Hoffman 1987: 244). Indeed, without a more convincing conceptualization of the theory–
practice nexus, one can argue that critical international theory, by its own terms, has no way of redeeming
some of its central epistemological and methodological claims and thus that it is a fatally flawed
enterprise.
Utopian ideas of eliminating security guarantee annihilation—we must accept the
inevitability of enemies and stop them before they kill us.
Harris, 04 (Lee, Essayist for Policy Review, Civilization and its Enemies,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1260214/posts)
This is why all
utopian projects are set either on a distant island or in a hidden valley: they must exist in
isolation from the rest of the world, to keep even the thought of the enemy at bay . Otherwise, they
would have to deal with the problem of how to survive without abandoning their lofty ideals. This is the problem that
confronts us today. The ideals that our intellectuals have been instilling in us are utopian ideals,
designed for men and women who know no enemy and who do not need to take precautions
against him. They are the values appropriate for a world in which everyone plays by the same rules, and accepts the same
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standards, of rational cooperation;
they are fatally unrealistic in a world in which the enemy
acknowledges no rule except that of ruthlessness. To insist on maintaining utopian values
when your society is facing an enemy who wishes only to annihilate you is to invite
annihilation. And that is unacceptable. The only solution is for us to go back and unforget some of what we have
forgotten, for our very forgetfulness is an obstacle to understanding the lessons of the past, so long as we insist on
interpreting the past in ways which give comfort to our pet illusions. We want to believe that civilization came about because
men decided one fine morning to begin living sensible, peaceful, rational lives; we refuse to acknowledge what it sot to
achieve even the first step in this direction. Unless we can understand this first step, none of the rest will make any sense to
us, and we will fail to see what is looming right in front of us. The Greek way of expressing past and future differed from
ours. We say that the past is behind us and the future is in front of us. To the Greeks, however, the past was before them,
because they could plainly see its finished form standing in front of them: it was territory they had passed through and whose
terrain they had charted. It was the future that was behind them, sneaking up like a thief in the night, full of dim imaginings
and vast uncertainties. Nothing could penetrate the blackness of this unknown future except the rare flash of foresight that the
Greeks called sophos, or wisdom. Yet even these flashes of wisdom depended entirely upon the capacity to remember that
which is eternal and unchanging-which is precisely what we have almost forgotten. The past tells that there can be
no end of history, no realm of perpetual peace, and that those who are convinced by this
illusion are risking all that they hold dear. The past tells us that there will always be an enemy as long
as men care enough about anything to stake a claim to it, and thus enmity is built into the very nature of
things. The past tells us that the next stage of history will be a tragic conflict between two different
ways of life, which both have much that is worthy of admiration in them but which cannot coexist in the same
world. But the past does not, and cannot, tell us how it will end this time.
Any reconceptualization of security takes decades
Dan Henk, Associate Professor of Leadership on the faculty of the Air War College, 2005, Parameter,
Vol. 35
By almost any definition so far proposed, human security is achievable only in synergistic
collaboration across social, institutional, and sectoral boundaries. This is much easier to
advocate than to accomplish, and if it ever truly occurs, achieving it probably will require a
remarkable ability on the part of its participants to discard some older models of human
relationships. For instance, an implicit assumption is that participants are able to defer the
gratification of partisan short-term gain for the long-term common benefit, and can trust other
participants to behave likewise. This kind of security is gained, not imposed. This kind of trust is
given grudgingly, not readily. The model probably will work only if rich and powerful actors
willingly renounce pride of place in organizing the effort and in reaping the prestige they otherwise
are inclined to expect. Conceivably, obscure actors from civil society or from the community of
nongovernmental and international organizations may play the leading roles in the effort. Whatever
role the US government assumes in such an effort, US motives constantly will be suspect and the
behavior of US personnel will be heavily scrutinized. US government engagement--civilian or
military--in any effort to build human security probably requires a willingness to work with local
partners whose values and behavioral norms are diverse and very different from the norms of
Western industrial societies. In fact, the paradigm itself suggests that it is important to maintain a
constant search for civil-society partners and to look for them in unusual places such as kinship
systems, business networks in the informal economy, youth gangs, sports clubs, women's advocacy
groups, and religious cult groups. It also is conceivable that a human security partnership may
include countries whose interests are otherwise at odds, such as the United States and Iran. It is
important that participants take a very long-term view of future benefits. A human security agenda
almost by definition requires consistency and patience. The coherence and comprehensiveness of
the effort must be matched by its persistence. It may take years, possibly decades, to see
tangible results. However, for practical purposes it is appropriate to develop mechanisms by which
success can be measured: it is unlikely that US policymakers will sustain a long-term commitment
of resources without some reasonably concrete indicators that the risk is reasonable and the
investment is sound. Finally, a human security approach probably will not succeed unless many of
its participants are willing to reject false dichotomies and are sensitive to the limitations of their own
cultural preferences, including a tendency to prioritize what should not be subject to prioritization.
For instance, all societies and groups--including US military organizations--have a tendency to
value some forms of leadership and progress above others. The human security paradigm argues
the importance of simultaneous progress in a variety of domains: economic, health,
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environmental, political. This requires a degree of holistic thinking somewhat at odds with the
dictates of Western military efficiency.
A reconceptualization of security away from the state leads to political paralysis and
ignores the most pressing problems of Third World states
Mohammed Ayoob, professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, 2003, Critical Security Studies, p. 126-127
It has also become fashionable these days to equate security with other values that some analysts
consider intrinsically more important than, and morally superior to, the political-military
phenomena and objectives traditionally encompassed by the concept of security. For example, Ken Booth
has argued that security should be equated with “emancipation. ” According to him, “emancipation is
the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from the physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what
they would freely choose to do….Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin. Emancipation, not power or
order, produces true security. Emancipation, theoretically, is security.” 17 The problem with such semantic jugglery is
that by a sleight of hand it totally obfuscates the meanings of both the concepts of security and emancipation.
Booth’s definition refuses to acknowledge that a society or group can be emancipated without being secure and vice versa.
The emancipation of Kurds in northern Iraq from the Iraqi regime or of the Chechen from Russian rule did not necessarily
enhance the security of either population, even though it may have brought them closer to their cherished goal of
independence or emancipation for which they may have been willing to sacrifice the security provided to them, in however
imperfect a measure, by the Iraqi or the Russian state. Similarly, the citizens of Damascus under the repressive rule of the
Assad regime may have felt more secure in the period from 1975 to 1990 than their emancipated brethren in Beirut next door,
who suffered immensely during the Lebanese civil war because of the weakness of the Lebanese state and its inability to
provide them with even a minimum degree of order and, consequently, of security. As the cases cited above demonstrate,
such semantic acrobatics tend to impose a model of contemporary Western polities—of national states that have by and large
solved their legitimacy problem and possess representative and responsive governments, which preside over socially mobile
populations that are relatively homogeneous and usually affluent and free from want—that are far removed from Third World
realities. It may therefore be possible to equate emancipation with security in Western Europe (although one has grave
reservations even on that score), but it would be extremely farfetched and, indeed, intellectually disingenuous to do the same
in the case of the Third World, where basic problems of state legitimacy, political order, and capital
accumulation are not only far from being solved but may even be getting more acute. This is why to posit
emancipation as synonymous with security and the panacea for all the ills plaguing Third World states can be
the height of naïveté. Emancipation, interpreted as the right of every ethnic group to self-determination, can
turn out to be a recipe for grave disorder and anarchy as far as most Third World states are
concerned. This would result from a combination of two factors. First, ethnicity is a fluid and flexible concept and is
subject to change depending on the context in which it operates at any point in time. Examples ranging from the secession of
Bangladesh from the state of Pakistan to the failure of the state in Somalia bear adequate testimony to “the dynamic and
changing character of contemporary ethnicity…[which] is in major respects contextual, situational, and circumstantial.” 18 In
the former case, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan when the majority of its population decided to define their identity in
ethnolinguistic terms as Bengalis rather than in ethno-religious terms as Indian Muslims, a definition that had led to the
creation of Pakistan in 1947. In the latter case, Somalia, not so long ago considered to be the only nation-state in Africa, has
fallen prey to interclan warfare that has led to the virtual disintegration of the state itself, thus exposing the mutable nature of
Somalian ethno-national identity. Therefore, to link such a potent ideology as that of self-determination, which can be
considered a major manifestation of emancipation, to a malleable idea like that of ethnicity and then legitimize this
combination by reference to the principle of human rights of groups is bound to increase disorder in the Third World because
of the multiethnic character of almost all Third World countries. Furthermore, the breakup of existing Third
World states on the basis of the emancipation of ethnic groups is bound to increase rather than
reduce ethnic strife and political intolerance because there are no pure ethnic homelands existing in the
world today. As the example of the former Yugoslavia has demonstrated, minorities in ministates, which are dominated by
one particular ethnic group that arrogates to itself the right to define the national identity of such a state, can be expected to
receive much more brutal treatment—ranging from perpetual oppression to ethnic cleansing—than is the case with ethnic
minorities in most Third World states that exist within their colonially determined boundaries. In the context of the Third
World (which means the large majority of states), where the legitimacy of states and regimes is constantly challenged and
where demands for economic redistribution and political participation perennially outrun state capacities and create major
overloads on political systems, the concept of security should not be confused with that of emancipation, as Booth tends to
argue. In such a context an explicitly state-centric definition of security is likely to provide an
analytical tool of tremendous value that should not be sacrificed at the altar of Utopian
thinking, even if Booth would prefer to call it “Utopian realism.”
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Their concept of security sacrifices stability—difficult choices are necessary to
maximize peace
Yuen Foong Khong, a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University, and senior research adviser at the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2001, Vol. 7, Global Governance
A strong case for taking human security seriously is its assumed impact on international peace and
security. As Axworthy puts it, "Human security puts people first and recognizes that their safety
is integral to the promotion and maintenance of international peace and security." However, how
valid is this generalization? One problem with this causal generalization is its reluctance to
make distinctions between people. Are there certain people who forfeit their right to protection
because of their direct or indirect actions? Would it not be foolhardy to put the safety of Slobodan
Milosevic and his supporters on par with that of the Bosnian Muslims? The former threatened not
only the security of the latter but the peace and stability of the entire Balkans. NATO's bombing of
Serbia suggests that states seldom do what the human security agenda recommends. NATO put
itself and its organizational credibility first and the plight of the Kosovars second. By bombing
Serbia, NATO sought to undermine the safety of the Se rbs and to force Serbian leaders to cease
their policy of ethnic cleansing. This example suggests that the human security approach is far
too universalistic. Like the earlier criticism of its inability to prioritize threats, it is also unable to
discriminate among people. Thus, the approach's universalism robs it of much of its productive
policy content. The assumption that "putting people and their safety first brings peace" can also be
questioned from a second, related perspective. Is not the real issue how much of our safety we are
willing to trade off for how much peace? Consider the case of nuclear deterrence and its
contribution to general peace and security during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans
and Russians lived under the constant fear of nuclear war while their leaders continued to build
weapons with more powerful and versatile warheads. U.S. schools held drills where students ducked
under their desks in anticipation of a nuclear explosion nearby. From the human security
perspective, this psychological terror should be addressed by eliminating nuclear weapons.
Would the elimination of nuclear weapons contribute to greater peace among nations? Nuclear
deterrence, however insecure it made individuals and states, has been critical in maintaining
general peace. The alleviation of human insecurity does not necessarily mean greater peace
and security. As the nuclear deterrence example shows, some measure of human psychological
insecurity may be necessary for maintaining peace.
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Alt Bad
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Alt Fails
The alternative fails – critique alone impedes effective policymaking – reference to
realism is key to making choices intelligible to states
Lott ‘4 [Anthony, Assistant Professor of Political Science @ St. Olaf College. Creating Insecurity. p. 467]
But the constructivist project has not been without its problems. Specifically, constructivism has been
considered policy-irrelevant. It offers us a way to understand and reflect on our world but does nothing to
tell us how to navigate that world. As a policy tool, constructivism would require a moral component. The
ability to construct a coherent understanding of world politics requires moral teachings that assist in making
political choices from that understanding. While some constructivists have demonstrated how reflection
and critique can be used to influence the political process, constructivism seems to complicate the policy
making process rather than assist it. As noted, security studies bridges the divide between theoretical
investigation and policy relevance. In order to offer something useful to the state, studies must accept many
of the assumptions upon which the state exists. The inability to provide policy direction makes the
constructivist project as incomplete an approach to security studies as realist thought, albeit for remarkably
different reasons. In the following chapter, I seek to engage both realists and constructivists in a more
rigorous discussion of national security studies. While neither realism nor constructivism presents a
comprehensive approach to national security studies, I hope to demonstrate that both are necessary
components of a more sophisticated understanding of the sources of insecurity.
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Turn: Our scenario evaluations are crucial for responsible politics. Pure critique of security practice
is insufficient – we need to evaluate “as if” outcomes like the plan to realize ethical counter-practices
Michael Williams, '5 [Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Wales. The Realist
Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 165-7]
Moreover, the links between sceptical realism and prevalent postmodern themes go more deeply
than this, particularly as they apply to attempts by post-structural thinking to reopen questions of
responsibility and ethics.80 In part, the goals of post-structural approaches can be usefully
characterised, to borrow Stephen White's illuminating contrast, as expressions of 'responsibility to
otherness' which question and challenge modernist equations of responsibility with a 'responsibility
to act'. A responsibility to otherness seeks to reveal and open the constitutive processes and claims
of subjects and subjectivities that a foundational modernism has effaced in its narrow identification
of responsibility with a 'responsibility to act'.81 Deconstruction can from this perspective be seen
as a principled stance unwilling to succumb to modernist essentialism which in the name of
responsibility assumes and reifies subjects and structures, obscures forms of power and violence
which are constitutive of them, and at the same time forecloses a consideration of alternative
possibilities and practices. Yet it is my claim that the wilful Realist tradition does not lack an
understanding of the contingency of practice or a vision of responsibility to otherness. On the
contrary, its strategy of objectification is precisely an attempt to bring together a responsibility to
otherness and a responsibility to act within a wilfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of
objectivity and calculation is not just a consequence of a need to act —the framing of an epistemic
context for successful calculation. It is a form of responsibility to otherness, an attempt to allow for
diversity and irreconcilability precisely by — at least initially — reducing the self and the other to a
structure of material calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility, mediation, and
stability. It is, in short, a strategy of limitation: a wilful attempt to construct a subject and a social
world limited — both epistemically and politically — in the name of a politics of toleration: a
liberal strategy that John Gray has recently characterised as one of modus vivendi.82 If this is the
case, then the deconstructive move that gains some of its weight by contrasting itself to a non- or
apolitical objectivism must engage with the more complex contrast to a sceptical Realist tradition
that is itself a constructed, ethical practice. This issue becomes even more acute if one considers
Iver Neumann's incisive questions concerning postmodern constructions of identity, action, and
responsibility.83 As Neumann points out, the insight that identities are inescapably contingent and
relationally constructed, and even the claim that identities are inescapably indebted to otherness,
do not in themselves provide a foundation for practice, particularly in situations where
identities are 'sedimented' and conflictually defined. In these cases, deconstruction alone will
not suffice unless it can demonstrate a capacity to counter in practice (and not just in philosophic
practice) the essentialist dynamics it confronts.84 Here, a responsibility to act must go beyond
deconstruction to consider viable alternatives and counter-practices. To take this critique seriously
is not necessarily to be subject yet again to the straightforward 'blackmail of-the Enlightenment'
and a narrow 'modernist' vision of responsibility.85 While an unwillingness to move beyond a
deconstructive ethic of responsibility to otherness for fear that an essentialist stance is the only (or
most likely) alternative expresses a legitimate concern, it should not license a retreat from such
questions or their practical demands. Rather, such situations demand also an evaluation of the
structures (of identity and institutions) that might viably be mobilised in order to offset the
worst implications of violently exclusionary identities. It requires, as Neumann nicely puts it, the
generation of compelling 'as if' stories around which counter-subjectivities and political practices
can coalesce. Wilful Realism, I submit, arises out of an appreciation of these issues, and comprises an
attempt to craft precisely such 'stories' within a broader intellectual and sociological analysis of
their conditions of production, possibilities of success, and likely consequences. The question is,
to what extent are these limits capable of success, and to what extent might they be limits upon
their own aspirations toward responsibility? These are crucial questions, but they will not be
addressed by retreating yet again into further reversals of the same old dichotomies.
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Alt Links to K
The kritik is complicit in the same securitization.
Huysmans 2 (Jef, Lecturer in Politics, Department of Government, Open University, “Defining social constructivism in
security studies: the normative dilemma of writing security,” Alternatives 2002)
Social-constructivist authors face a normative dilemma that is central to their research project. They
are sensitive to how security "talk" about migration can contribute to its securitization (7)--that is, it
can render migration problematic from a security perspective. They may point out how
criminological research establishes a relationship between crime and immigration; for example, by
looking for a correlation between Turkish immigrants and trade in heroin, they establish a discursive
link, irrespective of whether the correlation is confirmed or not. The discursive link is thus
embedded in the very setup of the research; in other words, from the very beginning the research
embodies an assumption, often already politicized, that a particular group of aliens may have a
special relationship to crime. (8) This observation is of course not a dilemma as such: it becomes a
dilemma for social-constructivist authors only when they realize that this interpretation feeds
back into their own research. They also pro duce security knowledge that therefore could as
such be securitizing. If an author values a securitization of migration negatively, she faces the
question of how to talk or write about the securitization of migration without contributing to a
further securitization by the very production of this knowledge. The normative dilemma thus
consists of how to write or speak about security when the security knowledge risks the production of
what one tries to avoid, what one criticizes: that is, the securitization of migration, drugs, and so
forth. (9)
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Alt Fails- Policy Key
Alternative doesn’t solve- analyzing representations don’t and shouldn’t affect
policies.
Tuathail 96 (Gearoid, Department of Geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, “The patterned mess of history and the
writing of critical geopolitics: a reply to Dalby,” Political Geography, 15(6-7))
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse and
concerns of foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so different that they
constitute a distinctive problem- solving, theory-averse, policy-making subculture. There is a
danger that academics assume that the discourses they engage are more significant in the
practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power than they really are. This is not, however,
to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a general institutional structure among many
that sustain certain epistemic communities in particular states. In general, I do not disagree with
Dalby’s fourth point about politics and discourse except to note that his statement-‘Precisely
because reality could be represented in particular ways political decisions could be taken, troops
and material moved and war fought’-evades the important question of agency that I noted in my
review essay. The assumption that it is representations that make action possible is inadequate
by itself. Political, military and economic structures, institutions, discursive networks and
leadership are all crucial in explaining social action and should be theorized together with
representational practices. Both here and earlier, Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a form of
idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that
his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He analyzes certain CPD discourses, root
the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration nor its public-policy reasoning
on national security. Dalby’s book is narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan
administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find that the distinction between
critical theorists and post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by Dalby and
others. Third, Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow as
heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that
ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachev’s reforms
and his new security discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile attempt to
save the Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised
by Simon Dalby in his comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical
geopolitics. While I agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for
political geographers to engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so
that we neglect the institutional and the sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the
political and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive strategies become
significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical
cant that sometimes accompanies ‘poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the
identity politics narrative; it needs to always be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
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Alt Fails- No Mechanism
Their alternative fails—it’s a statement of intent with no method of implementation.
Jones 99 (Richard, professor of International Politics at the University of Wales,
Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, CIAO Net)
Because emancipatory political practice is central to the claims of critical theory, one might expect that
proponents of a critical approach to the study of international relations would be reflexive about the
relationship between theory and practice. Yet their thinking on this issue thus far does not seem to have
progressed much beyond grandiose statements of intent. There have been no systematic
considerations of how critical international theory can help generate, support, or sustain
emancipatory politics beyond the seminar room or conference hotel. Robert Cox, for example, has
described the task of critical theorists as providing “a guide to strategic action for bringing about an
alternative order” (R. Cox 1981: 130). Although he has also gone on to identify possible agents for change
and has outlined the nature and structure of some feasible alternative orders, he has not explicitly indicated
whom he regards as the addressee of critical theory (i.e., who is being guided) and thus how the theory can
hope to become a part of the political process (see R. Cox 1981, 1983, 1996). Similarly, Andrew Linklater
has argued that “a critical theory of international relations must regard the practical project of extending
community beyond the nation–state as its most important problem” (Linklater 1990b: 171). However, he
has little to say about the role of theory in the realization of this “practical project.” Indeed, his main point
is to suggest that the role of critical theory “is not to offer instructions on how to act but to reveal the
existence of unrealised possibilities” (Linklater 1990b: 172). But the question still remains, reveal to
whom? Is the audience enlightened politicians? Particular social classes? Particular social movements? Or
particular (and presumably particularized) communities? In light of Linklater’s primary concern with
emancipation, one might expect more guidance as to whom he believes might do the emancipating and how
critical theory can impinge upon the emancipatory process. There is, likewise, little enlightenment to be
gleaned from Mark Hoffman’s otherwise important contribution. He argues that critical international theory
seeks not simply to reproduce society via description, but to understand society and change it. It is both
descriptive and constructive in its theoretical intent: it is both an intellectual and a social act. It is not
merely an expression of the concrete realities of the historical situation, but also a force for change within
those conditions. (M. Hoffman 1987: 233) Despite this very ambitious declaration, once again, Hoffman
gives no suggestion as to how this “force for change” should be operationalized and what concrete role
critical theorizing might play in changing society. Thus, although the critical international theorists’
critique of the role that more conventional approaches to the study of world politics play in reproducing the
contemporary world order may be persuasive, their account of the relationship between their own work and
emancipatory political practice is unconvincing. Given the centrality of practice to the claims of critical
theory, this is a very significant weakness. Without some plausible account of the mechanisms
by which they hope to aid in the achievement of their emancipatory goals, proponents of critical
international theory are hardly in a position to justify the assertion that “it represents the next stage in the
development of International Relations theory” (M. Hoffman 1987: 244). Indeed, without a more
convincing conceptualization of the theory–practice nexus, one can argue that critical international
theory, by its own terms, has no way of redeeming some of its central epistemological and
methodological claims and thus that it is a fatally flawed enterprise.
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Alt Fails- Action Key
The attempt to avoid securitization avoids all action and allows atrocities to
continue
Huysmans 2 (Jef, Lecturer in Politics, Department of Government, Open University, “Defining social constructivism in
security studies: the normative dilemma of writing security,” Alternatives 2002)
To summarize, the normative dilemma of social constructivism rests on the understanding that the
effect of the communication depends on a socially constructed formation of rules, which constrains
the author in what can be said and how it will be received while the author depends on security
language ruled by the formation if he or she wants to transform a securitization of a particular area
from within security studies. In other words, the desire to transform always risks further
securitizing an area because the security formation simultaneously constrains and empowers
the authors to make serious security statements. Social-constructivist authors who are critical
of a particular securitization such as migration are thus caught by the question: "How can I
interpret security problems in the societal area in such a fashion that I reduce the risk of
repeating the very securitization of the area?"
MUST WORK WITHIN THE LANGUAGE OF SECURITY TO BREAK ITS HOLD
Ole Waever, Senior Researcher, Center for Peace & Conflict Research, ON SECURITY, Ronnie D.
Lipschutz, ed., 1995, p. 56. (MHDRWE050)
An agenda of minimizing security in this sense cannot be based on a classical critical approach to security,
whereby the concept is critiqued and then thrown away or redefined according to the wishes of the analyst.
The essential operation can only be touched by faithfully working with the classical meaning of the
concept and what is already inherent in it. The language game of security is, in other words, a jus
necessitates for threatened elites, and this it must remain.
PEACE REQUIRES ANALYZING THE POTENTIAL CAUSES OF WAR
Stephen Walt, University of Chicago, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, 1991, p.229.
(MHSOLT1289)
A recurring theme of this essay has been the twin dangers of separating the study of security affairs from
the academic world or of shifting the focus of academic scholarship too far from real-world issues. The
danger of war will be with us for some time to come, and states will continue to acquire military forces for
a variety of purposes. Unless one believes that ignorance is preferable to expertise, the value of
independent national security scholars should be apparent. Indeed, history suggests that countries that
suppress debate on national security matters are more likely to blunder into disaster, because misguided
policies cannot be evaluated and stopped in time.
SECURITIZING NOT A GIVEN -CAN EVALUATE PLAN WITHOUT SECURITIZING, PROVING THE PERM
IS NOT SEVERANCE
Barry Buzan, Research Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster, et al.,
SECURITY: A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS, 1998, p. 25. (MHDRWE047)
Even if the general logic of securitization is clear, we have to be precise about its threshold. A
discourse that takes the form of presenting something as an existential threat to a referent object
does not by itself create securitization--this is a securitizing move, but the issue is securitized only if
and when the audience accepts it as such.
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Security K Answers
Alt bad -- Backlash
The alt causes a fundamentalist backlash.
Burke, lecturer at Adelaide University School of History and Politics, 2007
[Anthony, Beyond Security, Ethics and Violence: War against the Other. pp.93]
Once we attempt to enact an ethics of responsibility that challenges existing political ontologies,
especially nationalist ones, a new danger appears: it seems unmooring. By playing out what
Connolly calls 'a politics of disturbance through which sedimented identities and moralities are
rendered more alert to the deleterious effects of their naturalisation upon difference' and 'a politics
of enactment through which new possibilities of being are propelled into established
constellations', the new ethics produces uncertainty – political and ontological. 'The politics of
disturbance can backfire', he writes, 'inducing that identity panic upon which the politics of
fundamentalism feeds'. By antagonising conservatives and provoking them to cling to
fundamentalist certitudes, the deployment of such an ethics may unwittingly reinforce the very
politics it is seeking to transform. The Israeli settler lobby, and the US government's
fundamentalist faith in the utility of military violence as a panacea for insecurity and uncertainty,
are powerful contemporary examples of this problem. As Michael Barnett suggests, the post-Oslo
process exacerbated such problems: the growing divisions within Israeli society exemplified by
Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in fact 'grew more severe, in no small measure due to his secular
and liberal response'.84
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Alt Turn - Violence
Security discourse is inevitable—rejection risks replicating the harms.
Williams 3 (Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, “Words, Images,
Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 47(4), AD: 7-10-9) BL
It is irrelevant here whether one rejects, accepts, or perhaps finds it an atavistic remnant of barbaric
times that nations continue to group themselves according to friend and enemy, or whether it is
perhaps strong pedagogic reasoning to imagine that enemies no longer exist at all. The concern here
is neither with abstractions nor normative ideals, but with inherent reality and the real possibility of
making such a distinction. One may or may not share these hopes and pedagogic ideals. But,
rationally speaking, it cannot be denied that nations continue to group themselves according to
the friend–enemy antithesis, that the distinction still remains actual today, and that this is an ever
present possibility for every people existing in the political sphere (1996 [1932]: 28).30 In certain
settings, the Copenhagen School seems very close to this position. Securitization must be
understood as both an existing reality and a continual possibility. Yet equally clearly there is a
basic ambivalence in this position, for it raises the dilemma that securitization theory must remain
at best agnostic in the face of any securitization, even, for example, a fascist speech-act (such as
that Schmitt has often been associated with) that securitizes a specific ethnic or racial minority. To
say that we must study the conditions under which such processes and constructions emerge and
become viable is important but incomplete, for without some basis for avoiding this process and
transforming it the Copenhagen School appears to risk replicating some of the worst excesses
made possible by a Schmittian understanding of politics.
Rejecting security discourse replicates radical realpolitik.
Williams 3 (Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, “Words, Images,
Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 47(4), AD: 7-10-9) BL
I would like to suggest that it is in response to these issues, and in regard to the realm of ethical
practice, that the idea of security as a speech-act takes on an importance well beyond its role as a
tool of social explanation. Casting securitization as a speechact places that act within a
framework of communicative action and legitimation that links it to a discursive ethics that
seeks to avoid the excesses of a decisionist account of securitization. While the Copenhagen
School has been insufficiently clear in developing these aspects of securitization theory, they link
clearly to some of the most interesting current analyses of the practical ethics of socialconstructivism. As Thomas Risse (2000) has recently argued, communicative action is not simply
a realm of instrumental rationality and rhetorical manipulation. Communicative action
involves a process of argument, the provision of reasons, presentation of evidence, and
commitment to convincing others of the validity of one’s position. Communicative action
(speech-acts) are thus not just given social practices, they are implicated in a process of justification.
Moreover, as processes of dialogue, communicative action has a potentially transformative
capacity. As Risse puts it: Argumentative rationality appears to be crucially linked to the constitutive rather than the
regulative role of norms and identities by providing actors with a mode of interaction that enables them to mutually challenge
and explore the validity claims of those norms and identities. When actors engage in a truth-seeking discourse, they must be
prepared to change their own views of the world, their interests, and sometimes even their identities. (2000: 2)31 As speechacts, securitizations are in principle forced to enter the realm of discursive legitimation. Speech-act theory entails the
possibility of argument, of dialogue, and thereby holds out the potential for the transformation of security perceptions both
within and between states. The securitizing speech-act must be accepted by the audience, and while the Copenhagen School
is careful to note that ‘‘[a]ccept does not necessarily mean in civilized, dominance-free discussion; it only means that an
order always rests on coercion as well as on consent,’’ it is nonetheless the case that ‘‘[s]ince securitization can
never only be imposed, there is some need to argue one’s case’’(Buzan et al., 1998: 23), and that
‘‘[s]uccessful securitization is not decided by the securitizer but by the audience of the security
speech-act: does the audience accept that something is an existential threat to a shared value? Thus
security (as with all politics) ultimately rests neither with the objects nor with the subjects but
among the subjects’’(1998:31). It is via this commitment to communicative action and
discursive ethics, I would like to suggest, that the Copenhagen School seeks to avoid the radical
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realpolitik that might otherwise seem necessarily to follow from the Schmittian elements of the theory of securitization.
Schmitt appeals to the necessity and inescapability of decision, enmity, and ‘‘the political.’’ He appeals to the mobilizing
power of myth in the production of friends and enemies, and asserts the need for a single point of decision to the point of
justifying dictatorship. He mythologizes war and enmity as the paramount moments of political life.32
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Alt Turn - War
Rejecting security leads to war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Focusing the tools of offensive realism on Europe and Northeast Asia, Mearsheimer foresees
greater instability, perhaps war, in these regions over the next 20 years. The prediction is based
on two central variables that are themselves linked (1) whether U.S. troops remain deployed in these
regions, and (2) possible changes in regional power structures. Mearsheimer shares the widespread
belief that peace in these areas is currently being sustained by the “American pacifer,” the
physical presence of U.S. troops.31 Much will depend, therefore, on whether the United States
remains so engaged. But that will turn, he argues, on possible changes in the structure of power in
each region, in particular, on whether a potential hegemon arises. If that does not occur, the United
States eventually will withdraw its troops. The withdrawal would increase the potential for
conflict, first by removing the “pacifer” and second by fostering change in the regional power
structures.
Security competition is the only way to prevent war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Mearsheimer draws from Herz’s analysis the “implication” that “the best way for a state to
survive in anarchy is to take advantage of other states and gain power at their expense. The
best defense is a good offense” (p. 36).16 He takes issue with “some defensive realists” who
emphasize that offensive strategies are self-defeating, because they trigger balancing countermoves.
“Given this understanding of the security dilemma,” he declares, “hardly any security competition
should ensue among rational states, because it would be fruitless, maybe even counter-productive, to
try to gain advantage over rival powers. Indeed, it is difficult to see why states operating in a world
where aggressive behavior equals self-defeating behavior would face a ‘security dilemma.’ It would
seem to make good sense for all states to forsake war and live in peace”(p. 417, n. 27). Mearsheimer
could have pointed to the possible bad consequences of “living in peace” as a reason why security
measures, even “selfdefeating” ones, may be necessary. For example, inaction in the form of a
failure to take deterrent measures may be exploited by a rival, at a possible cost far greater
than the costs of action. The option of inaction is often omitted in discussions of the security
dilemma, even though it is the “other horn” of the dilemma and usually essential to a full
explanation of outcomes.
Realism is the only way to prevent war.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics, AD: 7-10-9) BL
It should be apparent from this discussion that offensive realism is mainly a descriptive theory. It
explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how they are likely to behave in the future.
But it is also a prescriptive theory. States should behave according to the dictates of offensive
realism, because it outlines the best way to survive in a dangerous world. One might ask, if the
theory describes how great powers act, why is it necessary to stipulate how they should act? The
imposing constraints of the system should leave great powers with little choice but to act as the
theory predicts. Although there is much truth in this description of great powers as prisoners trapped
in an iron cage, the fact remains that they sometimes—although not often—act in contradiction to
the theory. These are the anomalous cases discussed above. As we shall see, such foolish behavior
invariably has negative consequences. In short, if they want to survive, great powers should
always act like good offensive realists.
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Alt increases risk of war
Mearsheimer 5 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, The Australian, “The Rise of
China Will Not Be Peaceful at All”, lexis, AD: 7/11/09) AN
will China rise peacefully? My answer is no. If China continues its impressive
economic growth over the next few decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense
security competition with considerable potential for war. Most of China's neighbours, to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea,
THE question at hand is simple and profound:
Russia and Vietnam, will join with the US to contain China's power. To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory that explains how rising powers are likely to act and how
other states will react to them. My theory of international politics says that the mightiest states attempt to establish hegemony in their own region while making sure that no rival
The ultimate goal of every great power is to maximise its share of world power and
eventually dominate the system. The international system has several defining characteristics . The main actors are
states that operate in anarchy which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. All great powers have some offensive military
capability, which means that they can hurt each other. Finally, no state can know the future intentions of
other states with certainty. The best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible,
relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it. The great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest
great power dominates another region.
great power, although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon, the only great power in the system. But it is almost impossible for any state to achieve
global hegemony in the modern world, because it is too hard to project and sustain power around the globe. Even the US is a regional but not a global hegemon. The best that a
state can hope for is to dominate its own back yard. States that gain regional hegemony have a further aim: to prevent other geographical areas from being dominated by other
great powers. Regional hegemons, in other words, do not want peer competitors. Instead, they want to keep other regions divided among several great powers so that these states
will compete with each other. In 1991, shortly after the Cold War ended, the first Bush administration boldly stated that the US was now the most powerful state in the world and
That same message appeared in the famous National Security Strategy issued by the second
Bush administration in September 2002. This document's stance on pre-emptive war generated harsh
criticism, but hardly a word of protest greeted the assertion that the US should check rising powers and
maintain its commanding position in the global balance of power. China -- whether it remains authoritarian or becomes
democratic -- is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western
planned to remain so.
hemisphere. Specifically, China will seek to maximise the power gap between itself and
its neighbours, especially Japan and Russia. China will want to make sure that it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the
wherewithal to threaten it. It is unlikely that China will pursue military superiority so that it can go on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries, although that is always
possible. Instead, it is more likely that it will want to dictate the boundaries of acceptable behaviour to neighbouring countries, much the way the US makes it clear to other states
Gaining regional hegemony, I might add, is probably the only way that
China will get Taiwan back. An increasingly powerful China is also likely to try to push
the US out of Asia, much the way the US pushed the European great powers out of the
Western hemisphere. We should expect China to come up with its own version of the
Monroe Doctrine, as Japan did in the 1930s. These policy goals make good strategic sense
for China. Beijing should want a militarily weak Japan and Russia as its neighbours, just as the US prefers a militarily weak Canada and Mexico on its borders. What
in the Americas that it is the boss.
state in its right mind would want other powerful states located in its region? All Chinese surely remember what happened in the 20th century when Japan was powerful and China
was weak. In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi. Furthermore, why would a powerful China accept US military forces operating in
its back yard? American policy-makers, after all, go ballistic when other great powers send military forces into the Western hemisphere. Those foreign forces are invariably seen as
Why would China feel safe with US forces
deployed on its doorstep? Following the logic of the Monroe Doctrine, would not China's
security be better served by pushing the American military out of Asia? Why should we expect the Chinese
a potential threat to American security. The same logic should apply to China.
to act any differently than the US did? Are they more principled than the Americans are? More ethical? Less nationalistic? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of
It is clear from the historical
record how American policy-makers will react if China attempts to dominate Asia. The
US does not tolerate peer competitors. As it demonstrated in the 20th century, it is
determined to remain the world's only regional hegemon. Therefore, the US can be
expected to go to great lengths to contain China and ultimately weaken it to the point
where it is no longer capable of ruling the roost in Asia. In essence, the US is likely to behave towards China much the way
these things, of course, which is why China is likely to imitate the US and attempt to become a regional hegemon.
it behaved towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. China's neighbours are certain to fear its rise as well, and they too will do whatever they can to prevent it from
there is already substantial evidence that countries such as India,
Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller powers such as Singapore, South Korea and
Vietnam, are worried about China's ascendancy and are looking for ways to contain it. In
the end, they will join an American-led balancing coalition to check China's rise, much the way
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and even China, joined forces with the US to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Finally, given Taiwan's
strategic importance for controlling the sea lanes in East Asia, it is hard to imagine the
US, as well as Japan, allowing China to control that large island. In fact, Taiwan is likely
achieving regional hegemony. Indeed,
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to be an important player in the anti-China balancing coalition, which is sure to infuriate
China and fuel the security competition between Beijing and Washington.
Security competition is inevitable—failing to compete ensures war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
A central concept in nearly all realist theory is that of the “security dilemma.” Mearsheimer quotes
with approval John Herz’s original statement of the dilemma: “Striving to attain security from . . .
attack, [states] are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of
the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to
prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units,
power competition ensues and the vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on” (p.
36).14 This, says Mearsheimer, is “a synoptic statement of offensive realism.” However, this is
correct only in a limited sense: The great powers in offensive realism indeed are interested primarily
in security, and their security moves do threaten others, causing them to take countermeasures, as in
the security dilemma. But here the similarity begins to fade. The security dilemma, in most
formulations (including Herz’s), emphasizes how power and security competition can occur
between states that want nothing more than to preserve the status quo.15 Although no one is actually
aggressive, uncertainty about others’ intentions forces each to take protective measures that appear
threatening to others. But there are no status quo powers in Mearsheimer’s world. All great powers
are revisionist and “primed for offense” (p. 3). Mearsheimer does allow that states do not know
each other’s intentions for sure, but he also says that they “are likely to recognize their own motives
at play in the actions of other states” (p. 35). If all are revisionist and believe (correctly) that others
are too, it is hard to see any “dilemma.” Each great power’s security measures present real
threats to others, not merely hypothetical ones. Hence there is no question of “unnecessary”
competition being generated by the need to ensure against uncertain threats.
Refusing to engage in security competition leads to war.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics, AD: 7-11-9) BL
The possible consequences of falling victim to aggression further amplify the importance of
fear as a motivating force in world politics. Great powers do not compete with each other as if
international politics were merely an economic marketplace. Political competition among states is
a much more dangerous business than mere economic intercourse; the former can read to
war, and war often means mass killing on the battlefield as well a mass murder of civilians. In
extreme cases, war can even lead to the destruction of states. The horrible consequences of war
sometimes cause states to view each other not just as competitors, but as potentially deadly enemies.
Political antagonism, in short, tends to be intense, because the stakes are great. States in the
international system also aim to guarantee their own survival. Because other states are potential
threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 911, states
can’ t just depend on others for their own security. Each state tends to see itself as vulnerable and
alone, and therefore it aims to provide for its own survival. In international politics, God helps
those who help themselves. This emphasis on self-help does not preclude states from forming
alliances.” But alliances are only temporary marriages of convenience: today’s alliance partner
might be tomorrow’s enemy, and today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s alliance partner. For
example, the United States fought with China and the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan in
World War II, but soon thereafter flip-flopped enemies and partners and allied with West Germany
and Japan against China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Total rejection of security discourse causes war.
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Doran 99 (Charles is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins
University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC, “Is Major War Obsolete? An
Exchange” Survival, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 139—52) NS
The conclusion, then, is that the probability of major war declines for some states, but increases for others. And it is very
difficult to argue that it has disappeared in any significant or reliable or hopeful sense. Moreover, a problem with
arguing a position that might be described asutopian is that such arguments have policy implications.
It is worrying that as
a thesis about the obsolescence of major war becomes more compelling to more
poeple, including presumably governments, the tendency will be forget about the underlying
problem, which is not war per Se, but security. And by neglecting the underlying problem of
security, the probability of was perversely increases: as governments fail to provide the kind of defence and
security necessary to maintain deterrence, one opens up the possibility of new challenges. In this regard it is worth recalling
one of Clauswitz’s most important insights: A conqueror is always a lover of peace. He would like to make his entry into our
state unopposed. That is the underlying dilemma when one argues that a major war is not likely to occur and, as a
consequence, one need not necessarily be so concerned about providing the defences that underlie security itself. History
shows that surprise threats emerge and rapid destabilising efforts are made to try to provide that missing defence, and all of
this contributes to the spiral of uncertainty that leads in the end to war.
The alternative locks in suffering and death – willingness to engage in risky
policymaking is necessary.
Agathangelou and ling 97 (Anna M. , director of the Global Change Institute, assistant professor of
political science at York University, and L.H.M. Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in
International Affairs at New School University, Studies in Political Economy, Vol. 54, p. 7-8) NS
Yet, ironically if not tragically, dissent IR also paralyzes itself into non-action. While it callenges the
staus quo, dissent IR fails to transform it. Indeed, dissident IR claims that a “coherent” paradigm or
research program – even an alternative one – reproduces the stifling parochialism and hidden powermongering of sovereign scholarship. “Any agenda of global politics informed by critical social theory
perspectives,” writes Jim George “must forgo the simple, albeit self-gratifying, options inherent in readymade alternative Realisms and confront the dangers, closures, paradoxes, and complicities associated
with them.” Even references to a “real world,” dissidents argue, repudiate the very meaning of dissidence
given their sovereign presumption of a universalizable, testable Reality. What dissident scholarship opts
for, instead, is a sense of disciplinary crisis that “resonates with the effects of marginal and dissident
movements in all sorts of other localities.” Despite its emancipatory intentions this approach
effectivelyleaves the prevailing prison of sovereighny intact. It doubly incarcerates when dissident IR
highlights the layers of power that oppress without offering a heuristic, not to mention a program for
emancipator action. Merely politicizing the supposedly non-political neither guides emancipatory action
nor guards it against demagoguery. At best, dissident IR sanctions a detached criticality rooted
(ironically) in Western modernity. Michael Shapiro, for instance, advises the dissident theorist to take “a
critical distance” or “position offshore” from which to “see the possibility of change.” But what becomes
of those who know they are buming in the hells of exploitation, racism, sexism, starvation, civil war, and
the like while the esoteric dissent observes “critically” from offshore? What hope do they have of
overthrowing these shackles of sovereignty? In not answering these questions, dissident IR ends up
reproducing , despite avowals to the contrary,the sovereign outcome ofdiscourse divorced from practice,
analysis form policy. deconstruction from reconstruction, particulars from universals, and critical theory
from problem-solving.
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Alt Turn – Violence/War – Deterrence Better
Their alternative ignores the reality of situations and opens the door to violence and
warfare – deterrence is a better strategy because it recognizes that security is not
zero sum.
Booth 5 (Ken, Professor of International Politics at the University ofWales-Aberystwyth. “Critical
Security Studies and World Politics” 2005. pg. 270-71) JM
Postmodern/poststructural engagement with the subject of security in international relations has been characterized by some
of the general problems of the genre, notably obscurantism, relativism, and faux radicalism.26 What has particularly troubled
critics of the postmodern sensibility has been the latter's underlying conception of politics.27 Terry Eagleton, for one, has
praised the "rich body of work" by postmodern writers in some areas but at the same time has contested the genre's "cultural
relativism and moral conventionalism, its scepticism, pragmatism and localism, its distaste for ideas of solidarity and
disciplined organization, [andJ its lack of any adequate theory of political agency. "28 Eagleton made these comments as part
of a general critique of the postmodern sensibility, but I would argue that specific writing on security in
international relations from postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives has generally done
nothing to ease such concerns. Eagleton's fundamental worry was how postmodernism would
"shape up" to the test of fascism as a serious political challenge. Other writers, studying particular
political contexts, such as postapartheid South Africa, have shown similar worries; they have questioned the lack of concrete
or specific resources that such theories can add to the repertoire of reconstruction strategies.29 Richard A. Wilson, an
anthropologist interested in human rights, has generalized exactly the same concern, namely, that the postmodernist
rejection of metanarratives and universal solidarities does not deliver a helpful politics to
people in trouble. As he puts it, "Rights without a metanarrative are like a car without seat-belts; on hitting the first
moral bump with ontological implications, the passenger's safety is jeopardised."30 The struggle within South Africa to bring
down the institutionalized racism of apartheid benefited greatly from the growing strength of universal human rights values
(which delegitimized racism and legitimized equality) and their advocacy by groups in different countries and cultures
showing their political solidarity in material and other ways. Anxiety about the politics of postmodernism and
poststructuralism is provoked, in part, by the negative conceptualization of security projected
by their exponents. The poststructuralist approach seems to assume that security cannot be
common or positive-sum but must always be zero-sum, with somebody's security always being
at the cost of the insecurity of others. At the same time, security itself is questioned as a desirable
goal for societies because of the assumption of poststructuralist writers that the search for
security is necessarily conservative and will result in negative consequences for somebody. They
tend also to celebrate insecurity, which I regard as a middle-class affront to the truly insecure. 31
Threats will exist independent of discourse – the alternative allows for violence.
Deterrence is the only way to prevent conflict.
Thayer 6 (Bradley, Professor of Security Studies at Missouri State, The National Interest, “In Defense of
Primacy,” Nov/Dec, 32-7) JM
In contrast, a strategy based on retrenchment will not be able to achieve these fundamental
objectives of the United States. Indeed, retrenchment will make the United States less secure
than the present grand strategy of primacy. This is because threats will exist no matter what
role America chooses to play in international politics. Washington cannot call a "time out", and it
cannot hide from threats. Whether they are terrorists, rogue states or rising powers, history
shows that threats must be confronted. Simply by declaring that the United States is "going
home", thus abandoning its commitments or making unconvincing half-pledges to defend its
interests and allies, does not mean that others will respect American wishes to retreat. To make
such a declaration implies weakness and emboldens aggression. In the anarchic world of the animal
kingdom, predators prefer to eat the weak rather than confront the strong. The same is true of the
anarchic world of international politics. If there is no diplomatic solution to the threats that
confront the United States, then the conventional and strategic military power of the United
States is what protects the country from such threats.
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Alt Fails – Plan Prerequisite to Alt
Plan is a prerequisite to the Alt
Stein 88 (Janice, director of the Munk Centre for Internatinal Studies at the university of Trinity
College, University of toronto “Building Politics into Psychology: The Misperception of Threat”
Political Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 2 AD: 7/10/09) NS
Where good documentary evidence is available and the intentions of those who issue the threat are
well-established, we can compare leaders' perceptions of threat to the intentions of those who
threatened and to their capabilities and make a judgment of accuracy (Levy, 1983: 73-80).
Where such evidence is not avail-able or, as frequently happens, is open to multiple
interpretation, assessment of the accuracy of threat perception is far more difficult. Under
these circum-stances, we treat threat perception as a process rather than as an outcome and
consider deviations from generally accepted norms of inference and judgment (Jervis, 1986a).
Again, since standards of rationality vary and leaders rarely approximate these norms,
evaluating processes of perception can also create controversy (Jervis, 1976: 117-142; Stein and
Tanter, 1980: 3-20). Nevertheless, because the perception of threat is in its essence a
psychological process, the explanation and evaluation of misperception as a process is useful.
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Alt Fails – Conflict/Violence Inevitable
Conflict is inevitable—security is the only way to mitigate its effects.
Donnelly 00 (Jack, Professor of International Studies at the University of Denver, Realism and
International Relations, p. 10, http://irchina.org/xueke/fangfa/realism.pdf, AD: 7-10-9) BL
Realists also stress the political necessities that flow from international anarchy. In the
absence of international government, “the law of the jungle still prevails” (Schuman 1941: 9).
“The difference between civilization and barbarism is a revelation of what is essentially the same
human nature when it works under different conditions” (Butterfield 1949: 31; compare Schuman
1941: 9; Spykman 1942: 141). Within states, human nature usually is tamed by hierarchical political
authority and rule. In international relations, anarchy not merely allows but encourages the
worst aspects of human nature to be expressed. “That same human nature which in happy
conditions is frail, seems to me to be in other conditions capable of becoming hideous” (Butterfield
1949: 44). The interaction of egoism and anarchy leads to “the overriding role of power in
international relations” (Schwarzenberger 1951: 147) and requires “the primacy in all political
life of power and security “ (Gilpin 1986: 305). “The struggle for power is universal in time and
space” (Morgenthau 1948: 17). “The daily presence of force and recurrent reliance on it mark the
affairs of nations” (Waltz 1979: 186). “Security” thus means a somewhat less dangerous and less
violent world, rather than a safe, just, or peaceable one. Statesmanship involves mitigating and
managing, not eliminating, conflict.
The anarchic system makes power struggles and security competition inevitable.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Mearsheimer begins with the assertion that great powers “maximize their relative power” (p. 21).
That puts him close to Morgenthau, who famously proclaimed a never-ending struggle for power
among states, arising from an animus dominandi—that is, a natural human urge to dominate others.7
Mearsheimer, however, rejects this source of causation. There is a limitless power struggle, he
avers, but what drives it is not an appetite for power in the human animal, but a search for
security that is forced by the anarchic structure of the international system. When all states
have capabilities for doing each other harm, each is driven to amass as much power as it can
to be as secure as possible against attack. This assumption of a security motivation and structural
causation, of course, places Mearsheimer closer to Waltz. Where Mearsheimer departs from Waltz
is in his assertion that the search for power and security is insatiable, whereas Waltz says that it has
limits. Thus he disagrees with Waltz on the question of “how much power states want.”
Mearsheimer makes the point succinctly: “For defensive realists, the international structure provides
states with little incentive to seek additional increments of power; instead it pushes them to maintain
the existing balance of power. Preserving power, rather than increasing it, is the main goal of states.
Offensive realists, on the other hand, believe that status quo powers are rarely found in world
politics, because the international system creates powerful incentives for states to look for
opportunities to gain power at the expense of rivals, and to take advantage of those situations
when the benets outweigh the costs. A state’s ultimate goal is to be the hegemon in the system”
(p. 21)
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Alt Fails – Violence Inevitable – Human Nature
Violence is inevitable—it’s human nature.
Thayer 4 (Bradley, Associate Professor of Defense and Strategic Study at Missouri State University,
Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict, AD: 7-11-9)
BL
In chapter 2, I explain how evolutionary theory contributes to the realist theory of international
relations and to rational choice analysis. First, realism, like the Darwinian view of the natural
world, submits that international relations is a competitive and dangerous realm, where
statesmen must strive to protect the interests of their state before the interests of others or
international society. Traditional realist arguments rest principally on one of two discrete ultimate
causes, or intellectual foundations of the theory. The first is Reinhold Niebuhr's argument that
humans are evil. The second, anchored in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Hans Morgenthau, is
that humans possess an innate animus dominandi - a drive to dominate. From these foundations,
Niebuhr and Morgenthau argue that what is true for the individual is also true of the state: because
individuals are evil or possess a drive to dominate so too do states because their leaders are
individuals who have these motivations. argue that realists have a much stronger foundation for the
realist argument than that used by either Morgenthau or Niebuhr. My intent is to present an
alternative ultimate cause of classical realism: evolutionary theory. The use of evolutionary
theory allows realism to be scientifically grounded for the first time, because evolution explains
egoism. Thus a scientific explanation provides a better foundation for their arguments than either
theology or metaphysics. Moreover, evolutionary theory can anchor the branch of realism termed
offensive realism and advanced most forcefully by John Mearsheimer. He argues that the anarchy
of the international system, the fact that there is no world government, forces leaders of states to
strive to maximize their relative power in order to be secure. I argue that theorists of international
relations must recognize that human evolution occurred in an anarchic environment and that
this explains why leaders act as offensive realism predicts. Humans evolved in anarchic
conditions, and the implications of this are profound for theories of human behavior. It is also
important to note at this point that my argument does not depend upon "anarchy" as it is
traditionally used in the discipline - as the ordering principle of the post-1648 Westphalian state
system. When human evolution is used to ground offensive realism, it immediately becomes a more
powerful theory than is currently recognized. It explains more than just state behavior; it begins to
explain human behavior. It applies equally to non-state actors, be they individuals, tribes, or
organizations. Moreover, it explains this behavior before the creation of the modern state system.
Offensive realists do not need an anarchic state system to advance their argument. They only need
humans. Thus, their argument applies equally well before or after 1648, whenever humans form
groups, be they tribes in Papua New Guinea, conflicting city-states in ancient Greece, organizations
like the Catholic Church, or contemporary states in international relations.
Violence is inevitable—applying ethics to international relations only makes it
worse.
Axtmann 7 (Roland, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Wales,
“Humanity or Enmity? Carl Schmitt on International Politics,” International Politics, 44(5), AD: 7-10-9)
BL
War and justice; peace and humanity: how to understand these concepts, their relationships and the
'reality' they conceive has been at the centre of Schmitt's critical engagement with liberal
universalism. The invocation of 'humanity', Schmitt argues, is an ideological cover for power
politics, while 'humanity' cannot be a 'political' concept in Schmitt's definition of the political: the
uses to which the concept is put are deeply 'political'. Crusades in the name of 'humanity' still
remain wars, even if one prefers to speak of 'humanitarian interventions'. To speak of 'justice',
'humanity' and the shared interests of 'humankind' opens up the possibility for an ethical
discourse, which allows for the moral damnation of the enemy as 'evil' and, in extremis , its
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annihilation. The enemy becomes foe. In the mortal struggle between 'good' and 'evil', there
can be no neutral third. A just war is a 'total war', everyone is party, no one bystander; and
the just cause 'justifies' use of whatever means must be deployed to eradicate 'evil'.
Violence is inevitable—history and scientific studies prove.
Stutzman 5 (Kathryn, Goshen College, “Are war and violence natural?”
http://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/bsspapers05/Kat.html, AD: 7-11-9) BL
Throughout history humans have fought wars, committed murders, and perpetuated violence.
There have been few times of real peace. These wars have been fought over resources, religious
beliefs, and land. With a look at history, anger, aggression, and violence seem to be something
naturally human. Still, before the 1970's, some scientists maintained that organized conflict and
intra-specific killing was something not intrinsic to human nature, or nature as a whole. Instead,
human wars were the result of a coincidence of aggression and tool making (Lorenz 1966). Those
individuals who maintain this viewpoint today are not taking into account some fairly recent
animal behavioral research. There is support for arguments of an evolutionary advantage to
these violent behaviors. The fact remains though, that intra-species violence and killing are
natural phenomenon in many social animals including human's closest relative, the
chimpanzee (Goodall 1999). The implication that human warfare is a result of natural tendencies
toward violence has a significant impact on pacifist philosophy, yet conflict transformation theory
offers some solutions for the future of pacifism.
Evolution makes violence inevitable—the alternative can’t solve.
Stutzman 5 (Kathryn, Goshen College, “Are war and violence natural?”
http://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/bsspapers05/Kat.html, AD: 7-11-9) BL
Intra-specific violence has evolutionary advantages. It guarantees territory and resources to
the most dominant factions of the species' society (Goodall 1999). It can also serve as a kind of population control
since it is most often brought on in times of decreased resources (Hayden 2004). The evolutionary advantages for intra-specific violence are
not, however, as blatant as they are for another disturbing yet quite real form of violence, infanticide. Sarah Hrdy traveled to India in the early
1970's to study the effects of overpopulation in Hanuman's langur monkeys with hopes of applying this to humans. In langur society, one male
controls a group of several females and their offspring. All the males that do not have females form separate, all male, communities. Hrdy was
disturbed by her observations of repeated cases of infanticide from these outside males. When the intruding male approached a community he
first killed all the infant langurs. She speculated that he did this for two reasons: 1) the females would realize the incompetence of their male as
a protector of their children and 2) it shortened the time period until the mother was ready to mate again. Thus ,
the male intruder
had a distinct evolutionary advantage for passing along his genes (Zimmer 1996). Since Hrdy's observations
were revealed, there have been countless more observations of infanticide in the wild (Barash 2005). Male lions are some of the biggest
culprits. The death rate of nursing cubs skyrockets upon the entrance of a new male into a pride. Often within six months all the cubs are dead
(Zimmer 1996). Lions are by no means alone in there continual infanticide, they are joined by jacana birds, howler monkeys, chimpanzees,
gorillas, lemurs, fish, bears, wasps, ground squirrels, and the list goes on (Barash 2005). The list of creatures that commit infanticide continues
and includes humans. There are societies such as the Ache of Paraguay, a communal hunter/gather society, in which killing orphans has
become a cultural tradition. It is common for a child to be buried along with his or her deceased father. When the people were asked why they
do this, they responded with "That's our custom". they don't have parents and we have to take care of them, and that makes us mad" (qt. in
Zimmer 1996, 76). There is another even more alarming statistic for the American pre-school age child. If the child is a stepchild, they are sixty
For humans and animals
alike, war and violence seem to be prompted by severe competition for resources (Hayden
2004). This sort of behavior has the potential to wreak havoc upon the society but also to produce
beneficial results. According to Darwin the selective pressures caused by wars in ancient
societies likely increased communication skills, enhanced cooperation, courage, and
intelligence. Darwin proposed that war was the cause of the great gap between humans and animals. This hypothesis suggested that entire
times more likely to be the victim of infanticide than if they are a biological child (Zimmer 1996).
groups of mentally inferior, yet still competitive, hominids were eliminated during war and genocide leaving humans as the ultimate winners
with no close competition (Goodall 1999).
Violence is inevitable—evolutionary pressures.
Jones 8 (Dan, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University, “Human
behaviour: Killer instincts,” Nature, 451(7178), AD: 7-11-9) BL
Just two years after the Seville Statement was issued, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, published
Homicide1. The book was to become one of the founding texts of a new — or at least thoroughly rebranded — discipline called evolutionary
psychology. Drawing on animal behaviour, anthropology and patterns of violence and murder in modern societies, Daly and Wilson provided
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an evolutionary account of the various forms of homicide, from one man killing another to spousal murder and the rarer killing of step-children.
humans have brains and minds with
violent proclivities, they also argued that killing was, by and large, not something that evolution had selected for. Instead, Daly and
Wilson argued that murderous actions are usually the by-product of urges towards some other goal. The purpose of the
sometimes violent competition that goes with human urges for higher status and greater
reproductive success is not to kill, any more than the purpose of its stylized quintessence boxing
is. But sometimes people die. Most evolutionary psychologists agree, in general terms, with this ‘by-product’
But although they argued — in direct contradiction of the Seville Statement — that
view, although there are exceptions. David Buss, of the University of Texas at Austin, and Joshua Duntley, of the Richard Stockton College of
New Jersey in Pomona, have developed a controversial ‘homicide adaptation theory’. The theory proposes that, over evolutionary history,
humans have repeatedly encountered a wide range of situations in which the benefits of killing
another person outweighed the costs — particularly when the assessed costs of murder are low, success is likely and other
non-lethal options have been closed off . The killing of an unwanted child or the stealthy murder of a sexual rival might be examples.
2
“Homicide
can be such a beneficial solution to adaptive problems in certain, specific contexts
that it would be surprising if selection had not fashioned mechanisms to produce lethal
aggression,” says Duntley. Other evolutionary psychologists are yet to be convinced. “I wouldn’t want to hitch my wagon to the
byproduct argument,” says Daly, “but I don’t think anyone, including Duntley and Buss, has figured out a good way to identify the hallmarks
of homicidal adaptations.
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Alt Fails – Security Inevitable
Great powers make securitization inevitable.
Mearsheimer 1[John J. Prof. of Poli Sci at U Chicago. The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics. Pg 361] JL
The optimists’ claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out
of the system is wrong. In fact, all of the major states around the globe still care deeply about
the balance of power and are destined to compete for power among themselves for the
foreseeable future. Consequently, realism will offer the most powerful explanations of
international politics over the next century, and this will be true even if the debates among
academic and policy elites are dominated by non-realist theories. In short, the real world
remains a realist world. States still fear each other and seek to gain power at each other’s
expense, because international anarchy-the driving force behind great power behavior-did not
change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that such change is likely any time
soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman
standing above them. For sure, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the
global distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of
the system, and without that kind of profound change, there is no reason to expect the great
powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did in the previous centuries.
Security is inevitable, it is no longer contained in the state but is fluid through all
arrangements.
Cha 00 (Victor D., Department of Government and School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University,
“Globalization and the Study of International Security”, JSTOR) CC
Similarly, security constituencies, while nominally defined by traditional sovereign borders
increasingly are defined at every level from the global to the regional to the individual. Or as
Buzan (1997a: 11) notes: 'What can be clearly observed is that the state is less important in the
new security agenda than in the old one. It still remains central, but no longer dominates
either as the exclusive referent object or as the principle embodiment of threat'. Thus the
providers of security are still nationally defined in terms of capabilities and resources; however,
increasingly they apply these in a post-sovereign space whose spectrum ranges from nonstate to
substate to transstate arrangements. For this reason, security threats become inherently more
difficult to measure, locate, monitor, and contain (Freedman, 1998a: 56; Reinicke, 1997: 134).
The alternative cannot succeed—security is too ingrained into our being for us to
abandon it.
Anker 6 (Elisabeth, Assistant Professor of English at Wake Forest University, “The Only Thing We
Have To Fear...,” Theory & Event, 8(3), AD: 7-9-9) BL
What emerges as the most vexing question in response to Robin's book is whether or not the
America that breathes the toxic air of Fear, American Style can survive without it. Robin
compellingly criticizes the conventional belief that fear harbors an instinctive knowledge, yet in
dissecting the institutional pathways and human conduits of fear, he neglects to address its affective
power. What remains unacknowledged in this text are the psychic modes, and the micropolitics, of fear. It seems necessary to examine the ways in which fear cultivates forms of
subjectivity and to explore how its felt experience generates collective life in the everyday
media and disciplinary practices that it installs, maintains and intensifies. American subjects
may have deep attachments to the fear that grounds their politics. Fear is not going to be willed
away by rational recourse to a Rawlsian-inspired hopefulness for liberal political life. 9. While Art
Spiegelman, author of the famed comic Maus, won't provide an alternate model of hope, his new
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illustrated book, titled In the Shadow of No Towers, richly demonstrates the challenges and pitfalls
of contemporary American conditions that obstruct the path to a rational, willed liberation from
political fear. Whereas Robin gives us a theoretical analysis of how fear operates politically,
Spiegelman gives us political illustrations of Americans' deep psychic attachments to fear, of
individual and collective sensibilities generated by myriad, suffocating, inescapable daily
terrors. In Spiegelman's world, we can't simply let go of fear, as it constitutes our very
existence.
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Alt Fails – Pragmatism
Pragmatism via the plan is the best course of action. The alt’s abstractness
precludes true solvency.
Rorty 98[Richard, PhD in Philosophy from Yale, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century
America pg 36]
This leads them to step back from their country and, as they say, "theorize" it. It leads them to do what
Henry Adams did: to give cultural politics preference over real politics, and to mock the very idea that
democratic institutions might once again be made to serve social justice. It leads them to prefer knowledge to
hope. I see this preference as a turn away from secularism and pragmatism-as an attempt to do
precisely what Dewey and Whitman thought should not be done: namely, to see the American
adventure within a fixed frame of reference, a frame supplied by theory. Paradoxically, the leftists
who are most concerned not to "totalize," and who insist that everything be seen as the play of discursive
differences rather than in the old metaphysics-of-presence way, are also the most eager to theorize, to become
spectators rather than agents.37 But that is helping yourself with one hand to what you push away with the
other. The further you get from Greek metaphysics, Dewey urged, the less anxious you should be to
find a frame within which to fit an ongoing historical process. This retreat from secularism and
pragmatism to theory has accompanied a revival of ineffability. We are told over and over again that
Lacan has shown human desire to be inherently unsatisfiable, that Derrida has shown meaning to be
undecidable, that Lyotard has shown commensuration between oppressed and oppressors to be
impossible, and that events such as the Holocaust or the massacre of the original Americans are
unrepresentable. Hopelessness has become fashionable on the Left-principled, theorized, philosophical
hopelessness. The Whitrnanesque hope which lifted the hearts of the American Left before the 1960s
is now thought to have been a symptom of a naive "humanism." I see this preference for knowledge
over hope as repeating the move made by leftist intellectuals who, earlier in the century, got their
Hegelianism from Marx rather than Dewey. Marx thought we should be scientific rather than merely
utopian-that we should interpret the historical events of our day within a larger theory. Dewey did
not. He thought one had to view these events as the protocols of social experiments whose outcomes
are unpredictable. The Foucauldian Left represents an unfortunate regression to the Marxist
obsession with scientific rigor. This Left still wants to put historical events in a theoretical context. It
exaggerates the importance of philosophy for politics, and wastes its energy on sophisticated theoretical
analyses of the significance of current events. But Foucauldian theoretical sophistication is even more
useless to leftist politics than was Engels' dialectical materialism. Engels at least had an eschatology.
Foucauldians do not even have that. Because they regard liberal reformist initiatives as symptoms of a
discredited liberal "humanism," they have little interest in designing new social experiments. This distrust of
humanism, with its retreat from practice to theory, is the sort of failure of nerve which leads people
to abandon secularism for a belief in sin, and in Delbanco's "fixed standard by which deviance from
the truth can be measured and denounced." It leads them to look for a frame of reference outside the
process of experimentation and decision that is an individual or a national life. Grand theorieseschatologies
like Hegel's or Marx's, inverted eschatologies like Heidegger's, and rationalizations of hopelessness
like Foucault's and Lacan's-satisfy the urges that theology used to satisfy. These are urges which
Dewey hoped Americans might cease to feel. Dewey wanted Americans to share a civic religion that
substituted utopian striving for claims to theological knowledge.
Realism bridges the gap between the critique and the need for pragmatic action.
Murray 97 (Alastair J.H., Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism p.
202-3)
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If the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate seems at times to be avoiding practical questions by
going around in circles, the critical literature seems at times to be utterly unsure whether there
are such things as practical questions. Yet, unless international relations theory is to become a
purely intellectual exercise devoid of practical relation, such concerns must be juxtaposed to a
consideration of the problems posed by the current framing of international politics. Ultimately, the
only result of the post-positivist movement's self-styled 'alternative' status is the generation of an
unproductive opposition between a seemingly mutually exclusive rationalism and reflectivism.
Realism would seem to hold out the possibility of a more constructive path for international
relations theory. The fact that it is engaged in a normative enquiry is not to say that it abandons a
concern for the practical realities of international politics, only that it is concerned to bridge the
gap between cosmopolitan moral and power political logics. Its approach ultimately provides an
overarching framework which can draw on many different strands of thought, the 'spokes' which can
be said to be attached to its central hub, to enable it to relate empirical concerns to a normative
agenda. It can incorporate the lessons that geopolitics yields, the insights that neorealism might
achieve, and all the other information that the approaches which effectively serve to articulate the
specifics of its orientation generate, and, once incorporated within its theoretical framework,
relate them both to one another and to the requirements of the ideal, in order to support an
analysis of the conditions which characterise contemporary international politics and help it to
achieve a viable political ethic. Against critical theories which are incomprehensible to any but
their authors and their acolytes and which prove incapable of relating their categories to the
issues which provide the substance of international affairs, and against rationalist, and
especially neorealist, perspectives which prove unconcerned for matters of values and which
simply ignore the relevance of ethical questions to political action, realism is capable of
formulating a position which brings ethics and politics into a viable relationship. It would
ultimately seem to offer us a course which navigates between the Scylla of defending our values
so badly that we end up threatening their very existence, and the Charybdis of defending them
so efficiently that we become everything that they militate against. Under its auspices, we can
perhaps succeed in reconciling our ideals with our pragmatism.
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Alt Fails – Security Still Exists
The alternative fails and ultimately keeps security intact.
Darby 6 (Phillip, Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne and Director of the
Institute on Postcolonial Studies, October, 2006, Alternatives, Volume 31, Issue 4: Security, Spatiality, and
Social Suffering, GaleGroup) KSM
Our starting point must be that security and insecurity are inextricably linked: The two are
mutually constituted. As Michael Dillon puts it, “we have to think security and insecurity
together.”25 The tradition of thought, however, is otherwise. In the practice of states and in the
evolution of strategic doctrine, security takes on a life of its own. In the disciplinary domains of
IR and security studies, the situation has not been much better. Particular constituencies, it is
true, have broached issues relating to insecurity— conflict resolution theorists, feminists, criticalsecurity studies advocates, and those at the margins influenced by anthropology and social theory.
Their influence on mainstream discourses, however, has been very limited. Late in the Cold War,
when public disquiet in Europe over nuclear weaponry threatened the strategic game-plan, the
distinguished military historian, Michael Howard, ventured the proposition that deterrence must be
accompanied by reassurance.26At the time this was seen as something of a breakthrough, but it
cannot be said to have left a lasting imprint on security discourse, much less to have spawned
broader rethinking. For one thing, the concern with ordinary people cut across the grain. For
another, insecurity tended to be subsumed under instability, enabling established security
imperatives to remain intact. The commitment to securing international order from the “top
down” and primarily by increasing military capabilities was too entrenched for alternative
ideas to make much headway.
The alternative has no chance of solvency—even if it is successful domestically, it
won’t spill over and security will return.
Montgomery 6 (Evan, Research Fellow at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “Breaking
out of the Security Dilema: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty,” International Security,
31(2), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Defensive realism's main observations indicate that hard-line policies often lead to self-defeating
and avoidable consequences. If so, then conciliatory policies should have the opposite effect.
Several scholars have elaborated this intuitive logic. Drawing on rational-choice deterrence theory, 3
cooperation theory, 4 and Charles Osgood's GRIT strategy, 5 they argue that benign states can
reveal their motives, reassure potential adversaries, and avoid unnecessary conflict with costly
signals—actions that greedy actors would be unwilling to take. In particular, by engaging in arms
control agreements or unilateral force reductions, a security seeker can adopt a more defensive
military posture and demonstrate its preference for maintaining rather than challenging the status
quo. This argument generates an obvious puzzle, however: If states can reduce uncertainty by
altering their military posture, why has this form of reassurance been both uncommon and
unsuccessful? Few states, for example, have adopted defensive weapons to de-escalate an arms
race or demonstrate their intentions, 7 and repeated efforts to restrain the Cold War
competition between the United States and the Soviet Union either failed or produced
strategically negligible agreements that, at least until its final years, "proved incapable of
moderating the superpower rivalry in any deep or permanent way." How can scholars and
policymakers understand why states often avoid military reassurance, when they choose to
undertake it, why it fails, and when it can succeed? In 1906 Britain tried to prevent a further
escalation of its naval race with Germany by decreasing the number of battleships it planned
to construct, but this gesture was unreciprocated and the competition continued. In the late
1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union substantially reduced its conventional forces, yet the
United States did not view these reductions as proof of benign motives.
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Alt Fails – Ignores Epistemology
Alt fails - Discursive focus generates epistemological blind spots and won’t alter
security structures
Hyde-Price 1 (Adrian, Professor of International Politics at Bath, “Europes new security challenges,”
page 39) KSM
Securitization thus focuses almost exclusively on the discursive domain and eschews any
attempt to determine empirically what constitutes security concerns. It does not aspire to
comment on the reality behind a securitization discourse or on the appropriate instruments
for tackling security problems. Instead, it suggests that security studies – or what Waever calls
securitization studies –should focus on the discursive moves whereby issues are securitized. The
Copenhagen school thus emphasizes the need to understand the “speech acts” that accomplish a
process of securitization. Their focus is on the linguistic and conceptual dynamics involved, even
though they recognize the importance of the institutional setting within which securitization takes
place. The concept of securitization offers some important insights for security studies. However,
it is too epistemologically restricted to contribute to a significant retooling of security studies.
On the positive side, it draws attention to the way in which security agendas are constructed by
politicians and other political actors. It also indicates the utility of discourse analysis as an
additional tool of analysis for security studies. However, at best, securitization studies can
contribute one aspect of security studies. It cannot provide the foundations for a paradigm shift
in the subdiscipline. Its greatest weakness is its epistemological hypochondria. That is, its
tendency to reify epistemological problems and push sound observations about knowledge
claims to their logical absurdity. Although it is important to understand the discursive moves
involved in perception of security in, say, the Middle East, it is also necessary to make some
assessment of nondiscursive factors like the military balance or access to freshwater supplies. For
the Copenhagen school, however, these nondiscursive factors are relegated to second place. They
are considered only to the extent that they facilitate or impede the speech act. In this way, the
Copenhagen school is in danger of cutting security studies off from serious empirical research and
setting it adrift on a sea of floating signifiers.
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Alt Fails - Conflict
The alternative makes conflict inevitable, only immediate action can solve
Liotta 5 (PH, Professor of Humanities and Executive Director of the Pell Center for International
Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, security dialogue 36:1 "through the looking glass:
creeping vulnerabilities and the reordering of security") KSM
Although it seems attractive to focus on exclusionary concepts that insist on desecuritization,
privileged referent objects, and the ‘belief’ that threats and vulnerabilities are little more than
social constructions (Grayson, 2003), all these concepts work in theory but fail in practice.
While it may be true that national security paradigms can, and likely will, continue to dominate
issues that involve human security vulnerabilities – and even in some instances mistakenly confuse
‘vulnerabilities’ as ‘threats’ – there are distinct linkages between these security concepts and
applications. With regard to environmental security, for example, Myers (1986: 251) recognized
these linkages nearly two decades ago: National security is not just about fighting forces and
weaponry. It relates to watersheds, croplands, forests, genetic resources, climate and other factors
that rarely figure in the minds of military experts and political leaders, but increasingly deserve, in
their collectivity, to rank alongside military approaches as crucial in a nation’s security. Ultimately,
we are far from what O’Hanlon & Singer (2004) term a global intervention capability on behalf of
‘humanitarian transformation’. Granted, we now have the threat of mass casualty terrorism
anytime, anywhere – and states and regions are responding differently to this challenge. Yet,
the global community today also faces many of the same problems of the 1990s: civil wars,
faltering states, humanitarian crises. We are nowhere closer to addressing how best to solve these
challenges, even as they affect issues of environmental, human, national (and even ‘embedded’)
security. Recently, there have been a number of voices that have spoken out on what the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty has termed the ‘responsibility to
protect’:10 the responsibility of some agency or state (whether it be a superpower such as the United
States or an institution such as the United Nations) to enforce the principle of security that sovereign
states owe to their citizens. Yet, the creation of a sense of urgency to act – even on some issues
that may not have some impact for years or even decades to come – is perhaps the only
appropriate first response. The real cost of not investing in the right way and early enough in
the places where trends and effects are accelerating in the wrong direction is likely to be
decades and decades of economic and political frustration – and, potentially, military
engagement. Rather than justifying intervention (especially military), we ought to be justifying
investment.
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Alt Fails - Utopian – No Affect Policymakers
Our thoughts and discourse are not enough to actually change security practices
and can’t change policy.
Campbell et al 7 (David, Professor of Cultural and Political Geography at Durham University, Luiza
Bialasiewicz, Department of Geography at the University of Durham, Stuart Elden, Reader in Political
Geography University of Durham, Stephen Graham, Professor of Human geography at University of
Durham, Alex Jeffrey, Lecturer of Human Geography at Newcastle University, and Alison J. Williams,
Geography Department, Durham University, “Performing security: The imaginative geographies of current
US strategy”, pg. 2) CC
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the relationship between imaginative
geographies and the foreign and security policies of states (Agnew, 2003 and Power and Crampton,
2005). Such policies are said to be both enabled by and productive of specific geographical
imaginations. Too often, though, these analyses are understood as advocating a form of social
constructivism, whereby linguistic enunciations and textual statements are (the critics maintain)
determinative of material practices. This conception invites a misreading of constructivism-asphilosophical-idealism, leading to the assertion that if policy makers thought differently the
world would automatically be different. Even within critical geopolitics a trace of this concern is
evident when we are warned that the project of critical geopolitics “should not be condensed to a
formulaic deconstructionism of the politics of identity in texts” (Ó Tuathail, 2003: 164).
The alternative fails to offer a solution to policy-makers—this makes solvency
impossible.
Walt 99 (Stephen, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, “Rigor or Rigor Mortis?
Rational Choice and Security Studies,” International Security, 23(4), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Taken together, these characteristics help explain why recent formal work has had relatively little to
say about important real-world security issues. Although formal techniques produce precise,
logically consistent arguments, they often rest on unrealistic assumptions and the results are
rarely translated into clear and accessible conclusions. And because many formal conjectures
are often untested, policymakers and concerned citizens have no way of knowing if the arguments
are valid. In this sense, much of the recent formal work in security studies reflects the "cult of
irrelevance" that pervades much of contemporary social science. Instead of using their expertise to
address important real-world problems, academics often focus on narrow and trivial problems
that may impress their colleagues but are of little practical value. If formal theory were to
dominate security studies as it has other areas of political science, much of the scholarship in the
field would likely be produced by people with impressive technical skills but little or no substantive
knowledge of history, politics, or strategy.[111] Such fields are prone to become "method-driven"
rather than "problem-driven," as research topics are chosen not because they are important but
because they are amenable to analysis by the reigning methode du jour.[112] Instead of being a
source of independent criticism and creative, socially useful ideas, the academic world becomes an
isolated community engaged solely in dialogue with itself.[113] Throughout most of the postwar
period, the field of security studies managed to avoid this danger. It has been theoretically and
methodologically diverse, but its agenda has been shaped more by real-world problems than by
methodological fads. New theoretical or methodological innovations have been brought to bear on
particular research puzzles, but the field as a whole has retained considerable real-world relevance.
By contrast, recent formal work in security studies has little to say about contemporary
security issues. Formal rational choice theorists have been largely absent from the major
international security debates of the past decade (such as the nature of the post-Cold War world; the
character, causes, and strength of the democratic peace; the potential contribution of security
institutions; the causes of ethnic conflict; the future role of nuclear weapons; or the impact of ideas
and culture on strategy and conflict). These debates have been launched and driven primarily by
scholars using nonformal methods, and formal theorists have joined in only after the central
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parameters were established by others.[114] Thus one of the main strengths of the subfield of
security studies--namely, its close connection to real-world issues--could be lost if the narrow
tendencies of the modeling community took control of its research agenda.
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Alt Fails - Tautological
The alternative’s focus on discourse makes change impossible—the links will still
remain.
Jarvis 0 (Darryl, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of British Columbia,
International relations and the challenge of postmodernism, p. 128-130, AD: 7-10-9) BL
What does Ashley's project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to
the truly marginalized, oppressed, and destitute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor,
the displaced refugees, the casualties of war, or the emigres of death squads? Does it in any way
speak to those whose actions and thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international
relations? On all these questions one must answer no. This is not to say, of course, that all theory
should be judged by its technical rationality and problem-solving capacity as Ashley forcefully
argues. But to suppose that problem-solving technical theory is not necessary-or is in some way
bad-is a contemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish
realities that millions confront daily. As Holsti argues, we need ask of these theorists and their
theories the ultimate question, "So what?" To what purpose do they deconstruct, problematize,
destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this get us
any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this
"debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics" be judged pertinent, relevant,
help-ful, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract
and recondite debate.38 Contrary to Ashley's assertions, then, a poststructural approach fails to
empower the marginalized and, in fact, abandons them. Rather than analyze the political
economy of power, wealth, oppression, production, or international relations and render an
intelligible understanding of these processes, Ashley succeeds in ostracizing those he portends to
represent by delivering an obscure and highly convoluted discourse. If Ashley wishes to chastise
structural realism for its abstractness and detachment, he must be prepared also to face similar
criticism, especially when he so adamantly intends his work to address the real life plight of those
who struggle at marginal places. If the relevance of Ashley's project is questionable, so too is its
logic and cogency. First, we might ask to what extent the postmodern "emphasis on the textual,
constructed nature of the world" represents "an unwarranted extension of approaches appropriate for
literature to other areas of human practice that are more constrained by an objective reality. "39 All
theory is socially constructed and realities like the nation-state, domestic and international politics,
regimes, or transnational agencies are obviously social fabrications. But to what extent is this
observation of any real use? Just because we acknowledge that the state is a socially fabricated
entity, or that the division between domestic and international society is arbitrarily inscribed does
not make the reality of the state disappear or render invisible international politics. Whether socially
constructed or objectively given, the argument over the ontological status of the state is of no
particular moment. Does this change our experience of the state or somehow diminish the politicaleconomic-juridical-military functions of the state? To recognize that states are not naturally
inscribed but dynamic entities continually in the process of being made and reimposed and are
therefore culturally dissimilar, economically different, and politically atypical, while perspicacious
to our historical and theoretical understanding of the state, in no way detracts from its reality,
practices, and consequences. Similarly, few would object to Ashley's hermeneutic interpretivist
understanding of the international sphere as an artificially inscribed demarcation. But, to paraphrase
Holsti again, so what? This does not make its effects any less real, diminish its importance in
our lives, or excuse us from paying serious attention to it. That international politics and states
would not exist with-out subjectivities is a banal tautology. The point, surely, is to move beyond
this and study these processes. Thus, while intellectually interesting, contructivist theory is not an
end point as Ashley seems to think, where we all throw up our hands and announce there are no
foundations and all real-ity is an arbitrary social construction. Rather, it should be a means of
recognizing the structurated nature of our being and the reciprocity between subjects and structures
through history. Ashley, however, seems not to want to do this, but only to deconstruct the state,
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international politics, and international theory on the basis that none of these is objectively given but
fictitious entities that arise out of modernist practices of representation. While an interesting
theoretical enterprise, it is of no great consequence to the study of international politics. Indeed,
structuration theory has long taken care of these ontological dilemmas that otherwise seem to
preoccupy Ashley.40
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Alt Fails – Reject Bad
Resistance Fails.
D’Cruz 1 (Carolyn LaTrobe University, Australia, “What Matter Who's Speaking?" Authenticity and
Identity in Discourses of Aboriginality in Australia,” Jouvert, Volume 5, Issue 3,
http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v5i3/cdcr.htm AD: 7/11/09) NS
When Hollinsworth tackles the problem of essentialism, he argues that identifying an Aboriginal
essence in terms of 'biological descent,' for instance, can unintentionally lend itself to right-wing
populism, which creates a hierarchy of authenticity based on racist assumptions about
categorisations such as full blood, half caste, and so on. This effectively derides some Aboriginal
people with 'mixed ancestry.' He argues that there are similar problems of creating a hierarchy of
authenticity with definitions of identity that situate an Aboriginal essence in terms of 'cultural
continuity' (cultural commonalities in terms of heritage, and ways of doing things). While
Hollinsworth does show an awareness that the means of defining Aboriginality is seeped in
Australia's racist history, he curiously acts as if it were possible to simply choose the most
appropriate way for authenticating identity, by rejecting the above classifications for what he
calls 'Aboriginality as resistance.' This latter category professedly describes an 'oppositional
culture' to common experiences of dispossession and racism. Though he warns against the
tendency to essentialise this 'discourse' of resistance, Hollinsworth contends that
'Aboriginality as resistance' is "the most inclusive, dynamic and least readily domesticated by
state co-option" ("Discourses" 151). Yet his choice to settle on a preferred category begs the
question as to how such a selection can disentangle itself from its complicity with state cooption, as it is such domestication of identity that has produced such resistance and opposition in
the first place.
Rejection is counterproductive. Realism synthesizes critical theories in order to
provide for the possibility of transition.
Murray 97 (Alastair J.H. Politics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism, p.
178-9) NS
In Wendt’s constructivism, the argument appears in its most basic version, presenting an analysis of
realist assumptions which associate it with a conservative account of human nature. In Linklater's
critical theory it moves a stage further, presenting an analysis of realist theory which locates it
within a conservative discourse of state-centrism. In Ashley's post-structuralism it reaches its
highest form, presenting an analysis of realist strategy which locates it not merely within a
conservative statist order, but, moreover, within an active conspiracy of silence to reproduce it.
Finally, in Tickner's feminism, realism becomes all three simultaneously and more besides, a vital
player in a greater, overarehing, masculine conspiracy against femininity. Realism thus appears,
first, as a doctrine providing the grounds for a relentless pessimism, second, as a theory which
provides an active justification for such pessimism, and, third, as a strategy which proactively seeks
to enforce this pessimism, before it becomes the vital foundation underlying all such pessimism in
international theory. Yet, an examination of the arguments put forward from each of these
perspectives suggests not only that the effort to locate realism within a conservative, rationalist
camp is untenable, but, beyond this, that realism is able to provide reformist strategies which
are superior to those that they can generate themselves. The progressive purpose which motivates
the critique of realism in these perspectives ultimately generates a bias which undermines their
own ability to generate effective strategies of transition. In constructivism, this bias appears in
its most limited version, producing strategies so divorced from the obstacles presented by the
current structure of international politics that they threaten to become counter-productive. In
critical theory it moves a stage further, producing strategies so abstract that one is at a loss to
determine what they actually imply in terms of the current structure of international politics.
And, in post-modernism, it reaches its highest form, producing an absence of such strategies
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altogether, until we reach the point at which we are left with nothing but critique. Against this
failure, realism contains the potential to act as the basis of a more constructive approach to
international relations, incorporating many of the strengths of reflectivism and yet avoiding its
weaknesses. It appears, in the final analysis, as an opening within which some synthesis of
rationalism and reflectivism, of conservatism and progressivism, might be built.
Alt fails – no acceptable solution or empirical evaluation
Walt 99—Professor of International Affairs at Harvard [Stephen Walt, “Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational
Choice and Security Studies,” International Security, 23(4)]
Taken together, these characteristics help explain why recent formal work has had relatively little to say
about important real-world security issues. Although formal techniques produce precise, logically
consistent arguments, they often rest on unrealistic assumptions and the results are rarely translated
into clear and accessible conclusions. And because many formal conjectures are often untested,
policymakers and concerned citizens have no way of knowing if the arguments are valid. In this sense,
much of the recent formal work in security studies reflects the "cult of irrelevance" that pervades
much of contemporary social science. Instead of using their expertise to address important real-world
problems, academics often focus on narrow and trivial problems that may impress their colleagues but
are of little practical value. If formal theory were to dominate security studies as it has other areas of
political science, much of the scholarship in the field would likely be produced by people with
impressive technical skills but little or no substantive knowledge of history, politics, or strategy.[111]
Such fields are prone to become "method-driven" rather than "problem-driven," as research topics
are chosen not because they are important but because they are amenable to analysis by the reigning
methode du jour.[112] Instead of being a source of independent criticism and creative, socially useful
ideas, the academic world becomes an isolated community engaged solely in dialogue with itself.[113]
Throughout most of the postwar period, the field of security studies managed to avoid this danger. It
has been theoretically and methodologically diverse, but its agenda has been shaped more by realworld problems than by methodological fads. New theoretical or methodological innovations have been
brought to bear on particular research puzzles, but the field as a whole has retained considerable real-world
relevance. By contrast, recent formal work in security studies has little to say about contemporary
security issues. Formal rational choice theorists have been largely absent from the major international
security debates of the past decade (such as the nature of the post-Cold War world; the character, causes,
and strength of the democratic peace; the potential contribution of security institutions; the causes of ethnic
conflict; the future role of nuclear weapons; or the impact of ideas and culture on strategy and conflict).
These debates have been launched and driven primarily by scholars using nonformal methods, and formal
theorists have joined in only after the central parameters were established by others.[114] Thus one of the
main strengths of the subfield of security studies--namely, its close connection to real-world issues-could be lost if the narrow tendencies of the modeling community took control of its research agenda.
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Alt Fails - -Need Policymaking
Talk alone does not solve – the alternative cannot occur in a vacuum that ignores
the realities of policymaking.
Jef Huysmans, Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Government at Open University, 2002
("Defining Social Constructivism in Security Studies: The Normative Dilemma of Writing Security,"
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Volume 27, Issue 1, February (Supplemental Issue), Available
Online via Academic Search Elite, p. 50-51)
Although the critical edge of this literature cannot be ignored, denaturalizing security fields is
not necessarily successful in moderating the normative dilemma. The research continues to map
the security discourses, therefore repeating, in an often highly systematic way, a security
approach to, for example, migration or drugs. Demonstrating the contingent character of the
politicization does question the foundational character of this contingent construction, but it does
not necessarily undermine the real effects. It does this only when these discourses rely heavily
for their effects on keeping the natural character of its foundations unquestioned. This points to
a more general issue concerning this kind of analysis. Although it stresses that language makes
a difference and that social relations are constructed, it leaves underdeveloped the concept of
security formation that heavily prestructures the possibilities to "speak" differently through
rarifying who can speak security, what security can be spoken about, how one should speak
about security, and so on. 27 Another related problem is that the approach assumes that
indicating the mere existence of alternative practices challenges the dominance of the dominant
discourse. This is problematic since the alternative constructions do not exist in a vacuum or in
a sheltered space. To be part of the game, they must, for example, contest political constructions
of migration. Alternative practices are thus not isolated but engage with other, possibly
dominant, constructions. This raises the question of how the "engagement" actually works. It
involves relations of power, structuring and restructuring the social exchanges. Staging
alternative practices does not necessarily challenge a dominant construction. The political game
is more complex, as Foucault's interpretation of the "sexual revolution" - the liberation from
sexual repression - of the second half of the twentieth century showed. 28 In a comment on
human-rights approaches to migration, Didier Bigo raises a similar point - that opposing
strategies do not necessarily radically challenge established politicizations: "It is often
misleading to counterpose the ideology of security to human rights because they sometimes have
more in common than their authors would like to admit. They often share the same concept of
insecurity and diverge only in their solutions." 29 The main point is that alternative discourses
should not be left in a vacuum. The way they function in the political struggle should be looked
at. How are the alternative discourses entrenched in a specific political game? Are they
possibly a constitutive part of the mastery of the dominant construction?
Endorsing realistic policy changes is vital – the alternative’s utopian vision is
impractical and counter-productive.
David R. Barnhizer, Emeritus Professor at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of
Law, 2006 (“Waking from Sustainability's "Impossible Dream": The Decisionmaking Realities of
Business and Government,” Georgetown International Environmental Law Review (18 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L.
Rev. 595), Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)
We need to abandon the rhetoric of sustainability and adapt strategies of accountability. Accept
the cliche that politics is indeed the "art of the possible." You cannot force reality into a
controlled pattern. It is more important and more effective to monitor conditions, create buffers
against the worst consequences, and develop the means to adapt our behavior to events. Utopian
strategies are like King Canute ordering the unheeding tides to recede. There are too many
unforeseeable variables and feedback loops with multiplier effects. There are too many
"butterflies" to capture in our data "nets" and projections. We are in the midst of a
transformative Kondratieff Wave that has been going on for about fifteen years and will last
another two decades. n194 We cannot know its real costs and consequences until it has
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dissipated and the new structure that is being created settles in. Even then we will not be in a
condition of stasis. We must improve our decisionmaking in order to cope with this
environment. We need to learn how to "ride the wave" of continual change and adaptation while
doing some good. There are some basic areas where we can create protective zones and produce
some positive effects. These include issues of land rights, social organization, food security,
careful economic development, equity, and human rights. Part of what is required is the
abandoning of false ideals such as sustainable development. Beyond that, we need to focus on
strategies involving what have been called "small wins." n195 This strategy needs to be based on
the identification of what business strategist Kenichi Ohmae described as Key Factors for
Success (KFS). n196 Consistent with the previous analysis regarding what causes law to succeed
or fail I would add to this KFS the idea of Key Factors for Failure (KFF). These approaches-"small wins," KFS, and KFF--must be applied inside strategies aimed at specific systems based
on an analysis that I term Key Points of Leverage (KPL). In every situation there are key factors
that provide maximum leverage. There are others that lead to success or other paths of action
that result in failure. [*684] Achieving goals requires honest and simple strategies to which we
can commit ourselves and that ordinary people can understand and implement within the
constraints of existing institutions. It is important to concentrate on "small wins" that are
achievable over a relatively short period of time rather than anticipating a vast retooling of
existing institutions and fundamental changes in human behavior. Such transformational shifts
would require that we collectively gain a level of understanding beyond our capability. Even if
we somehow changed our character and that of our institutions, special interests would remain
that would sabotage the efforts. Many of the governments upon which we must rely to regulate
effectively change composition frequently. New decisionmakers often fail to understand the
reasons for pre-existing policies or they view the policies as those of their opponents. The result
is a weakening or abandonment of the effort.
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Action Key
Foreign Policy constitutes a performative act, which outlines which practices will and will
not be accepted as part of the American identity. Only changes in policy can challenge
America’s securitized modus operandi.
L. Bialasiewicz et al. Geography Dept. @ Durham Univesity, 2007
[David, Luiza Bialasiewicz, Stuart Elden, Stephen Graham, Alex Jeffrey, Alison J. Williams,
“Performing security: The imaginative geographies of current US strategy,” Political Geography
26 (2007), pp. 131-137]
In the aftermath of September the 11th it has become commonplace to argue that the world has
fundamentally changed. President Bush claimed as much when he declared the attacks of that day
meant ‘‘the doctrine of containment just doesn’t hold any water’’ and the strategic vision of the
US had to shift dramatically (Bush, 2003). As a result, integration – into a western and American
set of values and modus operandi’ – has become the new strategic concept. Distinct from the
superficial binaries of the Cold War, integration nonetheless involves its own set of exclusions,
with forms of violence awaiting those who are either unwilling or unable to be incorporated.
This paper has traced the emergence of integration as the basis for the imaginative geography of
the ‘war on terror’. It has done so by maintaining that the production of this imaginative
geography should be understood in terms of performance rather than construction. That is
because we are dealing with an assemblage of practices – state policy, ‘non-state scribes’ and the
representational technologies of popular geopolitics – which together produce the effect they
name, stabilizing over time to produce a series of spatial formations through the performance of
security. Given the manner in which this emergent imaginative geography has materialized in the
invasion and occupation of Iraq – which was carried out in the name of terror and has created the
very terror it named – it is clear when we speak of performance we are dealing with much more
than just thinking, writing or speaking differently.
Yet in practice the materialization of such strategies and imaginations has rarely been
straightforward. In fact, in many instances the opposite of the intention has been created. We could point,
for example, to the ways in which ‘territorial integrity’ was repeatedly mobilized as a war-aim in the
invasion of Iraq and yet the consequence has been the creation of a state which is unable to protect its
borders, cannot project its power effectively within them and is in danger of fragmentation into ethnically
or religiously created regions (Elden, 2007). The self-serving apologetics of many of those integrally
involved in the framing of such policies e Barnett (2005) and Fukuyama (2006), for two e indeed indicate
the resilience of the imaginaries we describe, clear and present failures notwithstanding; it is not that they
got things wrong, for the basic analysis still holds e it only needs to be enacted more effectively.
In the latest incarnations of these understandings e both in Barnett’s new Blueprint for
Action and within the pages of the 2006 National Security Strategy e we find a re-playing of the
basic chain of claims being made. Countries integrated into the global economy playing by
American rules are less dangerous than those that do not; US security therefore depends on
integrating those countries into that rule set; US policy should be directed towards that goal. This,
it is claimed, has benefits beyond merely military security and forms the foundation of economic
security. Indeed, the first is often mobilized as the rationale when the second is more clearly the
aim. Seemingly unconsciously, the 2006 National Security Strategy proclaims this as a key goal:
‘‘Ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade’’ (The White
House, 2006: 1, 25). That the strategies in practice have often produced a process of
disintegration, of a falling apart and a rending of connections previously made is beside the point
in the pure idealism of this new realism. While Bush claims that ‘‘like the policies of Harry
Truman and Ronald Reagan, our approach is idealistic about our national goals, and realistic
about the means to achieve them’’ (Bush, 2006; see National Security Strategy, 2006: 49), it may
well be that it is unrealistic about the first precisely because it is idealistic about the second.
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Cede Political
Desecuritization Cedes Security to the right - Political engagement is Necessary
Olav. F. Knudsen, Prof @ Södertörn Univ College, ‘1 [Security Dialogue 32.3, “Post-Copenhagen
Security Studies: Desecuritizing Securitization,” p. 366]
A final danger in focusing on the state is that of building the illusion that states have
impenetrable walls, that they have an inside and an outside, and that nothing ever passes
through. Wolfers’s billiard balls have contributed to this misconception. But the state concepts
we should use are in no need of such an illusion. Whoever criticizes the field for such sins in
the past needs to go back to the literature. Of course, we must continue to be open to a frank
and unbiased assessment of the transnational politics which significantly influence almost every
issue on the domestic political agenda. The first decade of my own research was spent studying
these phenomena – and I disavow none of my conclusions about the state’s limitations. Yet I am
not ashamed to talk of a domestic political agenda. Anyone with a little knowledge of European politics knows that Danish politics is not Swedish politics is not German politics is not
British politics. Nor would I hesitate for a moment to talk of the role of the state in transnational
politics, where it is an important actor, though only one among many other competing ones. In
the world of transnational relations, the exploitation of states by interest groups – by their
assumption of roles as representatives of states or by convincing state representatives to argue
their case and defend their narrow interests – is a significant class of phenomena, today as much
as yesterday. Towards a Renewal of the Empirical Foundation for Security Studies
Fundamentally, the sum of the foregoing list of sins blamed on the Copen- hagen school
amounts to a lack of attention paid to just that ‘reality’ of security which Ole Wæver consciously
chose to leave aside a decade ago in order to pursue the politics of securitization instead. I
cannot claim that he is void of interest in the empirical aspects of security because much of the
1997 book is devoted to empirical concerns. However, the attention to agenda-setting –
confirmed in his most recent work – draws attention away from the important issues we need to
work on more closely if we want to contribute to a better understanding of European security as
it is currently developing. That inevitably requires a more consistent interest in security policy
in the making – not just in the development of alternative security policies. The dan- ger here is
that, as alternative policies are likely to fail grandly on the political arena, crucial decisions may
be made in the ‘traditional’ sector of security policymaking, unheeded by any but the most
uncritical minds.
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Action o/w Language
Hyper-focus on language over-simplifies political solutions to forms of systemic violence,
which are built into structure. The affirmative’s alteration of current state politics
represents a performative shift of US security policy with the Middle East, which outweighs
the link.
Campbell et al, Geography Dept. @ Durham Univesity, 2007
[David, Luiza Bialasiewicz, Stuart Elden, Stephen Graham, Alex Jeffrey, Alison J. Williams,
“Performing security: The imaginative geographies of current US strategy,” Political Geography
26 (2007), pp. 406-7]
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the relationship between imaginative
geographies and the foreign and security policies of states (Agnew, 2003; Power & Crampton,
2005). Such policies are said to be both enabled by and productive of specific geographical
imaginations. Too often, though, these analyses are understood as advocating a form of social
constructivism, whereby linguistic enunciations and textual statements are (the critics maintain)
determinative of material practices. This conception invites a misreading of constructivism-asphilosophicalidealism, leading to the assertion that if policy makers thought differently the world
would automatically be different. Even within critical geopolitics a trace of this concern is
evident when we are warned that the project of critical geopolitics ‘‘should not be condensed to a
formulaic deconstructionism of the politics of identity in texts’’ (O ´ Tuathail, 2003: 164). In this
paper we critically examine recent developments in US strategy, drawing attention to the way in
which the imagination of place creates political and spatial realities (Gregory, 2004; Kuus, 2004).
This argument relies, in the first instance, on an exploration of the new security texts that have
been produced in the post-Cold War era and, more recently, in the aftermath of the attacks of
September 11th 2001, an event which has attracted much attention in the field (see Harvey, 2003;
Smith, 2005; Sparke, 2005). However, we wish to reposition the terms of the debate by arguing
that in the discursive production of imaginative geographies it is performativity rather than
construction which is the better theoretical assumption. Discourse refers to a specific series of
representations and practices through which meanings are produced, identities constituted, social
relations established, and political and ethical outcomes made more or less possible. Those
employing the concept are often said to be claiming that ‘everything is language’, that ‘there is no
reality’, and because of their linguistic idealism, they are unable to take a political position and
defend an ethical stance. These objections demonstrate how understandings of discourse are
bedevilled by the view that interpretation involves only language in contrast to the external, the
real, and the material. These dichotomies of idealism/materialism and realism/idealism remain
powerful conceptions of understanding the world. In practice, however, a concern with discourse
does not involve a denial of the world’s existence or the significance of materiality. This is well
articulated by Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 108): ‘‘the fact that every object is constituted as an
object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought, or with
the realism/ idealism opposition.What is denied is not that.objects exist externally to thought, but
the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside of any
discursive condition of emergence.’’ This means that while nothing exists outside of discourse,
there are important distinctions between linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena. There are also
modes of representation which are ideational though strictly non-linguistic, such as the aesthetic
and pictorial. It is just that there is no way of comprehending non-linguistic and extradiscursive
phenomena except through discursive practices. Understanding discourse as involving both the
ideal and the material, the linguistic and the non-linguistic, means that discourses are
performative. Performative means that discourses constitute the objects of which they speak. For
example, states are made possible by a wide range of discursive practices that include
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immigration policies, military deployments and strategies, cultural debates about normal social
behaviour, political speeches and economic investments. The meanings, identities, social relations
and political assemblages that are enacted in these performances combine the ideal and the
material. They are either made or represented in the name of a particular state but that state does
not pre-exist those performances. As a consequence, appreciating that discourses are performative
moves us away from a reliance on the idea of (social) construction towards materialization,
whereby discourse ‘‘stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity and surface’’
(Butler, 1993: 9, 12). Discourse is thus not something that subjects use in order to describe
objects; it is that which constitutes both subjects and objects.
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State Focus Good
Kritiks of State-Centered Security Sacrifice the Most Important Political Actor Loss Options Far outweighs the danger of Legitimation
Olav. F. Knudsen, Prof @ Södertörn Univ College, ‘1 [Security Dialogue 32.3, “Post-Copenhagen
Security Studies: Desecuritizing Securitization,” p. 364]
I hesitate to say what I have to say on this subject because it seems to me to be so utterly
obvious. States and state-like organizations – such as guerilla groups – are useful for many
collective purposes, including making war and preparing for war. As IR specialists, we
therefore need to study the state and take it seriously as a social phenomenon. However, I keep
running across reminders that many don’t share this view. The best evidence is the way in
which the term ‘state-centered approaches’ – a quick phrase with a subtle pe- jorative effect – is
used. The debate of the 1990s has developed to the point where one understands immediately,
without further reading, that the study of states is a ‘no-no’. I find this a major ingredient in a
mindless fad. Consider its place in the work of the Copenhagen school. The ‘referent object’ is
a key notion in the Copenhagen school’s conceptual apparatus – that ‘thing’ whose security is at
stake. Buzan et al. pedagogically point out the need to break away from the traditional fixation
upon the state as the referent object of security. However, as I read on in the book I get the
impression that Buzan and his colleagues are not really that convinced of this themselves – they
keep referring to the state nevertheless. Other Copenhagen writings confirm this impression.
Indeed, studies of the state have not disap- peared even among researchers who style themselves
as critical or who some- how subscribe to a ‘new security studies’ agenda. The upshot is that
their views on the role of the state are inconsistent. The Copenhagen school will probably claim
to have put this critique to rest. However, it is hard to read the argument in the 1997 article
where the discus- sion is perhaps best presented, then absorb the text in the multi-authored
1997 book and still claim to have found consistency. On the one hand, the Copenhagen authors
warn against ‘state-centrism’ and build a complicated reasoning on identity as a replacement for
the state; on the other hand, they continue to reason quite conventionally about states (as, for
instance, in the security-complex theory). Hence, their position on the state is at best misleading, at worst confused. In this, they reflect the general picture in the field of IR itself. After
a long pe- riod of neglect, two very different things started happening – sometime be- tween
1975 and 1985 – with the idea of the state. What took place was a strange and deep bifurcation
of research. On one side, there was what may be termed the ‘rediscovery of the state’, which
began with the efforts of Charles Tilly and others but is perhaps best shown in the work of
Theda Skocpol. On the other, there was the attack on state-centered thinking coming from the
happy trashers of everything traditional in IR studies, the early post- modernists. Currently, the
postmodernists seem – regrettably – to have won out, because there is continuing paranoia about
the state in studies of international politics. To be politically correct these days, one must
disavow state-centrism. At the same time, the state continues to be there, as it is in the work of
people as di- verse as Buzan, Wendt, and Walt. Better than most of their work, however, is the
research by Kal Holsti on the vagaries of the state and its relationship to war – a piece of
mainstream work. Though hardly the first to make this ar-gument, Holsti shows convincingly
that internal wars are now by far the most important kind of war. This point has been used to
argue that interstate rela- tions have decreased in significance. If we compare two categories of
relations, intrastate and interstate, that is of course true in relative quantitative terms. However,
one must not overlook what those wars are about: the control of the state apparatus and its
territory. Internal wars testify not to the disappearance of the state, but to its continuing
importance. Hence, the state must continue to be a central object of our work in IR, not least in
security studies. We should study the state – conceived as a penetrated state – specifically
because it performs essential security functions that are rarely performed by other types of
organization, such as being: • the major collective unit processing notions of threat; • the
mantle that cloaks the exercise of elite power; • the organizational expression that gives shape to
communal ‘identity’ and ‘culture’; • the chief agglomeration of competence to deal with issue
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areas crossing ju- risdictional boundaries; • the manager of territory/geographical space –
including functioning as a ‘receptacle’ for income; and • the legitimizer of authorized action
and possession. Recognizing the problems of state-focused approaches belongs to the
beginner’s lessons in IR. There is the danger of legitimizing the state as such by placing it at
the center of research, and of legitimizing thereby the repression and injustice which on a
massive scale have been and still are perpetrated in its name around the globe. Some draw the
conclusion on this basis that states should not be studied, a stance which is obviously
unwarranted and pointless. The state is an instrument of power on
a scale beyond most other instruments of power. For this reason alone, keeping a watch on
how it is used should be a top priority for social scientists. The mobilization – the assumption
of the mantle – of state power by more or less arbitrarily chosen (or self-selected) individuals or
groups, to act on behalf of all, is something which requires continual problematization, not least
when it is done vis-à-vis other collectivities. The state is also the instrument of de- mocracy on
a large scale in its most well-functioning forms. Surveying democ- racy’s state of health is a
crucial responsibility for social scientists. Finally, when it comes to performing collective tasks
on a large scale, the state is the most potentially effective organizing instrument across an
almost limitless range of objectives. Security is among them. In short, the state is too central
to the large-scale business of human life to be ignored or put aside, whether for ideological or
idealistic reasons. Still, we need to recognize the historical dimension in this. It is not
necessarily the state’s present form which makes it an important object of study; rather, it is its
primary function of being the largest universal-purpose collective-action unit around. Such units
require study in all civilizations and at all times in human history, regardless of their name or
specific functions. The Westpha- lian preoccupation of IR is therefore somewhat overdrawn.
There is no need to apologize for focusing on states or state-like units.
Sovereignty Provides the Most Realistic Hope for Reconciling Competing Human
Wills - The Alternative Results in Either International Exploitation or Renewed
Ellitism
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Prof. of Social and Political Ethics @ U-Chicago, ‘5 [Ethics & International
Affairs, “Against New Utopianism: Response to “Against the New Internationalism,” p. 94-5]
Burke's prescriptive argument is not only improbable but also impossible as a course for a world
of human beings organized presently within hundreds of entities called states. His indictment of
the state is relentless. Indeed, reading Burke you would never know that states have carried
human aspirations and hopes; that much of the dignity and purpose of human beings derives
from their location in particular communities with particular histories and traditions and
stories and languages. States, at their best, help to protect and to nourish certain goods. As the
late, great Hannah Arendt put it, "No one can be a citizen of the world as he [and she] is a citizen
of a particular country." Burke wants "collective decision-making," a world beyond states. When
one thinks of the challenges of representation and transparency in contemporary states—none of
which is any longer monocultural—the notion that anything that would meaningfully count as
representation could pertain in a world body defies common sense. One would likely wind up
with a small group of elites, claiming to be something like a Hegelian class of disinterested
persons, dictating policy. How could it be anything else in the absence of any concrete account
by Burke of the principles of authority and legitimacy that are to characterize his proposed
global order? Or without any compelling account of how politics is to be organized? What
would be the principle of political organization? What, indeed, would be the purview of
citizenship—conspicuous by its absence in his account? Burke criticizes my ethic as being
allegedly based on a "narrow dialogue between government elites," ignoring thereby the
"profound problem of accountability to citizens inherent in all security policy-making." I cotild
not agree more that accountability is a "profound problem" and that to deal with it requires
certain sorts of domestic institutional arrangements. And of course in endorsing democracy I
thereby endorse citizen participation. The term "domestic" already signals a distinction between
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a particular set of arrangements culminating in states and arrangements beyond that level. It is
states that can be pressured to take responsibility for aberrant behavior—for example, the U.S.
mihtary courts-martial of the out-ofcontrol rogues who enacted their own sordid pornographic
fantasies with prisoners in Abu Ghraib. One doesn't court-martial people for carrying out
faithfully an official policy. There is most certainly fault to be found here—whether in
ambiguous statements about what is permitted or in insufficient training of those guarding
prisoners, admittedly in a difficult situation over which the U.S. military was just beginning to
take control. We rightly judge a military by whether it indicts and punishes perpetrators of
wrong: Why is nothing said about this by Burke? Surely Burke owes us an account of a
coherent set of institutional arrangements to carry out such a role in a world characterized by
ethnic revisionists, murderous jihadists, one party dictatorships, child soldiering, rape
campaigns, human trafficking, genocides, corruption, exploitation, and all the rest. It is through
states and through the national contingents of international bodies—whether of churches or the
Red Cross or human rights groups or guilds of various professional organizations—that persons
can try to act and to organize. Once they do, such entities based in one state connect up to other
such entities to form international networks that can put pressure simultaneously on particular
states and on relevant international or transnational bodies. To assume a world beyond this sort
of politics is to assume what never was and never will be—namely, that there will no longer be a
need to "reconcile competing human wills." Defending, as Burke claims to be doing, a "liberal
ethic of war and peace" (p. 82) means, surely, to think of rules and laws and responsibility and
accountability. Liberalism is premised on a world of states and, depending on whether one is a
Kantian or some other sort of liberal, a world in which the principle of state sovereignty can be
overridden under some circumstances.
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Permutation
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Permutation Evidence
Permutation best—marries post-structural insights with realism’s focus on
contingency
Sterling-Folker, political scientist at Connecticut, 2004
(Jennifer, Bridging the Gap: Towards a Realist-Constructivist Dialogue” International Studies Review 6)
To be fair, Barkin understands this to a large extent, but his vision of realist- constructivism remains
deeply problematic. To argue, as Barkin (2003:337) does, that a realist-constructivist combination will
allow us to ‘‘examine skeptically from a moral perspective the interrelationships between power and
international norms’’ is to ignore the fact that the moral perspective to which he is referring is actually
liberalism. As Roger Spegele (2001) has argued, moral skepticism derives not from realism’s
recognition of difference, but from liberalism’s refusal of it. Hence, what is morally distinct
about realism is not a skepticism about power and universal norms, but an insistence that morality
is contextually specific and so particularism must be respected. Combining realism with
constructivism should not suddenly lead to the sort of moral skepticism that is inherent in liberalism. It
should instead lead to a moral perspective that demands that particularism and univer-salism
be, somehow, simultaneously respected. It should produce ‘‘an ethical way of being’’ that
recognizes ‘‘the very necessity of heterogeneity for understanding our- selves and others’’ (Der
Derian 1997:58, emphasis in original), and a position that ‘‘accepts the indispensability of identity and
lives within the medium of identity while refusing . . . to live its own identity as the truth ’’
(Connolly 1989:331, emphasis in original).
The current Foreign Policy predicated on instrumental reason and certainty amplifies
violence – Rejection of the state fails, transformation is critical to create international
conditions for mutual coexistence with other members of the international community.
Burke, lecturer at Adelaide University School of History and Politics, 2007
[Anthony, Beyond Security, Ethics and Violence: War against the Other. pp.94-95]
This chapter has sought to think and negotiate two fundamental paradoxes in modern international life.
While the nation-state – as the normative and legal core of the global system and an entrenched form of
social organ¬isation and governance – is not going to disappear, and may well constitute a source of hope
for oppressed and marginalised communities like the East Timorese or the Palestinians, it is fundamentally
Janus-faced and ambivalent.88 In the face of globalisation and proliferating transnational problems such as
refugees, terrorism, economic crisis or climate change its function as an exclusive container for identity and
moral community is becoming ever more ethically suspect and practically ineffective. It is becoming just as
clear that the dual basis of modern security – the indivisibly sovereign body-politic and the 'rational'
exercise of coercion and violence against its others – fails to eliminate threats but tends, in practice, to
constitute and worsen them; to wager national identity and survival on the permanence of insecurity and
violence.
Such is the contemporary global politics of Being. It is not natural, inevitable or bearable,
especially for those who are its daily victims. Against this I have sought to illuminate a path beyond our
current politics of security, by combining a series of theoretical arguments that advance the need to
challenge and rethink the ways we are made into subjects, to reject images of being based on separation and
mastery, and to privilege relations of reciprocity and responsibility over instrumental forms of life that
reduce humans to things and politics to an endless struggle for hier¬archy and control. In short, I have
sought to outline a set of normative, ethical and political intuitions that can assist in building a new politics
–if not exhaustively prescribe its forms. I am suggesting transformation at both the local and transnational
levels: transformations in the meaning and practice of 'statecraft' and strategic policy, in narratives and
practices of identity, and in the way transnational movements of 'democratic citizens' organise and act to
support and negotiate the diversity of iden¬tities at stake in the path to peace.89 Ultimately, I hope that
such a model of transnational responsibility, ethics and agency will work as a profound subversion of the
modern architectonic of security that might – and this is no paradox – in turn hold out a promise of genuine
and sustainable security in which no one is sacrificed, and in which there are no permanent victims.
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It is important to restate that such an ethics does not mean a totalising rejection of the state, but it does
demand its transformation. Such a transformation needs to address both the nation-state's fundamental
ontologies – its structures and practices of identity, meaning, exclusion and vio¬lence – and its political and
administrative architecture. The desire for identity and sovereignty is not per se illegitimate – such an ethics
could plausibly aim to advance the achievement of Palestinian self-determination and make the state of
Israel state more just and tenable – but it must be matched with a reflexive critical ethos that puts the
dignity and call of the human, in all its alienness and diversity, before the abstract being of the nation. Nor
can such a politics ever seek to efface the injustices and aporias that fissure its history and its claims –
which is why the ques¬tion of narrative and incommensurability at the heart of this conflict, and so many
others, is of such significance. It might be to agree with one of Jacques Derrida's many intuitions about his
'democracy to come': 'an extension of the democratic beyond nation-state sovereignty, beyond citizenship .
. . [that would] come about through the creation of an inter¬national juridico-political space that without
doing away every reference to sovereignty, never stops innovating and inventing new distributions and
forms of sharing, new divisions of sovereignty.'90 In every new context, the ethical test might be Buber's:
have we addressed the You?
The rhetorical device of realism is critical to influence states and policymakers and conceptualize
material dangers while resisting constructions of inevitability. The alternative undermines policyrelevant conclusions capable of confronting real dangers. Only the perm solvesLott ‘4 [Anthony, Assistant Professor of Political Science @ St. Olaf College. Creating Insecurity. p. 156161]
This project has endeavored to bring together two seemingly contradictory approaches to the study of security. To date, the discipline has yet to provide a
comprehensive analysis of the multiple sources of insecurity that confronts states and a means to overcome them. Because
the study of
security bridges the divide between theory and policy, it is imperative that a concept of security emerge that
is both philosophically coherent and policy relevant. The multiple sources of insecurity that influence the behavior of
states require analysis if more pacific (and secure) relations are to be had. Both realism and political constructivism offer
necessary but incomplete understandings of these sources of insecurity. When realism and political constructivism are treated as more or less complete
approaches to the study of security, the conclusions reached and policies offered are potentially harmful to the state and its citizens. Security, like
Janus himself, is two-faced. When Romans placed Janus on the faces of their coins, they reminded each other of the need to cautiously look in all
directions before acting. Security theorists must learn to do the same before undertaking an analysis of state policy. Both a material and an ideational
consideration of the sources of insecurity are required if a state is to succeed in formulating appropriate national security strategies. While realism
necessarily demonstrates the potential dangers that could befall a state in anarchy, it cannot be considered a complete rendition of international relations.
Realism provides a study of security with a proper understanding of the material threats that influence state
behavior. Their studies are rich in detail, offering the state an appropriate theoretical lens through which to
view threats and assess capabilities. But, realism is unable to account for the ideational sources of insecurity that also threaten the state. If
realism is treated as a comprehensive approach to security management, the state can only achieve a sub-optimal level of security. In order for the
realism must be conceptualized a valuable
rhetorical tool to influence the policy maker. In this way, realists are the 'cautious paranoids' at the
security table. Re-conceptualizing realism as a rhetorical device –what Donnelly has termed an 'orienting set of
insights' or a 'philosophical orientation' – it emerges as a negative disposition requiring the attention of the policy
maker. Its principles become warnings and cautionary tales to be considered in the construction and
evaluation of national security policies. Moreover, because these warnings and cautionary tales develop out of a brought theoretical
discourse, they are grounded in a sophisticated logical argument. Unlike the state assessment of material threats , realists do not sell or hype
their negative vision of material threats. In this work, it has been necessary to place realism within a broader
constructivist epistemology in order to understand how it serves to challenge state policy at one end of the
international relations spectrum. The governing laws common to previous studies grounded in positivism become strategic constraints
within the pages above. As well, 'the need for caution...' no longer becomes `confused with the invariance or
inevitability of that which demands caution.'2 Most importantly, realism comes to be seen as part of a
larger security critique. Similarly, studies employing political constructivism cannot be considered complete
renditions of national security issues. Their emphasis on identity and culture, and their alternative forms of analysis, provide a necessary
understanding of ideational threats and an emancipatory moment for changing state securitization. However, these reflexive critiques do not
demonstrate an understanding of the role that material threats play in national security matters or the
negative consequences of ignoring those material threats. Their alternative analytic focus often rejects
the traditional state 'security dilemma' and its corresponding policy needs . The consistent deconstruction of
identity performances and cultural givens may provide an opportunity for the emergence of a more democratic ethos,
but the state is often marginalized in the process. Such an occurrence does not fulfill the requirements of a security framework that
seeks theoretical rigor and policy relevance. It is a necessary (but insufficient) component of a more comprehensive understanding of security. The
potentially positive political vision that emerges from political constructivism balances the negative vision
precepts and principles of realism to be useful to policy makers and security analysts,
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Security K Answers
provided by realism and suggests an opportunity to overcome culturally constructed threats. These
rhetorical approaches become complementary tools in the analysis of security rather than
contradictory paradigms. Each approach offers a partial understanding of insecurity. At each instance, the other approach is necessary in
order to balance the security analysis being offered. In this way, the discipline of Security Studies is offered a more comprehensive means to
understanding this `essentially contested concept.'' Previous
approaches, whether realist or constructivist, have placed
ontological and epistemological barriers on the concept of security. Seeking to remain relevant to the policy community,
realists espousing a materialist ontology and state-centric bias reduced threats to existential dangers accessible to an empiricist epistemology. In response,
constructivists challenged realism by deconstructing academic texts and policy statements to uncover hidden discourses and expose traditional efforts as
discursively constituted and ultimately malleable. If realism demonstrated the importance of power in the national security calculus, constructivists
demonstrated its 'necessary' (re)production by actors involved in multiple speech-acts. If realists argued that a specific (material) condition – tanks,
bombs, hostile protests, etc. – was an existential threat, constructivists claimed an a priori establishment of these physical 'things' in security terms. The
A schism in the field separated those pursuing a traditional (state-centric
and policy relevant) approach from those pursuing an investigative critique.' Realists could claim to participate in the 'real
world' while constructivists could claim to be intellectually and morally distinguished. But, what has been the cost to the field of Security
Studies and the policies of the state? Ultimately, an investigation of the sources of insecurity must attempt to manage
the crises of human existence. Security is a necessary component to the construction of the good life. In an
international environment largely defined by the presence of states, security policies must be
understandable to those states. Policies must be designed that manage the security needs of all the relevant
states in the system. This is not a new challenge. It returns the discussion of security to the works of earlier realists. Balancing the negative vision
result for the study of security was compelling.
of realism with something positive engaged Carr, Herz, and others. In this
way, these scholars could 'insist on keeping 'realist' insights in dialectical tension with higher human aspirations and possibilities.'5 The challenge of this
project has been to find a framework wherein this dialectical tension can move the study of security forward. Arnold Wolfers's conclusion that 'the
ideal security policy is one that would lead to a distribution of values so satisfactory to all nations that the
intention to attack and with it the problem of security would be minimized,' challenges students of security to more
completely understand the sources of insecurity. And this means something more than arguing over the concept of security.
It means analyzing, critiquing, and challenging power. It means recognizing that security analysts are political
agents involved in a political process. When done well, both realism and political constructivism resist the
Thrasymachian statements and policy orientations of policy makers. What I have attempted to demonstrate, however, is that when they are
viewed as components of a larger project, they provide a much more comprehensive and devastating critique
of state action. In today's world, the investigation of security that balances the negative with the positive, the realist with
the constructivist, is a possibility. It can be achieved by investigating issues through the lens of the 'cautious
paranoid' while simultaneously investigating the same issues through the lens of the political constructivist.
Both offer something valuable to a more robust understanding of security and both are required if we are to achieve a more secure future. I applied this
theoretical approach, seeking to balance realism arm constructivism, to four pressing security issues that currently animate U.S. security discourse. The
discussions concerning unilateral BMD deployment, the drug war in Colombia, globalization and protests from below, and the decision to go to war in
the concerns of realists and political constructivists – can
improve our understanding of the security problem and present a stronger critique of the official state
policy. Such findings are important because, as has been discussed above, the state represents the most powerful
international actor in the system and maintaining the state as the central focus of security studies commits
this approach to a policy relevant critique. As the study of security bridges both theoretical inquiry and state policy considerations,
this work has attempted to remain firmly attuned to the world-view of the state. To reiterate, if the concept of security is to resonate,
then it must be applicable to the political units capable of producing system-wide effects because of
their policies. Because the United States represents the most powerful actor in international relations, it is
important to examine how its security policies are created and transformed. As chapters five through eight suggest, the
Iraq suggest that a more robust analysis of each issue – balancing
United States has. paradoxically, created insecurity while attempting to manage its security concerns. A balanced approach combining material and
ideational issues offers a more rigorous test for policies designed to enhance national security. By combining realist and political constructivist positions
on any given issue, analysts and policy makers are required to contemplate the requirements of two very different political visions. Such an undertaking is
far from complete. Additional studies might employ a similar approach in order to investigate other issues designated 'security' topics by relevant actors.
The official American position towards non-nuclear rogues (Cuba. Libya, Syria, and possibly Venezuela) suggests a need to balance concern for their
material capabilities with an understanding of the U.S. construction of these states as antagonistic actors. This requires that the security analyst look both
In addition, American policy in the Middle East requires
a thoroughgoing analysis employing a more comprehensive approach to security. A realist critique of state
policy in the Middle East (one which measures the material capabilities of the states in the region and demonstrates how regional balance of
power issues influence state behavior) could be complemented by a political constructivist interpretation of U.S.
self/other constructs. Such a study could demonstrate how the works of Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and David
Campbell,' might be supplemented by a realist discussion of U.S. interests in the region . As the applications to
this approach have suggested, an investigation of this matter might bring about a more coherent policy package that
offers the United States an opportunity to promote and encourage a more democratic ethos at home and
abroad. If this is deemed successful in demonstrating how the United States creates insecurity by not fully understanding its security environment, it
to the material interests and the ideational identities of the United States.
might also be used to investigate security considerations for other states in the world. Regional hegemons, as well as minor powers, might benefit from a
more comprehensive understanding of their relative power capabilities and their identity performances. A balanced understanding of the sources of
insecurity provides a deeper critique of the security problematique that emerges. Such an approach might prove valuable to states in the Middle East. For
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Security K Answers
example, the Israeli need for military defense might be examined in light of the Palestinian need for basic, ontological security. The existential conditions
for most Palestinians resemble the conditions present in South African townships during Apartheid' or the conditions of peasant communities in rural
Colombia today.' A robust study involving Israel and its neighbors might improve the regional security environment by balancing realist and political
constructivist interpretations. It would challenge Israel to recognize how Palestinian ontological security is a prerequisite for Israeli national security.
Similarly, it would challenge Palestinians to recognize the security needs of Israel as fundamentally important to their own security environment. In other
regions, a study employing this discussion may prove useful as well. The security situation between India and Pakistan continues to deteriorate. Since
both sides have refused to engage in a consistent and meaningful political dialogue, deciding instead to propagate a military understanding of their
security interests, their separate understandings of the situation remains dangerously incomplete. The framework developed here provides a way for these
states to investigate both the material and cultural sources of their shared insecurity. Perhaps Simon Dalby is most accurate, contending that the current
debate in the field finds scholars 'contesting an essential concept.' Security is, indeed, an essential concept. Without security, humans are unable to search
for, obtain, or even imagine the good life. Dalby summarizes the issue convincingly: security is a crucial term, both in the political lexicon of state policy
makers and among academics in the field of international relations. Precisely because of the salience of security, the current debates about reformulating
it provide, when read as political discourse in need of analysis rather than as a series of solutions to problems, a very interesting way to come to grips
with what is at stake in current debates around world politics and the constitution of the post-Cold War political order." The challenge for scholars is to
The state, to be sure, is the primary guarantor of security
in the world today. This requires recognition of where the theorist sits in relation to the state and what the
theorist can do in resisting unsatisfactory claims of state securitization. By recognizing the Janus-like
quality of security, scholars can come to understand the need to balance material threats with those
constructed through repetitive identity performances.
conceptualize security in such a way that human beings are brought back in.
Only the perm solves – merely critiquing security can’t tell us how to act – realist caution is critical to
realizing the political proposals mandated by the alternative without reifying security constructions
Lott ‘4 [Anthony, Assistant Professor of Political Science @ St. Olaf College. Creating Insecurity. p. 657]
In this section, I take realism and political constructivism to be two interpretations of international politics capable of providing partial
answers to an investigation of the sources of insecurity. Under an epistemological constructivist umbrella, we can treat each
interpretation as a rhetorical device that attempts to give meaning to the social world. Each interpretation examines and emphasizes
specific part of this social world. Realism's negative vision and its focus on material aspects of power speak to the
'cautious paranoid' and demand that state actors consider the dangerous consequences of their actions.
Political constructivism's intersubjective emphasis recognizes the possibility of ideational changes in constructed
threats and enemy images. The reflexive posture present in political constructivism recognizes the potential for embracing a richer
and more ethical political framework. In this security calculus, both approaches are deemed necessary in order to develop
a more comprehensive understanding of security. This discussion examines how a simultaneous investigation of material
capabilities and identity performances might proceed. The purpose is not to demonstrate how one approach is more useful in the
analysis of a particular security issue but rather to examine how both positions might co-exist beneath a constructivist
umbrella in the development of policy-relevant and theoretically rigorous account of national security studies.
By way of example, we might return to our earlier example concerning the current U.S. war against terrorism. Our discussion above
suggests that realists and political constructivists develop quite different interpretations of this war. The question that concerns us is
whether it is possible to balance the interpretations that each approach provides in the hope of offering a more robust analysis of this
particular security issue. To begin, Paul Kowert notes correctly that `constructivists intent on demonstrating the proposition that the
world can be constructed in different ways have been loathe to explore material constraints on it construction.' Clearly, the events of
11 September 2001 demonstrated significant material constraints on the U.S. construction of its security. Returning to a realist critique
of these events, an external enemy had inflicted physical harm on the state. Responding to this danger, realists demonstrate how the
capabilities of the United States can be brought to bear not only on those responsible, but on those that might harness similar resources
for a future attack. In the assessment of threat, realists take seriously the requirements of the obligation owed by the state to its
citizens. Protection from physical danger is a requirement for individual pursuit of the good life. Of course, political constructivists
take this discussion as yet another example of the fact that 'the very idea of "national security" (which scholars help transmit, after all)
serves state interests.'58 No doubt, but realists are drawn to the fact that basic ontological security remains a
prerequisite for the success of daily life. If this notion holds prior to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC,
the ability to conceive of 'national security' issues makes its construction all the more important after that date. Constructing
national security matters within a realist vision of international politics demonstrates the central position of
the state in securing individual security. And, it does not follow that a realist interpretation of politics that
centralizes the state necessarily apologizes for the state. Critical realists have attacked state policies on a
number of issues as the applications below demonstrate. Moreover, and this is a point which needs to be emphasized, when
analyzing security issues from within our constructivist epistemology, ‘[there] is nothing inherently "unconstructivist" in believing... that some constructions make more sense in a given environment than do
others.'59 The realist construction of and repetitive emphasis on the classic security dilemma, the
importance of self-help, and the presence of external threats, continues to make a great deal of sense in the
present international context. However, these realist constructs do not provide us with a complete picture of this particular
security matter. The simple assertion that absolute security is a chimera places limits on what realists can offer to the state. A security
program based on an ever-increasing number of material capabilities in a continuously expanding field of security is both impractical
and dangerous. Founding a security policy on the eradication of material capabilities existing outside the state does not demonstrate a
terribly sophisticated understanding of the sources of insecurity. Simultaneous to a realist picture of the global terrorist threat, we need
to investigate the issue as it is understood by scholars working within the political constructivist tradition. An investigation of identity
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performances (those of the United States and the perceived 'other') can be undertaken in an effort to more accurately assess the success
of the realist interpretation. The critique provided by political constructivists is not simply a negative critique offering a deconstruction
of the realist interpretation. Political constructivists are also involved in reflection, reconstruction, reconceptualization. 'Among other
things, reconceptualization implies that well known, neglected, or apparently irrelevant materials can be looked at from a different
perspective and sometimes gain new relevance for our attempts at making sense of world politics.'' As Campbell makes clear, 'the
deconstruction of identity widens the domain of the political to include the ways in which identity is constituted and contains an
affirmative moment through which existing identity formations are denaturalized and alternative articulations of identity and the
political are made possible.' For instance, when Edward Said undertook an examination of the social construction of `orientalism' in
the west, 'he also managed to reduce the power of the socially constructed image of orientalism, thus having an impact on one world
of our making.' When political constructivists challenge socially constructed images of `others,' they are
challenging the political policies that result from those constructed images. As this occurs, actors involved
in the political process are induced to reconsider those policies in order to render them more coherent.
Critique Alone is not adequate to alter the current security environment – Political
Action is Necessary to Promote Emancipation Over Security
Pinar Bilgin, Prof. of IR @ Bilkent Univ, ‘5 [Regional Security in The Middle East, p. 60-1]
Admittedly, providing a critique of existing approaches to security, revealing those hidden
assumptions and normative projects embedded in Cold War Security Studies, is only a first step.
In other words, from a critical security perspective, self-reflection, thinking and writing are
not enough in themselves. They should be compounded by other forms of practice (that is,
action taken on the ground). It is indeed crucial for students of critical approaches to re-think
security in both theory and practice by pointing to possibilities for change immanent in world
politics and suggesting emancipatory practices if it is going to fulfil the promise of becoming a
'force of change' in world politics. Cognisant of the need to find and suggest alternative practices
to meet a broadened security agenda without adopting militarised or zero-sum thinking and
practices, students of critical approaches to security have suggested the imagining, creation and
nurturing of security communities as emancipatory practices (Booth 1994a; Booth and Vale
1997). Although Devetak's approach to the theory/practice relationship echoes critical
approaches' conception of theory as a form of practice, the latter seeks to go further in shaping
global practices. The distinction Booth makes between 'thinking about thinking' and 'thinking
about doing' grasps the difference between the two. Booth (1997: 114) writes: Thinking about
thinking is important, but, more urgently, so is thinking about doing .... Abstract ideas about
emancipation will not suffice: it is important for Critical Security Studies to engage with the real
by suggesting policies, agents, and sites of change, to help humankind, in whole and in part, to
move away from its structural wrongs. In this sense, providing a critique of existing approaches
to security, revealing those hidden assumptions and normative projects embedded in Cold War
Security Studies, is only a first (albeit crucial) step. It is vital for the students of critical
approaches to re-think security in both theory and practice.
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Permutation Wards off Criticism – Their “Seeminlgy Liberal” Policy Ensures
Continued Eneminity and Power Politics.
Anthony Burke, Senior Lecturer @ School of Politics & IR @ Univ. of New South Wales, ‘7 [Beyond
Security, Ethics and Violence, p. 3-4]
These frameworks are interrogated at the level both of their theoretical conceptualisation and
their practice: in their influence and implementation in specific policy contexts and conflicts in
East and Central Asia, the Middle East and the 'war on tei-ror', where their meaning and impact
take on greater clarity. This approach is based on a conviction that the meaning of powerful
political concepts cannot be abstract or easily universalised: they all have histories, often
complex and conflictual; their forms and meanings change over time; and they are developed,
refined and deployed in concrete struggles over power, wealth and societal form. While this
should not preclude normative debate over how political or ethical concepts should be defined
and used, and thus be beneficial or destructive to humanity, it embodies a caution that the
meaning of concepts can never be stabilised or unproblematic in practice. Their normative
potential must always be considered in relation to their utilisation in systems of political, social
and economic power and their consequent worldly effects. Hence this book embodies a caution
by Michel Foucault, who warned us about the 'politics of truth . . the battle about the status of
truth and the economic and political role it plays', and it is inspired by his call to 'detach the
power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it
operates at the present time'.1
It is clear that traditionally coercive and violent approaches to security and strategy are both still
culturally dominant, and politically and ethically suspect. However, the reasons for pursuing a
critical analysis relate not only to the most destructive or controversial approaches, such as the
war in Iraq, but also to their available (and generally preferable) alternatives. There is a
necessity to question not merely extremist versions such as the Bush doctrine, Indonesian
militarism or Israeli expansionism, but also their mainstream critiques - whether they take the
form of liberal policy approaches in international relations (IR), just war theory, US realism,
optimistic accounts of globalisation, rhetorics of sensitivity to cultural difference, or centrist
Israeli security discourses based on territorial compromise with the Palestinians. The surface
appearance of lively (and often significant) debate masks a deeper agreement about major
concepts, forms of political identity and the imperative to secure them. Debates about when and
how it may be effective and legitimate to use military force in tandem with other policy options,
for example, mask a more fundamental discursive consensus about the meaning of security, the
effectiveness of strategic power, the nature of progress, the value of freedom or the promises of
national and cultural identity. As a result, political and intellectual debate about insecurity,
violent conflict and global injustice can become hostage to a claustrophic structure of political
and ethical possibility that systematically wards off critique.
Perm – engage in the act of criticism and do the plan. We can solve all the reasons
why criticism is good while still practicing caution in case power politics prove to be
resilient.
Murray 97 (Alastair, Professor in the Politics Department at the University of Wales Swansea,
Reconstructing Realism)
For the realist, then, if rationalist theories prove so conservative as to make their adoption
problematic, critical theories prove so progressive as to make their adoption unattractive. If the
former can justifiably be criticised for seeking to make a far from ideal order work more efficiently,
thus perpetuating its existence and legitimating its errors, reflectivist theory can equally be criticised
for searching for a tomorrow which may never exist, thereby endangering the possibility of
establishing any form of stable order in the here and now. Realism's distinctive contribution thus
lies in its attempt to drive a path between the two, a path which, in the process, suggests the basis on
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which some form of synthesis between rationalism and reflectivism might be achieved. Oriented in
its genesis towards addressing the shortcomings in an idealist transformatory project, it is centrally
motivated by a concern to reconcile vision with practicality, to relate utopia and reality. Unifying
a technical and a practical stance, it combines aspects of the positivist methodology employed by
problem-solving theory with the interpretative stance adopted by critical theory, avoiding the
monism of perspective which leads to the self-destructive conflict between the two. Ultimately, it
can simultaneously acknowledge the possibility of change in the structure of the international
system and the need to probe the limits of the possible, and yet also question the proximity of
any international transformation, emphasise the persistence of problems after such a
transformation, and serve as a reminder of the need to grasp whatever semblance of order can be
obtained in the mean time. Indeed, it is possible to say that realism is uniquely suited to serve as
such an orientation. Simultaneously to critique contemporary resolutions of the problem of political
authority as unsatisfactory and yet to support them as an attainable measure of order in an unstable
world involves one in a contradiction which is difficult to accept. Yet, because it grasps the
essential ambiguity of the political, and adopts imperfectionism as its dominant motif, realism can
relate these two tasks in a way which allows neither to predominate, achieving, if not a
reconciliation, then at least a viable synthesis.
Perhaps the most famous realist refrain is that all politics are power politics. It is the all that is
important here. Realism lays claim to a relevance across systems, and because it relies on a
conception of human nature, rather than a historically specific structure of world politics, it can
make good on this claim. If its observations about human nature are even remotely accurate, the
problems that it addresses will transcend contingent formulations of the problem of political order.
Even in a genuine cosmopolis, conflict might become technical, but it would not be eliminated
altogether. The primary manifestations of power might become more economic or institutional
rather than (para)military, but, where disagreements occur and power exists, the employment of the
one to ensure the satisfactory resolution of the other is inevitable short of a wholesale transformation
of human behaviour. Power is ultimately of the essence of politics; it is not something which can be
banished, only tamed and restrained. As a result, realism achieves a universal relevance to the
problem of political action which allows it to relate the reformist zeal of critical theory, without
which advance would be impossible, with the problem-solver's sensible caution that, before reform
is attempted, whatever measure of security is possible under contemporary conditions must first be
ensured.
Perm solves – Threats can be treated as intersubjective entities, real, but not rigidly
defined, solving their links
Stein 88 (Janice, director of the Munk Centre for Internatinal Studies at the university of Trinity
College, University of toronto “Building Politics into Psychology: The Misperception of Threat”
Political Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 2 AD: 7/10/09) NS
Current theories do not consider systematically the critical interaction among cognitive
heuristics and biases and their cumulative impact on the misper-ception of threat in
international relations. Nor do they integrate affective and cognitive processes in their
explanation of distorted threat perception. Finally, they do not consider systematically the
impact of political and strategic factors which condition the likelihood and intensity of
misperception. Unless politics are explicitly built into psychological explanations of threat
perception in interna-tional relations, political psychologists will continue to work with
inadequate theory and will limit their capacity to speak to the policy community.
The permutation is the best option—realism can accommodate multiple
perspectives and allows for the possibility of reform.
Murray 97(Alistair, Professor of Politics at the University of Wales, “Reconstructing Realism Between
Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics,” Questia, AD: 7/11/09) AN
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Cox's articulation of the division between the two approaches is perhaps definitive, but his
conclusion is much more problematic. Whilst he is undoubtedly correct to argue that each has a
contribution to make, this does not suggest, as he presumes, a strategy of alternation according to
the stability of the historical process. It is precisely this question of stability which is ultimately at
stake in the debates between rationalist and reflectivist perspectives, and the danger is always that
the one will predominate to the exclusion of the other in periods ill-suited to it, undermining
whatever possibilities of order or reform actually exist. Consequently, a strategy of alternation is
inevitably going to prove inadequate to the challenges posed by world politics; what is required is
some form of synthesis. 6 Realism, I will argue, is capable of providing a foundation on which
such a perspective might be built. It is, of course, conventionally treated as a part of the
rationalist orthodoxy — and hence criticised for reproducing an iniquitous status quo by
seeking to mitigate its problems. Yet, as should already be apparent from the understanding of
realism put forward in earlier chapters, this account is clearly problematic. If realism emphasises
the need to grasp what semblance of order can be obtained under the current structure of the
system, it nevertheless acknowledges the need to investigate the possibilities of reforming this
structure. If it makes use of aspects of the positivist methodology employed by rationalism, it is
nevertheless convinced of the importance of the more interpretative approach adopted by
reflectivism.7 Realism ultimately avoids the monism of perspective which leads to the selfdestructive conflict between the two, maintaining a position which provides an opening for a
path between the conservatism that privileges the extant to the exclusion of the possible and the
progressivism which privileges the possible to the exclusion of the extant.
Perm – engage in the act of criticism and do the plan. We can solve all the reasons
why criticism is good while still practicing caution in case power politics prove to be
resilient.
Murray 97 (Alastair, Professor in the Politics Department at the University of Wales Swansea,
Reconstructing Realism)
For the realist, then, if rationalist theories prove so conservative as to make their adoption
problematic, critical theories prove so progressive as to make their adoption unattractive. If the
former can justifiably be criticised for seeking to make a far from ideal order work more efficiently,
thus perpetuating its existence and legitimating its errors, reflectivist theory can equally be criticised
for searching for a tomorrow which may never exist, thereby endangering the possibility of
establishing any form of stable order in the here and now. Realism's distinctive contribution thus
lies in its attempt to drive a path between the two, a path which, in the process, suggests the basis on
which some form of synthesis between rationalism and reflectivism might be achieved. Oriented in
its genesis towards addressing the shortcomings in an idealist transformatory project, it is centrally
motivated by a concern to reconcile vision with practicality, to relate utopia and reality. Unifying
a technical and a practical stance, it combines aspects of the positivist methodology employed by
problem-solving theory with the interpretative stance adopted by critical theory, avoiding the
monism of perspective which leads to the self-destructive conflict between the two. Ultimately, it
can simultaneously acknowledge the possibility of change in the structure of the international
system and the need to probe the limits of the possible, and yet also question the proximity of
any international transformation, emphasise the persistence of problems after such a
transformation, and serve as a reminder of the need to grasp whatever semblance of order can be
obtained in the mean time. Indeed, it is possible to say that realism is uniquely suited to serve as
such an orientation. Simultaneously to critique contemporary resolutions of the problem of political
authority as unsatisfactory and yet to support them as an attainable measure of order in an unstable
world involves one in a contradiction which is difficult to accept. Yet, because it grasps the
essential ambiguity of the political, and adopts imperfectionism as its dominant motif, realism can
relate these two tasks in a way which allows neither to predominate, achieving, if not a
reconciliation, then at least a viable synthesis.
Perhaps the most famous realist refrain is that all politics are power politics. It is the all that is
important here. Realism lays claim to a relevance across systems, and because it relies on a
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Security K Answers
conception of human nature, rather than a historically specific structure of world politics, it can
make good on this claim. If its observations about human nature are even remotely accurate, the
problems that it addresses will transcend contingent formulations of the problem of political order.
Even in a genuine cosmopolis, conflict might become technical, but it would not be eliminated
altogether. The primary manifestations of power might become more economic or institutional
rather than (para)military, but, where disagreements occur and power exists, the employment of the
one to ensure the satisfactory resolution of the other is inevitable short of a wholesale transformation
of human behaviour. Power is ultimately of the essence of politics; it is not something which can be
banished, only tamed and restrained. As a result, realism achieves a universal relevance to the
problem of political action which allows it to relate the reformist zeal of critical theory, without
which advance would be impossible, with the problem-solver's sensible caution that, before reform
is attempted, whatever measure of security is possible under contemporary conditions must first be
ensured.
Perm solves- recognizing that our representations are imperfect opens us the
possibility of an ethical relationship to others
Colebrook 0 ( Professor in the Department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, "Questioning Representation")
As I've already suggested, a strain of nostalgia and utopianism runs through both forms of
anti-representationalism: both the desire to return to a world that is lived as present, rather than subjectively represented, and the desire to overcome all commitments to presence in the celebration of a [End Page 59] differential, nonautonomous and post-human writing. If the concept of representation generates the consistent incoherence of a real that is
then represented and a subject who then represents, we have to ask ourselves whether we can cleanse thought of the risky
vocabulary of representation, whether we can return to the lived immediacy of pre-modern pre-subjective mutual recognition,
or whether we can paste over our Cartesian separation and think a world that is not written by us but that writes itself. Is the
representational antinomy or paradox an accident and is it curable? We might consider post-Kantian anti-representationalism
as an increasing anti-subjectivism. Talk of schemes, representations, constructions, and paradigms does generate notions of
what these schemes are schemes of. To
talk of representation as a construction, schematization
or structuration also implies that there is one who constructs, or that there is (to use
Nietzsche's phrase) a doer behind the deed (Nietzsche 1967, 45). Representation presents us with what
Michael Dummett refers to as the danger of falling back into psychologism (1993, 129). How possible is it to overcome these
illusions and to remain within representation without appealing to what is, or, more important, without demanding
autonomy? Perhaps representation in both its epistemological and ethical/political senses is valuable precisely for the
contradictions and tensions it presents for thought. Consider, to begin with, knowledge as representation and the possibility
that we might no longer trouble ourselves with an ultimate foundation for our representations, and this because any attempt to
do so would bring us up against our own representational limit. In Realism with a Human Face, Hilary Putnam distinguishes
between two broad readings of Wittgenstein's notion that the limits of my language are the limits of my world. The first
response to such a predicament would be to rule out as nonsensical any attempt to think outside my world. The second
response, favored by Putnam, would be that this recognition brings us up against the very notion that my world is my world
(Putnam 1990, 28). While we have no appeal or foundation that lies outside representation, we sustain a philosophical
question in the face of this inability. We might say, then, that rather than be ruled out of court as a nonsensical illusion,
representation functions as a useful antinomy. The idea that our world is always a represented world renders us both
And this
might be how we can retrieve a notion of autonomy through representation in the
second, ethical, sense. As I have already suggested, autonomy need not be defined as the feature of pre-social or
responsible for that world, at the same time as we recognize our separation or non-coincidence with the world.
pre-linguistic [End Page 60] moral individuals. Rather, to take an act of speech as autonomous is to see it as not grounded in
a pre-given, law, nature or being. Thus the "subject" on this account would not be a substantive entity that authors its own
meaning fully, but would be effected through acts of representation. Why save a notion of subjective autonomy? Think of the
converse situation: a world of writing effects, disowned speech acts, performances without performers or moves in a game
Such a world imagines that it is possible to have a form of speech that
does not carve out a point of view, that is not located in a way of being, that
presents no resistance to perpetual coming and self-invention. It is a world in which
the representational illusion is disavowed, a world in which speech takes place
without the reifying error that I imagine myself as one who speaks. The idea that there is a
without players.
writing, speaking or language that represents and that can't be owned by subjects does, quite sensibly, challenge the idea that
what we say is a straightforward representation of some pre-linguistic meaning or ownness. But what such an idea of a
radically anonymous writing in general precludes is the autonomy effects generated through processes of representation. Just
as cultural studies--we are told--dreams of a world in which truth claims, foundations and representational claims are no
longer made, and just as Richard Rorty imagines a world of ironists who accept their language games as nothing more than
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games and themselves as nothing more than players (Rorty 1989, 80), so the attempt to think beyond autonomy imagines a
world in which what I say is not taken as issuing from the intention of some reified, congealed and illusory notion of man.
But we might think of autonomy alongside the antinomy of representation. To take demands as autonomous is to recognize
them as both ungrounded, as well as being demands for a certain grounding. If what I say makes a claim for autonomy, then
it is both owned as what I say (and thereby institutes me as a subject), at the same time as the claim for autonomy separates
this saying from any pre-given subject. To be autonomous, a claim would have to be more than a determined expression of a
subject; it would have to have its own positive, singular and effective force. As Kant argued, true autonomy could not be
thought of as issuing from a natural ground; but once we think an autonomous law this generates the regulative idea (but not
knowledge) of a subject from whom this law has issued.
Consider this antinomy in terms of some of the typical approaches to representation in popular culture--in particular, in
popular feminism. It is widely asserted that women are subordinated to alien domains of representation. Eating disorders are
explained by
We must confront threats – key to prevent ceding the political – does not
preclude the transformative potential of securitization
Franke 9 (Associate Prof of Comparative lit at Vanderbilt William Poetry and Apocalypse Page 92-93)
Apocalypse prima facie refuses and makes an end of dialogue: it thunders down invincibly
from above. But for this very reason the greatest test of our dialogical capacity is whether we can
dialogue with the corresponding attitude or must resort to exclusionary maneuvers and force. What is called
for here is a capacity on the part of dialogue not to defend itself but to let itself happen in interaction with
an attitude that is apparently intolerant of dialogue. Letting this possibility be, coming into contact with it,
with the threat of dialogue itself, may seem to be courting disaster for dialogue. It is indeed a letting down
of defenses. Can dialogue survive such a surrendering of itself in utter vulnerability to the enemy of
dialogue? Or perhaps we should ask, can it rise up again, after this self-surrender, in new power for
bringing together a scattered, defeated humanity to share in an open but commonly sought and
unanimously beckoned Logos of mutual comprehension and communication? May this, after all, be the
true and authentic “end” of dialogue provoked by apocalypse? For what it is worth, my apocalyptic
counsel is that we must attempt an openness to dialogue even in this absolute vulnerability and
risk. The world is certainly not a safe place, and it will surely continue not to be such, short of
something … apocalyptic. Needed, ever again, is something on the order of an apocalypse, not just a
new attitude or a new anything that we can ourselves simply produce. Philosophy itself ,
thought through to its own end, can hardly resist concluding that “only a god can save us” (Nur noch ein
Gott kann uns retten). But can not our attitude make a difference- perhaps make possible the advent of
apocalypse beyond all our powers, even those of our own imaginations? I will wager an answer to this
question only in the operative mood. May we bring a voice speaking up for mutual understanding onto the
horizon of discourse in our time, a time marked by the terrifying sign of apocalyptic discourse. May we do
this not by judging apocalyptic discourse, but by accepting that our condition as humans is as
much to be judged as to judge and that all our relatively justified judgments are such to the extend that they
offer themselves to be judged rather than standing on their own ground as absolute. In other words, may
our discussions remain open to apocalypse, open to what we cannot represent or prescribe but can
nevertheless undergo in a process of transformation that can be shared with others – and that may be
genuinely dialogue.
Examining the truth-claims of security opens up space for political resistance, but
doesn’t foreclose the possibility of policy action.
Burke 2 (Anthony, Associate Professor of Politics at the University of New South Wales, “Aporias of
Security,” Alternatives, 27(1), AD: 7-9-9)
The answer is not to seek to close out these aporias; they call to us and their existence resents
an important political opening. Rather than seek to resecure security, to make it conform to a new
humanist ideal—however laudable—we need to challenge security as a claim to truth, to set its
“meaning” aside. Instead, we should focus on security as a pervasive and complex system of
political, social, and economic power, which reaches from the most private spaces of being to
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the vast flows and conflicts of geopolitics and global economic circulation. It is to see security as
an interlocking system of knowledges, representations, practices, and institutional forms that
imagine, direct, and act upon bodies, spaces, and flows in certain ways—to see security not as an
essential value but as a political technology. This is to move from essence to genealogy: a
genealogy that aims, in William Connolly’s words, to “open us up to the play of possibility in the
present…[to] incite critical responses to unnecessary violence and injuries surreptitiously
imposed upon life by the insistence that prevailing forms are natural, rational, universal or
necessary.”
Our plan strikes the perfect balance between order and chaos – only through
“outside” political action and “inside” rethinking of the alternative can solve.
Lipshutz 98 [Ronnie D., Professor, Department of Politics U Cali-Santa Cruz; “On Security”,
http://www.ciaonet.org/book/lipschutz/lipschutz11.html AD 07/11/09] JL
These two contrasting views, of separate and intermingled zones of order and chaos seem to be
diametrically opposed, but perhaps they are not. The world of states continues to exist and
operate along the logics of neorealism and interdependence. In that world, all states are external
to one other and view each other intersubjectively. Security is defined in terms of one or more of
these external actors penetrating the threatened state in some material fashion. Missiles,
pollutants, and immigrants all come from the "outside" and menace the inside. The world of
intermingled order and chaos, however, is already "inside," snatching bodies, as it were. If the
financial world poses a threat to the state, it is because it is part and parcel of the body politic.
Surviving the depredations of the robber barons of Wall Street (and London, Tokyo, et al.) will be
much like a serious heroin addiction: take too little and you become ill; take too much and you die.
The zone of tolerability--and security--might, for better or worse, come to lie on the fine line,
and our ability to balance, between the two.
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Perm - Realism
Realism allows for a combination of action and critique that is necessary for
solvency.
Cozette 8 (Murielle, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Manchester, “Reclaiming the critical
dimension of realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the ethics of Scholarship,” Review of International Studies, 34(1), AD: 7-11-9) BL
The article demonstrates that contrary to the common interpretation of realism as a theoretical
outlook that holds an implicit and hidden normative commitment to the preservation of the
existing order, Morgenthau’s formulation of realism is rooted in his claim that political science
is a subversive force, which should ‘stir up the conscience of society’, and in doing so,
challenge the status quo. For Morgenthau, IR scholars have the responsibility to seek truth, against power if needed,
and then to speak this truth to power even though power may try to silence or distort the scholar’s voice.11 Giving up this
responsibility leads to ideology and blind support for power, which is something that Morgenthau always saw as dangerous,
and consistently opposed. His commitment to truth in turn explains why, according to him, political science is always,
by definition, a revolutionary force whose main purpose is to bring about ‘change through
action’. In complete contrast to what ‘critical approaches’ consistently claim, the realist project is
therefore best understood as a critique of the powers-that-be.
Realism is necessary for short-term solutions in IR—the permutation is the best
strategy.
Alastair J. H. Murray, Professor of Politics at the University of Wales Swansea, 1997 (“Rearticulating
and Re-Evaluating Realism,” Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics,
Keele University Press, ISBN 1853311960, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Net-Library, p.
193-195)
It should be clear from the preceding discussion that realism cannot be located within either the
conservative, rationalist orthodoxy, as is so often assumed, nor within the progressive,
reflectivist alternative, but must be recognised as existing in its own space, detached from both
rationalism and reflectivism, beholden to neither. It differs from rationalist approaches because it
rejects the conservative premise on which they rely for a position which remains much more
open to the possibility of change in the international system. If neorealism, for instance, reifies
the historically specific Westphalian order into a universal pattern of international politics,
realism, based upon the nature of individuals rather than on the structure of the international
system, can resist this historical closure for a much more flexible perspective. Whereas
neorealism is bound to a narrow physical-mechanical notion of the international system which
elevates international constraints to the status of a natural necessity exogenous to human
practice, realism can treat these constraints as social constructs created by, and malleable
through, human practice. And, whereas neorealism must remain trapped within the particular
historical epoch from which it draws its conception of structure, cut off from the possibility of
transcending the relative modes of that time, realism, based upon a conception of human nature
with universal applicability, is free from these constraints. 65 Consequently, realism is capable
of appreciating the possibilities and trends contained within the contemporary international
system, and of acting to exploit their potential. At the same time, however, realism no more fits
into a reflectivist mould than it does a rationalist one. Whilst it joins the critique of
contemporary resolutions of the problem of political authority, it also recognises that they
provide an essential measure of order in a disorderly world. Whilst it remains open to the
possibility of development towards more inclusive forms of community, it refuses to take the
additional step of assuming that this development can necessarily be described as progress.
Realism ultimately agrees that the 'necessitous' elements of the international system are largely
social constructions generated by human practices, but it retains an ambivalence about human
motivations which dictates a sceptical position towards the possibility of overcoming
estrangement. For every example of progress created by man's ability to transcend 'learned
responses', for every case of his 'inherent self-developing capacity', we have examples of
regression as he employs this for purposes other than promoting self-determination. For realism,
man remains, in the final analysis, limited by himself. As such, it emphasises caution, and
focuses not merely upon the achievement of long-term objectives, but also upon the resolution of
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more immediate difficulties. Given that, in the absence of a resolution of such difficulties,
longer-term objectives are liable to be unachievable, realism would seem to offer a more
effective strategy of transition than reflectivism itself. Whereas, in constructivism, such
strategies are divorced from an awareness of the immediate problems which obstruct such
efforts, and, in critical theoretical perspectives, they are divorced from the current realities of
international politics altogether, realism's emphasis on first addressing the immediate obstacles
to development ensures that it at least generates strategies which offer us a tangible path to
follow. If these strategies perhaps lack the visionary appeal of reflectivist proposals, emphasising
simply the necessity of a restrained, moderate diplomacy in order to ameliorate conflicts
between states, to foster a degree of mutual understanding in international relations, and,
ultimately, to develop a sense of community which might underlie a more comprehensive
international society, they at least seek to take advantage of the possibilities of reform in the
current international system without jeopardising the possibilities of order. Realism's gradualist
reformism, the careful tending of what it regards as an essentially organic process, ultimately
suggests the basis for a more sustainable strategy for reform than reflectivist perspectives,
however dramatic, can offer.
Realism is the language of the establishment – we can’t just discard it. Learning to
speak the language is a prerequisite to effective policymaking.
Stefano Guzzini, Assistant Professor of Political Science and IR at the Central European University,
1998 ("Conclusion: the fragmentation of realism," Realism in International Relations and International
Political Economy: The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415144027,
p. 212)
Therefore, in a third step, this chapter also claims that it is impossible just to heap realism onto
the dustbin of history and start anew. This is a non-option. Although realism as a strictly causal
theory has been a disappointment, various realist assumptions are well alive in the minds of
many practitioners and observers of international affairs. Although it does not correspond to a
theory which helps us to understand a real world with objective laws, it is a world-view which
suggests thoughts about it, and which permeates our daily language for making sense of it.
Realism has been a rich, albeit very contestable, reservoir of lessons of the past, of metaphors
and historical analogies, which, in the hands of its most gifted representatives, have been
proposed, at times imposed, and reproduced as guides to a common understanding of
international affairs. Realism is alive in the collective memory and self-understanding of our
(i.e. Western) foreign policy elite and public, whether educated or not. Hence, we cannot but
deal with it. For this reason, forgetting realism is also questionable. Of course, academic
observers should not bow to the whims of daily politics. But staying at distance, or being
critical, does not mean that they should lose the capacity to understand the languages of those
who make significant decisions, not only in government, but also in firms, NGOs, and other
institutions. To the contrary, this understanding, as increasingly varied as it may be, is a
prerequisite for their very profession. More particularly, it is a prerequisite for opposing the
more irresponsible claims made in the name, although not always necessarily in the spirit, of
realism.
Realism is not incompatible with the criticism. We should learn to speak its
language in order to leverage it as a hermeneutic bridge into international relations.
Stefano Guzzini, Assistant Professor of Political Science and IR at the Central European University,
2001 (“The enduring dilemmas of realism in International Relations,” Copenhagen Peace Research
Institute, December, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Columbia International Affairs Online
at http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/gus02/gus02.pdf, p. 34-35)
The negative implications of seeing realism on the level of observation differently defined than
on the level of practice, double and not only simple negation, stem from the curious assumption
that the language of observation has to imitate the language of practice for understanding it.111
This does not follow, however. It is perfectly possible to be proficient in more than one
language. This implies that future scholars should be well-versed in both the life-worlds of world
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politics, be it the language of the diplomat, the military, the international businessperson, and/or
transnational civil right movements, as well as in the life-world of academia where truth claims
have to be justified in a scholarly (and not necessarily politically) coherent manner.112 This is a
task of tall proportions for which our usual education is not well prepared. But it is a task, we
cannot avoid facing, if on the one hand, we want to produce sensible explanations, and on the
other hand, we want to retain a hermeneutic bridge to world politics.
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1AR Realism Perm
Perm – do the plan and all non-mutually exclusive parts of the alternative
The perm solves best — realism is a necessary short-term strategy because it
focuses on actual problems with the international system. Even if the longterm vision of the critique is desirable, its outright rejection of IR will fail – only
a combination of criticism and pragmatic politics can effectively sustain a
reform strategy—more evidence. (alt not necessary, not really a perm)
Murray 97—Alastair J. H. Murray, Professor of Politics at the University of Wales Swansea, 1997
[“Part II: Rearticulating and Re-Evaluating Realism,” Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and
Cosmopolitan Ethics, Keele University Press, ISBN 1853311960, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Net-Library, p. 195]
For the realist, then, if rationalist theories prove so conservative as to make their adoption problematic,
critical theories prove so progressive as to make their adoption unattractive. If the former can justifiably be criticised for
seeking to make a far from ideal order work more efficiently, thus perpetuating its existence and
legitimating its errors, reflectivist theory can equally be criticised for searching for a tomorrow which may never exist, thereby
endangering the possibility of establishing any form of stable order in the here and now. Realism's distinctive contribution thus lies in
its attempt to drive a path between the two, a path which, in the process, suggests the basis on which some form of synthesis between
rationalism and reflectivism might be achieved. Oriented in its genesis towards addressing the shortcomings in an
idealist transformatory project, it is centrally motivated by a concern to reconcile vision with practicality, to relate utopia and
reality. Unifying a technical and a practical stance, it combines aspects of the positivist methodology employed by problem-solving
theory with the interpretative stance adopted by critical theory, avoiding the monism of perspective which leads to the self-destructive
conflict between the two. Ultimately, it can simultaneously acknowledge the possibility of change in the structure of the international
system and the need to probe the limits of the possible, and yet also question the proximity of any international transformation,
emphasise the persistence of problems after such a transformation, and serve as a reminder of the need to grasp whatever semblance of
order can be obtained in the mean time. Indeed, it is possible to say that realism is uniquely suited to serve as such an
orientation. Simultaneously to critique contemporary resolutions of the problem of political authority as
unsatisfactory and yet to support them as an attainable measure of order in an unstable world involves one
in a contradiction which is difficult to accept. Yet, because it grasps the essential ambiguity of the political, and adopts
imperfectionism as its dominant motif, realism can relate these two tasks in a way which allows neither to predominate, achieving, if
not a reconciliation, then at least a viable synthesis. 66
Realism has critical potential—only the perm solves
Cozette 8 [Murielle Cozette* BA (Hons) (Sciences Po Paris), MA (King's College London), MA
(Sciences Po Paris), PhD (LSE) is a John Vincent Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of International
Relations. Review of International Studies (2008), 34, 5–27]
This article concentrates on Morgenthau’s views on the ethics of scholarship and argues that all his works
must be read in the light of his central goal: speaking truth to power. Morgenthau wrote at length, and held very
specific views about, the role and function of scholars in society. It is therefore legitimate to claim that, as a scholar
himself, Morgenthau attempted to live up to his very demanding definition of scholarly activity, and his
assertion that scholars have the moral responsibility to speak truth to power informed all his major works.
While Morgenthau’s conception of the ethics of scholarship is generally ignored or neglected, it is,
however, indispensable to take it into account when approaching his writings. Indeed, it demonstrates that
for Morgenthau, a realist theory of international politics always includes two dimensions, which are intrinsically linked: it is
supposed to explain international relations, but it is also, fundamentally, a normative and critical project which questions the
existing status quo. While the explanatory dimension of realism is usually discussed at great length, its critical side is
consistently – and conveniently – forgotten or underestimated by the more recent, self-named ‘critical’ approaches.
However diverse these recent approaches may be in their arguments, what unites them all is what they are
supposedly critical of: the realist tradition. The interpretation they provide of realism is well known, and rarely questioned.
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Although it is beyond the scope of this article to review it at length, it is worth stressing some of the main
features which are constantly emphasised. First then, realism is a state-centric approach, by which is meant that
it stresses the importance of anarchy and the struggle for power among states. From this, most critical
approaches jump to the conclusion that realism is therefore strikingly ill-equipped to deal with the contemporary era where the
state is increasingly regarded as outdated and/or dangerous, because it stands in the path of different, more
emancipatory modes of political organisation. Realism, it is also argued, pretends to be objective and to depict
‘things as they are’: but this cannot obscure the fact that theories are never value-neutral and constitute the
very ‘reality’ they pretend to ‘describe’. This leads to the idea that realism is in fact nothing but conservatism: it is
portrayed as the voice of (great) powers, with the effect of reifying (and therefore legitimising) the existing
international order. This explains why Rothstein can confidently argue that realism ‘is . . . implicitly a
conservative doctrine attractive to men concerned with protecting the status quo’, and that it is a ‘deceptive
and dangerous’ theory, not least because it ‘has provided the necessary psychological and intellectual
support to resist criticism, to persevere in the face of doubt, and to use any means to outwit or to dupe
domestic dissenters’.2 Such views represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the realist project, but are nonetheless
widely accepted as commonsense in the discipline. A typical example of this is the success of Cox’s famous
distinction between ‘problem solving’ and ‘critical’ theory . Unsurprisingly, realism is the archetypal example of a
problem-solving theory for Cox. His account of the realist tradition sweepingly equates Morgenthau and
Waltz, who are described as ‘American scholars who transformed realism into a form of problem-solving
theory’.3 Thereafter in his famous article ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders’, Cox refers to the works
of both scholars by using the term ‘neo-realism’. Problem solving theory (and therefore realism) ‘takes the
world as it finds it . . . as the given framework for action’, while by contrast, the distinctive trait of ‘critical
theory’ is to ‘stand apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about’.4
Problem-solving theory, says Cox, ‘serves particular national sectional or class interests, which are
comfortable within the given order’, which therefore means that its purpose is ‘conservative’.5 Problemsolving theory also pretends to be ‘value free’, while Cox is keen to remind his reader that it contains some
‘latent normative elements’, and that its ‘non normative quality is however, only superficial’.6 By contrast
to what Cox presents as a problem-solving theory, being ‘critical’ in IR means being openly normative,
challenging the status quo, and seeking to advance human emancipation( s), however this concept is to be
defined.7 The picture Cox proposes is therefore simple: critical theory is named as such because of its
commitment to ‘bringing about an alternative order’ and because of its openly normative stance, while
realism, by contrast, is presented as a theory which in effect reproduces and ‘sustain[s] the existing order’.8 To be fair, not all
critical theorists promote such a simplistic vision of what realism stands for – Cox himself, in some of his
later works, recognised that classical realism possesses an undeniable critical dimension. In 1992,
providing a more nuanced analysis of the school, he thus accepted that ‘classical realism is to be seen as a
means of empowerment of the less powerful, a means of demystification of the manipulative instruments of
power’.9 He did not, however, investigate the critical dimension of realism in much depth, and failed to
identify its emancipatory dimension. Other critical theorists demonstrate an awareness of the richness and
subtlety of Morgenthau’s ideas. The best example remains Ashley’s famous piece on the poverty of
neorealism, where he justly argues that the triumph of the latter has obscured the insights provided by
classical realism. Ashley’s analysis remains, however, problematic as his interpretation of Morgenthau does
not identify all the critical dimensions of his writings, and ultimately continues to present classical realism
as the ‘ideological apparatus’ of one particular ruling group, that of statesmen, which remains essentially
incapable of realising its own limitations. As he writes: It is a tradition whose silences and omissions, and
failures of self critical nerve join it in secret complicity with an order of domination that reproduces the
expectation of inequality as a motivating force, and insecurity as an integrating principle. As the ‘organic
intellectuality of the world wide public sphere of bourgeois society, classical realism honors the silences of
the tradition it interprets and participates in exempting the ‘private sphere’ from public responsibility.10
(emphasis added) The ‘picture’ of classical realism which is provided by Ashley therefore does not adequately capture
its inherent critical dimension, as it ultimately presents it as reproducing the existing order and silencing dissent.
Cox’s distinction clearly echoes the now classic one between ‘orthodox’ and ‘critical’ approaches (a label
broad enough to include the self-named Critical Theory, Feminism, Normative theory, Constructivism and
Post-Structuralism). The diversity of critical approaches should not obscure the fact that crucially, what allows them to think of
themselves as critical is not simply a set of epistemological (usually ‘post-positivist’) or ontological assumptions they may
share. It is also, fundamentally, the image they think lies in the mirror when they turn it to realism. In most cases then, it
seems to be enough to oppose a simplistic picture of realism like that provided by Cox to deserve the much coveted
label ‘critical’. This leads to the idea that it is impossible to be at the same time a realist scholar and critical, as the two
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adjectives are implicitly presented as antithetical. This clearly amounts to an insidious high-jacking of the very adjective
‘critical’, which more often than not merely signals that one does not adopt a realist approach. The meaning
of the adjective is therefore presented as self-evident, and realism is denied any critical dimension. This is highly
problematic as this reinforces a typical ‘self-righteousness’ from these ‘critical’ approaches, which tend to rely on a truncated and
misleading picture of what realism stands for and conveniently never properly engage with realists’ arguments . The fact that
Waltz is always the primary target of these approaches is no coincidence: this article demonstrates that
realism as expressed by Morgenthau is at its very core a critical project. In order to challenge the use of the
adjective ‘critical’ by some who tend to think of themselves as such simply by virtue of opposing what they
mistakenly present as a conservative theoretical project, the article highlights the central normative and
critical dimensions underlying Morgenthau’s works. It does so by assessing his views about the ethics of
scholarship. The article is divided into two parts. First, it investigates Morgenthau’s ideal of the scholarly
activity, which rests upon a specific understanding of the relationship between truth and power. Second, it
focuses on some features which, for Morgenthau, constitute a ‘betrayal’ of this ideal (a term he borrowed
from Julien Benda). The article demonstrates that contrary to the common interpretation of realism as a theoretical
outlook that holds an implicit and hidden normative commitment to the preservation of the existing order, Morgenthau’s formulation
of realism is rooted in his claim that political science is a subversive force, which should ‘stir up the conscience of society’, and in
doing so, challenge the status quo. For Morgenthau, IR scholars have the responsibility to seek truth, against
power if needed, and then to speak this truth to power even though power may try to silence or distort the
scholar’s voice.11 Giving up this responsibility leads to ideology and blind support for power, which is
something that Morgenthau always saw as dangerous, and consistently opposed. His commitment to truth
in turn explains why, according to him, political science is always, by definition, a revolutionary force
whose main purpose is to bring about ‘change through action’. In complete contrast to what ‘critical approaches’
consistently claim, the realist project is therefore best understood as a critique of the powers-that-be
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Realism Good - War
Rejecting realism leads to war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Focusing the tools of offensive realism on Europe and Northeast Asia, Mearsheimer foresees
greater instability, perhaps war, in these regions over the next 20 years. The prediction is based
on two central variables that are themselves linked (1) whether U.S. troops remain deployed in these
regions, and (2) possible changes in regional power structures. Mearsheimer shares the widespread
belief that peace in these areas is currently being sustained by the “American pacifer,” the
physical presence of U.S. troops.31 Much will depend, therefore, on whether the United States
remains so engaged. But that will turn, he argues, on possible changes in the structure of power in
each region, in particular, on whether a potential hegemon arises. If that does not occur, the United
States eventually will withdraw its troops. The withdrawal would increase the potential for
conflict, first by removing the “pacifer” and second by fostering change in the regional power
structures.
Security competition is the only way to prevent war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
Mearsheimer draws from Herz’s analysis the “implication” that “the best way for a state to
survive in anarchy is to take advantage of other states and gain power at their expense. The
best defense is a good offense” (p. 36).16 He takes issue with “some defensive realists” who
emphasize that offensive strategies are self-defeating, because they trigger balancing countermoves.
“Given this understanding of the security dilemma,” he declares, “hardly any security competition
should ensue among rational states, because it would be fruitless, maybe even counter-productive, to
try to gain advantage over rival powers. Indeed, it is difficult to see why states operating in a world
where aggressive behavior equals self-defeating behavior would face a ‘security dilemma.’ It would
seem to make good sense for all states to forsake war and live in peace”(p. 417, n. 27). Mearsheimer
could have pointed to the possible bad consequences of “living in peace” as a reason why security
measures, even “selfdefeating” ones, may be necessary. For example, inaction in the form of a
failure to take deterrent measures may be exploited by a rival, at a possible cost far greater
than the costs of action. The option of inaction is often omitted in discussions of the security
dilemma, even though it is the “other horn” of the dilemma and usually essential to a full
explanation of outcomes.
Realism is the only way to prevent war.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics, AD: 7-10-9) BL
It should be apparent from this discussion that offensive realism is mainly a descriptive theory. It
explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how they are likely to behave in the future.
But it is also a prescriptive theory. States should behave according to the dictates of offensive
realism, because it outlines the best way to survive in a dangerous world. One might ask, if the
theory describes how great powers act, why is it necessary to stipulate how they should act? The
imposing constraints of the system should leave great powers with little choice but to act as the
theory predicts. Although there is much truth in this description of great powers as prisoners trapped
in an iron cage, the fact remains that they sometimes—although not often—act in contradiction to
the theory. These are the anomalous cases discussed above. As we shall see, such foolish behavior
invariably has negative consequences. In short, if they want to survive, great powers should
always act like good offensive realists.
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Security competition is inevitable—failing to compete ensures war.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-10-9) BL
A central concept in nearly all realist theory is that of the “security dilemma.” Mearsheimer quotes
with approval John Herz’s original statement of the dilemma: “Striving to attain security from . . .
attack, [states] are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of
the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to
prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units,
power competition ensues and the vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on” (p.
36).14 This, says Mearsheimer, is “a synoptic statement of offensive realism.” However, this is
correct only in a limited sense: The great powers in offensive realism indeed are interested primarily
in security, and their security moves do threaten others, causing them to take countermeasures, as in
the security dilemma. But here the similarity begins to fade. The security dilemma, in most
formulations (including Herz’s), emphasizes how power and security competition can occur
between states that want nothing more than to preserve the status quo.15 Although no one is actually
aggressive, uncertainty about others’ intentions forces each to take protective measures that appear
threatening to others. But there are no status quo powers in Mearsheimer’s world. All great powers
are revisionist and “primed for offense” (p. 3). Mearsheimer does allow that states do not know
each other’s intentions for sure, but he also says that they “are likely to recognize their own motives
at play in the actions of other states” (p. 35). If all are revisionist and believe (correctly) that others
are too, it is hard to see any “dilemma.” Each great power’s security measures present real
threats to others, not merely hypothetical ones. Hence there is no question of “unnecessary”
competition being generated by the need to ensure against uncertain threats.
Straying from realism leads to war.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics, AD: 7-11-9) BL
The possible consequences of falling victim to aggression further amplify the importance of
fear as a motivating force in world politics. Great powers do not compete with each other as if
international politics were merely an economic marketplace. Political competition among states is
a much more dangerous business than mere economic intercourse; the former can read to
war, and war often means mass killing on the battlefield as well a mass murder of civilians. In
extreme cases, war can even lead to the destruction of states. The horrible consequences of war
sometimes cause states to view each other not just as competitors, but as potentially deadly enemies.
Political antagonism, in short, tends to be intense, because the stakes are great. States in the
international system also aim to guarantee their own survival. Because other states are potential
threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 911, states
can’ t just depend on others for their own security. Each state tends to see itself as vulnerable and
alone, and therefore it aims to provide for its own survival. In international politics, God helps
those who help themselves. This emphasis on self-help does not preclude states from forming
alliances.” But alliances are only temporary marriages of convenience: today’s alliance partner
might be tomorrow’s enemy, and today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s alliance partner. For
example, the United States fought with China and the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan in
World War II, but soon thereafter flip-flopped enemies and partners and allied with West Germany
and Japan against China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
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A departure from realism leads to power war.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, professor at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics)
The possible consequences of falling victim to aggression further amplify the importance of
fear as a motivating force in world politics. Great powers do not compete with each other as if
international politics were merely an economic marketplace. Political competition among states is
a much more dangerous business than mere economic intercourse; the former can read to
war, and war often means mass killing on the battlefield as well a5 mass murder of civilians. In
extreme cases, war can even lead to the destruction of states. The horrible consequences of war
sometimes cause states to view each other not just as competitors, but as potentially deadly enemies.
Political antagonism, in short, tends to be intense, because the stakes are great. States in the
international system also aim to guarantee their own survival. Because other states are potential
threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial 911, states
can’ t just depend on others for their own security. Each state tends to see itself as vulnerable and
alone, and therefore it aims to provide for its own survival. In international politics, God helps
those who help themselves. This emphasis on self-help does not preclude states from forming
alliances.” But alliances are only temporary marriages of convenience: today’s alliance partner
might be tomorrow’s enemy, and today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s alliance partner. For
example, the United States fought with China and the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan in
World War II, but soon thereafter flip-flopped enemies and partners and allied with West Germany
and Japan against China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Realism prevents extinction
Mearsheimer 1 (John, professor at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics)
It should be apparent from this discussion that offensive realism is mainly a descriptive theory. It
explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how they are likely to behave in the future.
But it is also a prescriptive theory. States should behave according to the dictates of offensive
realism, because it outlines the best way to survive in a dangerous world. One might ask, if the
theory describes how great powers act, why is it necessary to stipulate how they should act? The
imposing constraints of the system should leave great powers with little choice but to act as the
theory predicts. Although there is much truth in this description of great powers as prisoners trapped
in an iron cage, the fact remains that they sometimes—although not often—act in contradiction to
the theory. These are the anomalous cases discussed above. As we shall see, such foolish behavior
invariably has negative consequences. In short, if they want to survive, great powers should
always act like good offensive realists.
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Realism Inevitable
Realism is inevitable making their alternative impossible
Mearsheimer 95 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “The False Promise
of International Institutions,” International Security, 19(3), AD: 7-11-9) BL
In contrast to liberals, realists are pessimists when it comes to international politics. Realists agree
that creating a peaceful world would be desirable, but they see no easy way to escape the harsh
world of security competition and war. Creating a peaceful world is surely an attractive idea,
but it isn’t a practical one. “Realism,” as Carr notes, “tends to emphasize the irresistible strength
of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest
wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to these forces and these tendencies.”26 This
gloomy view of international relations is based on three core beliefs. First, realists, like liberals,
treat states as the principal actors in world politics. Realists focus mainly on great powers,
however, because these states dominate and shape international politics and they also cause
hue deadliest wars. Second, realists believe that the behavior of great powers is influenced
mainly by their external environment, not by their internal characteristics. The structure of the
international system, which all slates must deal with, largely shapes their foreign policies. Realists
tend mint to draw sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad” states, because all great powers act
according to the same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who runs the
government.27 It is therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in relative
power. In essence, great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size.28 Third, realists hold
that calculations about power dominate states’ thinking, and that states compete for power
among themselves. That competition sometimes necessitates going to war, which is considered
an acceptable instrument of statecraft. To quote Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century military
strategist, war is a continuation of politics by other means.29 Finally, a zero-sum quality
characterizes that competition, sometimes making it intense and unforgiving. States may cooperate
with each other on occasion, but at root they have conflicting interests.
Human agency and ideology cannot overcome realism.
Bacevich 1 (Andrew, Professor of International Relations at Boston University, “Book Review: The
Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” Parameters, AD: 7-10-9) BL
These iron laws describe the way that all great powers behave (or at least ''should behave.") The
result qualifies as "genuinely tragic," according to Mearsheimer, because statesmen (and,
presumably, mere luckless citizens) have no real choice in the matter— offensive realism compels
them "to pursue power and to seek to dominate the other states in the system." The
imperatives of offensive realism trump human agency and ideology: "It does not matter for
the theory whether Germany in 1905 was led by Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler,
or whether Germany was democratic or autocratic." Germany would have behaved as it did
regardless of who ruled according to what values. By extension, there's not a dime's worth of
difference between Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Roosevelt's United States. Great
powers are as interchangeable as billiard balls.
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Attempts to create peace outside of the realist system are misguided – states will
always act in their best interest
Mearsheimer 1 (John, Professor at University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Pages
17-18)
In contrast to liberals, realists are pessimists when it comes to international politics. Realists agree
that creating a peaceful world would be desirable, but they see no easy way to escape the harsh
world of security competition and war. Creating a peaceful world is surely an attractive idea,
but it isn’t a practical one. “Realism,” as Carr notes, “tends to emphasize the irresistible
strength of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that
the highest wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to these forces and these
tendencies.”26 This gloomy view of international relations is based on three core beliefs. First,
realists, like liberals, treat states as the principal actors in world politics. Realists focus mainly
on great powers, however, because these states dominate and shape international politics and they
also cause hue deadliest wars. Second, realists believe that the behavior of great powers is
influenced mainly by their external environment, not by their internal characteristics. The
structure of the international system, which all slates must deal with, largely shapes their foreign
policies. Realists tend mint to draw sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad” states, because all
great powers act according to the same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who
runs the government.27 It is therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in
relative power. In essence, great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size.28 Third,
realists hold that calculations about power dominate states’ thinking, and that states compete
for power among themselves. That competition sometimes necessitates going to war, which is
considered an acceptable instrument of statecraft. To quote Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenthcentury military strategist, war is a continuation of politics by other means.29 Finally, a zero-sum
quality characterizes that competition, sometimes making it intense and unforgiving. States may
cooperate with each other on occasion, but at root they have conflicting interests.
Turn - Attempts to create peace outside of the realist system are misguided – states will always act in
their best interest- if we don’t prepare they will.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, professor at the University of Chicago, “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,”
Questia, AD: 7/11/09) AN
In contrast to liberals, realists are pessimists when it comes to international politics. Realists agree
that creating a peaceful world would be desirable, but they see no easy way to escape the harsh
world of security competition and war. Creating a peaceful world is surely an attractive idea,
but it isn’t a practical one. “Realism,” as Carr notes, “tends to emphasize the irresistible strength
of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest
wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to these forces and these tendencies.”26 This gloomy
view of international relations is based on three core beliefs. First, realists, like liberals, treat states
as the principal actors in world politics. Realists focus mainly on great powers, however, because
these states dominate and shape international politics and they also cause hue deadliest wars.
Second, realists believe that the behavior of great powers is influenced mainly by their external
environment, not by their internal characteristics. The structure of the international system,
which all slates must deal with, largely shapes their foreign policies. Realists tend mint to draw
sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad” states, because all great powers act according to the
same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who runs the government.27 It is
therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in relative power. In essence,
great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size.28 Third, realists hold that calculations
about power dominate states’ thinking, and that states compete for power among themselves.
That competition sometimes necessitates going to war, which is considered an acceptable
instrument of statecraft. To quote Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century military strategist,
war is a continuation of politics by other means.29 Finally, a zero-sum quality characterizes that
competition, sometimes making it intense and unforgiving. States may cooperate with each other
on occasion, but at root they have conflicting interests.
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Realism is inevitable – states will constantly strive to be the strongest and preclude
other states from altering the balance of power.
Mearsheimer 1 [John J. Prof. of Poli Sci at U Chicago. The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics. Pg 1-3]
Alas, the claim that security competition and war between the great powers have been purged from
the international system is wrong. Indeed, there is much evidence that the promise of everlasting
peace among the great powers was stillborn. Consider, for example, that even though the
Soviet threat has disappeared, the United States still maintains about one hundred thousand
troops in Europe and roughly the same number in Northeast Asia. It does so because it
recognizes that dangerous rivalries would probably emerge among the major powers in these
regions if U.S. troops were withdrawn. Moreover, almost every European state, including the
United Kingdom and France, still harbors deep-seated, albeit muted, fears that a Germany
unchecked by American power might behave aggressively; fear of Japan in Northeast Asia is
probably even more profound, and it is certainly more frequently expressed. Finally, the
possibility of a clash between China and the United States over Taiwan is hardly remote. This
is not to say that such a war is likely, but the possibility reminds us that the threat of great-power
war has not disappeared. The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and
dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way. Although the intensity of their
competition waxes and wanes, great powers fear each other and always compete with each
other for power. The overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power, which
means gaining power at the expense of other states. But great powers do not merely strive to be
the strongest of all the great powers, although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim
is to be the hegemon—that is, the only great power in the system. There are no status quo
powers in the international system, save for the occasional hegemon that wants to maintain its
dominating position over potential rivals. Great powers are rarely content with the current
distribution of power; on the contrary, they face a constant incentive to change it in their
favor. They almost always have revisionist intentions, and they will use force to alter the balance of
power if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.3 At times, the costs and risks of trying to
shift the balance of power are too great, forcing great powers to wait for more favorable
circumstances. But the desire for more power does not go away, unless a state achieves the ultimate
goal of hegemony. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, however, the world is
condemned to perpetual great-power competition. This unrelenting pursuit of power means that
great powers are inclined to look for opportunities to alter the distribution of world power in
their favor. They will seize these opportunities if they have the necessary capability. Simply
pill, great powers are primed for offense. But not only does .real power seek to gain power at
the expense of other states, it also thwart rivals bent on gaining power at its expense. Thus, a
great power will defend the balance of power when looming change favors another state, and
it will try to undermine the balance when the direction of change is in its own favor. Why do
great powers behave this way? My answer is that the structure of the international system forces
states which seek only to he secure nonetheless to act aggressively toward each other, Three features
of the international system combine to cause states to fear one another: 1) the absence of a central
authority that sits above states and can protect them from each other, 2) the fact that states always
have some offensive military capability, and 3) the fact that states can never be certain about other
slates’ intentions. Given this fear—which can never be wholly eliminated—states recognize that the
more powerful they are relative to their rivals, the better their chances of survival. Indeed, the best
guarantee of survival is to be a hegemon, because no other state can seriously threaten such a mighty
power.
Realism inevitable—it’s grounded in human nature
Thayer 4 [Bradley, Ph.D, Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University and a consultant to the Rand Corporation, "Darwin and International Relations:
On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict"]
In chapter 2, I explain how evolutionary theory contributes to the realist theory of international relations
and to rational choice analysis. First, realism, like the Darwinian view of the natural world, submits that
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international relations is a competitive and dangerous realm, where statesmen must strive to protect the
interests of their state before the interests of others or international society. Traditional realist arguments rest
principally on one of two discrete ultimate causes, or intellectual foundations of the theory. The first is Reinhold Niebuhr's argument
that humans are evil. The second, anchored in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Hans Morgenthau, is that humans possess an innate
animus dominandi - a drive to dominate. From these foundations, Niebuhr and Morgenthau argue that what is true for the individual
is also true of the state: because individuals are evil or possess a drive to dominate so too do states because their leaders are
individuals who have these motivations. argue that realists have a much stronger foundation for the realist argument than that used by
either Morgenthau or Niebuhr. My intent is to present an alternative ultimate cause of classical realism: evolutionary theory. The use
of evolutionary theory allows realism to be scientifically grounded for the first time, because evolution explains
egoism. Thus a scientific explanation provides a better foundation for their arguments than either theology or
metaphysics. Moreover, evolutionary theory can anchor the branch of realism termed offensive realism and advanced most forcefully
by John Mearsheimer. He argues that the anarchy of the international system, the fact that there is no world government, forces
leaders of states to strive to maximize their relative power in order to be secure. I argue that theorists of international relations must
recognize that human evolution occurred in an anarchic environment and that this explains why leaders act as
offensive realism predicts. Humans evolved in anarchic conditions, and the implications of this are
profound for theories of human behavior. It is also important to note at this point that my argument does
not depend upon "anarchy" as it is traditionally used in the discipline - as the ordering principle of the post1648 Westphalian state system. When human evolution is used to ground offensive realism, it immediately
becomes a more powerful theory than is currently recognized. It explains more than just state behavior; it
begins to explain human behavior. It applies equally to non-state actors, be they individuals, tribes, or
organizations. Moreover, it explains this behavior before the creation of the modern state
system. Offensive realists do not need an anarchic state system to advance their argument. They only need
humans. Thus, their argument applies equally well before or after 1648, whenever humans form groups, be
they tribes in Papua New Guinea, conflicting city-states in ancient Greece, organizations like the Catholic
Church, or contemporary states in international relations.
Your hippy k alternative won’t work – states will never submit to higher ethical
principles because the international system is anarchic – they will not place their
survival in the hands of other states
Mearsheimer 95 ( John J., Profess of Political Science at the University of Chicago,
“The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3.)
There are two major flaws in collective security theory, and both concern the all-important component of
trust. Collective security IS an incomplete theory because it does not provide a satisfactory
explanation for how states overcome their fears and learn to trust one another. Realists
maintain that states fear one another because they operate in an anarchic world, have
offensive military capabilities, and can never be certain about other states' intentions.
Collective security is largely silent about the first two realist assumptions, as the theory
says little about either anarchy or offensive capability. (102) However, it has something to say about
intentions, because the theory's first two norms call for states not to aggress, but only to defend. States, in other words, should only
have benign intentions when contemplating the use of military force.
However, the theory recognizes that one or more states might reject the norms that underpin collective security and behave
aggressively. The very purpose of a collective security system, after all, is to deal with states that have aggressive intentions. In effect,
collective security admits that no state can ever be completely certain about another state's intentions, which brings us back to a realist
world where states have little choice but to fear each other.
There is a second reason why states are not likely to place their trust in a collective security system: it has a set of demanding
requirements--I count nine--that are likely to thwart efforts to confront art aggressor with preponderant power. Collective security, as
Claude notes, "assumes the satisfaction of an extraordinarily complex network of requirements." (103)
for collective security to work, states must be able to distinguish clearly between
aggressor and victim, and then move against the aggressor. However, it is sometimes
difficult in a crisis to determine who is the troublemaker and who is the victim. (104)
Debates still rage about which European great power, if any, bears responsibility for
starting World War I. Similar disputes have followed most other wars. Second, the theory
assumes that all aggression is wrong. But there are occasionally cases where conquest is
probably warranted. For example, there are good reasons to applaud the 1979 Vietnamese
First,
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invasion of Cambodia, since it drove the murderous Pol Pot from power. Third, some
states are especially friendly for historical or ideological reasons. Should a state with
close friends be labeled an aggressor in a collective security system, its friends are
probably going to be reluctant to join the coalition against it. For example, it is difficult to
imagine the United States using military force against Britain or Israel, even if they were branded
aggressors by the international community. Fourth, historical enmity between states can also
complicate collective security efforts. Consider that a European collective security
system would have to depend heavily on Germany and Russia, the two most powerful
states on the continent, to maintain order. However, the idea of Germany, which wrought
murder and destruction across Europe in 1939-45, and Russia, which was the core of the
Soviet empire, maintaining order in Europe is sure to meet significant resistance from
other European states. Fifth, even if states agree to act automatically and collectively to
meet aggression, there would surely be difficulty determining how to distribute the
burden. States will have strong incentives to pass the buck and get other states to pay the
heavy price of confronting an aggressor. (105) During World War I, for example, Britain, France,
and Russia each tried to get its allies to pay the blood price of defeating Germany on the battlefield. (106)
Rampant buck-passing might undermine efforts to produce the preponderant military power necessary to
make collective security work. Sixth, it is difficult to guarantee a rapid response to aggression
in a collective security system. Planning beforehand is problematic because "it is impossible to know
what the alignment of states will be if there is an armed conflict." (107) There are also significant
coordination problems associated with assembling a large coalition of states to fight a war. Rapid
response becomes even more problematic if the responsible states must deal with more
than one
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A2: Realism is Outdated
Realism is still relevant in today’s world.
Snyder 1 (Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, “Mearsheimer’s World— Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security,” International Security,
27(1), AD: 7-11-9) BL
At least until the shock of September 11, 2001, the belief was widespread that the end of the Cold War
had transformed international politics from a largely competitive arena to one of cooperation. Thus
the realist stock-in-trade—the inevitability of conflict and war in an anarchic system—seemed hopelessly
out of date. Mearsheimer takes dead aim at this view, insisting that “realism will offer the most
powerful explanations of interna
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Reps Answers
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Reps Not Prior
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Representations Not First
Representations don’t influence reality
Kocher 00 (Robert L., Author of “The American Mind in Denial” and Philosopher, “Discourse on
Reality and Sanity”, http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/reality_sanity1.htm)
While it is not possible to establish many proofs in the verbal world, and it is simultaneously possible to
make many uninhibited assertions or word equations in the verbal world, it should be considered that
reality is more rigid and does not abide by the artificial flexibility and latitude of the verbal world. The
world of words and the world of human experience are very imperfectly correlated. That is, saying
something doesn't make it true. A verbal statement in the world of words doesn't mean it will occur as such
in the world of consistent human experience I call reality. In the event verbal statements or assertions
disagree with consistent human experience, what proof is there that the concoctions created in the world of
words should take precedence or be assumed a greater truth than the world of human physical experience
that I define as reality? In the event following a verbal assertion in the verbal world produces pain or
catastrophe in the world of human physical reality or experience, which of the two can and should be
changed? Is it wiser to live with the pain and catastrophe, or to change the arbitrary collection of words
whose direction produced that pain and catastrophe? Which do you want to live with? What proven reason
is there to assume that when doubtfulness that can be constructed in verbal equations conflicts with human
physical experience, human physical experience should be considered doubtful? It becomes a matter of
choice and pride in intellectual argument. My personal advice is that when verbal contortions lead to
chronic confusion and difficulty, better you should stop the verbal contortions rather than continuing to
expect the difficulty to change. Again, it's a matter of choice. Does the outcome of the philosophical
question of whether reality or proof exists decide whether we should plant crops or wear clothes in cold
weather to protect us from freezing? Har! Are you crazy? How many committed deconstructionist
philosophers walk about naked in subzero temperatures or don't eat? Try creating and living in an
alternative subjective reality where food is not needed and where you can sit naked on icebergs, and find
out what happens. I emphatically encourage people to try it with the stipulation that they don't do it around
me, that they don't force me to do it with them, or that they don't come to me complaining about the
consequences and demanding to conscript me into paying for the cost of treating frostbite or other
consequences. (sounds like there is a parallel to irresponsibility and socialism somewhere in here, doesn't
it?). I encourage people to live subjective reality. I also ask them to go off far away from me to try it, where
I won't be bothered by them or the consequences. For those who haven't guessed, this encouragement is a
clever attempt to bait them into going off to some distant place where they will kill themselves off through
the process of social Darwinism — because, let's face it, a society of deconstructionists and
counterculturalists filled with people debating what, if any, reality exists would have the productive
functionality of a field of diseased rutabagas and would never survive the first frost. The attempt to
convince people to create and move to such a society never works, however, because they are not as
committed or sincere as they claim to be. Consequently, they stay here to work for left wing causes and
promote left wing political candidates where there are people who live productive reality who can be fed
upon while they continue their arguments. They ain't going to practice what they profess, and they are
smart enough not to leave the availability of people to victimize and steal from while they profess what
they pretend to believe in.
Reps don't shape reality
Balzacq 5—Thierry, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Namur University
[“The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context” European Journal of
International Relations, London: Jun 2005, Volume 11, Issue 2]
However, despite important insights, this position remains highly disputable. The reason behind this
qualification is not hard to understand. With great trepidation my contention is that one of the main
distinctions we need to take into account while examining securitization is that between
'institutional' and 'brute' threats. In its attempts to follow a more radical approach to
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security problems wherein threats are institutional, that is, mere products of communicative
relations between agents, the CS has neglected the importance of 'external or brute threats', that is,
threats that do not depend on language mediation to be what they are - hazards for human
life. In methodological terms, however, any framework over-emphasizing either institutional
or brute threat risks losing sight of important aspects of a multifaceted phenomenon . Indeed,
securitization, as suggested earlier, is successful when the securitizing agent and the audience reach a
common structured perception of an ominous development. In this scheme, there is no security problem
except through the language game. Therefore, how problems are 'out there' is exclusively
contingent upon how we linguistically depict them. This is not always true. For one, language
does not construct reality; at best, it shapes our perception of it. Moreover, it is not
theoretically useful nor is it empirically credible to hold that what we say about a problem
would determine its essence. For instance, what I say about a typhoon would not change its
essence. The consequence of this position, which would require a deeper articulation, is that some
security problems are the attribute of the development itself. In short, threats are not only
institutional; some of them can actually wreck entire political communities regardless of
the use of language. Analyzing security problems then becomes a matter of understanding
how external contexts, including external objective developments, affect securitization. Thus,
far from being a departure from constructivist approaches to security, external developments are
central to it.
Representations and framework aren’t a prior issue—arguments for better
policy should draw from different frameworks when appropriate.
Light 5—Andrew Light, Environmental Philosophy @ NYU [“What is Pragmatic Philosophy,”
http://faculty.washington.edu/alight/papers/Light.What%20Pragmatic.pdf. P. 349-351]
I have no easy answer to this question of how practical or “do-able” reform proposals made by
philosophers should be. As suggested above, it is a question that has obvious important implications for the
application of philosophical principles to environmental policy. My intuition though is that the
pragmatist ought to have a long-term end in view while at the same time she must have at
the ready viable alternatives which assume current political or economic systems and
structures whenever possible. This is not to say that the pragmatic philosopher gives up on
the tasks of defending alternatives to current structures, and the pursuit of those alternatives in
democratic debates on the reallocation of resources. It only means that our position may require, for
consistency sake to our pragmatic intentions at least, that we not rely exclusively on such changes in
articulating our preferred ends for better public policies. In this context, there are at least two
senses in which one could understand the meaning of “pragmatic” philosophy as discussed so far. (1)
Philosophy that has practical intent, anchored to practical problems, and (2) Philosophy which aids in the
development of policy solutions that can actually achieve support and consensus. While Young’s approach
certainly encompasses (1) the question is whether she also does (2). My own pragmatist approach assumes
that there is a connection between (1) and (2) (indeed, that (1) implies (2)). Assuming a successful
argument that (1) and (2) are related in this way (for some this may take some argument, for others it will
be obvious) then a question remains concerning how to go about achieving (2). Let me make just one
suggestion for how the pragmatist could go about reconciling her desire to change systems with the need to
make achievable policy recommendations. As is suggested by my approach, my view is that if a
pragmatic philosophy in the end is in the service of an argument to create better polices, then
in our democratic society it must be prepared to argue its case before the public, and perhaps
sometimes only before policy makers. As Said puts it, the public intellectual not only wants to
express her beliefs but also wants to persuade others—meaning the public at large—of her views
(1994, p. 12). This raises the critical issue of how such appeals to the public are to be made. It raises the
issue of how important persuasion is to the creation of pragmatic arguments. All philosophy is in some
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sense about persuasion, though to differentiate ourselves from rhetoricians (if we are interested in making
such distinctions, which I still am) we must restrict ourselves to persuasion through some form of argument
given more or less agreed upon (and revisable) standards for what counts as a good argument. But the
pragmatic philosopher is not simply concerned with per- suading other philosophers. She is also
interested in persuading the public either directly (in hopes that they will in turn influence policy makers)
or indirectly, by appealling to policy makers who in turn help to shape public opinion. The work of a
public philosophy is not solely for intramural philosophical discussion; it is aimed at larger forums. But as I
suggested before, such a task requires some attention to the question of what motivates either
the public, policy makers, or both to act. Our bar is set higher than traditional philosophical standards
of validity and abstractly conceived soundness. For if we are to direct our philosophy at policies in a
context other than a hypothetical philosophical framework, we must also make arguments which will
motivate our audiences to act. Since we are dealing in ethi- cal and political matters, the question for
pragmatic philosophers like Young and myself is how much we must attend to the issue of moral
motivation in forming our pragmatic arguments. If we agree that the issue of moral motivation is always
crucial for a pragmatic philosophy then at least two issues arise. First, as I suggested before, we must be
prepared to embrace a theoretical or conceptual pluralism which allows us to pick and choose
from a range of conceptual frameworks in making our arguments without committing to
the theoretical monism which may be assumed in some versions of these frameworks. The
reason is that we need to be able to make arguments that will appeal to the conceptual frameworks of our
audiences while recognizing that these frameworks can change from audience to audience. So, if we
think a utilitarian argument will be useful for talking to economists in decision making
positions, then we should be allowed to engage such a framework without completely
committing ourselves to utilitarianism.
Their discourse first arguments are flawed—we can still understand the truth of the
world through evaluating multiple perspectives. This serves as the basis for rational
policy action.
Elkins 6 (Jeremy, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College, “Revolutionary
Politics,” Theory & Event, 9(4), AD: 7-9-9) BL
Such a politics rightly emphasizes the vital point that, in Arendt's words again, the "world opens
up differently to every man."28 But it is equally important to emphasize that we can only
understand a multiplicity of perspectives as perspectives on a world: that it is the world that opens
up to perspectives and not those perspectives that simply constitute the world. This need not be
a reference to a world "out there," independent of human understanding29; the thought holds
equally for the social world. Indeed, we can understand by "world" precisely that which is in
common, and which stands in contrast, therefore, to the distinct and particular perspectives
that we have on it. (If each of our perspectives constituted a separate world, language, as
Wittgenstein famously pointed out, would be impossible.) And this takes us directly to the question
of truth. The critic of "truth" who suggests that appeals to it must be references to something
"out there" is, in one important sense, right: not that claims of truth must refer to the
"universe" or "nature" or "the world independent of how we understand it," but that claims of
truth must refer to something - a world, our world - that is outside of my own statements about
it or beliefs about it. That "I could be wrong" (or that I don't know, am unsure, etc.) or that "things
are different from how I want them to be" (or how they were, or how they will be, etc.) are all that
we need to ground a concept of truth. And that concept can extend not only to "brute facts," but to
anything to which these statements might meaningfully apply. It follows from the fact of
belonging to a world that one's views about it can be evaluated.30 (Whether they ought to be
evaluated in various non-political circumstances - as opposed to acknowledged, ignored, etc. - is a
different question.) And when those views become claims, or the basis for claims, on the political
community - claims of how we should understand ourselves, what we should endorse, how the
coercive force of the state should be employed, and so forth - a politics that takes seriously that
the "world opens up differently to every man" must thus be concerned precisely with questions
about how competing claims about the world ought to be evaluated.
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Discourse doesn’t shape reality, and a focus on discourse risks perpetuating
violence.
Mearsheimer 95 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “The False Promise
of International Institutions,” International Security, 19(3), AD: 7-11-9) BL
It would be understandable if realists made such arguments, since they believe there is an objective
reality that largely determines which discourse will be dominant . Critical theorists, however,
emphasize that the world is socially constructed, and not shaped in fundamental ways by
objective factors. Anarchy, after all, is what we make of it. Yet when critical theorists attempt to
explain why realism may be losing its hegemonic position, they too point to objective factors as the
ultimate cause of change. Discourse, so it appears, turns out not to be determinative, but mainly
a reflection of developments in the objective world. In short, it seems that when critical theorists
who study international politics offer glimpses of their thinking about the causes of change in the
real world, they make arguments that directly contradict their own theory, but which appear to be
compatible with the theory they are challenging. (159) There is another problem with the
application of critical theory to international relations. Although critical theorists hope to replace
realism with a discourse that emphasizes harmony and peace, critical theory per se emphasizes
that it is impossible to know the future. Critical theory according to its own logic, can be used to
undermine realism and produce change, but it cannot serve as the basis for predicting which
discourse will replace realism, because the theory says little about the direction change takes. In
fact, Cox argues that although "utopian expectations may be an element in stimulating people to
act...such expectations are almost never realized in practice." (160) Thus, in a sense, the
communitarian discourse championed by critical theorists is wishful thinking, not an outcome linked
to the theory itself. Indeed, critical theory cannot guarantee that the new discourse will not be
more malignant than the discourse it replaces. Nothing in the theory guarantees, for example,
that a fascist discourse far more violent than realism will not emerge as the new hegemonic
discourse.
Discursive analysis leads to political paralysis and fails to change the world.
Jarvis 00 (Darryl, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of British Columbia,
International relations and the challenge of postmodernism, p. 190, AD: 7-11-9) BL
The simple and myopic assumption that social change can be engineered through linguistic
policing of politically incorrect words, concepts and opinions, is surely one of the more
politically lame (idealist) suggestions to come from armchair theorists in the last fifty years. By
the same token, the suggestion that we engage in revisionism of the sort that would "undo"
modernist knowledge so that we might start again free of silences, oppressions, and
inequalities also smacks of an intelligentsia so idealist as to be unconnected to the world in
which they live. The critical skills of subversive postmodernists, constrained perhaps by the success
of the West, of Western capitalism, if not liberal democracy, as the legitimate form of
representation, and having tried unsuccessfully through revolution and political uprising to dethrone
it previously, have turned to the citadel of our communal identities and attacked not parliaments, nor
forms of social-political-economic organization, but language, communication, and the basis of
Enlightenment knowledge that otherwise enables us to live, work, and communicate as social
beings. Clever though this is, it is not in the end compatible with the project of theory
knowledge and takes us further away from an understanding of our world. Its greatest
contribution is to celebrate the loss of certainty, where, argues John O'Neill, "men (sic) are no
longer sure of their ruling knowledge and are unable to mobilize sufficient legitimation for the
master-narratives of truth and justice." To suppose, however, that we should rejoice collectively at
the prospects of a specious relativism and a multifarious perspectivism, and that absent any further
constructive endeavor, the great questions and problems of our time will be answered or solved by
this speaks of an intellectual poverty now famed perversely as the search for "thinking space."
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Our security claims are not subjective—we can derive truth through the opinions of
others.
Zerilla 6 (Linda, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “Truth and Politics,” Theory
& Event, 9(4), AD: 7-11-9) BL
Grassi helps us to see that there might indeed be a form of truth in politics that is unique. This
truth is not aporetic, for it is not objectivist. Contra Strauss's reading of the dialogues, we do not
have to "know the true standards" in order to make judgments (subsume particulars under
rules) about reality. Even if one were to grant that such standards are necessary for philosophical
knowledge (which Grassi also refutes), politics is autonomous. Insofar as the Socratic project to find
the truth in opinion takes place in the political realm, as Arendt will show us below, we have good
reason for resisting the introduction of standards or criteria that do not apply there. Thus we
shall have good reason to be suspicious of thinkers who would assimilate politics to philosophy
(or to science) and demand of political claims the same measure of truth. Likewise we shall have
good reason to refute the idea that politics, if it does not meet philosophical (or scientific) standards
of proof, is not concerned with truth. 26. If the aporia of truth described earlier pertains to an
objectivist (philosophical) conception of truth but not to truth tout court, as Grassi has shown us, we
have all the more reason to pursue the Socratic quest for the truth in opinion, for such truth would
not be based on our possession of universals under which to subsume particulars, as Strauss would
have us believe. The Socratic quest to find truth in opinion is distinguished from Plato's notion of
moving from opinion to truth in ways that are inseparable from the realm in which the quest for
truth takes place. Firstly, to discover truth in opinion one must move among the holders of
opinion, that is to say, one's peers or equals, hence in the political realm. By contrast with Plato,
for whom truth is - and indeed must be - a solitary affair, Socrates holds that truth emerges in public.
The public space is not - or not always - the place to speak a truth one already knows but the
condition of finding truth in one's own opinion. Socrates' practice of maieutic, the art of midwifery
(by which one brings oneself and others to find the truth in their opinion), argues Arendt, "was a
political activity, a give and take, fundamentally on the basis of strict equality, the fruits of which
could not be measured by the result of arriving at this or that general truth" (PP 81). This activity is
based on the conviction that "every man has his own doxa, his own opening to the world."
Socrates must ask questions; he cannot know beforehand how the world appears to each of his
fellow citizens. "Yet, just as nobody can know beforehand the other's doxa, so nobody can know by
himself and without further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion" (PP 81), writes Arendt. So
the kind of truth that is relevant for politics, we might tentatively conclude, requires publicity.
27. There is another important way in which Socrates' search for the truth in opinion differs from
Plato's search for absolute truth. As Strauss makes clear, opinion is something to be replaced by
knowledge in Plato's view, whereas for Arendt's Socrates opinion is the bearer of truth. Socrates
style of questioning is deeply critical but not "relentlessly negative," as Villa interpreting Arendt
asserts, for it does not just destroy opinions but reveals what in them is true.20 What else can it
mean to find the truth in opinion, unless we settle on the purely negative or skeptical definition and
say that the truth Socrates discovers in opinion is that in opinion there is no truth? But surely this is
not the definition Arendt has in mind when she writes, "For mortals in Socrates' view the important
thing is to make doxa truthful, to see in every doxa truth and to speak in such a way that the
truth of one's opinions reveals itself to oneself and to others. . . . Socrates, in opposition to the
Sophists, had discovered that doxa was neither subjective illusion nor arbitrary distortion but,
on the contrary, that to which truth invariably adhered" (PP 85).
Our truth-claims aren’t false—opinion has truth in it that we can access.
Zerilla 6 (Linda, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “Truth and Politics,” Theory
& Event, 9(4), AD: 7-11-9) BL
If we turn to Gadamer's reading of Socrates, we can better grasp the kind of knowledge that is at
stake in the quest for the truth in opinion. Like Arendt, Gadamer identifies the Socratic art of
questioning as key. The ability to ask questions, writes Gadamer, is also the ability to keep these
questions from "being suppressed by the dominant opinion. A person who possesses this art will
himself search for everything in favor of an opinion. Dialectic consists not in trying to discover
the weakness of what is said, but in bringing out its real strength. It is not the art of arguing
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(which can make a strong case out of a weak one) but the art of thinking (which can strengthen
objections by referring to the subject matter)" (TM 367, my emphasis). 30. The art of questioning,
in other words, seeks out the truth in opinion (the formulation in speech of the "it appears to me");
it takes for granted that truth resides in what we say, in language. Not all we say is true of course,
but (contra Plato) what is true is spoken. Like Arendt, Gadamer rejects the psychologistic and
subjectivist interpretation of opinion, the formulation in speech of the "it appears to me." If we think
about this "it appears to me" too much in terms of the "me" (i.e., the "subject") and too little in terms
of the formulation in speech (i.e., language) of what appears (i.e., the world), we slide into just this
psychologistic conception of opinion, which leads us to think, in turn, that we need a "method" that
would keep at bay our opinions, for they are the "subjective" element that hinders our quest for what
is "objective." 31. We can grasp why this idea of opinion as "subjective" misunderstands what we
do when we engage the opinions of others by way of the following example. When we read a letter
(describing, say, an antiwar rally in Washington), as Gadamer explains, we "see what is
communicated through the eyes of our correspondent, but while seeing things through his eyes, it is
not his personal opinions, but, rather, the event itself that we believe we ought to know by this letter.
In reading a letter, to aim at the personal thoughts of our correspondent and not at the matters about
which he reports is to contradict what is meant by a letter."21Should the description turn out to be a
wildly inaccurate account of events, we might then be prompted to understand it "by recourse to a
supplementary psychological or historical point of view," comments Gadamer. Although such
situations surely can and do arise, we normally take for granted that what the text "really transmits
to us is the truth. This confirms that the primordial significance of the idea of understanding is that
of 'knowing about something' and that only in a derivative sense does it mean understanding the
intentions of another as personal opinions" (ibid.). 32. Although Gadamer appears to set "knowing
about something" at odds with "personal opinions" here, I take him to mean what is conventionally
meant by "personal opinions," namely, that which is subjective and makes no claim to truth or
knowledge. For Gadamer (as for Arendt), then, it is mistaken to think about the formulation in
speech of how the world appears to someone as "mere opinion," that is, as something purely
subjective.22 This formulation in speech of how things show up for us is no private language but an
expression of common sense, of what I share with others by virtue of belonging to a particular
socio-historical culture.23 Gadamer helps us to question again the stark opposition that Plato drew
between knowledge and opinion. An opinion (as expressed, for example, in a letter) makes, and is
received as making, a claim to truth. Just because I can hold opinions that I (or others) may later
declare mistaken does not mean that those opinions are purely subjective, as if the way the
world appears to me is how it appears to me and to no other (i.e., my world is private). "Thus
we come back to the original conditions of every hermeneutics: it must be a shared and
comprehensible reference to the 'things in themselves'" (PHC 154-155). Without such a
reference, argues Gadamer, no common, unified meaning, no truth, could possibly be aimed at or
emerge.
Representations of state action cannot change realism, and even if they could, we
have no way of knowing if they new system would be any better
Mearsheimer 95 (John, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago, “International Security” (p.
91-2) AD:7/6/09) ATL
The most revealing aspect of Wendt’s discussion is that he did not respond to the two main charge leveled
against critical theory in “False Promise.” The first problem with critical theory is that although the
theory is deeply concerned with radically changing state behavior, it says little about how change
comes about. The theory does not tell us why particular discourses become dominant and other fall
by the wayside. Specifically, Wendt does not explain why realism has been the dominant discourse in
world politics for well over a thousand years, although I explicitly raised the question in “False Promise”
(p. 42). Moreover, he shed no light on why the time is ripe for unseating realism, nor on why realism
is likely to be replaced by a more peaceful, communitarian discourse, although I explicitly raised both
questions. Wendt’s failure to answer these questions has important ramifications for his own arguments.
For example, he maintains that if it is possible to change international political discourse and alter state
behavior, “then it is irresponsible to pursue policies that perpetuate destructive old orders [i.e., realism],
especially if we care about the well-being of future generation.” The clear implication here is that realists
like me are irresponsible and do not care much about the welfare of future generations. However, even if
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we change discourses and move beyond realism, a fundamental problem with Wendt’s argument
remains: because his theory cannot predict the future, he cannot know whether the discourse that
ultimately replaces realism will be more benign than realism. He has no way of knowing whether a
fascistic discourse more violent than realism will emerge as the hegemonic discourse. For example, he
obviously would like another Gorbachev to come to power in Russia, but a critical theory
perspective, defending realism might very well be the more responsible policy choice.
Discourse isn’t transformative – it only reflects preexisting changes in the objective
world
Mearsheimer 95 ( John J., Profess of Political Science at the University of Chicago,
“The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3.)
Critical theory maintains that state behavior changes when discourse changes.
But that argument leaves open the obvious and crucially important question: what
determines why some discourses become dominant and others lose out in the
marketplace of ideas? What is the mechanism that governs the rise and fall of discourses?
This general question, in turn, leads to three more specific questions: 1) Why has realism been
the hegemonic discourse in world politics for so long? 2) Why is the time ripe for its
unseating? 3) Why is realism likely to be replaced by a more peaceful communitarian
discourse?
Critical theory provides few insights on why discourses rise and fall. Thomas Risse-Kappen
writes, "Research on ... 'epistemic communities' of knowledge-based
transnational networks has failed so far to specify the conditions under which
specific ideas are selected and influence policies while others fall by the
wayside." (156) Not surprisingly, critical theorists say little about why realism has been the
dominant discourse, and why its foundations are now so shaky. They certainly do not offer a
well-defined argument that deals with this important issue. Therefore, it is difficult to judge
the fate of realism through the lens of critical theory.
Nevertheless, critical theorists occasionally point to particular factors that might lead to
changes in international relations discourse. In such cases, however, they usually end up
arguing that changes in the material world drive changes in discourse. For
example, when Ashley makes surmises about the future of realism, he claims that "a crucial
issue is whether or not changing historical conditions have disabled
longstanding realist rituals of power." Specifically, he asks whether "developments in
late capitalist society," like the "fiscal crisis of the state," and the "internationalization of
capital," coupled with "the presence of vastly destructive and highly automated nuclear
arsenals [has] deprived statesmen of the latitude for competent performance of realist rituals
of power?" (157) Similarly, Cox argues that fundamental change occurs when there is a
"disjuncture" between "the stock of ideas people have about the nature of the world and the
practical problems that challenge them." He then writes, "So me of us think the erstwhile
dominant mental construct of neorealism is inadequate to confront the challenges of global
politics today." (158)
It would be understandable if realists made such arguments, since they believe
there is an objective reality that largely determines which discourse will be
dominant. Critical theorists, however, emphasize that the world is socially
constructed, and not shaped in fundamental ways by objective factors.
Anarchy, after all, is what we make of it. Yet when critical theorists attempt to
explain why realism may be losing its hegemonic position, they too point to
objective factors as the ultimate cause of change. Discourse, so it appears, turns
out not to be determinative, but mainly a reflection of developments in the
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objective world. In short, it seems that when critical theorists who study international
politics offer glimpses of their thinking about the causes of change in the real world, they
make arguments that directly contradict their own theory, but which appear to be compatible
with the theory they are challenging. (159)
Alternative doesn’t solve- Changing representational practices won’t alter policy,
looking to structures and politics is more vital
Tuathail 96 (Gearoid, Department of Geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Political Geography, 15(6-7), 664 )
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the
discourse and concerns of foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so
different that they constitute a distinctive problem- solving, theory-averse, policymaking subculture. There is a danger that academics assume that the discourses they
engage are more significant in the practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power
than they really are. This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a
general institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in particular states.
In general, I do not disagree with Dalby’s fourth point about politics and discourse except to note that his
statement-‘Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways political
decisions could be taken, troops and material moved and war fought’-evades the important question
of agency that I noted in my review essay. The assumption that it is representations that make
action possible is inadequate by itself. Political, military and economic structures,
institutions, discursive networks and leadership are all crucial in explaining social action
and should be theorized together with representational practices. Both here and earlier,
Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a form of idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its three
subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He
analyzes certain CPD discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration
nor its public-policy reasoning on national security. Dalby’s book is narrowly textual; the general
contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find that the
distinction between critical theorists and post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by
Dalby and others. Third, Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow
as heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that
ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachev’s reforms and
his new security discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile attempt to save the
Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon
Dalby in his comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics.
While I agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political
geographers to engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so that we
neglect the institutional and the sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the political
and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive strategies become
significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical cant
that sometimes accompanies ‘poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics
narrative; it needs to always be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
Policy analysis should precede discourse—tangible political action is the most
effective way to challenge power.
Jill Taft-Kaufman, Professor in the Department of Speech Communication And Dramatic Arts at
Central Michigan University, 1995 (“Other ways: Postmodernism and performance praxis,” The Southern
Communication Journal, Volume 60, Issue 3, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
ProQuest Research Library)
If the lack of consistency between postmodernism's self-styled allegiance to the oppositional and
its collaboration with the existing state of academic practice were its only shortcoming, it should
be enough to prevent us from unquestioningly embracing it as a theory. More disquieting still,
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however, is its postulation of the way the world around us works. Theory that presumes to talk
about culture must stand the test of reality. Or, as Andrew King states, "culture is where we live
and are sustained. Any doctrine that strikes at its root ought to be carefully scrutinized" (personal
communication, February 11, 1994). If one subjects the premise of postmodernism to scrutiny,
the consequences are both untenable and disturbing. In its elevation of language to the primary
analysis of social life and its relegation of the de-centered subject to a set of language positions,
postmodernism ignores the way real people make their way in the world. While the notion of
decentering does much to remedy the idea of an essential, unchanging self, it also presents
problems. According to Clarke (1991): Having established the material quality of ideology,
everything else we had hitherto thought of as material has disappeared. There is nothing outside
of ideology (or discourse). Where Althusser was concerned with ideology as the imaginary
relations of subjects to the real relations of their existence, the connective quality of this view of
ideology has been dissolved because it lays claim to an outside, a real, an extra-discursive for
which there exists no epistemological warrant without lapsing back into the bad old ways of
empiricism or metaphysics. (pp. 25-26) Clarke explains how the same disconnection between
the discursive and the extra-discursive has been performed in semiological analysis: Where it
used to contain a relation between the signifier (the representation) and the signified (the
referent), antiempiricism has taken the formal arbitrariness of the connection between the
signifier and signified and replaced it with the abolition of the signified (there can be no real
objects out there, because there is no out there for real objects to be). (p. 26) To the
postmodernist, then, real objects have vanished. So, too, have real people. Smith (1988) suggests
that postmodernism has canonized doubt about the availability of the referent to the point that
"the real often disappears from consideration" (p. 159). Real individuals become abstractions.
Subject positions rather than subjects are the focus. The emphasis on subject positions or
construction of the discursive self engenders an accompanying critical sense of irony which
recognizes that "all conceptualizations are limited" (Fischer, 1986, p. 224). This postmodern
position evokes what Connor (1989) calls "an absolute weightlessness in which anything is
imaginatively possible because nothing really matters" (p. 227). Clarke (1991) dubs it a
"playfulness that produces emotional and/or political disinvestment: a refusal to be engaged" (p.
103). The luxury of being able to muse about what constitutes the self is a posture in keeping
with a critical venue that divorces language from material objects and bodily subjects. The
postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by
substantial analysis of the concrete contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The
political sympathies of the new cultural critics, with their ostensible concern for the lack of
power experienced by marginalized people, aligns them with the political left. Yet, despite their
adversarial posture and talk of opposition, their discourses on intertextuality and interreferentiality isolate them from and ignore the conditions that have produced leftist politics—
conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short, as Clarke (1991) asserts, postmodern emphasis
on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to good jobs, food,
housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the media that depict them. Merod (1987)
decries this situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or commitment to activism. He notes
that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the absence of focused collective
or politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic manifestations of this
problem Di Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a historical era
characterized by as little radical analysis or activism and as much radical-chic writing as ours?
Maundering on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become a lazy
academic substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities
of Western racial minorities, white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's
assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the "sine qua non" of critical discussion
is an even stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The
Postmodern Condition in which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are
linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that threatens speech that we enter the "realm
of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies: I can think of few more
striking indicators of the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can
only recognize the discursive. If the worst terror we can envisage is the threat not to be allowed
to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate contemporary forms. It may be the
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intellectual's conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its projection onto the rest
of the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm of the discursive is derived from the
requisites for human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or
symbols.(4) Nutrition, shelter, and protection are basic human needs that require collective
activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying
analysis of how the discursive emerges from material circumstances hides the complex task of
envisioning and working towards concrete social goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material
conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the purview of the postmodernist, the
situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups.
Robinson (1990) for example, argues that "the justice that working people deserve is economic,
not just textual" (p. 571). Lopez (1992) states that "the starting point for organizing the program
content of education or political action must be the present existential, concrete situation" (p.
299). West (1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness"
blinds us to realities of American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike postmodern
"textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986) acknowledges are "fuzzy about power and the realities of
socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255), most writers from marginalized groups are clear about how
discourse interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived experience. People
whose lives form the material for postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the
optimism over the new recognition of their discursive subjectivities, because such an
acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical and current struggles
against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not appreciate being told
they are living in a world in which there are no more real subjects. Ideas have consequences.
Emphasizing the discursive self when a person is hungry and homeless represents both a cultural
and humane failure. The need to look beyond texts to the perception and attainment of concrete
social goals keeps writers from marginalized groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how power
works through political agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.
Turn: The Critique is a Stereotype of The Aff – We Productively use
Representations to End Foreign Interference – This is Substantially More
productive Than the Narssitic Criticism
Morten Valbjørn, PhD in the Department of Political Science @ Aarhus, ‘4 [Middle East and Palestine:
Global Politics and Regional Conflict, “Culture Blind and Culture Blinded: Images of Middle Eastern
Conflicts in International Relations,” p. 65-6]
The reason why the problems concerning Blindness to the Self is also relevant in this connection
is not due to any lack of awareness of the representer's place in representations of Otherness.
Rather, the problem is to be found in the manner in which this issue is addressed. The thorough
self-consciousness associated with the relational conception of culture is thus brought about by
means of a radical constructivism, which, at least in its most outspoken versions, seems to
replace a possibly naïve subject/object separation by an almost solipsistic subjectivism
equivalent to Wight's "subject = fi" formula in the above. This radical constructivism is quite
evident among IR's "dissident thoughts" and can also be recognized in statements by Said such
as: "Orientalism responded more to the culture that produced it than to its putative object, which
was also produced by the West" (1995: 22).
However, first does it make sense to perceive representation as part of either a construction of
identities or of some kind of subtle performance of power, and, second, is it really possible to
represent the Other at one's own discretion? With regard to the first question, the almost
unambiguously negative and rather monolithic depiction of "Western" representations of the
Middle East that can to be found among proponents of the relational conception of culture seems
to some extent to be based on a rather problematic stereotyping, far from the more balanced
accounts by, for instance, Rodinson (1974, 1987). By presenting the orientalist scholarship in a
very stereotyped and caricatured way, Said, for instance, almost ends up doing to the orientalists
what he accuses orientalist scholarship of having done to Middle Eastern societies (Brimnes,
2000). Furthermore, it is anything but obvious that representations produced as part of the
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performance of power must necessarily be regarded as unreliable and without value as such.
Halliday, among others, criticized this understanding and argued that the relationship between
the origin and the validity of a discovery is more ambiguous than one might think: "the very
fact of trying to subjugate a country would to some degree involve producing an accurate picture
of it" (1995: 213).
Regarding the second question, advocates of the relational conception of culture easily leave the
impression that the way the Other is represented almost exclusively depends on the representer
while the represented appears more or less as an empty and passive object onto which all kinds
of conceivable fantasies and ideas can be projected. However, Bhabha, for instance, suggested
that instead of regarding the representation of Otherness as a "hegemonic monologue" where the
Other is a passive object on which all thinkable fantasies and conceptions can be projected-such
as it sometimes seems to he the case in the works of, for example, Said and Campbell-we might
rather think of it as a hybrid dialogue, though seldom equal nor without power plays (Bhabha,
1997; Keyman, 1997; Brimnes, 2000). Furthermore, the representation of Otherness has often
had far more ambiguous effects than what this approach's advocates usually would acknowledge.
Sadiq al-Azm, for example, coined therefore the notion of "Orientalism in reverse." Here, the
classic essentialist and problematic Orient/Occident discourse allegedly used to legitimize
imperialism is reversed and applied to the struggle for an end of foreign interference. In the
Middle Eastern context, this is visible in Arab Nationalism, as well as among radical Islamist
movements, in which the criticism of foreign (in)direct influence is often based on the argument
of an allegedly unique Islamic or Arab culture (Azm, 2000). When advocates of the relational
conception of culture seek to counter the prevailing lack of selfconsciousness within the
universalist IR mainstream, as well as among proponents of the essentialist conception, it thus
seems that they unintentionally have turned into what most of all appears as a narcissist selfcenteredness. Apparently they lack enough concern for how the representation of Otherness is
not only about the representer's projections, desires, fantasies, and so on. This kind of
(over)reaction also seems to influence their ability to relate to Otherness in a more substantial
way.
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Answers to Impact Stuff
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A2: Endless Violence
Security rhetoric doesn’t authorize unlimited violence because of our contextual
frame
Lipshutz 98 [Ronnie D., Professor, Department of Politics U Cali-Santa Cruz; “On Security”,
http://www.ciaonet.org/book/lipschutz/lipschutz11.html AD 07/11/09] JL
In Buzan's view, the central question is whether the coalition will choose to isolate itself from
the periphery--in essence, trying to secure itself from external chaos in a sort of strategy of "selfcontainment"--or to intervene there in an effort to enlarge the zone of order--but thereby to risk
being pulled into that chaos, as well. The choice will depend on how threats--and the social
constructions of security--are framed. As is the case with the U.S. intervention in Somalia and,
more recently, in Haiti, chaos can be framed as a threat to the core's moral legitimacy and
supposed responsibilities to others. But chaos can also be framed as a threat to the limited
zones of peace in the core, which continue to resist being pulled into the closer-to-home maelstrom
of post-Yugoslavia and the Caucasian Republics. Neither threat can be escaped, but framing
them in terms of moral burdens may ensure that the mentality of the laager --a self-protecting
but neoisolationist zone of apparent peace amid chaos--does not come to dominate security
discourses and practices.
Obama checks endless violence
LaFranchi 9 (Howard LaFranchi, staff writer, “Obama's first big diplomacy test: Iran”, The Christian
Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0424/p02s04-usfp.html, DA: 7/10/09) AOS
Washington - Iran is shaping up to be the defining test of President Obama's engage-ourenemies diplomacy. As Mr. Obama has pursued his foreign policy in the initial weeks of his
presidency, he has begun to put his belief that America should talk to its adversaries into
practice with countries like Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, and even North Korea. But with no
country are the stakes of this approach higher than with Iran. "Iran is a far higher priority, and
the success or failure of the approach is far more consequential because of the nuclear issue, the
volatility of the region, and Iran being sandwiched in there between Iraq and Afghanistan," says
Wayne White, a former State Department policy planning official. With Iran continuing to pursue –
and offer boastful progress reports on – a nuclear program that Western countries believe is
designed to deliver nuclear weapons, pressure is mounting on Obama to show that diplomacy
can ensure Iran never possesses the bomb. Israel, under conservative Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, is rumbling with rumors of possible military strikes on Iran's nuclear installations if the
United States, which has agreed to join international talks with Iran on its nuclear program, cannot
demonstrate progress soon. And Arab countries including Egypt, the Gulf states, and Jordan are
letting US officials know of their growing nervousness over US engagement with Iran. "[O]n Iran,
Obama knows he has a ticking clock facing him," says Mr. White, now an adjunct scholar with the
Middle East Institute in Washington. "This has got to take precedent strategically." Talking as
means, not end With the stakes so high, and with so many domestic and foreign actors
watching closely or jostling to influence the US position, the Obama administration is anxious
to demonstrate that there is nothing weak or pie-in-the-sky about its approach to Iran. In
testimony before Congress this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed hope
that the talks with Iran and four other world powers will succeed in ending Iran's pursuit of
uranium enrichment – a process that can lead to production of fuel for a nuclear weapon. But in
comments to the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday, she also stressed that by joining the
talks, the US is "laying the groundwork for the kind of very tough … crippling sanctions that might
be necessary" if talks fail. Reinforcing Obama's view that talking is not an end in itself but
helps the US attain its goals, Secretary Clinton said, "[B]y following the diplomatic path we
are on, we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to
participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and crippling as we would want it to
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be." However, some congressional leaders don't want the US to wait before applying more
economic pressure.
Security rhetoric leads to diplomacy to meditate conflicts, not violence – Obama
proves.
Harris 9 (Paul, The Guardian, January 11, “Hawks depart as Clinton ushers in new era of US 'soft power': Obama and his
secretary of state are assembling an experienced team of diplomats designed to end the confrontational style of the Bush years,”
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/scholastic/document?_m=b245d082d5ce80b57f267d2459b99fe0&_docnum=11&wchp=dGLbVzbzSkVk&_md5=c53069bb92d0f62a99ae815ccef1f09a, AD: 7/11/9) AJK
As Hillary Clinton prepares for Senate confirmation hearings this week, she will head a group of
advisers who are virtual opposites to the appointees made by President George W Bush. While
Bush favoured aggressive neoconservative ideologues, Obama has selected people whose doveish
credentials seem impeccable. They will be responsible for reversing the political unilateralism
of the Bush years and opening direct negotiations with hostile states, potentially ranging from
Syria to Cuba and Venezuela and maybe including Iran and even Islamic militant group
Hamas. The Obama foreign policy team that has emerged is focused on know-how and experience
- often gained during the Clinton era. Many of the appointments have a clear focus on the Islamic
world. Former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who brokered a peace deal in the Balkans, will
be appointed a special adviser to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Former Middle East negotiator Dennis
Ross will be a special adviser on Iran and the surrounding region, showing that Obama is keen on
opening a diplomatic front in America's dispute with Tehran. Ross has a history of personal
involvement in Middle East peace talks, including numerous negotiations between Palestinians,
Arab states and Israel. Other picks are Kurt Campbell, another former Clinton official, who will be
an assistant secretary of state for east Asia and the Pacific, and Philip Gordon, a former member of
the National Security Council, will be assistant secretary of state for Europe. "These are people who
reflect Obama's world-view that sees the world less from a power-projecting perspective and more
from looking at problems and seeing how to solve them," said Michael Fullilove, a fellow at two
independent thinktanks, the Brookings Institution in Washington and the Lowy Institute in
Australia. Obama's choices back up his stated aims during his presidential election campaign.
During the Democratic primaries, Obama said he would hold direct talks with hostile states.
Despite a firestorm of criticism in the media - including from his then rival Clinton - Obama
held to his position. Now Clinton will be in charge of implementing it. "He showed he would not
be dictated to by the foreign policy establishment. He also showed he would stick to his guns,"
said Fullilove. The list of potential enemies for America to talk to is long. First and foremost is Iran,
whose nuclear ambitions are the subject of deep suspicion in Washington and many other world
capitals. Obama has held out the prospect of negotiating directly with Tehran about its programme,
reversing years of open hostility from Bush's White House. Other states where diplomatic relations
could improve include Cuba, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea. The list could also include
non-state groups such as Hamas. Last week the Guardian reported that Obama officials were open
to establishing lines of contact with the Islamic militant group as a necessary step in trying to
push forward the Middle East peace process. An Obama aide subsequently denied that direct
talks were envisaged. But, given the make-up of his emerging foreign policy team, it seems unlikely
that Obama will simply replicate the style of the Bush administration when it comes to dealing with
extremist groups.
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A2: Plan -> Violence
Plan does not lead to violent actions - deterrence works at preventing conflict and
takes into account the rational thinking of the other side.
Kline 6 (David K., PhD in economics from MIT, Armen Alchian Professor of Economics, UCLA.
Deterrence in the Cold War and the “War on Terror” January 23 2006.
www.dklevine.com/papers/inimical.pdf AD 7/11/09) JM
Applied theory was still theory, but President Kennedy’s 1961 appointment of Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense
brought the theory to the center of American strategic policy. Schelling, Kahn, and Wohlstetter never joined the government
except as consultants, but many of their colleagues and disciples became members of McNamara’s band of “whiz kids”. The
Secretary quickly recognized the importance of deterrent detail: massive retaliation was replaced as the center
of U.S. strategy by “counterforce” targeting to weaken the enemy’s retaliatory capability, and
“flexible response” to different Soviet threats at different military levels, always with the
possibility of escalation to higher levels. Controversy, some of it near-theological, abounded, particularly over
whether making deterrence more realistic increased the possibility of nuclear war stemming from the implementation of
deterrent threats; most of the controversy was in the Schelling context. And the new doctrines remained in place
throughout the cold war. Deterrence worked—or at least it did not not work; neither nuclear war nor
major Soviet aggression took place—but it worked under very special circumstances. Schelling stressed that the
theory “is based on the assumption that the participants coolly and ‘rationally’ calculate their
advantages according to a consistent value system.” 8 He then went on to list varieties of “irrationality,”
[discussed further below], but Schelling rationality applied to the Soviet Union as well as the U.S. Although a few
Sovietologists pointed out that the Russians did not think about deterrence in the way we did, the theory did not require
them to. The USSR was a large state with many Schellingesque “advantages”, and it was conservative in the sense that its
leaders wanted to conserve those advantages as well as their own power. They understood what could be lost in a nuclear
war as well as what could be gained by risking one.
Deterrence is good – it’s a time honored strategy for preventing serious conflict.
Only keeping deterrence alive in the 21st century can solve violence.
Chilton 9 (Kevin, General, US Air Force. Strategic Studies Quarterly, “Waging Deterrence in the
Twenty-First Century” Spring 2009. http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2009/Spring/chilton.pdf AD 7/11/09) JM
Deterrence was an essential element of national security practice long before the Cold War and
the introduction of nuclear arsenals into inter­ national affairs. For millennia, states have
sought to convince one another that going to war with them was ill advised and
counterproductive, and they sometimes responded to deterrence failures in a manner intended to
send powerful deterrence messages to others in order to reestablish and enhance deterrence in the
future. The advent of nuclear weapons did change the way states viewed warfare, however. The
avoidance of nuclear war—or for that matter, conventional war on the scale of World War I
or World War II—rather than its successful prosecution became the military’s highest
priority. This spurred a tremendous flurry of intellectual activity in the 1950s and 1960s that sought
to develop a fully thought-out theory of deterrence as well as a massive national effort to put that
theory into practice to deter (and contain) the Soviet Union. Just as the beginning of the Cold War
did not create the utility of deter­ rence as an element of national security strategy, the end of
the Cold War did not eliminate it. As we move forward into the twenty-first century, it will be
to the United States’ advantage to lay the groundwork necessary to ensure that its deterrence
strategies and activities are effective in the future. The concept of deterrence is sound, and we
have the means necessary to implement it against the full range of threats that are reasonably
suscep­ tible to deterrence. The challenge that remains before us is to allocate the resources and
create the processes necessary to proactively and successfully “wage deterrence” in the
twenty-first century. It is a task that is nonparti­ san in nature—one that can be sustained over the
years through the com­ mitment of the highest levels of our government.
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Security K Answers
Deterrence is an effective strategy for preventing war even in the 21st century – a
world without it would be worse.
Chilton 9 (Kevin, General, US Air Force. Strategic Studies Quarterly, “Waging Deterrence in the
Twenty-First Century” Spring 2009. http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2009/Spring/chilton.pdf AD 7/11/09) JM
US nuclear forces cast a long shadow over the decision calculations of anyone who would
contemplate taking actions that threaten the vital in­ terests of the United States or its allies ,
making it clear that the ultimate consequences of doing so may be truly disastrous and that the American president always
has an option for which they have no effective counter. Even in circumstances in which a deliberate
American nuclear response seems unlikely or incredible to foreign decision makers, US
nuclear forces enhance deterrence by making unintended or uncontrolled catastrophic
escalation a serious concern, posing what Thomas Schelling calls “the threat that leaves something to chance.”
These are deterrence dynamics that only nuclear forces provide. As a result, US nuclear forces make an
important contribution to deter­ ring both symmetric and asymmetric forms of warfare in the
twenty-first century. Our nuclear forces provide a hedge against attacks that could cripple our ability to wage
conventional war because they would enable the United States to restore the military status quo ante, trump the adver­ sary’s
escalation in a manner that improves the US position in the conflict, or promptly terminate the conflict. For US nuclear forces
to be effective in playing these vital deterrence roles, they must have certain key attributes. They must be sufficient in
number and survivability to hold at risk those things our adversaries value most and to hedge against technical or geopolitical
surprise. Both the de­ livery systems and warheads must be highly reliable, so that no one could ever rationally doubt their
effectiveness or our willingness to use them in war. The warheads must be safe and secure, both to prevent accidents and to
prevent anyone from ever being able to use an American nuclear weapon should they somehow get their hands on one. And
they must be sufficiently diverse and operationally flexible to provide the president with the necessary range of options for
their use and to hedge against the tech­ nological failure of any particular delivery system or warhead design. Our forces have
these attributes today, but we are rapidly approaching decision points that will determine the extent
to which they continue to have them in the future. We are the only acknowledged nuclear
weapons state that does not have an active nuclear weapons production program. Our nuclear
weapons stockpile is aging, and we will not be able to maintain the reliability of our current
nuclear warheads indefinitely. We will need to revitalize our nuclear weapons design and production infrastructure
if we are to retain a viable nuclear arsenal in a rapidly changing and uncertain twenty-first-century security environment.
Similarly, we face critical deci­ sions regarding the modernization of our nuclear delivery
systems, due not to their impending obsolescence—all will remain viable for at least a decade, some for two
or three—but rather because of the long lead times involved in designing and building their
replacements. If, through ne­ gotiations or unilateral decisions, we make a deliberate national
decision to forego nuclear weapons in the future, we will have to reconsider our fundamental
deterrence strategy, for it will no longer be built on the firm foundation that our nuclear
arsenal provides.
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A2: State Power Bad
States are the key actors who solve violence – plan accesses this best.
Weingast 9 (Barry, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and \Professor in the Department of Political
Science at Stanford U, “Why are developing countries so resistant to the rule of law,” February 2009,
accessed 7/10/09, http://cadmus.eui.eu/dspace/bitstream/1814/11173/1/MWP_LS_2009_02.pdf )
All states must control the fundamental problem of violence. In natural states, a dominant
coalition of the powerful emerges to solve this problem. The coalition grants members privileges,
creates rents through limited access to valuable resources and organizations, and then uses the rents
to sustain order. Because fighting reduces their rents, coalition members have incentives not to
fight so as to maintain their rents. Natural states necessarily limit access to organizations and restrict
competition in all systems. Failing to do so dissipate rents and therefore reduces the incentives not
to fight. We call this order the natural state because for nearly all of the last 10,000 years of
human history – indeed, until just the last two centuries – the natural state was the only solution
to the problem of violence that produced a hierarchical society with significant wealth. In
comparison with the previous foraging order, natural states produced impressive economic growth,
and even today we can see the impressive wealth amassed by many of the early civilizations. In
contrast to open access orders, however, natural states have significant, negative consequences for
economic growth.
State-based approaches to violence exist and are successful at reducing violence.
UN Secretary General 6 (“Ending violence against women: from words to action,” October 9, 2006,
Accessed 7/10/09, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/launch/english/v.a.w-exeE-use.pdf) KSM
Many States have developed good or promising practices to prevent or respond to violence
against women. State strategies to address violence should promote women’s agency and be based
on women’s experiences and involvement, and on partnerships with NGOs and other civil society
actors. Women’s NGOs in many countries have engaged in innovative projects and programmes,
sometimes in collaboration with the State. Generic aspects of good or promising practices can be
extracted from a variety of experiences around the world. Common principles include: clear
policies and laws; strong enforcement mechanisms; motivated and well-trained personnel; the
involvement of multiple sectors; and close collaboration with local women’s groups, civil society
organizations, academics and professionals. Many governments use national plans of action —
which include legal measures, service provision and prevention strategies — to address
violence against women. The most effective include consultation with women’s groups and other
civil society organizations, clear time lines and benchmarks, transparent mechanisms for monitoring
implementation, indicators of impact and evaluation, predictable and adequate funding streams, and
integration of measures to tackle violence against women in programmes in a variety of sectors.
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Security K Answers
A2: Self-fulfilling Prophecy
The plan is benign—even if we securitize, it doesn’t lead to violence because it isn’t
offensive securitization.
Montgomery 6 (Evan, Research Fellow at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “Breaking
out of the Security Dilema: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty,” International Security,
31(2), AD: 7-11-9) BL
Defensive realists also rely on two particular variables—the offense-defense balance and
offense-defense differentiation—to explain when states can and will reveal their motives.10
Specifically, when defense is distinguishable from and more effective than offense, benign
states can adopt military postures that provide for their security without threatening others.
Combining both variables yields six ideal-type conditions, yet only one—offense-defense
differentiation and a neutral offense-defense balance—clearly allows security seekers to
communicate their motives without increasing their vulnerability. Offense-defense
differentiation is a necessary condition for reassurance without vulnerability, as benign and greedy
states will each be able to choose military postures that visibly reflect their preferences.
Turn – Security discourse is inevitable – self-fulfilling discourse breaks the armshostility cycle and results in peaceful relations
Jervis 76 (Robert, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University,
Perception and misperception in international politics, pg. 82-83, AD: 7/11/09) JC
The ideal solution for a status quo power would be to escape from state of nature. But escape
is impossible. The security dilemma can’t be abolished, it can only be ameliorated. Bonds of
shared values and interests can be developed. If actors care about what happens to others believe that others care about them,
they will develop trust and can operate for mutual benefit. When two countries are locked in a spiral arms and hostility, such
bonds obviously are hard to establish. The step must be the realization, by at least one side but preferably by that they are, or
at least may be caught in a dilemma that neither. On the basis of this understanding, one side must take an agreement that
increases the other side’s security. Reciprocation is invited and likely to be forthcoming because the
initiative not only reduces the capability to harm the other but also provides evidence of its in
intentions. For these measures to be most effective, the state place them in the proper stetting i.e. they should not be
isolated but must be part of a general strategy to convince the other side that first state respects the legitimate interests of the
other. Indeed the initiatives may not be effective unless the state first clearly explains that it that much of the incompatibility
is illusory and thus provides them with an alternative to the conflict framework in which specific moves be seen. The central
argument is that properly executed concessions lead other side to reciprocate rather than, as in the
deterrence model, it to expect further retreats from the first state. The first state does and does not appear to,
retreat under pressure. Indeed “concedes” is the best term for what the first state does. It
makes a move to break arms-hostility cycle. The end result is not that the state has given thing
up, or even that it has proposed a trade, but that a step is taken toward a mutually beneficial
relationship. The states must learn to approach issues from a problem-solving perspective rather than a competitive one.
Instead of seeking to gain an advantage over each both sides should work together to further and
develop their interests. Such a new and better relationship can be created, Boulding argues, because
perceptions of friendships can be made into self-fulfilling prophecies:
George F. Kennan once said;
“It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself in the right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he
reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct, he is bound eventually to be right.” (“The Roots
of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, July 1947.) If for “enemy” we read “friend” in this statement, the proposition seems to
be equally true but much less believed. The British ambassador to Germany, Neville Henderson, expressed the same
sentiment in February 1939, when he cabled London: “My instinctive feeling is that this year will be the decisive one, as to
whether Hitler comes down on the side of peaceful development and closer cooperation with the West or decides in favor of
further adventures eastward…. If we handle him right, my belief is that he will become gradually more pacific. But if we
treat him as a pariah or mad dog we shall turn him finally and irrevocably into one. Implicit in these prescriptions is the
belief that, once each side loses its unwarranted fear of the other, some level of arms can be
maintained that provides both sides with a reasonable measure of security. Here the spiral theorists’
stress on understanding the position of the other side makes them more optimistic than the earlier proponents of the security
dilemma. First, the latter’s concentration of the degree to which the dilemma is inherent in the anarchic nature of the
international system leads them to doubt that an understanding of the situation is sufficient for a solution. Even if the state
does not fear immediate attack, it will still have to design policies that will provide safety if this trust is misplaced or if
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peaceful rivals later develop aggressive intentions. So even if both sides believe that the other desires only protection, they
may find that there is no policy and level of arms that is mutually satisfactory. Second, those who stress the impact of the
security dilemma usually are keenly aware that states often seek expansion as well as security and that conciliation, no matter
how skillfully undertaken, will sometimes lead to greater demands.
Self-fulfilling prophecy studies don’t apply to the real world
Lippa 5 (Richard A, California State University, Fullerton, Gender, Nature, and Nurture, 2005, pg 208,
AD: 7/11/09)
You go on and on about self-fulfilling prophecies and behavioral confirmation. But all of the
social psychology experiments you cite are really only plausibility demonstrations. All they
show is that, under very controlled and ideal experimental circumstances, social psychologists can
demonstrate statistically significant behavioral confirmation effects. But these are not necessarily
large effects. I told you before that recent research shows self-fulfilling prophecy effects are
often quite weak in real-life settings.
Their self-fulfilling prophecy arguments assume an out-dated notion of security
competition
Mearsheimer 2 [John J. Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “Realism, the
Real World, and the Academy.” http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0029.pdf Pg. 22 AD 07/11/09]
Many Americans and Europeans, however, believe that realism has a dim future. With the end of
the cold war, so the argument goes, international politics has changed in fundamental ways. The
world has not simply moved from bipolarity to multipolarity, but instead we have entered an era
where there is little prospect of security competition among the great powers, not to mention
war, and where concepts such as polarity and the balance of power matter little for understanding
international relations. Most states now view each other as members of an emerging
“international community,” not as potential military rivals. Opportunities for cooperation are
abundant in this new world, and the result is likely to be increased prosperity and peace for
almost all the states in the system.
Security creates more peace between countries and allows them to stop fearing
constant warfare, makes you self-fulfilling prophesy claims unlikely.
Jervis 1 (Robert, professor at Columbia University, “Theories of War in an Era of Leading-Power
Peace”, JSTOR) CC
Predictions about the maintenance of the Community are obviously disputable (indeed,
limitations on people's ability to predict could undermine it), but nothing in the short period since
the end of the Cold War points to an unraveling. The disputes within it do not seem to be
increasing in number or severity and even analysts who stress the continuation of the struggle for world primacy
and great power rivalries do not expect fighting [Huntington 1993; Kupchan forthcoming; Waltz 1993, 2000; however,
Calleo (2001), Layne (2000), and Mearsheimer (1990, 2001) are ambiguous on this point]. If the United States is
still
concerned with maintaining its advantages over its allies, the reason is not that it believes that
it may have to fight them but that it worries that rivalry could make managing world
problems more difficult (Layne 2000; New York Times, March 8, 1992, 14; May 24, 1992, 1, 14). The Europeans' effort to
establish an independent security force is aimed at permitting them to intervene when the United States chooses not to (or perhaps by
threatening such action, to trigger American intervention), not at fighting the United States. Even if Europe were to unite and the world to
become bipolar again, it is very unlikely that suspicions, fears for the future, and conflicts of interest would be severe enough to break the
Community. A greater threat would be the failure of Europe to unite coupled with an American withdrawal of forces, which could lead to
"security competition" within Europe (Art 1996a; Mearsheimer 2001, 385-96). The fears would focus on Germany, but their magnitude is hard
to gauge and it is difficult to estimate what external shocks or kinds of German behavior would activate them. The fact that Thatcher and
Mitterrand opposed German unification is surely not forgotten in Germany and is an indication that concerns remain. But this danger is likely
to constitute a self-denying prophecy in two ways. First, many Germans are aware of the need not only to reassure others by tying themselves
to Europe, but also to make it unlikely that future generations of Germans would want to break these bonds even if they could. Second,
Americans who worry about the residual danger will favor keeping some troops in Europe as the ultimate intra-European security guarantee.
Expectations of peace close off important routes to war. The main reason for Japanese aggression in the
1930s was the desire for a self-sufficient sphere that would permit Japan to fight the war with the Western powers that was
seen as inevitable, not because of particular conflicts, but because it was believed that great powers always fight each other.
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In contrast,
if states believe that a security community will last, they will not be hypersensitive to
threats from within it and will not feel the need to undertake precautionary measures that
could undermine the security of other members. Thus the United States is not disturbed that
British and French nuclear missiles could destroy American cities, and while those two countries
object to American plans for missile defense, they do not feel the need to increase their forces in
response. As long as peace is believed to be very likely, the chance of inadvertent spirals of
tension and threat is low.
Security competition is inevitable but it doesn’t always lead to war, particularly
with the US.
Taliaferro 1 (Jeffrey, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, “Security Seeking
Under Anarchy,” International Security, 25(3), AD: 7-11-9)
The security dilemma is inescapable, but it does not always generate intense competition and
war. In addition to the gross distribution of power in the international system, other material factors, which I refer to as
"structural modifiers," may increase or decrease the likelihood of conflict.[27] These include the offense-defense balance in
military technology, geographic proximity, access to raw materials, international economic pressure, regional or dyadic
military balances, and the ease with which states can extract resources from conquered territory.[28] Defensive realists
assume that structural modifiers have a greater influence on the likelihood of international conflict or cooperation than does
the gross distribution of power. The gross distribution of power refers to the relative share of the international system's
material capabilities that each state controls. Polarity, or the number of great powers in the international system, is the most
common measure of the gross distribution of power. Structural modifiers, on the other hand, refer to the relative distribution
of capabilities that enable individual states to carry out particular diplomatic and military strategies. This in turn influences
the severity of the security dilemma between particular states or in regional subsystems. Thus one may think of the structural
modifiers as mediating the effects of systemic imperatives on the behavior of states.[29] Consider, for example, offensedefense theory and balance-of-threat theory. It makes little sense to speak of a systemwide offense-defense balance in
military technology. The possession of particular military technologies and weapons systems influences the relative ease with
which a state can attack or hold territory. The objective offense-defense balance affects the strategies of individual states and
the interaction between pairs of states; it does not change the gross distribution of power in the international system.[30]
Similarly, balance-of-threat theory does not posit that states always balance against the greatest threat in the international
system. Rather they generally balance against states that pose an immediate threat to their survival.[31] Defensive
realism, in both its neorealist and neoclassical realist variants, challenges notions that the security
dilemma always generates intense conflict. In this respect, defensive realism corrects deductive
flaws both in Waltz's core model and in offensive realism. Waltz holds that anarchy and the need
for survival often force states to forgo mutually beneficial cooperation. At a minimum, cooperation
is difficult because states are sensitive to how it affects their current and future relative
capabilities.[32] Cooperation often proves to be impossible, particularly in the security arena,
because states have every incentive to maintain an advantage over their competitors.[33] Some
offensive realists go further in arguing that cooperation can put a state's survival in jeopardy. John
Mearsheimer argues that anarchy leaves little room for trust because "a state may be unable to
recover if its trust is betrayed."[34]
Defensive realism faults these arguments for being incomplete. Cooperation is risky, but so is
competition. States cannot be certain of the outcome of an arms race or war beforehand, and
losing such a competition can jeopardize a state's security. Waltz's balance-of-power theory and
Mearsheimer's offensive realism require that states evaluate the risks of cooperation and competition, but they do not explain
variation in competitive or cooperative behavior.[35] This has implications for both foreign policy and international
outcomes. The defensive variants of neorealism and neoclassical realism specify the conditions under which cooperative
international outcomes and less competitive state behavior, respectively, become more likely. According to offense-defense
theory proponents, at the operational and tactical level, improvements in firepower (e.g., machine guns, infantry antitank
weapons, surface-to-air missiles, and tactical nuclear weapons) should favor the defense because attackers are usually more
vulnerable and detectable than are well-prepared defenders. At the strategic level, the anticipated high costs and risks of
conquests should deter even greedy leaders.[36] The nuclear revolution--specifically the development of secure second-strike
capabilities by the declared nuclear states--provides strong disincentives for intended war.[37] This does not mean that pairs
of nuclear-armed states will not engage in political-military competition in third regions or limited conventional conflict short
of all-out war.[38] Rather it suggests that intended (or premeditated) wars--wars that break out as the result of a calculated
decision by at least one party to resort to the massive use of force in the pursuit of its objectives--become highly unlikely.[39]
Conversely, if the offense dominates, then states have an incentive to adopt aggressive strategies. Similarly, states' abilities to
extract resources from conquered territory influence the likelihood of international conflict. Where industrial capacity,
strategic depth, or raw materials are cumulative, defensive realists would expect states to pursue expansionist policies.[40]
According to Mearsheimer, states must constantly worry about their survival because potential competitors may try to
eliminate them at any time. He argues, "States operate in both an international political environment and an international
economic environment, and the former dominates the latter in cases where the two come into conflict."[41] This implies that
states will heavily discount the future by favoring short-term military preparedness over longerterm objectives, such as
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economic prosperity, when and if the two goals conflict.[42] Again, defensive realism finds this argument lacking and
specifies the conditions under which states are more likely to heavily discount the future and prefer short-term military
preparedness to long-term economic prosperity. For example, where geography provides defense from
invasion or blockade, defensive neoclassical realism would expect a state to favor long-term
objectives. Similarly, a state with relatively weak neighbors can afford to take a longerterm
perspective and devote a greater portion of its national resources to domestic programs. A
relatively benign threat environment removes the incentives for the development of strong central
institutions within the state. For example, geographic separation from Europe and the relative
weakness of Canada and Mexico allowed the United States to survive the first 150 years of its
independence without developing strong state institutions (i.e., a large standing army, an efficient
tax system, and a large central bureaucracy).[43]
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A2: Militarism Bad – AT: Tech = Use
Scrutinize their analysis – studies of military technologies effect on war are flawed
due to a skewed baseline interpretation
Levy 84 (Jack S, Professor at UT Austin, “The Offensive/Defensive Balance of Military Technology: A
Theoretical and Historical Analysis”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, Pg. 219, A.D.: 7/11/09)
This study examines various attempts to define the concept of the offensive/defensive balance of
military technology, to trace the theoretical consequences of an offensive or defensive advantage,
and to measure or classify the balance for the last eight centuries. It is concluded that the last two
tasks are flawed because of the ambiguity of the concept of the offensive/defensive balance. There
are multiple definitions and multiple hypotheses, but these are not interchangeable, particularly
between the pre-nuclear and nuclear eras, where the concept means something fundamentally
different. Hypotheses appropriate for one definition may be implausible or tautological for another.
It is concluded that the notion of the offensive/defensive balance is too vague and encompassing
to be useful in theoretical or historical analysis, but that some of the individual variables that
have been incorporated under this broader concept may themselves be useful. Much more analysis is
needed, however, to demonstrate that these concepts have important theoretical consequences. The
literature on international relations and military history contains numerous references to the
offensive or defensive balance of military technology and its impact on war. Historians often
characterize a particular era as favoring the offense or the defense, and theorists often hypothesize
that technology favoring the offense increases the likelihood of war or contributes to empirebuilding. More generally, it has been suggested that the history of warfare and weaponry can be
viewed in terms of the interplay between the offense and the defense (Snow, 1983:83). These
analyses are not generally meaningful, however, because they are rarely guided by any explicit
definition of the key concept of the offensive/defensive balance. The concept itself has been defined
in a variety of ways which are often contradictory and which confuse the meaning of the hypotheses
in question. Attempts to classify the balance historically are also inconsistent. These
inconsistencies are obscured by the failure of both the theoretical and historical literature to
acknowledge and build up earlier scholarship and also by the absence of any general review of the
literature. As a result, little is known about the offensive/defensive balance and its impact on war.
Policy maker’s perceptions are flawed – technological increases don’t ensure
conflict
Levy 84 (Jack S, Professor at UT Austin, “The Offensive/Defensive Balance of Military Technology: A
Theoretical and Historical Analysis”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 28, Pg. 219, A.D.: 7/11/09)
The hypothesis that the likelihood of war is increased when the military technology favors the
offense is theoretically plausible only on the basis of rather strong assumption that decision
makers correctly perceive the offensive/defensive balance. However, it is perceptions of one’s
psychological environment that determine decisions, not the ‘objective’ operational environment
(Sprout and Sprout, 1965). The assumption of accurate perceptions is therefore open to
question. The inherent difficulty of determining the offensive/defensive balance and the alleged
tendency of the military to prepare for the last war rather than the next one may result in
some profound misperceptions. It is widely agreed, for example, that in 1914 military technology
favored the defense (Hart, 1932:75, Fuller, 1961:ch 8-9; Montgomery, 1983:472) but that most
decision makers perceive that it favored the offense. It was not the offensive/defensive balance that
intensified worst case analysis and increased the incentives for preemption, but decision makers’
perceptions of that balance. If the offensive/defensive balance is not defined in terms of the
perceptions of decision makers (and in most conceptualizations it is not so defined), then the
hypothesis is technically misspecified. Hypothesis regarding the consequences of war, on the other
hand, are properly defined in terms of the ‘objective’ balance.
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A2: Militarism Bad – AT: = War
Military values prevent war – Their lived experiences cause them to be cautious
– Iraq proves
Lurie 8 (Rod, 7-30, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rod-lurie/the-military-is-more-libe_b_115934.html)
3) Former soldiers will almost always gravitate to the anti-war party. This happens for obvious
reasons. The men who have been in battle tend not to romanticize it and tend not to take it
flippantly. The reasons for going to war need to be extraordinarily convincing before anybody who
has taken a bullet, seen their friends take a bullet, or who has lodged a bullet in the enemy's brain
will put their support behind a war. Recent history has shown that the Republicans are more likely
to use the military as a tool of policy rather than as a tool of defense. That is unacceptable to
anybody who has served.
4) Finally, and maybe most importantly, is the Iraq war itself. The Bush administration sent our
soldiers in on a mission that was initiated either by a lie or by the greatest act of incompetence in the
history of this nation's intelligence gathering. In battle, our soldiers were ill equipped and not
properly supported. (The "surge" was needed because Bush didn't send in enough troops to begin
with). Our wounded soldiers have returned him to find inadequate medical care. The "love" that the
soldiers felt from Republicans in peacetime turned into neglect and apathy during war.
The military is cautious in how it defines threats
Baker & Miller 1 (Former DoD & defense contractor, David & Stan,
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=159&contentid=2980)
Over three decades ago, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara challenged what the U.S. military
had considered its prerogative: to identify and define future U.S. military requirements. McNamara's
assertion that he and his civilian staff should play an equal, if not dominant, role in defining future
military requirements was highly controversial. Following his tenure as secretary, the authority for
defining what was required to meet future threats shifted back toward the military, driven in part by
a growing military staff dedicated to the effort. Today, it is the military that again has by far the
largest say in identifying and proposing what the U.S. military requires in the years ahead. Yet the
military is cautious by nature and focuses too much on maintaining its past Industrial Age
capabilities. We need to introduce greater awareness of what the Information Age offers and will
demand of the military of the future. We also need to re-establish a healthy balance between civilian
and military authority in defining how the nation should design and build its military.
The military has a new role - promoting peace and diplomatic solutions - they aren’t
inherently aggressive
Graham 93 (James R, National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies, Non-combat
Roles for the U.S. Military in the Post-Cold War Era, pg 110, AD: 7/11/09) JCandmaybeLE
The panelists thought that the purpose of the Armed Forces in the Post-Cold War Era must be
viewed in light of a broader mission than simply “to fight the nation’s wars.” The new, broader mission
might be to carry out the nation’s will and meet its needs”- particularly for promoting peace. Peace is
as important as war, and a new role for the Armed Forces is to promote peace. Peace is the desired
state. If deterrence fails, the United States seeks decisive combat and then a return to peace. The
United States has not been good at transitioning from war to peace, as recent experience in Just Cause and
Desert Storm indicates, and it is necessary to learn how to promote peace. If the larger view is not
adopted, the non-combat missions that serve peaceful purposes may fall through the cracks. Peaceful use
of military power is a most elegant and appropriate use.
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A2: Militarism – Solves Otherization
The military is good – breaks down social barriers that cause otherization
Krebs 4 (Ronald, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of
Minnesota,
Twin Cities. “A School for the Nation? How Military Service Does Not Build Nations, and How It Might,”
Spring, accessed 7/10/09,
http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/journals/international_security/v028/28.4krebs.pdf)
The military, in peace and especially in war, would seem to be an institutional setting well suited
to increasing what Deutsch called “communicative effectiveness” and thus to breaking down
dividing lines based on race, ethnicity, religion, or class. Required to perform common tasks in a
highly structured environment and in close quarters, individuals from diverse backgrounds would
not just interact but would learn how truly to communicate with each other.51 With these tasks of
vital importance to national security, one could count on a supportive normative milieu, enforced by
orders down the chain of command.52 Greater communicative capacity in a nurturing
environment would reshape perceptions of the Other, laying the groundwork for a more
cohesive community. Through military service, individuals would escape the strictures of
parochial commitments, and they would emerge cognizant that they were constitutive pieces of
a larger project.53 This logic underpins the contention, not infrequently heard in the United States,
that the military can serve (and has served) as a national melting pot. Thus American Progressives
who advocated universal military training before, during, and after World War I applauded it as an
instrument of “Americanization.” When immigrants and native-born Americans would rub “elbows
in a common service to a common Fatherland,” one-time Assistant Secretary of War Henry
Breckinridge maintained, “out comes the hyphen—up goes the Stars and Stripes and in a generation
the melting pot will have melted. Universal military service will be the elder brother of the public
school in fusing this American race.”54 Although these dreams inspired but ultimately frustrated
U.S. military planners during World War I, World War II has been widely acclaimed as having
brought them to fruition. After the war, Jews and Catholics were no longer suspect, and white
Americans of European descent melded into a single mass. The war, one historian argues,
“expose[d] men to a much greater range of individuals and groups than most had ever known, and
did so in circumstances of extreme vulnerability where they had no choice but, if they wished to
survive, to trust each other. In the process, individuals’ conceptions of who belonged in their
American community expanded enormously.”55 In short, the contact hypothesis.
The military is an open-minded liberal institution
Lurie 8 (Rod, 7-30, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rod-lurie/the-military-is-more-libe_b_115934.html)
1) Forty percent of the military is made up of ethnic minorities. Most of those, as is also the case
with most of the Caucasian members of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, come from the lower
economic classes. These demographic groups have largely voted Democrat in the past and will
continue to do so. When officers (the more likely to go into politics) live with their soldiers day in
and day out, a certain empathy builds. It is unavoidable. Those officers begin to understand and
respect the problems their soldiers and their families face or have faced on a day-to-day basis.
Indeed, the primary reason that young men and women join the service is not their fetish for combat
or killing but to satisfy the dire economic needs of their family.
2) The United States military is probably the most socialistic institution in the United States. Think
about it. There is universal health care in the military (though we have seen how unconscionably
horrific our medical attention has been to our soldiers in places like W
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A2: Calculation Bad
T/- Calculation good- responds to Otherness in a responsible way- the zero
point is not reached but instead difference is protected
Williams 2005
(Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales—Aberystwyth,
The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 165-166)
Yet it is my claim that the wilful Realist tradition does not lack an understanding of the contingency of
practice or a vision of responsibility to othemess. On the contrary, its strategy of objectification is
precisely an attempt to bring together a responsibility to otherness and a responsibility to
act within a wilfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of objectivity and calculation is not just a
consequence of a need to act — the framing of an epistemic context for successful calculation. It is a form
of responsibility to othemess, an attempt to allow for diversity and irreconcilability
precisely by — at least initially — reducing the self and the other to a structure of material
calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility, mediation, and stability. It
is, in short, a strategy of limitation: a wilful attempt to construct a subject and a social world
limited — both epistemically and politically — in the name of a politics of toleration: a liberal
strategy that John Gray has recently characterised as one of modus vivendi. If this is the case, then the
deconstructive move that gains some of its weight by contrasting itself to a non- or apolitical objectivism
must engage with the more complex contrast to a sceptical Realist tradition that is itself a constructed,
ethical practice. This issue becomes even more acute if one considers Iver Neumann’s incisive questions
concerning postmodern constructions of identity. action, and responsibility. As Neumann points out, the
insight that identities are inescapably contingent and relationally constructed, and even the claim that
identities are inescapably indebted to otherness, do not in themselves provide a foundation for practice,
particularly in situations where identities are ‘sedimented’ and conflictually defined. In these cases,
deconstruction alone will not suffice unless it can demonstrate a capacity to counter in
practice (and not just in philosophic practice) the essentialist dynamics it confronts. Here, a
responsibility to act must go beyond deconstruction to consider viable alternatives and counterpractices. To take this critique seriously is not necessarily to be subject yet again to the straightforward
‘blackmail of the Enlightenment’ and a narrow ‘modernist’ vision of responsibility.85 While an
unwillingness to move beyond a deconstructive ethic of responsibility to othemess for fear that an
essentialist stance is the only (or most likely) alternative expresses a legitimate concern, it should
not license a retreat from such questions or their practical demands. Rather, such situations
demand also an evaluation of the structures (of identity and institutions) that might viably be
mobilised in order to offset the worst implications of violently exclusionary identities . It
requires, as Neumann nicely puts it, the generation of compelling ‘as if’ stories around which countersubjectivities and political practices can coalesce. Wilful Realism, I submit, arises out of an appreciation of
these issues, and comprises an attempt to craft precisely such ‘stories’ within a broader intellectual and
sociological analysis of their conditions of production, possibilities of success, and likely consequences.
The question is, to what extent are these limits capable of success, and to what extent might they be limits
upon their own aspirations toward responsibility? These are crucial questions, but they will not be
addressed by retreating yet again into further reversals of the same old dichotomies.
Must use calculative thought
David Campbell, professor of international politics at the University of Newcastle, Moral Spaces:
Rethinking
Ethics and World Politics, ed. by Campbell and Shapiro, 1999, p. 56
Levinas has also argued for a politics that respects a double injunction. When asked "Is not ethical
obligation to the other a purely negative ideal, impossible to realize in our everyday being-in-the-world,"
which is governed by "ontological drives and practices"; and "Is ethics practicable in human society as we
know it? Or is it merely an invitation to apolitical acquiescence?" Levinas's response was that "of course
we inhabit an ontological world of technological mastery and political self-preservation.
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Indeed, without these political and technological structures of organization we would not be
able to feed [hu]mankind. This is the greatest paradox of human existence: we must use the
ontological for the sake of the other, to ensure the survival of the other we must resort to the
technico-political systems of means and ends."
Just because we can’t know the future doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and prevent
disaster – The Future is a result of actions we make now, including crisis prevention
Kurasawa 4 (Fuyuki, Professor of Sociology @ York University of Toronto, “Cautionary Tales: The
Global Culture of Prevention and the Work of Foresight,”
http://www.yorku.ca/kurasawa/Kurasawa%20Articles/Constellations%20Article.pdf, AD: 7/11/09)
When engaging in the labor of preventive foresight, the first obstacle that one is likely to
encounter from some intellectual circles is a deep-seated skepticism about the very value of the
exercise. A radically postmodern line of thinking, for instance, would lead us to believe that it is
pointless, perhaps even harmful, to strive for farsightedness in light of the aforementioned crisis
of conventional paradigms of historical analysis. If, contra teleological models, history has no
intrinsic meaning, direction, or endpoint to be discovered through human reason, and if, contra
scientistic futurism, prospective trends cannot be predicted without error, then the abyss of
chronological inscrutability supposedly opens up at our feet. The future appears to be
unknowable, an outcome of chance. Therefore, rather than embarking upon grandiose speculation
about what may occur, we should adopt a pragmatism that abandons itself to the twists and turns
of history; let us be content to formulate ad hoc responses to emergencies as they arise. While
this argument has the merit of underscoring the fallibilistic nature of all predictive schemes, it
conflates the necessary recognition of the contingency of history with unwarranted assertions about
the latter’s total opacity and indeterminacy. Acknowledging the fact that the future cannot be
known with absolute certainty does not imply abandoning the task of trying to understand what
is brewing on the horizon and to prepare for crises already coming into their own. In fact, the
incorporation of the principle of fallibility into the work of prevention means that we must be ever
more vigilant for warning signs of disaster and for responses that provoke unintended or unexpected
consequences (a point to which I will return in the final section of this paper). In addition, from a
normative point of view, the acceptance of historical contingency and of the self-limiting character
of farsightedness places the duty of preventing catastrophe squarely on the shoulders of present
generations. The future no longer appears to be a metaphysical creature of destiny or of the cunning
of reason, nor can it be sloughed off to pure randomness. It becomes, instead, a result of human
action shaped by decisions in the present – including, of course, trying to anticipate and
prepare for possible and avoidable sources of harm to our successors. Combining a sense of
analytical contingency toward the future and ethical responsibility for it, the idea of early warning is
making its way into preventive action on the global stage. Despite the fact that not all humanitarian,
technoscientific, and environmental disasters can be predicted in advance, the multiplication of
independent sources of knowledge and detection mechanisms enables us to foresee many of them
before it is too late. Indeed, in recent years, global civil society’s capacity for early warning has
dramatically increased, in no small part due to the impressive number of NGOs that include
catastrophe prevention at the heart of their mandates.17 These organizations are often the first to
detect signs of trouble, to dispatch investigative or fact-finding missions, and to warn the
international community about impending dangers; to wit, the lead role of environmental groups in
sounding the alarm about global warming and species depletion or of humanitarian agencies
regarding the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, frequently months or even years before Western
governments or multilateral institutions followed suit. What has come into being, then, is a looseknit network of watchdog groups that is acquiring finely tuned antennae to pinpoint indicators of
forthcoming or already unfolding crises. This network of ‘early warners’ are working to publicize
potential and actual emergencies by locating indicators of danger into larger catastrophic
patterns of interpretation, culturally meaningful chains of events whose implications become
discernable for decision-makers and ordinary citizens (‘this is why you should care’).18 Civic
associations can thus invest perilous situations with urgency and importance, transforming climate
change from an apparently mild and distant possibility to an irreversible and grave threat to human
survival, and genocide from a supposedly isolated aberration to an affront to our common humanity.
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A2: Root Cause
Focus on the root cause of war is ineffective and increases conflict
Woodward 7 (Susan, senior research fellow at the Centre for Defense Studies, King's College,
London, and from 1990 to 1999, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution “Do the Root Causes of
Civil War Matter? On Using Knowledge to Improve Peacebuilding Interventions”, Journal of
Intervention and State Building, volume 1, No. 2, AD: 7-11-09)MT
In sum, the policy interest in stopping the violence of civil wars has led to substantial advances in
what we know about their causes, but current policies tend to be based on research that has been
superseded and that, in any case, proposed competing arguments. If effective peacebuilding
depends on addressing ‘root causes’ and the knowledge on which those policies are based is
wrong, then our interventions may do more harm than we would by ignoring causes
altogether.
Furthermore, if the root causes of any civil war lie in international factors, even partially _ for
example, the changing global economic context, the instability of a neighbourhood, the strategic
policies of major powers, the economic policies supported by donors and banks, the conditions for
aid or trade _ then the focus of peacebuilding must include those international conditions or actions,
not just domestic transformation. While the regional security context of a country in conflict has
been incorporated into some peacebuilding strategies, such as the regional stabilization annex (1B)
of the Dayton peace accord for Bosnia-Herzegovina and its implementation by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe and further regional arms
control negotiations in Vienna, or the agreement on cooperation between Afghanistan and its
neighbours facilitated by Lakhdar Brahimi in 2002, for the most part the international conditions
and policies that figure most prominently in analyses of root causes are beyond the reach of a
peace operation or worse,
the external actors who would have to make changes will not and insist that local actors bear
full responsibility for the violence. Most important, the parties themselves will not agree about
the ‘root causes’ of their war. That is the nature of civil war. Not only is civil war a highly
complex phenomenon, such that there is no single cause in the sense promoted by the three
influential schools of explanation, but the fuel that provokes and prolongs a war includes
fundamental disagreements over its cause (and thus respective responsibilities for its start and
resolution). Crucial to the way a conflict ends are the parties’ campaigns to win external
support (including intervention) for their side by shaping outsiders’ perceptions of the cause
of the war. Academic experts often lend their support to these campaigns without full disclosure
that they have taken on an advocacy role. One reason that military victories tend to be
more stable than negotiated or assisted endings (Licklider 1993) may be that victors impose their
explanation and can, thus, terminate the competition over cause and responsibility. Otherwise, the
politics of the immediate post-war period is suffused with (if not actually driven by) a
continuing contest over
interpretations, relative responsibilities and guilt, and search for external support for one
origin and cause over others. While policy makers tend (impatiently, one must acknowledge) to
dismiss academic research on grounds that ‘experts do not agree’, these disagreements pale in
intensity and consequence in the face of the inevitable disagreements among the parties.
/
/
There is no root cause of war- too many factors to consider
Smith 89 (Robert, “Diplomacy in Pre-Colonial West Africa”, pg. 141, AD: 7-11-09)
As Quincy Wright concludes, Wars arise because of the changing relations of numerous variablestechnological, physic, social, and intellectual. There is no single cause of war. This multiplicity of
variables which characterizes most human situation, suggests that the search for generalizations
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about the causes of war, in pre-colonial West Africa or elsewhere, or at any time, has only a limited
value and interest.
No single cause of violence
Muro-Ruiz 2 (Diego, London School of Economics, “The Logic of Violence”, Politics, 22(2), p. 116)
Violence is, most of the time, a wilful choice, especially if it is made by an organisation. Individuals
present the scholar with a more difficult case to argue for. Scholars of violence have now a wide
variety of perspectives they can use – from sociology and political science, to psychology,
psychiatry and even biology – and should escape easy judgements. However, the fundamental
difficulty for all of us is the absence of a synthetic, general theory able of integrating less
complete theories of violent behaviour. In the absence of such a general theory, researchers should
bear in mind that violence is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that resists monocausal explanations . Future research on violence will have to take in account the variety of approaches,
since they each offer some understanding of the logic of violence.
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A2: Ontology
Preventing widespread death precedes ontological questioning
Davidson ‘89
(Arnold L., Associate Prof Philosophy – U Chicago, Critical Inquiry, Winter, p. 426)
I understand Levinas’ work to suggest another path to the recovery of the human, one that
leads through or toward other human beings: “The dimension of the divine opens forth from the
human face… Hence metaphysics is enacted where the social relation is enacted- in our relations
with men… The Other is not the incarnation of God, but precisely by his face, in which he is disincarnate,
is the manifestation of the height in which God is revealed. It is our relations with men… that give to
theological concepts the sole signification they admit of.” Levinas places ethics before ontology by
beginning with our experience of the human face: and, in a clear reference to Heidegger’s idolatry
of the village life of peasants, he associated himself with Socrates, who preferred the city where
he encountered men to the country with its trees. In his discussion of skepticism and the problem of
others, Cavell also aligns himself with this path of thought, with the recovery of the finite
human self through the acknowledgement of others: “As long as God exists, I am not alone. And
couldn’t the other suffer the fate of God?… I wish to understand how the other now bears the weight of
God, shows me that I am not alone in the universe. This requires understanding the philosophical problem
of the other as the trace or scar of the departure of God [CR, p.470].” The suppression of the other,
the human, in Heidegger’s thought accounts, I believe, for the absence, in his writing after the
war, of the experience of horror. Horror is always directed toward the human; every object
of horror bears the imprint of the human will. So Levinas can see in Heidegger’s silence
about the gas chambers and death camps “a kind of consent to the horror.” And Cavell can
characterize Nazis as “those who have lost the capacity for being horrified by what they do.”
Where was Heidegger’s horror? How could he have failed to know what he had consented to? Hannah
Arendt associates Heidegger with Paul Valery’s aphorism, “Les evenements ne sont que l’ecume
des choses’ (‘Events are but the foam of things’).” I think one understands the source of her intuition.
The mass extermination of human beings, however, does not produce foam, but dust and
ashes; and it is here that questioning must stop.
It’s impossible to determine an answer to being –-- ontological questioning
results in an infinite regress and total political paralysis
Levinas and Nemo ‘85
(Emmanuel, Professor of Philosophy, and Philippe, Professor of New Philosophy, Ethics and Infinity, p.
6-7)
Are we not in need of still more precautions? Must we not step back from this question to raise
another, to recognize the obvious circularity of asking what is the “What is . .?“ question? It
seems to beg the question. Is our new suspicion, then, that Heidegger begs the question of
metaphysics when he asks “What is poetry?” or “What is thinking?”? Yet his thought is
insistently anti-metaphysical. Why, then, does he retain the metaphysical question par
excellence? Aware of just such an objection, he proposes, against the vicious circle of the petitio principi,
an alternative, productive circularity: hermeneutic questioning. To ask “What is. . .?“ does not partake of
onto-theo-logy if one acknowledges (1) that the answer can never be fixed absolutely, but calls
essentially, endlessly, for additional “What is . . .?“ questions. Dialectical refinement here replaces
vicious circularity. Further, beyond the openmindedness called for by dialectical refinement,
hermeneutic questioning (2) insists on avoiding subjective impositions, on avoiding reading into
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rather than harkening to things. One must harken to the things themselves, ultimately to being, in a
careful attunement to what is. But do the refinement and care of the hermeneutic question — which
succeed in avoiding ontotheo-logy succeed in avoiding all viciousness? Certainly they convert a simple
fallacy into a productive inquiry, they open a path for thought. But is it not the case that however
much refinement and care one brings to bear, to ask what something is leads to asking what
something else is, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum? What is disturbing in this is not so much
the infinity of interpretive depth, which has the virtue of escaping onto-theo-logy and remaining true to the
way things are, to the phenomena, the coming to be and passing away of being. Rather, the
problem lies in the influence the endlessly open horizon of such thinking exerts on the way
of such thought. That is, the problem lies in what seems to be the very virtue of hermeneutic
thought, namely, the doggedness of the “What is . . .?“ question, in its inability to escape
itself, to escape being and essence.
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Merely focusing on internal ontological re-thinking fetishizes the unworldly and denies the
force of critical policy transformation to challenge the enframing logic of instrumental
reason in foreign policy.
Burke, lecturer at Adelaide University School of History and Politics, 2007
[Anthony, “Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason,” Theory & Event 10:2]
The force of my own and Heidegger's analysis does, admittedly, tend towards a deterministic
fatalism. On my part this is quite deliberate; it is important to allow this possible conclusion to
weigh on us. Large sections of modern societies -- especially parts of the media, political
leaderships and national security institutions -- are utterly trapped within the Clausewitzian
paradigm, within the instrumental utilitarianism of 'enframing' and the stark ontology of the
friend and enemy. They are certainly tremendously aggressive and energetic in continually stating
and reinstating its force.
But is there a way out? Is there no possibility of agency and choice? Is this not the key
normative problem I raised at the outset, of how the modern ontologies of war efface agency,
causality and responsibility from decision making; the responsibility that comes with having
choices and making decisions, with exercising power? (In this I am much closer to Connolly than
Foucault, in Connolly's insistence that, even in the face of the anonymous power of discourse to
produce and limit subjects, selves remain capable of agency and thus incur responsibilities.88)
There seems no point in following Heidegger in seeking a more 'primal truth' of being -- that is to
reinstate ontology and obscure its worldly manifestations and consequences from critique.
However we can, while refusing Heidegger's unworldly89 nostalgia, appreciate that he was
searching for a way out of the modern system of calculation; that he was searching for a
'questioning', 'free relationship' to technology that would not be immediately recaptured by the
strategic, calculating vision of enframing. Yet his path out is somewhat chimerical -- his faith in
'art' and the older Greek attitudes of 'responsibility and indebtedness' offer us valuable clues to the
kind of sensibility needed, but little more.
When we consider the problem of policy, the force of this analysis suggests that choice and
agency can be all too often limited; they can remain confined (sometimes quite wilfully) within
the overarching strategic and security paradigms. Or, more hopefully, policy choices could aim to
bring into being a more enduringly inclusive, cosmopolitan and peaceful logic of the political.
But this cannot be done without seizing alternatives from outside the space of enframing and
utilitarian strategic thought, by being aware of its presence and weight and activating a very
different concept of existence, security and action.90
This would seem to hinge upon 'questioning' as such -- on the questions we put to the real and
our efforts to create and act into it. Do security and strategic policies seek to exploit and direct
humans as material, as energy, or do they seek to protect and enlarge human dignity and
autonomy? Do they seek to impose by force an unjust status quo (as in Palestine), or to remove
one injustice only to replace it with others (the U.S. in Iraq or Afghanistan), or do so at an
unacceptable human, economic, and environmental price? Do we see our actions within an
instrumental, amoral framework (of 'interests') and a linear chain of causes and effects (the idea
of force), or do we see them as folding into a complex interplay of languages, norms, events and
consequences which are less predictable and controllable?91 And most fundamentally: Are we
seeking to coerce or persuade? Are less violent and more sustainable choices available? Will our
actions perpetuate or help to end the global rule of insecurity and violence? Will our thought?
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A2: Genocide
No impact—democracy checks.
O’Kane 97 [“Modernity, the Holocaust, and politics”, Economy and Society, February, ebsco]
Chosen policies cannot be relegated to the position of immediate condition (Nazis in power) in the
explanation of the Holocaust. Modern bureaucracy is not ‘intrinsically capable of genocidal action’ (Bauman 1989: 106).
Centralized state coercion has no natural move to terror. In the explanation of modern genocides it is chosen policies which play the
greatest part, whether in effecting bureaucratic secrecy, organizing forced labour, implementing a system of
terror, harnessing science and technology or introducing extermination policies, as means and as ends. As
Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR have shown, furthermore, those chosen policies of genocidal government turned away from and not
towards modernity. The choosing of policies, however, is not independent of circumstances. An analysis of the history of
each case plays an important part in explaining where and how genocidal governments come to power and
analysis of political institutions and structures also helps towards an understanding of the factors which act
as obstacles to modern genocide. But it is not just political factors which stand in the way of another
Holocaust in modern society. Modern societies have not only pluralist democratic political systems but also economic
pluralism where workers are free to change jobs and bargain wages and where independent firms, each with their own
independent bureaucracies, exist in competition with state-controlled enterprises. In modern societies this economic
pluralism both promotes and is served by the open scientific method. By ignoring competition and the
capacity for people to move between organizations whether economic, political, scientific or social,
Bauman overlooks crucial but also very ‘ordinary and common’ attributes of truly modern societies. It is
these very ordinary and common attributes of modernity which stand in the way of modern genocides.
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A2: No Value To Life
Security allows for emancipation that creates surival
Ken Booth, visiting researcher - US Naval War College, 2005, Critical Security Studies and World Politics, p. 22
The best starting point for conceptualizing security lies in the real conditions of insecurity suffered by people and collectivities. Look
around. What is immediately striking is thatsome
degree of insecurity, as a life-determining condition, is universal.
To the extent an individualor groupis insecure, to the extent their life choices and changes are
taken away; thisis because of the resources and energy they need to invest in seeking safety
from domineering threats–whether these are the lack of food for one’s children, or organizing to resist a foreign
aggressor.The corollary of the relationship between insecurity and a determined life is that a
degree of security creates life possibilities. Security might therefore be conceived as
synonymous with opening up space in people’s lives. This allows for individual and
collective human becoming–the capacity to have some choice about living differently–consistent with the same
but different search by others.Two interrelated conclusion follow from this. First, security can be understood as an
instrumental value; it frees its possessors to a greater or lesser extent from life-determining constraints and so allows different life
possibilities to be explored. Second,security
is not synonymous simply with survival. One can survive without
being secure (the experience of refugees in long-term camps in war-torn parts of the world, for example). Security is
therefore more than mere animal survival(basic animal existence). It is survival-plus, the plus being
the possibility to explore human becoming. As an instrumental value, security is sought
because it free people(s)to some degree to do other than deal with threats to their human
being. The achievementof a levelof security–and security is always relative –gives to individuals and
groups some time, energy, and scope to choose to beor become,other than merely survivingas
human biological organisms. Security is an important dimension of the process by which the human
species can reinvent itselfbeyond the merely biological.
Life has intrinsic value that is unattached to instrumental capacity
Penner 5 (Melinda, Director of Operations – STR, “End of Life Ethics: A Primer”, Stand to Reason,
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5223)
Intrinsic value is very different. Things with intrinsic value are valued for their own sake. They don’t have
to achieve any other goal to be valuable. They are goods in themselves. Beauty, pleasure, and virtue are
likely examples. Family and friendship are examples. Something that’s intrinsically valuable might also be
instrumentally valuable, but even if it loses its instrumental value, its intrinsic value remains. Intrinsic
value is what people mean when they use the phrase "the sanctity of life." Now when someone argues that
someone doesn’t have "quality of life" they are arguing that life is only valuable as long as it obtains
something else with quality, and when it can’t accomplish this, it’s not worth anything anymore. It's only
instrumentally valuable. The problem with this view is that it is entirely subjective and changeable with
regards to what might give value to life. Value becomes a completely personal matter, and, as we all know,
our personal interests change over time. There is no grounding for objective human value and human rights
if it’s not intrinsic value. Our legal system is built on the notion that humans have intrinsic value. The
Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
each person is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights...." If human beings only have
instrumental value, then slavery can be justified because there is nothing objectively valuable that requires
our respect. There is nothing other than intrinsic value that can ground the unalienable equal rights we
recognize because there is nothing about all human beings that is universal and equal. Intrinsic human
value is what binds our social contract of rights. So if human life is intrinsically valuable, then it remains
valuable even when our capacities are limited. Human life is valuable even with tremendous limitations.
Human life remains valuable because its value is not derived from being able to talk, or walk, or feed
yourself, or even reason at a certain level. Human beings don’t have value only in virtue of states of being
(e.g., happiness) they can experience.
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Value to life can’t be calculated
Schwartz 2 (Lisa, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine – Dartmouth College Medical School, et al.,
Medical Ethics: A Case Based Approach, www.fleshandbones.com/readingroom/pdf/399.pdf)
The first criterion that springs to mind regarding the value of life is usually the quality of the life or lives in
question: The quality of life ethic puts the emphasis on the type of life being lived, not upon the fact of life.
Lives are not all of one kind; some lives are of great value to the person himself and to others while others
are not. What the life means to someone is what is important. Keeping this in mind it is not inappropriate to
say that some lives are of greater value than others, that the condition or meaning of life does have much to
do with the justification for terminating that life.1 Those who choose to reason on this basis hope that if the
quality of a life can be measured then the answer to whether that life has value to the individual can be
determined easily. This raises special problems, however, because the idea of quality involves a value
judgment, and value judgments are, by their essence, subject to indeterminate relative factors such as
preferences and dislikes. Hence, quality of life is difficult to measure and will vary according to individual
tastes, preferences and aspirations. As a result, no general rules or principles can be asserted that would
simplify decisions about the value of a life based on its quality.
“No value to life” accepts the philosophical premise of Nazi Germany style murders
and concentration camps that respect for life does not entail preserving life
Neeley 94 (Steven, Assistant Professor at Saint Francis College, “THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT
TO SUICIDE, THE QUALITY OF LIFE, AND THE "SLIPPERY-SLOPE": AN EXPLICIT REPLY
TO LINGERING CONCERNS”, 28 Akron L. Rev. 53,) NS
The final solution in the United States and other western societies will be unlike the final
solution in Nazi Germany in its details, but not unlike it in its horror. And I fear that some who
now live will experience this final solution. They will live to see the day they will be killed.
Variations of the "slippery-slope" argument as applied to suicide and euthanasia are abundant.
Beauchamp has argued, for example, that at least from the perspective of rule utilitarianism, the
wedge argument against euthanasia should be taken seriously. Accordingly, although a "restrictedactive-euthanasia rule would have some utility value" since some intense and uncontrollable
suffering would be eliminated, "it may not have the highest utility value in the structure of our
present code or in any imaginable code which could be made current, and therefore may not be a
component in the ideal code for our society . . . . For the disutility of introducing legitimate
killing into one's moral code (in the form of active euthanasia rules) may, in the long run,
outweigh the utility of doing so, as a result of the eroding effect such a relaxation would have
on rules in the code which demand respect for human life. " Beauchamp then continues down a
now-familiar path: If, for example, rules permitting active killing were introduced, it is not
implausible to suppose that destroying defective newborns (a form of involuntary euthanasia)
would become an accepted and common practice, that as population increases occur the aged will
be even more neglectable and neglected than they now are, that capital punishment for a wide
variety of crimes would be increasingly tempting, that some doctors would have appreciably
reduced fears of actively injecting fatal doses whenever it seemed to them propitious to do so . . . . A
hundred such possible consequences might easily be imagined. But these few are sufficient to
make the larger point that such rules permitting killing could lead to a general reduction of
respect for human life.
Saying that life can be “valued” is intrinsically an act of commodification. It treats
people like a nice car or house, justifying leaving people in the dust once they are no
longer productive.
Davis 1 (Dena, Professor of bioethics at Cleveland State University, “Is Life of Infinite Value?” Project
Muse,) CC
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The main reason that some people so resist the idea that life cannot be valued in quantified ways is
the fear of two consequences. First, there is a fear that talking about life as something that can be
valued, balanced against other things, and so on, leads to “commodification.” In other words, to
place a value on life means bringing it into the marketplace as one more “thing,” like a car or
a house, that can be traded at will. This seems disrespectful and inimical to the ways in which we do value life in
our culture, whether it is valued in religious terms (as a gift from God), or in secular (as the sine qua non for every other
valuable thing we experience, from pleasure to courage to family). Even the least religious among us can stand in awe of this
thing that we humans are powerless to create. In this thinking, all value is market value; the only way to
resist commodification is to insist that something is of infinite value. Second, there is the fear
that, once life becomes value-able, it can be traded off by others in ways that will lead
inevitably to a slippery slope wherein we cut off resources for those who are no longer
“productive.”
Their “no value to human life” claim discursively replicates the logic for genocide –
spain proves
Caldwell 96 (Julie Northern Kentucky University Law Review, 24 N. Ky. L. Rev. 81)
Calling Indians "savages" meant that "Indians were sufficiently different from whites to be
regarded as less than persons and not protected by any moral or legal standards." Mohawk,
supra note 6, at 54 (citing Milner S. Ball, Constitution, Court, Indian Tribes, 1 Am. B. Found. Res.
J. 49 (1987)). The fact that in 1550, the Spanish Crown held a debate "to determine whether or
not Indians were true human beings" is incredibly ironic, considering the "unspeakable
violence of the Spanish conquest" which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 70 million
Natives. Id. at 4849. "None of the great massacres of the twentieth century can be compared to
this hecatomb." Id. at 48 (citing Tzvetan Todorow, The Conquest of America 133 (Harper & Row)
(1982)).
VTL argument reduces human life to a single quantifiable purpose and legitimizes a
framework of state sanctioned violence
Coleson 97 (Richard J.D., Issues in Law and Medicine, Summer, 13 Issues L. & Med. 3)
Frustrated with the ethic of "preserving every existence, no matter how worthless," Dr. Alfred
Hoche in 1920 wrote, expectantly: "A new age will arrive--operating with a higher morality and
with great sacrifice--which will actually give up the requirements of an exaggerated humanism
and overvaluation of mere existence." 8 Issues in Law & Med. at 265. Euthanasia proponents of
our day, too, seek with great zeal to usher in a new age. They speak, in words echoing from a
distant age, that it is cruel to deprive those who are suffering from their desired means to
peace and freedom from pain. Like Binding, they scold: "Not granting release by gentle death to
the incurable who long for it: this is no longer sympathy, but rather its opposite." Id. at 254. The
early promoters of euthanasia appeared to be sincere in their belief in the virtues of merciful death.
Today's promoters of physician-assisted suicide may also be sincere, but it is a sincerity born of an
unpardonable carelessness. Unlike their predecessors, euthanasia proponents today have the benefit
of the lesson of history, which has taught the true nature of physician-assisted killing as a false
compassion and a perversion of mercy. History warns that the institution of assisted-death
gravely threatens to undermine the foundational ethic of the medical profession and the
paramount principle of the equal dignity and inherent worth of every human person.
VTL ignores rape victims
Edwards 96 (Daphne, Professor at the Golden Gate Law School, 26 Golden Gate U.L. Rev. 241])
For most of you, rape is the most serious life crisis you will have to face, with few exceptions. It
is a time of overwhelming turmoil, confusion, and disorganization. You may be concerned about
the way you are feeling in response to the rape. You've probably never felt the extreme and
conflicting emotions you do now-the fears, the rage, the panic attacks, or the worthlessness. You
may even be afraid that you are "going crazy," or that you will never recover and be able to
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go on with life again. But you will. What you are experiencing is normal after a very serious life
crisis.
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Their argument risks a slippery slope – once we decide that certain lives are not
worth living, we jeopardize all ethics and legitimize killing babies for their organs
Hanger 92 (Lisa B.A. at Miami University, Journal of Law-Medicine, 5 Health Matrix 347)
Considering anencephalic infants "dead" or "close enough to death" instills in the public a fear
that other individuals very near death also will be declared dead and will be killed for the sake
of procuring their organs. If the UAGA or state statutes are amended to require anencephalic infants
to become organ donors, it is believed that other individuals with neural tube anomolies or
debilitating cognitive deficiencies also may be forced to become organ donors before their natural
deaths. Specifically, the " slippery slope" would lead most directly to those infants born with
hydroencephaly and microencephaly as becoming forced organ donors. This position could then
extend to other groups of people similarly situated who possess only limited cognitive
functioning or who arguably lack a "valid" interest in life, including death row inmates,
adults in a permanently vegetative state, individuals with Alzheimer's disease, or incompetent
individuals with terminal illnesses. To declare as dead many of these groups whom the general
population perceive to be very much alive could jeopardize the ethical integrity of the medical
profession and decrease public trust in medicine. Many individuals also would become even more
skeptical of organ donation. While some groups have tried to minimize the fear of a slippery slope
by arguing that "safeguards" would prevent groups of individuals other than anencephalic infants
from being affected by an amendment to the UDDA, any "safeguard" would not be sufficient.
Once "very fine distinctions [are made] regarding the dying," the risk of descending down the
slippery slope becomes significant.
Turn—Ontological questioning must stop in the face of mass death
Davidson 98 (Arnold co-editor of Critical Inquiry, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Member of the
Committees on General Studies in the Humanities and on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at the
University of Chicago, Critical Inquiry,)
I understand Levinas’ work to suggest another path to the recovery of the human, one that leads
through or toward other human beings: The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human
face….Hence metaphysics is enacted where the social relation is enacted—in our relations with
men….The Other is not the incarnation of God, but precisely by his face, in which he is
disincarnate, is the manifestation of the height in which God is revealed. It is our relations with
men…that give to theological concepts the sole signification they admit of. Levinas places ethics
before ontology by beginning with our experience of the human face: and, in a clear reference to
Heidegger’s idolatry of the village life of peasants, he associates himself with Socrates, who
preferred the city where he encountered men to the country with its trees. In his discussions of
skepticism and the problem of others, Cavell also aligns himself with this path of thought, with the
recovery of the finite human self through the acknowledgment of others: As long as God exists, I
am not alone. And couldn’t the other suffer the fate of God?…I wish to understand how the other
now bears the weight of God, shows me that I am not alone in the universe. This requires
understanding the philosophical problem of the other as the trace or scar of the departure of God.
[CR, p. 470] The suppression of the other, the human, in Heidegger’s thought accounts, I
believe, for the absence, in his writing after the war, of the experience of horror. Horror is always
disconnected toward the human: every object of horror bears the imprint of the human will. So
Levinas can see in Heidegger’s silence about the gas chambers and death camps “a kind of
consent to the horror.” And Cavell can characterize Nazis as “those who have lost the capacity for
being horrified by what they do.” Where was Heidegger’s horror? How could he have failed to
know what he had consented to? Hannah Arendt associates Heidegger with Paul Valery’s
aphorism, “’Les evenements ne sont que l’ecume des choses’ (‘Events are but the foam of
things’).” I think one understands the source of her intuition. The mass extermination of human
beings, however, does not produce foam, but dust and ashes; and it is here that questioning
must stop.
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All persons have a value to life, preventing their death is the MOST important and
ethical action, always for value to life in the future.
Harris 99 (John, Professor,, center of Social Ethics and Policy, “The Concept of the Person and the
Value of Life”, Project Muse)
This account of personhood identifies a range of capacities as the preconditions for
personhood. These capacities are species-, gender-, race-, and organic-life-form-neutral. Thus persons might, in
principle, be members of any species, or indeed machines, if they have the right sorts of capacities. The connection between
personhood and moral value arises in two principle ways. One of these ways involves the fact that the capacity for self
consciousness coupled with a minimum intelligence is not only necessary for moral agency but is also of course the
minimum condition [End Page 303] for almost any deliberative behavior. More significant, however, is the fact that it is
these capacities that allow individuals to value existence, to take an interest in their own
futures, and to take a view about how important it is for them to experience whatever future
existence may be available. This account therefore yields an explanation of the wrong done to
an individual when their existence is ended prematurely. On this account to kill, or to fail to
sustain the life of, a person is to deprive that individual of something that they value. On the
other hand, to kill or to fail to sustain the life of a nonperson, in that it cannot deprive that individual
of anything that he, she, or it could conceivably value, does that individual no harm. It takes from
such individuals nothing that they would prefer not to have taken from them. This does not, of
course, exhaust the wrongs that might be done in ending or failing to sustain the life of another
sentient creature. Some of these wrongs will have to do with causing pain or suffering or apprehension to a creature, others
will have to do with wrongs that may be done to those persons that take a benevolent interest in the individual concerned (see
Harris 1998). But the account of personhood I provide here explains why the lives of persons should be respected and
sustained and the wrong done when we fail to do so.
A person intrinsically values the life they are given. Taking it away or not taking
active action to prevent their death is an unethical act that must be stopped at all
costs.
Harris 99 (John, Professor,, center of Social Ethics and Policy, “The Concept of the Person and the
Value of Life”, Project Muse)
Personhood, as we have seen is intimately connected with questions about the ethics of killing
and letting die. Many people who have been interested in the distinctions between different sorts of
creatures that personhood highlights have followed John Locke in emphasizing a particular sort of
mental life as characterizing personhood (see, e.g., Tooley 1998). Although this is no doubt
appropriate, characterizing personhood as involved with the capacity to value existence makes
clearer why personhood is connected with a particular sort of moral value attaching to
individuals and shows why it also answers questions about the ethics of killing and letting die.
Personhood provides a species neutral way of grouping creatures that have lives that it would be
wrong to end by killing or by letting die. These may include animals, machines, extra-terrestrials,
gods, angels and devils. All, if they were capable of valuing existence, would, whatever else they
were, be persons. Defining "person" as a creature capable of valuing its own existence, makes
plausible an explanation of the nature of the wrong done to such a being when it is deprived of
existence. Persons who want to live are wronged by being killed because they are thereby
deprived of something they value.
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A2: war
Securitized framing doesn’t create violence or war – historical studies prove
Kaufman 9
Prof Poli Sci and IR – U Delaware (Stuart J, “Narratives and Symbols in Violent Mobilization: The
Palestinian-Israeli Case,” Security Studies 18:3, 400 – 434)
Even when hostile narratives, group fears, and opportunity are strongly present, war occurs
only if these factors are harnessed. Ethnic narratives and fears must combine to create significant ethnic
hostility among mass publics. Politicians must also seize the opportunity to manipulate that hostility,
evoking hostile narratives and symbols to gain or hold power by riding a wave of chauvinist
mobilization. Such mobilization is often spurred by prominent events (for example, episodes of
violence) that increase feelings of hostility and make chauvinist appeals seem timely. If the other group
also mobilizes and if each side's felt security needs threaten the security of the other side, the result is a
security dilemma spiral of rising fear, hostility, and mutual threat that results in violence. A virtue of this
symbolist theory is that symbolist logic explains why ethnic peace is more common than
ethnonationalist war. Even if hostile narratives, fears, and opportunity exist, severe violence
usually can still be avoided if ethnic elites skillfully define group needs in moderate ways and
collaborate across group lines to prevent violence: this is consociationalism.17 War is likely only if
hostile narratives, fears, and opportunity spur hostile attitudes, chauvinist mobilization, and a security
dilemma.
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A2: Structural Violence
No impact – real-world conditions determine who commits violence – not the words we use or vague
underlying assumptions
Taft-Kaufman 95
Speech prof @ CMU; Jill, Southern Comm. Journal, Spring, v. 60, Iss. 3, “Other Ways”
The postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by substantial analysis of the concrete
contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The
political sympathies of the new cultural critics, with
their ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by marginalized people, aligns
them with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial posture and talk of opposition,
their discourses on intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate them from and ignore the
conditions that have produced leftist politics--conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short,
as Clarke (1991) asserts, postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to good jobs,
food, housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the media that depict them. Merod (1987) decries this situation as one
which leaves no vision, will, or commitment to activism. He notes that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the
absence of focused collective or politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic manifestations of this problem
Di Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a historical era characterized by as little radical analysis or
activism and as much radical-chic writing as ours? Maundering on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become
a lazy academic substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities of Western racial minorities,
white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the "sine qua
non" of critical discussion is an even stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The Postmodern
Condition in which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that
threatens speech that we enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies: I can think of few more
striking indicators of the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the discursive. If the
worst terror we can envisage is the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate
contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its projection onto the rest of
the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The
realm of the discursive is derived from the requisites for
human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or symbols.(4)
Nutrition, shelter, and protection are basic human needs that require collective activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern
emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying analysis of how the discursive emerges
from material circumstances hides the complex task of envisioning and working towards
concrete social goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the
purview of the postmodernist, the situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups. Robinson
(1990) for example, argues that "the justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual" (p. 571). Lopez (1992) states
that "the starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present existential, concrete
situation" (p. 299). West (1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness" blinds us to realities of
American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986) acknowledges are
"fuzzy about power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255), most writers from marginalized groups are clear about
how discourse interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived experience. People whose lives form the material for
postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the optimism over the new recognition of their discursive subjectivities,
because such an acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical and current struggles against racism, sexism,
homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not appreciate being told they are living in a world in which there are no more real
subjects. Ideas have consequences. Emphasizing
the discursive self when a person is hungry and
homeless represents both a cultural and humane failure. The need to look beyond texts to
the perception and attainment of concrete social goals keeps writers from marginalized
groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how power works through political agendas,
institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.
Nuke war outweighs structural violence – prioritizing structural violence makes
preventing war impossible
Boulding 78 (Ken, is professor of economics and director, Center for Research on Conflict Resolution,
University of Michigan, “Future Directions in Conflict and Peace Studies,” The Journal of Conflict
Resolution, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jun., 1978), pp. 342-354)
Galtung is very legitimately interested in problems of world poverty and the failure of development of the really
poor. He tried to amalga- mate this interest with the peace research interest in the more narrow sense. Unfortunately, he did this
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by downgrading the study of inter- national peace, labeling it "negative peace" (it should really have been labeled
"negative war") and then developing the concept of "structural violence," which initially meant all those social
structures and histories which produced an expectation of life less than that of the richest and longest-lived societies. He argued by
analogy that if people died before the age, say, of 70 from avoidable causes, that this was a death in "war"' which could only be
remedied by something called "positive peace." Unfortunately, the concept of structural violence was broadened, in the word of one
slightly unfriendly critic, to include anything that Galtung did not like. Another factor in this situation was the
feeling,
problem of
nuclear war had receded into the background. This it seems to me is a most dangerous illusion and
diverted conflict and peace research for ten years or more away from problems of disarmament and stable
peace toward a grand, vague study of world developments, for which most of the peace
researchers are not particularly well qualified. To my mind, at least, the quality of the research has
suffered severely as a result.' The complex nature of the split within the peace research community is reflected in two
certainly in the 1960s and early 1970s, that nuclear deterrence was actually succeeding as deterrence and that the
international peace research organizations. The official one, the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), tends to be
dominated by Europeans somewhat to the political left, is rather, hostile to the United States and to the multinational cor- porations,
sympathetic to the New International Economic Order and thinks of itself as being interested in justice rather than in peace. The Peace
Science Society (International), which used to be called the Peace Research Society (International), is mainly the creation of Walter
Isard of the University of Pennsylvania. It conducts meetings all around the world and represents a more peace-oriented, quantitative,
science- based enterprise, without much interest in ideology. COPRED, while officially the North American representative of IPRA,
has very little active connection with it and contains within itself the same ideological split which, divides the peace research
community in general. It has, however, been able to hold together and at least promote a certain amount of interaction between the two
points of view. Again representing the "scientific" rather than the "ideological" point of view, we have SIPRI, the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, very generously (by the usual peace research stand- ards) financed by the Swedish government,
which has performed an enormously useful service in the collection and publishing of data on such things as the war industry,
technological developments, arma- ments, and the arms trade. The Institute is very largely the creation of Alva Myrdal. In spite of the
remarkable work which it has done, how- ever, her last book on disarmament (1976) is almost a cry of despair over the folly and
hypocrisy of international policies, the overwhelming power of the military, and the inability of mere information, however good, go
change the course of events as we head toward ultimate ca- tastrophe. I do not wholly share her pessimism, but it is hard not to be a
little disappointed with the results of this first generation of the peace research movement. Myrdal called attention very dramatically to
the appalling danger in which Europe stands, as the major battleground between Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union if
war ever should break out. It may perhaps be a subconscious recognition-and psychological denial-of the sword of Damocles hanging
over Europe that has made the European peace research movement retreat from the realities of the international system into what I
must unkindly describe as fantasies of justice. But the American peace research community, likewise, has retreated into a somewhat
niggling scientism, with sophisticated meth- odologies and not very many new ideas. I must confess that when I first became involved
with the peace research enterprise 25 years ago I had hopes that it might produce some- thing like the Keynesian revolution in
economics, which was the result of some rather simple ideas that had never really been thought out clearly before (though they had
been anticipated by Malthus and others), coupled with a substantial improvement in the information system with the development of
national income statistics which rein- forced this new theoretical framework. As a result, we have had in a single generation a very
massive change in what might be called the "conventional wisdom" of economic policy, and even though this conventional wisdom is
not wholly wise, there is a world of difference between Herbert Hoover and his total failure to deal with the Great Depression, simply
because of everybody's ignorance, and the moder- ately skillful handling of the depression which followed the change in oil prices in
1-974, which, compared with the period 1929 to 1932, was little more than a bad cold compared with a galloping pneumonia. In the
international system, however, there has been only glacial change in the conventional wisdom. There has been some improvement.
Kissinger was an improvement on John Foster Dulles. We have had the beginnings of detente, and at least the possibility on the
horizon of stable peace between the United States and the Soviet Union, indeed in the whole temperate zone-even though the tropics
still remain uneasy and beset with arms races, wars, and revolutions which we cannot really afford. Nor can we pretend that peace
around the temper- ate zone is stable enough so that we do not have to worry about it. The qualitative arms race goes on and could
easily take us over the cliff. The record of peace research in the last generation, therefore, is one of very partial success. It has created
a discipline and that is something of long-run consequence, most certainly for the good. It has made very little dent on the
conventional wisdom of the policy makers anywhere in the world. It has not been able to prevent an arms race, any more, I suppose
we might say, than the Keynesian economics has been able to prevent inflation. But whereas inflation is an inconvenience, the arms
race may well be another catastrophe. Where, then, do we go from here? Can we see new horizons for peace and conflict research to
get it out of the doldrums in which it has been now for almost ten years? The challenge is surely great enough. It still remains true that
war, the breakdown of Galtung's "negative peace," remains the greatest clear and present
danger to the human race, a danger to human survival far greater than poverty , or injustice,
or oppression, desirable and necessary as it is to eliminate these things. Up to the present generation,
war has been a cost and an inconven- ience to the human race, but it has rarely been fatal to the process of evolutionary development
as a whole. It has probably not absorbed more than 5% of human time, effort, and resources. Even in the twenti- eth century, with its
two world wars and innumerable smaller ones, it has probably not acounted for more than 5% of deaths, though of course a larger
proportion of premature deaths. Now, however, advancing
technology is creating a situation where in the
first place we are developing a single world system that does not have the redundancy of the
many isolated systems of the past and in which therefore if any- thing goes wrong
everything goes wrong. The Mayan civilization could collapse in 900 A.D., and collapse almost irretrievably without
Europe or China even being aware of the fact. When we had a number of iso- lated systems, the catastrophe in one was ultimately
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recoverable by migration from the surviving systems. The one-world system, therefore, which science, transportation, and
communication are rapidly giving us, is
inherently more precarious than the many-world system of the past. It is
all the more important, therefore, to make it internally robust and capable only of recoverable
catastrophes. The necessity for stable peace, therefore, increases with every improvement in
technology, either of war or of peacex
War turns structural violence not vice versa
Goldstein 2001 – IR professor at American University (Joshua, War and Gender, p. 412, Google Books)
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace. Many peace
scholars and activists
support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.” Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to
war, one can work for gender justice specifically (perhaps. among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach
brings strategic allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that injustices cause
war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs at least as strongly the other way. War is not a
product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or any other single cause, although all of these
influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war has in part fueled and sustained these and other injustices.9 So,
“if you want peace, work for peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace .
Causality does not run just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up to war. It
runs downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the military may be the most important way to “reverse
women’s oppression.” The dilemma is that peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral
grounding, yet, in light of this book’s evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be
empirically inadequate.
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A2: Ethics
Moral absolutism creates tunnel vision, bad action and irrelevant education
Isaac ‘2 (Jeffrey C. Isaac, professor of political science at Indiana-Bloomington, director of the Center for
the Study of Democracy and Public Life, PhD from Yale, Spring 2002, Dissent Magazine, Vol. 49, Iss. 2,
“Ends, Means, and Politics,” p. Proquest
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught,
an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility. The concern
may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal
flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one’s intention does not ensure the achievement of
what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally
compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence,
then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean conscience of their
supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not
simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why,
from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to religion--pacifism is always a potentially immoral
stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with
any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is
about intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most
significant. Just as the alignment with “good” may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of “good”
that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one’s
goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects of pursuing these goals
and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this
judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It promotes arrogance. And it undermines political
effectiveness.
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Answers to Authors
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A2: Campbell
Focus on national identity obscures political motives for violence- renders critique impotent
Laffey, Lecturer in International Politics U of London, 2000 p. 429-444
(Mark, “Locating Identity…” Review of International Studies 26)
These features of Campbell’s account of the social undercut his efforts to explain state action.
For example, Campbell makes strong claims about why the US and its allies intervened when Iraq invaded
Kuwait: ‘The war with Iraq revealed how orthodox international political practice is premised
upon an ethical principle—the principle of sovereignty’.88 Intervention against Iraq was made possible
because that conflict could be ‘enframed’ as nothing other than a territorial invasion and hence a violation
of sovereignty. The norm of sovereignty made intervention possible because it enabled the US and its allies
to shore up their own subjectivities and to ascribe responsibility only to Iraq, thus licensing violence against
the Other.89 Campbell’s only reference to the suggestion that US intervention was linked to oil is to
observe that the significance of oil for the US is related to past energy policy: ‘In the case of oil, the threat
of an unfriendly hegemon in the Gulf is an issue for the United States principally because it has abandoned
a national energy policy and doubled its reliance on imported oil in the past decade’.90 This raises the
question of just why the US has no such policy—although it overlooks the possibility that
lack of an official policy might in fact be the policy—as well as the origins and implications
of US dependence on ‘foreign oil.’ Campbell does not pursue such questions. Instead, he uses
the observation that the US does not have a national energy policy further to motivate his larger point that
the Self and the Other are mutually implicated and that therefore it is unethical to attribute evil only to the
Other; we are both, Self and Other, responsible. Campbell identifies a proximate condition of
intervention—representation of the situation in the Gulf as a defence of sovereignty—but fails
adequately to locate the social context of that representation. For instance, he misses the ways in
which the norm of sovereignty is reworked by other sites of social power such as a global division of
labour.91 Campbell does not trace out a genealogy of US and Western representations of oil, and of oil in
relation to the Middle East as a region, of the kind that he offers for the Iraq-Kuwait border, for example.
Instead he attributes intervention to the norm of sovereignty alone and ignores the ways in which other
social logics such as those associated with the world oil market or the ways in which the US constituted
force beyond its borders are articulated with it.92 To understand the relative significance of sovereignty
and oil for the decision to intervene against Iraq requires both a detailed reconstruction of the relations
between the security apparatus of the US state and those of client regimes such as Iran, Iraq and Saudi
Arabia, as well as a reconstruction of the world oil market and its relation to US hegemony. Regimes such
as Iran under the Shah or Iraq under Saddam Hussein laid claim to sovereignty in their region but evident in
their dealings with the US is a more complicated relation with that norm. The Shah, for example, mounted
the Peacock Throne partly as the result of a CIA-backed coup against Mossadegh.93 One reason for US
interest in the region and its repeated violation of local sovereignties was the strategic role of oil in the
world economy. It was recognition of this role that led Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 to draw ‘a rough sketch’
of the Middle East for the British ambassador Lord Halifax: ‘Persian oil,’ he told the Ambassador, ‘is
yours. We share the oil for Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it is ours’.94 Failure to explore
these other social relations, in part because of a (selective) fixation on sovereignty and the
national, leaves Campbell unable to identify the effects of representations of the Gulf War—by
US state managers and others—as a defence of the norm of sovereignty. This renders his explanation
partial and unpersuasive
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A2: Butler
Butler supports the plan
Butler, professor of rhetoric at Berkeley, 2009 p. 13
(Judith, Frames of War)
To say that a life is precarious requires not only that a life be apprehended as a life, but also that
precariousness be an aspect of what is apprehended in what is living. Normatively construed, I am arguing
that there ought to be a more inclusive and egalitarian way of recognizing precariousness,
and that this should take form as concrete social policy regarding such issues as shelter, work,
food, medical care, and legal status. And yet, I am also insisting, in a way that might seem initially
paradoxical, that precariousness itself cannot be properly recognized. It can be apprehended, taken in,
encountered, and it can be presupposed by certain norms of recognition just as it can be refused by such
nonns. Indeed, there ought to be recognition of precariousness as a shared condition of
human life (indeed, as a condition that links human and non-human animals), but we ought
not to think that the recognition of precariousness masters or captures or even fully
cognizes what it recognizes. So although I would (and will) argue that norms of recognition ought to be
based on an apprehension of precariousness, I do not think that precariousness is a function or effect of
recognition, nor that recognition is the only or the best way to register precariousness.
Concrete political institutional action good
Butler, professor of rhetoric at Berkeley, 2009 p. 23
(Judith, Frames of War)
Thus, the conclusion is not that everything that can die or is subject to destruction (i.e., all life processes)
imposes an obligation to preserve life. But an obligation does emerge from the fact that we are, as it were,
social beings from the start, dependent on what is outside ourselves, on others, on institutions, and on
sustained and sustainable environments, and so are, in this sense, precarious. To sustain life as
sustainable requires putting those conditions in place and militating for their renewal and
strengthening. Where a life stands no chance of flourishing, there one must attend to
ameliorating the negative conditions of life. Precarious life implies life as a conditioned
process, and not as the internal feature of a monadic individual or any other
anthropocentric conceit. Our obligations are precisely to the conditions that make life
possible, not to "life itself," or rather, our obligations emerge from the insight that there
can be no sustained life without those sustaining conditions} and that those conditions are
both our political responsibility and the matter of our most vexed ethical decisions.
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A2: Dillon
Rejecting the concept of security fails—better to improve its normative
valencing
Burke, senior lecturer in Intl Politics @ University of Wales, 2007 p. 16
(Anthony, “What Security Makes Possible: Some Thoughts on Critical Security Studies)
In some ways this critique-which cites writings by Michael Dillon and James DerDerian as examplesis appropriate. He might also have included in this list an m1icle published in 2000 by Costas
Constantinou.52 While in some ways he misunderstands what they are searching for (a route out of
generalised politics of alienation and fear, which make them as critical of realism as he is) it is imp0l1ant to
remind ourselves of the legitimate and almost universal concern of individuals and communities for secure
and stable lives. It is for this reason that in my own work I have often endorsed the normative arguments of
the Welsh School, Tickner, the Secure Australia Project 01' the UNDP's 1994 Human development report.
It might be possible to read Booth's comments as a critique of my argument in the introduction to In/ear
o/security, which challenges realist policy discourses for generating Orwellian practices of security that
sacrifice the security of others. I, however, am implicitly working with a contrasting human security ideal.
This, manifestly, is not a celebration of insecurity. The power of statist ontologies of security
nevel1heless led me to wonder if it might be better to speak of the human needs and
priorities named by security in their specificity: conflict prevention and resolution, human
rights, land and women's rights, the right to control one's own economic destiny, etc. My concern was, and
remains, that security's 'perversion' into a 'metaphysical canopy for the worst manifestations of liberal
modernity' has been too final and damaging. 53 We live in a world where security will continue to
remain one of the most powerful signifiers in politics, and we cannot opt out of the game of
its naming and use. It must be defined and practiced in normatively better ways, and kept
under continual scrutiny.
Dillon’s critique fails
Booth 2005
(Ken, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales–
Aberystwyth,
Critical Security Studies and World Politics, p. 270-71, footnote on 277)
Postmodern/poststructural engagement with the subject of security in international relations has
been characterized by some of the general problems of the genre, notably obscurantism, relativism, and
faux radicalism.26 What has particularly troubled critics of the postmodern sensibility has been the
latter's underlying conception of politics.27 Terry Eagleton, for one, has praised the "rich body of work" by
postmodern writers in some areas but at the same time has contested the genre's "cultural relativism and
moral conventionalism, its scepticism, pragmatism and localism, its distaste for ideas of solidarity and
disciplined organization, [and] its lack of any adequate theory of political agency."28 Eagleton made these
comments as part of a general critique of the postmodern sensibility, but I would argue that specific writing
on security in international relations from postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives has generally done
nothing to ease such concerns. Eagleton's fundamental worry was how postmodernism would "shape up" to
the test of fascism as a serious political challenge. Other writers, studying particular political contexts,
such as postapartheid South Africa, have shown similar worries; they have questioned the lack of
concrete or specific resources that such theories can add to the repertoire of reconstruction
strategies.29 Richard A. Wilson, an anthropologist interested in human rights, has generalized exactly the
same concern, namely, that the postmodernist rejection of metanarratives and universal solidarities
does not deliver a helpful politics to people in trouble. As he puts it, "Rights without a
metanarrative are like a car without seat-belts; on hitting the first moral bump with
ontological implications, the passenger's safety is jeopardised."30 The struggle within South
Africa to bring down the institutionalized racism of apartheid benefited greatly from the growing strength
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of universal human rights values (which delegitimized racism and legitimized equality) and their advocacy
by groups in different countries and cultures showing their political solidarity in material and other ways.
Anxiety about the politics of postmodernism and poststructuralism is provoked, in part, by the negative
conceptualization of security projected by their exponents. The poststructuralist approach seems to
assume that security cannot be common or positive-sum but must always be zero-sum, with
somebody's security always being at the cost of the insecurity of others. At the same time, security itself is
questioned as a desirable goal for societies because of the assumption of poststructuralist writers that
the search for security is necessarily conservative and will result in negative consequences for somebody.
They tend also to celebrate insecurity, which I regard as a middle-class affront to the truly
insecure.31
Cut to footnote on page 277—
31. Examples of the approach are Dillon, The Politics of Security; and Der Derian, “The Value of
Security,” in Lipschutz (ed.), On Security.
In the shadow of such views, it is not surprising that the postmodern/poststructuralist genre is sometimes
seen as having affinities with realism. Political realists and poststructuralists seem to share a
fatalistic view that humans are doomed to insecurity; regard the search for emancipation as both
futile and dangerous; believe in a notion of the human condition; and relativize norms. Both leave power
where it is in the world: deconstruction and deterrence are equally static theories.
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A2: Kappeler
Turn—Kappeler’s critique crushes individual agency
Gelber 95 [Kath Gelber, Lecturer in Australian Politics and Human Rights at the University of New
South Wales, 1995, “The Will To Oversimplify,” Green Left Weekly, Issue 198, August 16, Available
Online at http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1995/198/198p26b.htm]
The Will to Violence presents a powerful and one-sided critique of the forces which enable violence
between individuals to occur. Violence between individuals is taken in this context to mean all forms of
violence, from personal experiences of assault to war. Kappeler's thesis is that violence in all these cases is caused in the
final instance by one overriding factor -- the individual choice to commit a violent act. Of course, in one sense that is true.
Acknowledging alternative models of human behaviour and analyses of the social causes of violence,
Kappeler dismisses these as outside her subject matter and exhorts her readers not to ignore the “agent's
decision to act as he [sic] did”, but to explore “the personal decision in favour of violence”. Having
established this framework, she goes on to explore various aspects of personal decisions to commit
violence. Ensuing chapters cover topics such as love of the “other”, psychotherapy, ego-philosophy and the
legitimation of dominance. However, it is the introduction which is most interesting. Already on the third
page, Kappeler is dismissive of social or structural analyses of the multiple causes of alienation, violence and war. She
dismisses such analyses for their inability to deal with the personal decision to commit violence. For example, “some left
groups have tried to explain men's sexual violence as the result of class oppression, while some Black
theoreticians have explained the violence of Black men as a result of racist oppression”. She continues,
“The ostensible aim of these arguments may be to draw attention to the pervasive and structural violence of
classism and racism, yet they not only fail to combat such inequality, they actively contribute to it” [my
emphasis]. Kappeler goes on to argue that, “although such oppression is a very real part of an agent's life
context, these `explanations' ignore the fact that not everyone experiencing the same oppression uses
violence”, i.e. the perpetrator has decided to violate. Kappeler's aim of course was to establish a framework
for her particular project: a focus on the individual and the psychological to “find” a cause for violence.
However, her rejection of alternative analyses not only as of little use, but as actively contributing to the problem, frames her own
thesis extremely narrowly. Her argument suffers from both her inability, or unwillingness, to discuss the bigger picture and a wilful
distortion of what she sees as her opponents' views. The result is less than satisfactory. Kappeler's book reads more as a passionate
plea than a coherent argument. Her overwhelming focus on the individual, rather than providing a means with which to combat
violence, in the end leaves the reader feeling disempowered. After all, there must be huge numbers of screwed up and vengeful
people in the world to have chosen to litter history with war, environmental destruction and rape . Where do we go from here? Those
lucky enough to have read Kappeler's book are supposed to “decide not to use violence ourselves”. A worthy endeavour, but hardly
sufficient to change the world.
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Answers to Versions of the K
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A2: Resource K
A lack of resources can affect a community’s ecology and ideology
Hitztaler 04 Stephanie Hitztaler, The Relationship between Resources and Human
Migration Patterns in Central Kamchatka during the Post-Soviet Period Population
and Environment , Vol. 25, No. 4, Unforeseen Consequences of Policy Decisions
(Mar., 2004), pp. 355-375
When the resources in an area are vast, and individuals are able to gather plentiful amounts, we should see in-migration to
this area. When resources become limited, the converse should be true. Economic conditions are closely tied to the
state of the resource base. Because both economic and ecological resources are mandatory for family formation (for
instance, marriage and reproduction), l make the following predictions: An outflow of people from all of the villages in my
study site during the post-Soviet period should be observed as a consequence of the countrywide socio-economic crisis that has
acutely affected rural dwellers in Russia's peripheral regions. Likewise, a decrease in the number of in-migrants should be
recorded. Against the general backdrop of growing out-migration and shrinking in-migration numbers in the central
Kamchatka River valley, I expect to find distinct variation in migration patterns among the populations in my study site.
This variation stems from each village or region's differing socio-economic conditions and future
prospects, which are influenced both by ecological and historical factors. Specifically out-migration rates
should be higher and in-migration rates lower in villages dependent wholly on logging activities. Moreover, overall higher outmigration and lower in-migration numbers should characterize recently founded, and thus less well-established, villages.
Following the collapse of collectivized reindeer herding in the early 1990s, many indigenous peoples lost the last vestiges of
their nomadic way of life; therefore, indigenous in-migration to the villages of Esso and Anavgai should increase during the
post-Soviet period.
Resource imbalance causes a socioeconomic and violent outbreak
Tamas 03 Pal Tamas, Water Resource Scarcity and Conflict: Review of Applicable Indicators and Systems of Reference,
SC 2003
The abundance or scarcity of resources decides the direction a society will take in development .
Imbalances, not only of scarcity but of abundance, may distort environmental and socioeconomic policies,
leading to social friction, though newer approaches to social problems do not see scarcity as leading necessarily to
conflict. Problems may be mitigated by factors such as leadership and social capital, but it is not easy to identify the factors
which lead to a spiral of degradation. Other studies indicate how conflict may arise through the efforts of elites to
capture scarce resources, or through the debilitating effect on innovation that scarcity entails. Countries heavily
dependent on exports of primary commodities are more liable to conflict. The “honey pot” of
abundant resources may be a focus for greed that determines civil conflict.
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A2: Disease K
Disease threats real and cataclysmic
Peterson 02’ (Susan, Associates Professor at The College of William & Mary, Department of
Government; “Epidemic Disease and National Security” Pg. 20)
How might these political and economic effects produce violent conflict? Price-Smith offers two
possible answers: Disease .magnif[ies].both relative and absolute deprivation and hasten[s] the
erosion of state capacity in seriously affected societies. Thus, infectious disease may in fact contribute
to societal destabilization and to chronic low-intensity intrastate violence, and in
extreme cases it may accelerate the processes that lead to state failure ..83 Disease heightens
competition among social groups and elites for scarce resources . When the debilitating and
deadly effects of IDs like AIDS are concentrated among a particular socio-economic, ethnic,
racial, or geographic group, the potential for conflict escalates. In many parts of Africa today, AIDS
strikes rural areas at higher rates than urban areas, or it hits certain provinces harder than others. If these
trends persist in states where tribes or ethnic groups are heavily concentrated in particular regions or in rural
rather than urban areas, AIDS almost certainly will interact with tribal, ethnic, or national differences and
make political and military conflict more likely. Price-Smith argues, moreover, that .the potential for
intra-elite violence is also increasingly probable and may carry grave political
consequences, such as coups, the collapse of governance, and planned genocides .
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The plan is the realization of the alternative – the realist criticism of regime change is the necessary
outcome of a critique of security constructions – only the perm solves
Lott ‘4 [Anthony, Assistant Professor of Political Science @ St. Olaf College. Creating Insecurity. p. 1556]
Toward a Balanced Critique of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq
We are left with a need to bring both sides of the security calculus together. Realists offer a critique of state
policy that demonstrates that a deeper understanding of material security would warn against a policy of
war. Political constructivists offer a reading of ideational insecurity that demonstrates how the state comes
to perceive itself as insecure in the first place. In keeping with the focus of this book, both readings are
necessary if a comprehensive analysis of state security concerns is to be written.
The 'cautious paranoia' present in realist interpretations of world politics highlights the negative
consequences of policy options being considered. In the case of war with Iraq, the stated policy of
demanding regime change/removing the threat of WMD is viewed by realists as both unnecessary and
potential dangerous. Employing traditional techniques like rational actor logic and an assessment of
capabilities, realists compel the state to recognize that absolute security can never be guaranteed. Security
is always a relative concept and the state must seek the mitigation of specific insecurities rather than their
transcendence. This is why containment and deterrence play a central role in realist thought. And, it is not
surprising that realists would return to these ideas in an assessment of the Iraqi threat. Mearsheimer and
Walt as well as Betts challenge the state to recognize these points. Arriving at a similar understanding of
'threat', realists are in a good position to explain how insecurities might be rectified. Yet, these writers are
at a loss to explain why the state has come to view Iraq as a threat. Indeed, a common theme of
bewilderment seems to run through realist analyses of the war on Iraq. This inability to explain why the
state would seek war without a compelling strategic rationale might best be explained by recourse to a
political constructivist interpretation. Eschewing a material understanding of security, it is possible to
locate hidden sources of insecurity in the cultural milieu. Developments in world politics throughout the
1990s suggested that a dominant American view as Cold War victor, sole superpower, and moral/political
leader was beginning to take hold in the cultural domain. As policy makers, on both the center and the
right, internalized this image of the United States, imperial identities became transfixed. In the aftermath of
the terrorist attacks and the subsequent neo-conservative revival in the Bush Administration, this imperial
identity took on a more instrumental understanding of power. No longer would the United States be limited
by the concerns of international society. Wars of preemption could an d should replace policies that would
not seek transcendence of threat. If this interpretation of U.S. policy makers' identities is correct, it
demonstrates how a material threat as minimal as Saddam Hussein could become a growing and imminent
threat in the eyes of the state. For the political constructivist, a strategic rationale need not be present in the
minds of state policy makers in order for a strategic threat to be real. The process of securitization plays
equally well with ideational moments of insecurity as it does with material moments. But, the approach
taken by political constructivists does not end merely with the analysis of insecurity. The critique is
highly political and meant as a form of security mitigation in its own right. By pointing to the identities of
key actors and how these identities are implicated in the construction of insecurity, the securitizing effect is
questioned. Once the state interpretation is suspected of being incapable of offering enhanced security, the
realist interpretation re-emerges. By recognizing both realist and political constructivist critiques as
necessary for an analysis of U.S. policy toward Iraq, this chapter offers a balanced challenge to the
rationale(s) offered by the state. It highlights the need to recognize both a negative and a positive vision of
international politics. Much like the applications above that challenge the state on matters like unilateral
BMD development, the drug war, and globalization, this issue requires the analyst to incorporate a varied
perspective on security into a broader, more comprehensive critique.
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rhetorical device of realism is critical to influence states and policymakers and conceptualize
material dangers while resisting constructions of inevitability. The alternative undermines policyrelevant conclusions capable of confronting real dangers. Only the perm solvesLott ‘4 [Anthony, Assistant Professor of Political Science @ St. Olaf College. Creating Insecurity. p. 156161]
This project has endeavored to bring together two seemingly contradictory approaches to the study of security. To date, the discipline has yet to provide a
Because the study of
security bridges the divide between theory and policy, it is imperative that a concept of security emerge that
is both philosophically coherent and policy relevant. The multiple sources of insecurity that influence the behavior of
states require analysis if more pacific (and secure) relations are to be had. Both realism and political constructivism offer
comprehensive analysis of the multiple sources of insecurity that confronts states and a means to overcome them.
necessary but incomplete understandings of these sources of insecurity. When realism and political constructivism are treated as more or less complete
approaches to the study of security, the conclusions reached and policies offered are potentially harmful to the state and its citizens. Security, like
Janus himself, is two-faced. When Romans placed Janus on the faces of their coins, they reminded each other of the need to cautiously look in all
directions before acting. Security theorists must learn to do the same before undertaking an analysis of state policy. Both a material and an ideational
consideration of the sources of insecurity are required if a state is to succeed in formulating appropriate national security strategies. While realism
necessarily demonstrates the potential dangers that could befall a state in anarchy, it cannot be considered a complete rendition of international relations.
Realism provides a study of security with a proper understanding of the material threats that influence state
behavior. Their studies are rich in detail, offering the state an appropriate theoretical lens through which to
view threats and assess capabilities. But, realism is unable to account for the ideational sources of insecurity that also threaten the state. If
realism is treated as a comprehensive approach to security management, the state can only achieve a sub-optimal level of security. In order for the
precepts and principles of realism to be useful to policy makers and security analysts, realism
must be conceptualized a valuable
rhetorical tool to influence the policy maker. In this way, realists are the 'cautious paranoids' at the
security table. Re-conceptualizing realism as a rhetorical device –what Donnelly has termed an 'orienting set of
insights' or a 'philosophical orientation' – it emerges as a negative disposition requiring the attention of the policy
maker. Its principles become warnings and cautionary tales to be considered in the construction and
evaluation of national security policies. Moreover, because these warnings and cautionary tales develop out of a brought theoretical
discourse, they are grounded in a sophisticated logical argument. Unlike the state assessment of material threats , realists do not sell or hype
their negative vision of material threats. In this work, it has been necessary to place realism within a broader
constructivist epistemology in order to understand how it serves to challenge state policy at one end of the
international relations spectrum. The governing laws common to previous studies grounded in positivism become strategic constraints
within the pages above. As well, 'the need for caution...' no longer becomes `confused with the invariance or
inevitability of that which demands caution.'2 Most importantly, realism comes to be seen as part of a
larger security critique. Similarly, studies employing political constructivism cannot be considered complete
renditions of national security issues. Their emphasis on identity and culture, and their alternative forms of analysis, provide a necessary
understanding of ideational threats and an emancipatory moment for changing state securitization. However, these reflexive critiques do not
demonstrate an understanding of the role that material threats play in national security matters or the
negative consequences of ignoring those material threats. Their alternative analytic focus often rejects
the traditional state 'security dilemma' and its corresponding policy needs . The consistent deconstruction of
identity performances and cultural givens may provide an opportunity for the emergence of a more democratic ethos,
but the state is often marginalized in the process. Such an occurrence does not fulfill the requirements of a security framework that
seeks theoretical rigor and policy relevance. It is a necessary (but insufficient) component of a more comprehensive understanding of security. The
potentially positive political vision that emerges from political constructivism balances the negative vision
provided by realism and suggests an opportunity to overcome culturally constructed threats. These
rhetorical approaches become complementary tools in the analysis of security rather than
contradictory paradigms. Each approach offers a partial understanding of insecurity. At each instance, the other approach is necessary in
order to balance the security analysis being offered. In this way, the discipline of Security Studies is offered a more comprehensive means to
understanding this `essentially contested concept.'' Previous
approaches, whether realist or constructivist, have placed
ontological and epistemological barriers on the concept of security. Seeking to remain relevant to the policy community,
realists espousing a materialist ontology and state-centric bias reduced threats to existential dangers accessible to an empiricist epistemology. In response,
constructivists challenged realism by deconstructing academic texts and policy statements to uncover hidden discourses and expose traditional efforts as
discursively constituted and ultimately malleable. If realism demonstrated the importance of power in the national security calculus, constructivists
demonstrated its 'necessary' (re)production by actors involved in multiple speech-acts. If realists argued that a specific (material) condition – tanks,
bombs, hostile protests, etc. – was an existential threat, constructivists claimed an a priori establishment of these physical 'things' in security terms. The
A schism in the field separated those pursuing a traditional (state-centric
and policy relevant) approach from those pursuing an investigative critique .' Realists could claim to participate in the 'real
world' while constructivists could claim to be intellectually and morally distinguished. But, what has been the cost to the field of Security
Studies and the policies of the state? Ultimately, an investigation of the sources of insecurity must attempt to manage
the crises of human existence. Security is a necessary component to the construction of the good life. In an
international environment largely defined by the presence of states, security policies must be
result for the study of security was compelling.
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understandable to those states. Policies must be designed that manage the security needs of all the relevant
states in the system. This is not a new challenge. It returns the discussion of security to the works of earlier realists. Balancing the negative vision
of realism with something positive engaged Carr, Herz, and others. In this
[contines w/o omission…]
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General Offense
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Security Good - War
Establishing a friend-enemy distinction is the only way to avoid the worst outcomes
of war—the alternative results in massive violence.
Axtmann 7 (Roland, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Wales,
“Humanity or Enmity? Carl Schmitt on International Politics,” International Politics, 44(5), AD: 7-10-9)
BL
The reason why 'humanity' is not a 'political' concept for Schmitt will now be clear. Conceptually,
'the political' is defined by the distinction of friend and enemy; the 'political' character of an
association presupposes the real existence of an enemy and hence, of necessity, the coexistence
of another political entity. The political world is thus a pluriverse, not a universe: 'A world state
which embraces the entire globe and all of humanity cannot exist' (Concept, 1932, 53). The concept
of humanity, furthermore, excludes the concept of the enemy yet, the 'enemy' does not cease to be a
human being. Without this specific differentiation, 'humanity' cannot acquire 'political' qualities.
After all, 'humanity as such cannot wage war because it has no enemy' (Concept, 1932, 54). The
'political' nature of Schmitt's definition of 'the political' is apparent: the 'other' is 'liberalism'. He
charged liberalism with evading or ignoring state and politics in a very systematic fashion,
endeavouring to tie the political to the ethical and subjugating it to economics. For liberalism, to
whom the individual must remain terminus a quo and terminus ad quem , the demand by the
political entity that in case of need the individual must sacrifice his (or her) life is unconscionable:
the individual as such has no enemy with whom he (or she) must enter into a life-and-death combat
if he (or she) does not want to do so. What we therefore find in liberal thought, Schmitt asserted, is
an entire system of demilitarized and depoliticalized concepts. For example, 'political' combat and
battle becomes competition in the domain of economics and discussion in the intellectual
realm. The liberal denial of 'the political' manifests itself in the international realm in the ideological conception of
'humanity' (Concept, 1932, 70-72). 5 'Ius Belli' and the Juridification of International Politics Schmitt situated his critique of
the idea of 'just war' and its resurgence in the early 20th century within both a historical and systematic context. The
resurgence of the 'just war' notion signified for him the end of the period of the ius publicum Europaeum . Since the 16th
century, this new ius inter gentes had gradually replaced the medieval ius gentium of Latin Christendom as a result of a
spatial revolution that came about through the formation of sovereign territorial states in Europe and the colonial conquests of
the European powers (Nomos, 1950, Part III). From Hobbes to Kant, the theorists of this new European public law conceived
of states as 'moral persons' who among each other live in the state of nature with each of them possessing the ius belli and
without an institutional common supreme authority, a common legislator or common judge, but as sovereign entities which
face each others as equals. This sovereign equality is the core of the 'fundamental rights' that states
possess, an equal right of all states to self-determination, a right to existence and thus both a right
to self-defence against attackers and a right to territorial integrity as well as a right of liberium
commercium (Nomos, 1950, Part III, chapter 1; Repetitorium, 1948/50, 728-730). This ius inter
gentes recognizes that the ius supremae decisionis regarding war lies with the independent states.
They decide by and for themselves whether to conduct war and whether to remain neutral as a 'third
party' in wars fought between other states. According to Schmitt, war in this legal order has its
justice in the fact that the combatants are states which exercise their rights as sovereign
political entities. When they fight each other, they view each other as 'just enemies' ( iusti
hostes ), not as perpetrators of crimes 'against humanity' or 'outlaws' who must be destroyed
(Neutralisierungen, 1939, 324). Wars needed no longer to be justified through iusta causa arguments
as part of the (medieval) 'just war' tradition; but enemies had to be treated justly and as equals.
Schmitt asserts that conceptualizing the friend-enemy distinction without any recourse to
ethical theories of 'just war' was the prerequisite for the bracketing, and thus 'civilizing', of
war. This ius publicum Europaeum was in the process of being dismantled, and with it its
'civilizational' advances (Nomos, 1950, Part IV). The rhetoric of 'humanity', particularly when
deployed in connection with the notion of 'just war', tends to define the 'other' as an enemy of
humankind and as such 'evil', against whom the use of violence is ultimately 'just'. The moral
evaluations of combatants result in distinguishing between violent actions that are deemed to be
criminal and inhumane in some instances, whereas in other instances they are seen as expressions of
legality and legitimate punishment meted out in an international 'police action'. According to
Schmitt, this discriminatory concept of war leads, of necessity, to the destruction of the
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institution of neutrality. It is held that a state cannot be 'friendly' to a state which is condemned as
a disturber of the peace and at the same time have 'friendly' relations with the state which pursues
military sanctions against that disturber in the name of world peace and humanity
(Wendung/Kriegsbegriff, 1937/38). The 'peace-restoring' state then has a legitimate claim to demand
an answer to the question: 'Are you with us or are you against us?'. Because 'just war' arguments
delegitimize neutrality, they result, according to Schmitt, in 'total war' (Vae Neutris, 1938;
Neutralisierungen, 1939, 323-331; Neutralität, 1938; Totaler Feind, 1937).
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Scenario Planning Good
Turn: Our scenario evaluations are crucial for responsible politics. Pure critique of security practice
is insufficient – we need to evaluate “as if” outcomes like the plan to realize ethical counter-practices
Michael Williams, '5 [Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Wales. The Realist
Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 165-7]
Moreover, the links between sceptical realism and prevalent postmodern themes go more deeply
than this, particularly as they apply to attempts by post-structural thinking to reopen questions of
responsibility and ethics.80 In part, the goals of post-structural approaches can be usefully
characterised, to borrow Stephen White's illuminating contrast, as expressions of 'responsibility to
otherness' which question and challenge modernist equations of responsibility with a 'responsibility
to act'. A responsibility to otherness seeks to reveal and open the constitutive processes and claims
of subjects and subjectivities that a foundational modernism has effaced in its narrow identification
of responsibility with a 'responsibility to act'.81 Deconstruction can from this perspective be seen
as a principled stance unwilling to succumb to modernist essentialism which in the name of
responsibility assumes and reifies subjects and structures, obscures forms of power and violence
which are constitutive of them, and at the same time forecloses a consideration of alternative
possibilities and practices. Yet it is my claim that the wilful Realist tradition does not lack an
understanding of the contingency of practice or a vision of responsibility to otherness. On the
contrary, its strategy of objectification is precisely an attempt to bring together a responsibility to
otherness and a responsibility to act within a wilfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of
objectivity and calculation is not just a consequence of a need to act —the framing of an epistemic
context for successful calculation. It is a form of responsibility to otherness, an attempt to allow for
diversity and irreconcilability precisely by — at least initially — reducing the self and the other to a
structure of material calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility, mediation, and
stability. It is, in short, a strategy of limitation: a wilful attempt to construct a subject and a social
world limited — both epistemically and politically — in the name of a politics of toleration: a
liberal strategy that John Gray has recently characterised as one of modus vivendi.82 If this is the
case, then the deconstructive move that gains some of its weight by contrasting itself to a non- or
apolitical objectivism must engage with the more complex contrast to a sceptical Realist tradition
that is itself a constructed, ethical practice. This issue becomes even more acute if one considers
Iver Neumann's incisive questions concerning postmodern constructions of identity, action, and
responsibility.83 As Neumann points out, the insight that identities are inescapably contingent and
relationally constructed, and even the claim that identities are inescapably indebted to otherness,
do not in themselves provide a foundation for practice, particularly in situations where
identities are 'sedimented' and conflictually defined. In these cases, deconstruction alone will
not suffice unless it can demonstrate a capacity to counter in practice (and not just in philosophic
practice) the essentialist dynamics it confronts.84 Here, a responsibility to act must go beyond
deconstruction to consider viable alternatives and counter-practices. To take this critique seriously
is not necessarily to be subject yet again to the straightforward 'blackmail of-the Enlightenment'
and a narrow 'modernist' vision of responsibility.85 While an unwillingness to move beyond a
deconstructive ethic of responsibility to otherness for fear that an essentialist stance is the only (or
most likely) alternative expresses a legitimate concern, it should not license a retreat from such
questions or their practical demands. Rather, such situations demand also an evaluation of the
structures (of identity and institutions) that might viably be mobilised in order to offset the
worst implications of violently exclusionary identities. It requires, as Neumann nicely puts it, the
generation of compelling 'as if' stories around which counter-subjectivities and political practices
can coalesce. Wilful Realism, I submit, arises out of an appreciation of these issues, and comprises an
attempt to craft precisely such 'stories' within a broader intellectual and sociological analysis of
their conditions of production, possibilities of success, and likely consequences. The question is,
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to what extent are these limits capable of success, and to what extent might they be limits upon
their own aspirations toward responsibility? These are crucial questions, but they will not be
addressed by retreating yet again into further reversals of the same old dichotomies.
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Threats Real
Threats Real
Buzan 06 (Barry Buzan/ 2-11-06/Will the ‘global war on terrorism’
be the new Cold War? Professor of International Relations
at the London School of Economics and honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen and Jilin University
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2006/82_61101-18.pdf)
Immediately following 9/11 NATO invoked article 5 for the first time, thereby helping to legitimize the GWoT securitization.
Since then leaders in most western countries, but also, conspicuously, in Russia, China and India, have
associated themselves and their governments with the view that international terrorism is a
common threat. In the case of Russia, China, Israel and India, the move has been to link
their own local problems with ‘terrorism’ to the wider GWoT framing. Part of the GWoT’s relative
success can be attributed to the way in which it has tied together several longstanding
security concerns arising within the liberal order, most notably crime and the trades in drugs and
the technologies for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Within the frame of the liberal international
economic order (LIEO), it is well understood that while opening state borders to flows of trade, finance, information and (skilled)
people is generally to be promoted, such opening also has its dark side in which illiberal actors, mainly criminals and terrorists, can
take advantage of liberal openness in pursuit of illiberal ends. The problem is that the liberal structures that facilitate business activity
cannot help but open pathways for uncivil society actors as well. Concern
drugs trade) has—at least within
about criminal activity (particularly the
the United States—been framed in security terms (the ‘war on drugs’) for
some decades. And concern about trade in WMD is institutionalized in the nuclear non-proliferation regime as well as in
conventions about chemical and biological weapons technology. The securitizing moves supporting the GWoT
have linked all of these issues. Within the United States, the link between terrorism and drugs seeks to graft a newer securitization on
to an older one The link predates 2001, and its essence is the charge that terrorists
Dogmatic realism leads us to universal truth- security threats exist.
Kwan and Tsang 1 (Kai-Man, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist
University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, Eric W. School of Business Administration, Wayne State
University, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A, December, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 12 (Dec.,
2001), pp. 1163-1168, “Realism and Constructivism in Strategy Research: A Critical Realist Response to
Mir and Watson”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3094469.pdf) CH
The problem with Mir and Watson here is again their failure to distinguish different kinds of realism. It is important to distinguish a dogmatic realist from a critical realist. Both believe that
theories can be true or false, and rigorous scientific research can move us progressively
towards a true account of phenomena. Dogmatic realists further believe that current theories
correspond (almost) exactly to reality, and hence there is not much room for error or critical
scrutiny. This attitude is inspired by (but does not strictly follow from) a primitive version of
positivism which believes in indubitable observations as raw data and that an infallible
scientific method can safely lead us from these data to universal laws. In contrast, critical realists,
though believing in the possibility of progress towards a true account of phenomena, would not take such progress for
granted. Exactly because they believe that reality exists independently of our minds, our theories, observations and methods
are all fallible. Critical realists also insist that verification and falsification are never conclusive, especially in social sciences.
So critical testing of theories and alleged universal laws need to be carried out continuously. A more detailed description of
critical realism, which is now a growing movement transforming the intellectual scene.
History proves that ignoring threats will lead to horrors like Nazi rule during WWII
– we have to recognize that threats are real or they will spiral out of control
Mitchell 6 (Larry, 9-11-6, Is terror threat like WWII?, The Chicagoer,
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_4314873) LE
"Remember Pearl Harbor!" "Remember Sept. 11!" Today, the status of the second saying isn't
quite so clear, even though the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, remains imprinted on everyone's mind.
Some people, including, apparently, Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico, seem to equate these two days of
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infamy, Dec. 7 and Sept. 11. Meeting with some constituents in Chico recently to discuss American
foreign policy, Herger said terrorism is a huge threat to America that must be met square-on. He
compared America's situation today to what western democracies faced when Hitler came to
power. "Peace-loving people have tried to turn the other cheek, and people like Adolph Hitler
and Japan have taken advantage of it," the congressman said. Herger was hardly alone in
framing the situation like this. About the same time the 2nd District congressman made these
remarks, in late July and early August, Sen. Joe Lieberman and columnists Thomas Sowell and
Morton Kondracke all likened the threat of terrorism today to that posed by Nazism in the 1940s.
Kondracke carried the analogy furthest in one of his columns, which ran in the Enterprise-Record
under the headline "Civilized world is losing 21st century war to jihadists." Kondracke wrote that
Germany and Japan were allowed to overrun Europe and much of Asia before the rest of the
world finally fought back in a war of unimaginable costs. Now, radical Islamists pose a similar
threat, and with the presence of nuclear weapons, the stakes are enormous. He claimed, further,
that Americans and Europeans seem to lack the will to counter the menace. Arguing today's world
situation is like that before World War II may be convincing, but is it accurate?
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Threats = Real – Leaders’ Statements
Threats are real – Ahmadinejad is an example with his threats to “wipe Israel off
the map”
Robert Berger 6-13-9 (“Election Results Raise Threats”, The voice of America,
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-13-voa17.cfm)
Israel is concerned about the re-election of hardline Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, saying it will increase regional tensions and instability. Israel's Deputy Foreign
Minister Danny Ayalon issued a statement saying the election results show that Iran will continue
its quest for nuclear weapons. He said that if there was "any shred of hope for change in
Iran," the election demonstrates the increasing Iranian threat. Ayalon urged the international
community to take tougher action to stop Iran's nuclear program and said there should be no
dialogue with the Islamic Republic. That seemed to be a clear reference to U.S. President Barack
Obama's plan to open talks with Iran. Israeli analyst Dore Gold says so far, Iran has used
negotiations with the West to buy more time to build the atom bomb. "When push comes to
shove the Iranians know that they can complete their program and the West is not likely to do
anything about it," said Gold. "And in the meantime, the Iranian program is going full steam
ahead." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe the Jewish state
"off the map," so his re-election increases the likelihood of an Israeli pre-emptive strike on
Iran's nuclear facilities. "Israel cannot allow Iran to acquire an operational nuclear capability, and
I think Israeli leaders have made that point repeatedly," said Gold. Israel says time is running out.
Military intelligence says Iran could acquire the materials and technology to make a nuclear
bomb by the end of the year. While the United States and Israel believe Iran is developing
nuclear weapons, Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and is
aimed at generating electricity for the people of Iran. He has insisted that nothing will stop Iran's
nuclear research.
State leader sources prove threats are real, not artificially constructed – Kim Jung Il
proves
Kirk 9 (Donald, “NK ratchets up nuclear defiance”, 6-14-9,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0614/p06s08-woap.html)
North Korea has responded with defiance to the United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning its May 25 nuclear test, declaring as "absolutely impossible" any chance of giving
up its nuclear program and accusing the United States of maintaining a nuclear arsenal
"completely within range" of its own borders. In the latest rhetoric from Pyongyang, the state-run
newspaper Tongil Sinbo forecast a nuclear arms race in the region, saying "the Korean
peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of nuclear war are the highest in the world."
That statement reflects North Korea's view that US nuclear weapons bases in Japan or in the
Western Pacific pose a threat, even if the US withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from South
Korea around 1990, as the US has claimed. Against that background, North Korea says it's
stepping up its own nuclear program and will respond militarily to any attempts to stop any of
its ships suspected of carrying nuclear components or the missiles for firing them to distant targets.
On Sunday, one day after North Korea vowed to weaponize more spent plutonium rods and
enrich uranium to produce nuclear weapons, the country's ailing leader, Kim Jong Il, expressed
"great satisfaction" after inspecting a division of infantry troops, finding them ready for
"combat ability in every way," the state-run North Korean Central News Agency reported. The
North's fresh defiance presents a growing challenge for President Obama as he prepares for
talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. "We cannot question the seriousness
of the situation," says Paik Hak Soon, senior researcher on North Korea at South Korea's Sejong
Institute. "The UNSC resolution was all-out confrontation, and North Korea is countering in its
own way." Mr. Paik says he has no doubt that North Korea is preparing for its third nuclear test
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while advancing its uranium enrichment program. "There is no stopping North Korea's
actions," he says.
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Threats = Real – Leaders’ Statements
Actions and direct statements from other states mean that threats are not simply
constructed – Chavez proves
Stakelbeck 5 (Frederick, 2-20-5, Chavez’s Threat to US Security, Global Politian,
http://www.globalpolitician.com/2350-chavez-venezuela) LE
In January, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress's investigative arm, was
assigned the task of investigating the risk of losing Venezuela's oil imports at the request of Senator
Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. "We must make sure that all
contingencies are in place to mitigate the effects of a significant shortfall of Venezuelan oil
production, as this could have serious consequences for our nation's security and for U.S.
consumers," said Lugar. Statements made by Chavez praising Fidel Castro's leftist, political-social
ideology have been extremely disquieting to Washington, given Castro's history as an American
agitator. "Fidel [Castro] for me is a father, a companion, a master of the perfect strategy,"
Chavez has stated. Some experts have speculated that Castro is grooming Chavez to be his
heir apparent -- an assertion Chavez has yet to deny. Even more troubling, Miami's El Nuevo
Herald reported in January that Cuban judicial and security forces have in Caracas wielding unusual
inter-country police powers which allow them to abduct Venezuelan and Cuban citizens and
transport them to Cuba without an extradition hearing. "Cubans are running Venezuelan
intelligence services, indoctrinating and training the military, and now this. Whoever heard of
one country allowing another country to have police powers?" said Otto Reich, the former
ambassador to Venezuela under President Ronald Reagan. As a self-proclaimed "revolutionary"
and darling of the anti-imperialist movement, Chavez's claim that he is an innocent victim of
U.S. aggression and unilateralism may resonate in some global circles, but in reality, it is simply an
ill-timed and unfortunate attempt to gain domestic significance. By portraying the U.S. as an enemy
of the Venezuelan people, Chavez is playing the centuries-old "victim" game used by past
dictators to maintain power. His desperate cries concerning the "bully to the north" and an
"imminent U.S. invasion" point to a government in turmoil. The real reason for Chavez's
desperation lies not in the encroachment of Venezuelan sovereignty by the U.S.; rather, it rests
entirely upon a multitude of unfulfilled promises Chavez has made to the Venezuelan people over
the course of the past six years and a growing impatience with his brash style of governing. Latin
American leaders such as Columbia's President, Alvaro Uribe, a strong U.S. ally in the war on
terror, are no longer willing to dismiss his inflammatory comments as instances of trivial mockery.
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Threat Construction Good
Identifying and preparing for threats is a security requirement of the first order –
the alternative is surprise threats and escalation of conflict.
Charles F. Doran, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University,
1999 (“Is major war obsolete? An exchange,” Survival, Volume 41, Issue 2, Summer, Available Online
via Proquest)
The conclusion, then, is that the probability of major war declines for some states, but increases
for others. And it is very difficult to argue that it has disappeared in any significant or reliable or
hopeful sense. Moreover, a problem with arguing a position that might be described as utopian is
that such arguments have policy implications. It is worrying that as a thesis about the
obsolescence of major war becomes more compelling to more people, including presumably
governments, the tendency will be to forget about the underlying problem, which is not war per
se, but security. And by neglecting the underlying problem of security, the probability of war
perversely increases: as governments fail to provide the kind of defence and security necessary
to maintain deterrence, one opens up the possibility of new challenges. In this regard it is worth
recalling one of Clauswitz's most important insights: A conqueror is always a lover of peace. He
would like to make his entry into our state unopposed. That is the underlying dilemma when one
argues that a major war is not likely to occur and, as a consequence, one need not necessarily be
so concerned about providing the defences that underlie security itself. History shows that
surprise threats emerge and rapid destabilising efforts are made to try to provide that missing
defence, and all of this contributes to the spiral of uncertainty that leads in the end to war.
Threat con isn’t a link—the alternative results in war.
Liotta 5—Prof of Humanities at Salve Regina University, Professor of Humanities at Salve Regina
University, Newport, RI, and Executive Director of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public
Policy [P. H. “Through the Looking Glass” Sage Publications]
Although it seems attractive to focus on exclusionary concepts that insist on desecuritization, privileged
referent objects, and the ‘belief’ that threats and vulnerabilities are little more than social constructions (Grayson,
2003), all these concepts work in theory but fail in practice. While it may be true that national security
paradigms can, and likely will, continue to dominate issues that involve human security vulnerabilities –
and even in some instances mistakenly confuse ‘vulnerabilities’ as ‘threats’ – there are distinct linkages
between these security concepts and applications. With regard to environmental security, for example,
Myers (1986: 251) recognized these linkages nearly two decades ago: National security is not just about
fighting forces and weaponry. It relates to watersheds, croplands, forests, genetic resources, climate and
other factors that rarely figure in the minds of military experts and political leaders, but increasingly
deserve, in their collectivity, to rank alongside military approaches as crucial in a nation’s security.
Ultimately, we are far from what O’Hanlon & Singer (2004) term a global intervention capability on behalf
of ‘humanitarian transformation’. Granted, we now have the threat of mass casualty terrorism anytime,
anywhere – and states and regions are responding differently to this challenge. Yet, the global community
today also faces many of the same problems of the 1990s: civil wars, faltering states, humanitarian crises. We are
nowhere closer toaddressing how best to solve these challenges, even as they affect issues of
environmental, human, national (and even ‘embedded’) security. Recently, there have been a number of
voices that have spoken out on what the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
has termed the ‘responsibility to protect’:10 the responsibility of some agency or state (whether it be a
superpower such as the United States or an institution such as the United Nations) to enforce the principle
of security that sovereign states owe to their citizens. Yet, the creation of a sense of urgency to act – even on
some issues that may not have some impact for years or even decades to come – is perhaps the only appropriate
first response. The real cost of not investing in the right way and early enough in the places where trends and effects are
accelerating in the wrong direction is likely to be decades and decades of economic and political frustration –
and, potentially, military engagement. Rather than justifying intervention (especially military), we ought to be
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justifying investment. Simply addressing the immensities of these challenges is not enough. Radical
improvements in public infrastructure and support for better governance, particularly in states and
municipalities (especially along the Lagos–Cairo–Karachi–Jakarta arc), will both improve security and
create the conditions for shrinking the gap between expectations and opportunity. A real debate ought to be
taking place today. Rather than dismissing ‘alternative’ security foci outright, a larger examination of what forms of security are
relevant and right among communities, states, and regions, and which even might apply to a global rule-set –
as well as what types of security are not relevant – seems appropriate and necessary. If this occurs, a truly
remarkable tectonic shift might take place in the conduct of international relations and human affairs. Perhaps, in the
failure of states and the international community to respond to such approaches, what is needed is the
equivalent of the 1972 Stockholm conference that launched the global environmental movement and
established the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), designed to be the environmental
conscience of the United Nations. Similarly, the UN Habitat II Conference in Istanbul in 1996 focused on
the themes of finding adequate shelter for all and sustaining human development in an increasingly
urbanized world. Whether or not these programs have the ability to influence the future’s direction (or
receive wide international support) is a matter of some debate. Yet, given that the most powerful states in
the world are not currently focusing on these issues to a degree sufficient to produce viable implementation
plans or development strategies, there may well need to be a ‘groundswell’ of bottom-up pressure, perhaps
in the form of a global citizenry petition to push the elusive world community toward collective
action.Recent history suggests that military intervention as the first line of response to human security
conditions underscores a seriously flawed approach. Moreover, those who advocate that a state’s
disconnectedness from globalization is inversely proportional to the likelihood of military (read: US)
intervention fail to recognize unfolding realities (Barnett, 2003, 2004). Both middle-power and majorpower states, as well as the international community, must increasingly focus on long-term creeping
vulnerabilities in order to avoid crisis responses to conditions of extreme vulnerability. Admittedly, some
human security proponents have recently soured on the viability of the concept in the face of recent ‘either
with us or against us’ power politics (Suhrke, 2004). At the same time, and in a bit more positive light,
some have clearly recognized the sheer impossibility of international power politics continuing to feign
indifference in the face of moral categories. As Burgess (2004: 278) notes, ‘for all its evils, one of the
promises of globalization is the unmasking of the intertwined nature of ethics and politics in the complex
landscape of social, economic, political and environmental security’. While it is still not feasible to
establish a threshold definition for human security that neatly fits all concerns and arguments (as suggested
by Owen, 2004: 383), it would be a tragic mistake to assume that national, human, and environmental
security are mutually harmonious constructs rather than more often locked in conflictual and contested
opposition with each other. Moreover, aspects of security resident in each concept are indeed themselves
embedded with extraordinary contradictions. Human security, in particular, is not now, nor should likely
ever be, the mirror image of national security. Yet, these contradictions are not the crucial recognition here.
On the contrary, rather than focusing on the security issues themselves, we should be focusing on the best multidimensional approaches to confronting and solving them. One approach, which might avoid the massive tidal
impact of creeping vulnerabilities, is to sharply make a rudder shift from constant crisis intervention toward
strategic planning, strategic investment, and strategic attention. Clearly, the time is now to reorder our entire
approach to how we address – or fail to address – security.
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Fear Good
Fear of nuclear war is key to preventing it.
Futterman 94 (J. A. H., Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “Meditations on the
Bomb,” http://www.dogchurch.org/scriptorium/nuke.html, AD: 7/11/09) jl
But the inhibitory effect of reliable nuclear weapons goes deeper than Shirer's deterrence of
adventurer-conquerors. It changes the way we think individually and culturally, preparing us for a
future we cannot now imagine. Jungian psychiatrist Anthony J. Stevens states, [15]
"History would indicate that people cannot rise above their narrow sectarian concerns without some
overwhelming paroxysm. It took the War of Independence and the Civil War to forge the United
States, World War I to create the League of Nations, World War II to create the United Nations
Organization and the European Economic Community. Only catastrophe, it seems, forces people
to take the wider view.
Or what about fear? Can the horror which we all experience when we contemplate the
possibility of nuclear extinction mobilize in us sufficient libidinal energy to resist the archetypes
of war? Certainly, the moment we become blasé about the possibility of holocaust we are lost.
As long as horror of nuclear exchange remains uppermost we can recognize that nothing is
worth it. War becomes the impossible option. Perhaps horror, the experience of horror, the
consciousness of horror, is our only hope. Perhaps horror alone will enable us to overcome the
otherwise invincible attraction of war."
Thus I also continue engaging in nuclear weapons work to help fire that world-historical warning
shot I mentioned above, namely, that as our beneficial technologies become more powerful, so will
our weapons technologies, unless genuine peace precludes it. We must build a future more peaceful
than our past, if we are to have a future at all, with or without nuclear weapons — a fact we had
better learn before worse things than nuclear weapons are invented. If you're a philosopher, this
means that I regard the nature of humankind as mutable rather than fixed, but that I think most
people welcome change in their personalities and cultures with all the enthusiasm that they welcome
death — thus, the fear of nuclear annihilation of ourselves and all our values may be what we
require in order to become peaceful enough to survive our future technological
breakthroughs.
In other words, when the peace movement tells the world that we need to treat each other more
kindly, I and my colleagues stand behind it (like Malcolm X stood behind Martin Luther King, Jr.)
saying, "Or else." We provide the peace movement with a needed sense of urgency that it might
otherwise lack.
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Action Good
We have an ethical obligation to act – if the future is uncertain, we must do
everything we can to intervene.
Kurasawa 4 (Fuyuki, Professor of Sociology @ York University of Toronto, “Cautionary Tales: The
Global Culture of Prevention and the Work of Foresight,”
http://www.yorku.ca/kurasawa/Kurasawa%20Articles/Constellations%20Article.pdf, AD: 7/11/09) jl
In addition, farsightedness has become a priority in world affairs due to the appearance of new
global threats and the resurgence of ‘older’ ones. Virulent forms of ethno-racial nationalism and
religious fundamentalism that had mostly been kept in check or bottled up during the Cold War
have reasserted themselves in ways that are now all-too-familiar – civil warfare, genocide, ‘ethnic
cleansing,’ and global terrorism. And if nuclear mutually assured destruction has come to pass,
other dangers are filling the vacuum: climate change, AIDS and other diseases (BSE, SARS, etc.),
as well as previously unheralded genomic perils (genetically modified organisms, human cloning).
Collective remembrance of past atrocities and disasters has galvanized some sectors of public
opinion and made the international community’s unwillingness to adequately intervene before
and during the genocides in the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, or to take remedial steps in the case of
the spiraling African and Asian AIDS pandemics, appear particularly glaring. Returning to the
point I made at the beginning of this paper, the significance of foresight is a direct outcome of the
transition toward a dystopian imaginary (or what Sontag has called “the imagination of disaster”).11
Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, two groundbreaking dystopian
novels of the first half of the twentieth century, remain as influential as ever in framing public
discourse and understanding current techno-scientific dangers, while recent paradigmatic cultural
artifacts – films like The Matrix and novels like Atwood’s Oryx and Crake – reflect and give shape
to this catastrophic sensibility.12 And yet dystopianism need not imply despondency, paralysis, or
fear. Quite the opposite, in fact, since the pervasiveness of a dystopian imaginary can help notions
of historical contingency and fallibilism gain traction against their determinist and absolutist
counterparts.13 Once we recognize that the future is uncertain and that any course of action
produces both unintended and unexpected consequences, the responsibility to face up to
potential disasters and intervene before they strike becomes compelling. From another angle,
dystopianism lies at the core of politics in a global civil society where groups mobilize their own
nightmare scenarios (‘Frankenfoods’ and a lifeless planet for environmentalists, totalitarian
patriarchy of the sort depicted in Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale for Western feminism, McWorld and a
global neoliberal oligarchy for the alternative globalization movement, etc.). Such scenarios can act
as catalysts for public debate and socio-political action, spurring citizens’ involvement in the work
of preventive foresight. Several bodies of literature have touched upon this sea-change toward a
culture of prevention in world affairs, most notably just-war theory,14 international public policy
research,15 and writings from the risk society paradigm.16 Regardless of how insightful these three
approaches may be, they tend to skirt over much of what is revealing about the interplay of the
ethical, political, and sociological dynamics that drive global civil society initiatives aimed at
averting disaster. Consequently, the theory of practice proposed here reconstructs the dialogical,
public, and transnational work of farsightedness, in order to articulate the sociopolitical processes
underpinning it to the normative ideals that should steer and assist in substantively thickening it. As
such, the establishment of a capacity for early warning is the first aspect of the question that we
need to tackle.
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We have an ethical responsibility to attempt to deter potential suffering – it’s the
only way to express genuine solidarity
Kurasawa 4 (Fuyuki, Professor of Sociology @ York University of Toronto, “Cautionary Tales: The
Global Culture of Prevention and the Work of Foresight,”
http://www.yorku.ca/kurasawa/Kurasawa%20Articles/Constellations%20Article.pdf, AD: 7/11/09) jl
By contrast, Jonas’s strong consequentialism takes a cue from Weber’s “ethic of responsibility,”
which stipulates that we must carefully ponder the potential impacts of our actions and assume
responsibility for them – even for the incidence of unexpected and unintended results. Neither
the contingency of outcomes nor the retrospective nature of certain moral judgments exempts an act
from normative evaluation. On the contrary, consequentialism reconnects what intentionalism
prefers to keep distinct: the moral worth of ends partly depends upon the means selected to attain
them (and vice versa), while the correspondence between intentions and results is crucial. At the
same time, Jonas goes further than Weber in breaking with presentism by advocating an “ethic of
long-range responsibility” that refuses to accept the future’s indeterminacy, gesturing instead toward
a practice of farsighted preparation for crises that could occur.30 From a consequentialist
perspective, then, intergenerational solidarity would consist of striving to prevent our endeavors
from causing large-scale human suffering and damage to the natural world over time. Jonas
reformulates the categorical imperative along these lines: “Act so that the effects of your action are
compatible with the permanence of genuine human life,” or “Act so that the effects of your action
are not destructive of the future possibility of such life.”31 What we find here, I would hold, is a
substantive and future-oriented ethos on the basis of which civic associations can enact the work of
preventive foresight. Having suggested a way to thicken the normative foundations of farsighted
cosmopolitanism, I would now like to discuss the socio-cultural strategies that global civil society
participants have begun employing in order to create a sense of intergenerational solidarity. Both the
moral imagination and reason constitute triggers of farsightedness that have entered public discourse
in a variety of settings, with the objective of combatting the myopia of presentism.32 The first of
these catalysts appeals to us to carefully ponder our epoch’s legacy, to imagine the kind of world we
will leave to future generations (what will social life be like if today’s risks become tomorrow’s
reality?). Left dystopianism performs just this role of confronting us with hypothetically
catastrophic futures; whether through novelistic, cinematic, or other artistic means, it conjures up
visions of a brave new world in order to spark reflection and inspire resistance.33 By way of thick
description, dystopian tales call upon audiences’ moral imagination and plunge them into their
descendants’ lifeworlds. We step into the shoes of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Winston Smith or are
strongly affected by The Handmaid’s Tale’s description of a patriarchal-theocratic society and The
Matrix’s blurring of simulacra and reality, because they bring the perils that may await our
successors to life.
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Heg Good
Total rejection of hegemony increases imperialism. The plan’s reformation of
leadership solves the impact
Christian REUS-SMIT IR @ Australian Nat’l ‘4 American Power and World Order p. 121-123
My preference here is to advocate a forward-leaning, prudential strategy of institutionally governed change.
By `forward-leaning', I mean that the progressive realization of cosmopolitan values should be the measure
of successful politics in international society. As long as gross violations of basic human rights mar global
social life, we, as individuals, and the states that purport to represent us, have obligations to direct what
political influence we have to the improvement of the human condition, both at home and abroad. I
recommend, however, that our approach be prudent rather than imprudent. Historically, the violence of
inter-state warfare and the oppression of imperial rule have been deeply corrosive of basic human rights
across the globe. The institutions of international society, along with their constitutive norms, such as
sovereignty, non-intervention, self-determination and limits on the use of force, have helped to reduce
these corrosive forces dramatically. The incidence of inter-state wars has declined markedly, even though
the number of states has multiplied, and imperialism and colonialism have moved from being core
institutions of international society to practices beyond the pale. Prudence dictates, therefore, that we lean
forward without losing our footing on valuable institutions and norms. This means, in effect, giving priority
to institutionally governed change, working with the rules and procedures of international society rather
than against them. What does this mean in practice? In general, I take it to mean two things. First, it means
recognizing the principal rules of international society, and accepting the obligations they impose on actors,
including oneself. These rules fall into two broad categories: procedural and substantive. The most specific
procedural rules are embodied in institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, which is
empowered to 'determine the existence of any threat to peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression' and
the measures that will be taken 'to maintain or restore international peace and security'.28 More general, yet
equally crucial, procedural rules include the cardinal principle that states are only bound by rules to which
they have consented. Even customary international law, which binds states without their express consent, is
based in part on the assumption of their tacit consent. The substantive rules of international society are
legion, but perhaps the most important are the rules governing the use of force, both when force is
permitted (jus ad bellum) and how it may be used (jus in bello). Second, working with the rules and
procedures of international society also means recognizing that the principal modality of innovation and
change must be communicative. That is, establishing new rules and mechanisms for achieving
cosmopolitan ends and international public goods, or modifying existing ones, should be done through
persuasion and negotiation, not ultimatum and coercion. A premium must be placed, therefore, on
articulating the case for change, on recognizing the concerns and interests of others as legitimate, on
building upon existing rules, and on seeing genuine communication as a process of give and take, not
demand and take. Giving priority to institutionally governed change may seem an overly conservative
strategy, but it need not be. As explained above, the established procedural and substantive rules of
international society have delivered international public goods that actually further cosmopolitan ends,
albeit in a partial and inadequate fashion. Eroding these rules would only lead to increases in inter-state
violence and imperialism, and this would almost certainly produce a radical deterioration in the protection
of basic human rights across the globe. Saying that we ought to preserve these rules is prudent, not conservative. More than this, though, we have learnt that the institutions of international society have
transformative potential, even if this is only now being creatively exploited.
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Warming Reps Good
Catastrophic warming reps are good—it’s the only way to motivate response—
their empirics are attributable to climate denialism
Romm 12 (Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, which
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one
of the 25 “Best Blogs of 2010.″ In 2009, Rolling Stone put Romm #88 on its list of 100 “people who are
reinventing America.” Time named him a “Hero of the Environment″ and “The Web’s most influential
climate-change blogger.” Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and
renewable energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D, demonstration, and deployment of lowcarbon technology. He is a Senior Fellow at American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.,
2/26/2012, “Apocalypse Not: The Oscars, The Media And The Myth of ‘Constant Repetition of Doomsday
Messages’ on Climate”, http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/26/432546/apocalypse-not-oscars-mediamyth-of-repetition-of-doomsday-messages-on-climate/#more-432546)
The two greatest myths about global warming communications are 1) constant repetition of doomsday
messages has been a major, ongoing strategy and 2) that strategy doesn’t work and indeed is actually
counterproductive! These myths are so deeply ingrained in the environmental and progressive political community that when we
finally had a serious shot at a climate bill, the powers that be decided not to focus on the threat posed by climate change in any serious
fashion in their $200 million communications effort (see my 6/10 post “Can you solve global warming without talking about global
warming?“). These myths are so deeply ingrained in the mainstream media that such messaging, when it is
tried, is routinely attacked and denounced — and the flimsiest studies are interpreted exactly backwards to
drive the erroneous message home (see “Dire straits: Media blows the story of UC Berkeley study on climate messaging“)
The only time anything approximating this kind of messaging — not “doomsday” but what I’d call blunt, science-based messaging
that also makes clear the problem is solvable — was in 2006 and 2007 with the release of An Inconvenient Truth (and the 4
assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and media coverage like the April 2006 cover of Time). The
data suggest that strategy measurably moved the public to become more concerned about the threat posed by global warming (see
public is not going to be concerned about an
issue unless one explains why they should be concerned about an issue. And the social science literature,
recent study here). You’d think it would be pretty obvious that the
could not be clearer that only repeated messages have
any chance of sinking in and moving the needle. Because I doubt any serious movement of public opinion
or mobilization of political action could possibly occur until these myths are shattered , I’ll do a multipart series
including the vast literature on advertising and marketing,
on this subject, featuring public opinion analysis, quotes by leading experts, and the latest social science research. Since this is Oscar
night, though, it seems appropriate to start by looking at what messages the public are exposed to in popular culture and the media. It
ain’t doomsday. Quite the reverse, climate change has been mostly an invisible issue for several years and the
message of conspicuous consumption and business-as-usual reigns supreme. The motivation for this post actually
came up because I received an e-mail from a journalist commenting that the “constant repetition of doomsday messages” doesn’t work
as a messaging strategy. I had to demur, for the reasons noted above. But it did get me thinking about what messages the public are
exposed to, especially as I’ve been rushing to see the movies nominated for Best Picture this year. I am a huge movie buff, but as
parents of 5-year-olds know, it isn’t easy to stay up with the latest movies. That said, good luck finding a popular movie in recent
years that even touches on climate change, let alone one a popular one that would pass for doomsday messaging. Best Picture
nominee The Tree of Life has been billed as an environmental movie — and even shown at environmental film festivals — but while
it is certainly depressing, climate-related it ain’t. In fact, if that is truly someone’s idea of environmental movie, count me out. The
closest to a genuine popular climate movie was the dreadfully unscientific The Day After Tomorrow, which is from 2004 (and
arguably set back the messaging effort by putting the absurd “global cooling” notion in people’s heads! Even Avatar, the most
successful movie of all time and “the most epic piece of environmental advocacy ever captured on celluloid,” as one producer put it,
omits the climate doomsday message. One of my favorite eco-movies, “Wall-E, is an eco-dystopian gem and an anti-consumption
movie,” but it isn’t a climate movie. I will be interested to see The Hunger Games, but I’ve read all 3 of the bestselling postapocalyptic young adult novels — hey, that’s my job! — and they don’t qualify as climate change doomsday messaging (more on that
later). So, no, the movies certainly don’t expose the public to constant doomsday messages on climate. Here are the key points about
what repeated messages the American public is exposed to:
The broad American public is exposed to virtually no
doomsday messages, let alone constant ones, on climate change in popular culture (TV and the movies and even
online). There is not one single TV show on any network devoted to this subject, which is, arguably, more consequential than any
other preventable issue we face. The same goes for the news media, whose coverage of climate change has
collapsed (see “Network News Coverage of Climate Change Collapsed in 2011“). When the media do cover climate
change in recent years, the overwhelming majority of coverage is devoid of any doomsday messages — and
many outlets still feature hard-core deniers. Just imagine what the public’s view of climate would be if it got
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the same coverage as, say, unemployment, the housing crisis or even the deficit? When was the last time you saw
an “employment denier” quoted on TV or in a newspaper? The public is exposed to constant messages promoting
business as usual and indeed idolizing conspicuous consumption. See, for instance, “Breaking: The earth is breaking
… but how about that Royal Wedding? Our political elite and intelligentsia, including MSM pundits and the supposedly
“liberal media” like, say, MSNBC, hardly even talk about climate change and when they do, it isn’t doomsday.
Indeed, there isn’t even a single national columnist for a major media outlet who writes primarily on climate.
Most “liberal” columnists rarely mention it. At least a quarter of the public chooses media that devote a vast amount of
time to the notion that global warming is a hoax and that environmentalists are extremists and that clean energy is a joke. In the MSM,
conservative pundits routinely trash climate science and mock clean energy. Just listen to, say, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s
Morning Joe mock clean energy sometime. The major energy companies bombard the airwaves with millions and
millions of dollars of repetitious pro-fossil-fuel ads. The environmentalists spend far, far less money. As noted
above, the one time they did run a major campaign to push a climate bill, they and their political allies
including the president explicitly did NOT talk much about climate change, particularly doomsday
messaging Environmentalists when they do appear in popular culture, especially TV, are routinely mocked. There
is very little mass communication of doomsday messages online . Check out the most popular websites. General
silence on the subject, and again, what coverage there is ain’t doomsday messaging. Go to the front page of the (moderately trafficked)
environmental websites. Where is the doomsday? If you want to find anything approximating even modest, blunt,
science-based messaging built around the scientific literature, interviews with actual climate scientists and
a clear statement that we can solve this problem — well, you’ve all found it, of course, but the only people who see
it are those who go looking for it. Of course, this blog is not even aimed at the general public. Probably 99% of Americans
haven’t even seen one of my headlines and 99.7% haven’t read one of my climate science posts. And Climate Progress is probably the
most widely read, quoted, and reposted climate science blog in the world. Anyone dropping into America from another
country or another planet who started following popular culture and the news the way the overwhelming
majority of Americans do would get the distinct impression that nobody who matters is terribly worried
about climate change. And, of course, they’d be right — see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2.” It is total
BS that somehow the American public has been scared and overwhelmed by repeated doomsday
messaging into some sort of climate fatigue. If the public’s concern has dropped — and public opinion analysis
suggests it has dropped several percent (though is bouncing back a tad) — that is primarily due to the conservative
media’s disinformation campaign impact on Tea Party conservatives and to the treatment of this as a
nonissue by most of the rest of the media, intelligentsia and popular culture .
Enemy creation is critical to avoid a violent state of psychosis that creates
comparatively more violence
Kenneth Reinhard (professor at UCLA) 2004 “Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor”
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/jewishst/Mellon/Towards_Political_Theology.pdf
If the concept of the political is defined, as Carl Schmitt does, in terms of the Enemy/Friend opposition,
the world we find ourselves in today is one from which the political may have already disappeared, or at least has mutated into some
world not anchored by the “us” and “them” binarisms that flourished as
recently as the Cold War is one subject to radical instability, both subjectively and politically, as Jacques
strange new shape. A
Derrida points out in The Politics of Friendship: The effects of this destructuration would be countless: the ‘subject’ in question would
be looking for new reconstitutive enmities; it
would multiply ‘little wars’ between nation-states; it would
sustain at any price so-called ethnic or genocidal struggles; it would seek to pose itself, to find repose,
through opposing still identifiable adversaries – China, Islam? Enemies without which … it would lose its political being … without
an enemy, and therefore without friends, where does one then find oneself, qua a self? (PF 77) If one accepts Schmitt’s account of the
political, the
disappearance of the enemy results in something like global psychosis: since the
mirroring relationship between Us and Them provides a form of stablility, albeit one based on
projective identifications and repudiations, the loss of the enemy threatens to destroy what Lacan calls the
“imaginary tripod” that props up the psychotic with a sort of pseudo-subjectivity, until
something causes it to collapse, resulting in full-blown delusions, hallucinations, and
paranoia. Hence, for Schmitt, a world without enemies is much more dangerous than one where
one is surrounded by enemies; as Derrida writes, the disappearance of the enemy opens the door
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for “an unheard-of violence, the evil of a malice knowing neither measure nor ground, an unleashing incommensurable in
its unprecedented – therefore monstrous – forms; a violence in the face of which what is called hostility, war, conflict, enmity, cruelty,
even hatred, would regain reassuring and ultimately appeasing contours, because they would be identifiable” (PF 83).
International politics is a cold-hearted system of selfish intentionssecuritization is necessary. For short-term and long-term survival
John J. Mearsheimer 2001 the tradgedy of great power politics
States in the international system also aim to guarantee their own survival. Beacause other states
are potential threats, and because there is no higher authority to come to their rescue when they dial
911, states cannot depend on others for their own security. Each state tends to see itself as
vulnerable and alone, and therefore it aims to provide for tis own survivial. In intentional politics,
God helps those who help themselves. This emphasis on self-help does not preclude states from forming alliances. But alliances are
only temporary marriages of convenience: today’s alliance partner might be tomorrow’s enemy, and today’s enemy might be
tomorrow’s alliance partner. For example, the United States fought with China and the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan in
World War II, but soon thereafter flip-flopped enemies and partners and allied with West Germany and Japan against China and the
Soviet Union during the Cold War. States
operating in a self-help world almost always act according to
their own self-interest and do not subordinate their interests to the interests of other states,
or to the interests of the so-called international community. The reason is simple: it pays to be
selfish in a self-help world. This is true in the short term as well as in the long term, because if a
state loses in the short run, it might not be around for the long haul.
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Predictions Good
We must use realism to test the probability of theories and predict events in
international relations – the world is our laboratory.
Mearsheimer 1 [John J. Prof. of Poli Sci at U Chicago. The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics. Pg 7-8] JL
Despite these hazards, social scientists should nevertheless use their theories to make predictions
about the future. Making predictions helps inform policy discourse, because it helps make sense
of events unfolding in the world around us. And by clarifying points of disagreement, making
explicit forecasts helps those with contradictory views to frame their own ideas more clearly.
Furthermore, trying to anticipate new events is a good way to test social science theories,
because theorists do not have the benefit of hindsight and therefore cannot adjust their claims
to fit the evidence (because it is not yet available). In short, the world can be used as a laboratory
to decide which theories best explain international politics. In that spirit, I employ offensive
realism to peer into the future, mindful of both the benefits and the hazards of trying to
predict events.
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Environmental Security Good
Securitizing the environment is good – builds public awareness to solve
Matthew 2, Richard A, associate professor of international relations and environmental political at the
University of California at Irvine, Summer (ECSP Report 8:109-124)
In addition, environmental
security's language and findings can benefit conservation and
sustainable development."' Much environmental security literature emphasizes the importance
of development assistance, sustainable livelihoods, fair and reasonable access to environmental goods, and
conservation practices as the vital upstream measures that in the long run will contribute to
higher levels of human and state security. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are examples of bodies that have
been quick to recognize how the language of environmental security can help them. The
scarcity/conflict thesis has alerted these groups to prepare for the possibility of working on
environmental rescue projects in regions that are likely to exhibit high levels of related violence and conflict. These
groups are also aware that an association with security can expand their acceptance and
constituencies in some countries in which the military has political control, For the first time in its
history; the contemporary environmental movement can regard military and intelligence
agencies as potential allies in the struggle to contain or reverse humangenerated
environmental change. (In many situations, of course, the political history of the military--as well as its environmental
record-raise serious concerns about the viability of this cooperation.) Similarly, the language of security has
provided a basis for some fruitful discussions between environmental groups and
representatives of extractive industries. In many parts of the world, mining and petroleum companies have
become embroiled in conflict. These companies have been accused of destroying traditional
economies, cultures, and environments; of political corruption; and of using private militaries to advance their interests. They
have also been targets of violence, Work is now underway through the environmental
security arm of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) to address
these issues with the support of multinational corporations. Third, the general conditions outlined in much
environmental security research can help organizations such as USAID, the World Bank, and IUCN
identify priority cases--areas in which investments are likely to have the greatest ecological
and social returns. For all these reasons, IUCN elected to integrate environmental security into its general plan at the Amman
Congress in 2001. Many other environmental groups and development agencies are taking this perspective seriously (e.g. Dabelko,
Lonergan& Matthew, 1999). However, for the most part these efforts remain preliminary.' Conclusions Efforts
to dismiss
environment and security research and policy activities on the grounds that they have been
unsuccessful are premature and misguided . This negative criticism has all too often been based on an excessively
simplified account of the research findings of Homer-Dixon and a few others. Homer-Dixon’s scarcity-conflict thesis has made
important and highly visible contributions to the literature, but it is only a small part of a larger and very compelling theory. This
broader theory has roots in antiquity and speaks to the pervasive conflicts and security
implications of complex nature-society relationships. The theory places incidents of violence in larger
structural and historical contexts while also specifying contemporarily significant clusters of variables. From this more generalized
and inclusive perspective, violence and conflict are revealed rarely as a society’s endpoint and far more often as parts of complicated
adaptation processes. The contemporary research on this classical problematic has helped to revive elements of security discourse and
It has also made valuable contributions to our
understanding of the requirements of human security, the diverse impacts of globalization,
and the nature of contemporary transnational security threats. Finall,y environmental
security research has been valuable in myriad ways to a range of academics, policymakers,
and activists, although the full extent of these contributions remains uncertain, rather than look for reasons to
analysis that were marginalized during the Cold War.
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abandon this research and policy agenda, now is the time to recognize and to build on the
remarkable achievements of the entire environmental security field.
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K Makes War Inevitable
Threats must be confronted—refusal to engage emboldens aggression, resulting in
conflict
Thayer 6 (Bradley, Professor of Security Studies at Missouri State, The National Interest, “In
Defense of Primacy,” Nov/Dec, 32-7)
In contrast, a strategy based on retrenchment will not be able to achieve these fundamental
objectives of the United States. Indeed, retrenchment will make the United States less secure than
the present grand strategy of primacy. This is because threats will exist no matter what role
America chooses to play in international politics. Washington cannot call a "time out", and it
cannot hide from threats. Whether they are terrorists, rogue states or rising powers, history shows
that threats must be confronted. Simply by declaring that the United States is "going home",
thus abandoning its commitments or making unconvincing half-pledges to defend its interests and
allies, does not mean that others will respect American wishes to retreat. To make such a
declaration implies weakness and emboldens aggression. In the anarchic world of the animal
kingdom, predators prefer to eat the weak rather than confront the strong. The same is true of the
anarchic world of international politics. If there is no diplomatic solution to the threats that
confront the United States, then the conventional and strategic military power of the United States
is what protects the country from such threats.
Wishing doesn’t make it so – deviating from power politics will leave us open for
attack
Murray 97 (Alastair, Professor in the Politics Department at the University of Wales Swansea,
Reconstructing Realism)
This highlights the central difficulty with Wendt's constructivism. It is not any form of unfounded
idealism about the possibility of effecting a change in international politics. Wendt accepts that the
intersubjective character of international institutions such as self-help render them relatively
hard social facts. Rather, what is problematic is his faith that such change, if it could be achieved,
implies progress. Wendt's entire approach is governed by the belief that the problematic elements
of international politics can be transcended, that the competitive identities which create these
elements can be reconditioned, and that the predatory policies which underlie these identities
can be eliminated. Everything, in his account, is up for grabs: there is no core of recalcitrance to
human conduct which cannot be reformed, unlearnt, disposed of. This generates a stance that so
privileges the possibility of a systemic transformation that it simply puts aside the difficulties
which it recognises to be inherent in its achievement. Thus, even though Wendt acknowledges
that the intersubjective basis of the self-help system makes its reform difficult, this does not
dissuade him. He simply demands that states adopt a strategy of 'altercasting', a strategy which 'tries
to induce alter to take on a new identity (and thereby enlist alter in ego's effort to change itself) by
treating alter as if it already had that identity'. Wendt's position effectively culminates in a demand
that the state undertake nothing less than a giant leap of faith. The fact that its opponent might
not take its overtures seriously, might not be interested in reformulating its own construction
of the world, or might simply see such an opening as a weakness to be exploited, are completely
discounted. The prospect of achieving a systemic transformation simply outweighs any adverse
consequences which might arise from the effort to achieve it. Wendt ultimately appears, in the final
analysis, to have overdosed on 'Gorbimania'.
Securitization kritiks paralyze our ability to respond to any threat
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Williams 3 (Michael, Lecturer at the University of Wales, International Studies Quarterly, 522)
In certain settings, the Copenhagen School seems very close to this position.
Securitization must be understood as both an existing reality and a continual possibility.
Yet equally clearly there is a basic ambivalence in this position, for it raises the dilemma
that securitization theory must remain at best agnostic in the face of any securitization,
even, for example, a fascist speech-act (such as that Schmitt has often been associated
with) that securitizes a specific ethnic or racial minority. To say that we must study the
conditions under which such processes and constructions emerge and become viable is
important but incomplete, for without some basis for avoiding this process and
transforming it the Copenhagen School appears to risk replicating some of the worst
excesses made possible by a Schmittian understanding of politics.
Ending our own securitization doesn’t affect other countries- they’ll just see it as a
weakness and an opportunity to attack.
Montgomery 6 (Evan Branden, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, “Breaking out of
the Security Dilema: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty,” International Security, 151-2)
Defensive realism's main observations indicate that hard-line policies often lead to selfdefeating and avoidable consequences. If so, then conciliatory policies should have the opposite
effect. Several scholars have elaborated this intuitive logic. Drawing on rational-choice deterrence theory, 3
cooperation theory, 4 and Charles Osgood's GRIT strategy, 5 they argue that benign states can reveal their
motives, reassure potential adversaries, and avoid unnecessary conflict with costly signals—actions that
greedy actors would be unwilling to take. In particular, by engaging in arms control agreements or
unilateral force reductions, a security seeker can adopt a more defensive military posture and demonstrate
its preference for maintaining rather than challenging the status quo. This argument generates an obvious
puzzle, however: If states can reduce uncertainty by altering their military posture, why has
this form of reassurance been both uncommon and unsuccessful? Few states, for example,
have adopted defensive weapons to de-escalate an arms race or demonstrate their intentions, 7 and
repeated efforts to restrain the Cold War competition between the United States and the
Soviet Union either failed or produced strategically negligible agreements that, at least
until its final years, "proved incapable of moderating the superpower rivalry in any deep
or permanent way." How can scholars and policymakers understand why states often avoid military
reassurance, when they choose to undertake it, why it fails, and when it can succeed? In 1906 Britain
tried to prevent a further escalation of its naval race with Germany by decreasing the
number of battleships it planned to construct, but this gesture was unreciprocated and the
competition continued. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union substantially
reduced its conventional forces, yet the United States did not view these reductions as
proof of benign motives.
Attempts to create peace outside of the realist system are misguided – states will
always act in their best interest- if we don’t prepare they will.
Mearsheimer 1 (John, professor at the University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics)
In contrast to liberals, realists are pessimists when it comes to international politics. Realists agree
that creating a peaceful world would be desirable, but they see no easy way to escape the harsh
world of security competition and war. Creating a peaceful world is surely an attractive idea,
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but it isn’t a practical one. “Realism,” as Carr notes, “tends to emphasize the irresistible strength
of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest
wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to these forces and these tendencies.”26 This
gloomy view of international relations is based on three core beliefs. First, realists, like liberals, treat
states as the principal actors in world politics. Realists focus mainly on great powers, however,
because these states dominate and shape international politics and they also cause hue
deadliest wars. Second, realists believe that the behavior of great powers is influenced mainly
by their external environment, not by their internal characteristics. The structure of the
international system, which all slates must deal with, largely shapes their foreign policies. Realists
tend mint to draw sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad” states, because all great powers act
according to the same logic regardless of their culture, political system, or who runs the
government.27 It is therefore difficult to discriminate among states, save for differences in relative
power. In essence, great powers are like billiard balls that vary only in size.28 Third, realists hold
that calculations about power dominate states’ thinking, and that states compete for power
among themselves. That competition sometimes necessitates going to war, which is considered
an acceptable instrument of statecraft. To quote Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century military
strategist, war is a continuation of politics by other means.29 Finally, a zero-sum quality
characterizes that competition, sometimes making it intense and unforgiving. States may cooperate
with each other on occasion, but at root they have conflicting interests.
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Ketels Ethics Scenario
They justify apathy towards atrocities – voting aff is key to ethics
Ketels 96 [Violet. Prof of English @ Temple. “Havel to the Castle!” The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, Vol 548, No 1. Nov 1996]
Intellectuals can choose their roles, but cannot not choose, nor can we evade the full weight of the
consequences attendant on our choices. "It is always the intellectuals, however we may shrink from the
chilling sound of that word ... who must bear the full weight of moral responsibility."55 Humanist
intellectuals can aspire to be judged by more specifically ex-acting criteria: as those whose work is
worthwhile because it has human uses; survives the test of reality; corresponds to history; represses
rationalizing in favor of fact; challenges the veracity of rulers; refuses the safety of abstraction; recognizes
words as forms of action, as likely to be lethal as to be liberating; scruples to heal the rupture between
words and things, between things and ideas; re-mains incorruptibly opposed to the service of ideological
ends pursued by unnecessary violence or inhumane means; and, finally, takes risks for the sake of true
witness to events, to the truth even of unpopular ideas or to the lies in popular ones. Above all, intellectuals
can resist the dreary relativism that neutralizes good and evil as if in defense of the theoretical pseudonotion that distinguishing between them is not possible. The hour is too late, the situation too grave for
such pettifoggery. Bearing witness is not enough, but it is something. At the dedication of the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Elie Wiesel spoke. "We must bear witness," he said.
"What have we learned? ... We are all responsible. We must do some-thing to stop the bloodshed in
Yugoslavia." He told a story of a woman from the Carpathian Mountains who asked of the Warsaw
Uprising, "Why don't they just wait quietly until after the war?" In one year she was packed into a cattle car
with her whole family on the way to Auschwitz. "That woman was my mother," Wiesel said. Viclav Havel,
the humanist intellectual from Bohemia, spoke too: of the Holocaust as a memory of democratic
appeasement, live memory of indifference to the danger of Hitler's coming to power, of indifference to the
Munich betrayal of Prague. "Our Jews went to concentration camps. . . . Later we lost our freedom." We
have lost our metaphysical certainties, our sense of responsibility for what comes in the future. For we are
all responsible, humanly responsible for what happens in the world. Do we have the right to interfere in
internal conflict? Not just the right but the duty. Remember the Holocaust. To avoid war, we watchedsilently and, so, complicitly, unleashing darker, deadlier demons. What should we have done about
Yugoslavia? Something. Much earlier. We must vigilantly listen for the early warning signs of threats to
freedoms and lives everywhere. We must keep the clamorous opposition to oppression and violence around
the world incessant and loud. Cry out! Cry havoc! Call murderers murderers. Do not avoid violence when
avoidance begets more violence. There are some things worth dying for. Do not legitimize the bloodletting
in Bosnia or anywhere by negotiating with the criminals who plotted the carnage. Do not join the
temporizers. Take stands publicly: in words; in universities and boardrooms; in other corridors of power;
and at local polling places. Take stands prefer-ably in written words, which have a longer shelf life, are
likelier to stimu-late debate, and may have a lasting effect on the consciousnesses of some among us.
The impact is extinction
Ketels 96 [Violet. Prof of English @ Temple. “Havel to the Castle!” The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, Vol 548, No 1. Nov 1996]
Characteristically, Havel raises lo-cal experience to universal relevance. "If today's planetary civilization
has any hope of survival," he begins, "that hope lies chiefly in what we understand as the human spirit." He
continues: If we don't wish to destroy ourselves in national, religious or political discord; if we don't wish
to find our world with twice its current population, half of it dying of hunger; if we don't wish to kill
ourselves with ballistic missiles armed with atomic warheads or eliminate ourselves with bacteria specially
cultivated for the purpose; if we don't wish to see some people go desperately hungry while others throw
tons of wheat into the ocean; if we don't wish to suffocate in the global greenhouse we are heating up for
ourselves or to be burned by radiation leaking through holes we have made in the ozone; if we don't wish to
exhaust the nonrenewable, mineral resources of this planet, without which we cannot survive; if, in short,
we don't wish any of this to happen, then we must-as humanity, as people, as conscious beings with spirit,
mind and a sense of responsibility-somehow come to our senses. Somehow we must come together in "a
kind of general mobilization of human consciousness, of the human mind and spirit, human responsibility,
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human reason." The Prague Spring was "the inevitable consequence of a long drama originally played out
chiefly in the theatre of the spirit and the con-science of society," a process triggered and sustained "by
individuals willing to live in truth even when things were at their worst." The process was hidden in "the
invisible realm of social consciousness," conscience, and the subconscious. It was indirect, long-term, and
hard to measure. So, too, its continuation that exploded into the Velvet Revolution, the magic moment
when 800,000 citizens, jamming Wenceslas Square in Prague, jingled their house keys like church bells
and changed from shouting 'Truth will prevail to chanting" Havel to the castle."
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More Useful Stuff
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A2: Epistemology/Method K
Their relativist epistemology is indefensible and self-contradictory
Kwan and Tsang 1 (Kai-Man, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist
University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, Eric W. School of Business Administration, Wayne State
University, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A, December, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 12 (Dec.,
2001), pp. 1163-1168, “Realism and Constructivism in Strategy Research: A Critical Realist Response to
Mir and Watson”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3094469.pdf) CH
However, the blame for the confusion partly lies on the side of constructivists, who rarely make clear the above distinction.
Mir and Wat- son have this problem too. Although they mention briefly the different types of constructivism, they do not
state explicitly which type they subscribe to. Sometimes they speak as moderate constructivists. For example, they state
that the 'identification of some of the inadequacies of the realist paradigm must not be seen as
a critique of realism itself' (Mir and Watson, 2000: 947). They believe that '(c)onstructivist theories decenter the
concept of a "natural" organizational science, but do not blindly embrace a philosophy of relativism' (2000: 950). On the
other hand, these disclaimers sometimes seem to be contradicted by their other sayings. For instance, they say, 'According to
constructivists, the philosophical positions held by researchers determine their findings' (2000: 943). They further mention
that such a constructivist approach suggests that 'organizational "reality" (Astley, 1985) or the truth that academic disciplines
avow (Cannella and Paetzold, 1994) is socially constructed' (2000: 943). If philosophical positions determine
research findings, then reality has no input to and control over scientific research. Each and
every one of various incommensurable philosoph- ical positions will determine its own
findings. No research findings can be neutrally assessed, crit- icized or falsified. Besides being
rather implau- sible, this view quickly leads to epistemological Strat. Mgmt. J. Research Notes and
Commentaries 1165 relativism, as confirmed by their Fig. 1' (which includes epistemological relativism within the zone
of constructivism). Furthermore, they quote Foucault approvingly: 'We must conceive analysis as a violence we
do to things, or in any case as a practice which we impose upon them' (2000: 942, emphasis added),
and later make a Foucaultian point themselves: 'Researchers are never "objective" or value
neutral. Constructivists subscribe to the view that theory is discursive and power-laden' (2000:
943). If it is the case, again it is hard to see how scientific research can be objective. So despite their
disclaimers, Mir and Watson at times do lean towards an unacceptable form of antirealism and relativism. (Owing to space
limitations, we are not going to discuss the reasons why relativism is unacceptable. Mir and Watson themselves also seem to
have reservations about relativism.) In the end, because Mir and Watson fail to distinguish different types of constructivism,
and to clarify where they stand exactly, their characterization of constructivism is shot through with internal contradictions .
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A2: “Everything is a New Link”
Their “it’s a new link” argument re-inscribes the status quo
Norris 90 (Christopher, research professor in philosophy at the university of Cardiff, Wales “Whats wrong
with Postmodernism” JHU press pg. 3-4
http://books.google.com/books?id=Q0vIqNSe7ysC&printsec=frontcover&dq=What%E2%80%99s+Wrong
+with+Postmodernism+christopher+norris&ei=qRNZStmfGobMkgTi_MWdBw AD: 7/11/09) NS
For the moment, however, I just want to remark that there is a similar ambivalence about ‘theory’
as practised by post-structuralists, post-modernists and other fashionable figures on the current
intellectual scene. That is to say, their ‘radicalism’ has now passed over into a species of disguised
apologetics for the socio-political status quo, a persuasion that ‘reality’ is constituted through
and through by the meanings, values or discourses that presently compose it, so that nothing
could count as effective counter- argument, much less a critique of existing institutions on
valid theoretical grounds. In short, we have reached a point where theory has effectively turned
against itself, generating a form of extreme epistemological scepticism which reduces
everything — philosophy, politics, criticism and ‘theory’ alike — to a dead level of suasive or
rhetorical effect where consensus-values are the last (indeed the only) court of appeal. It is a sign
of the times that Marxism Today has been a main point of entry for postmodernist gurus like Baudrillard, thinkers for whom
the whole kit and caboodle of Marxist thought — class conflict, ideology, forces and relations of production, surplus value,
alienation and the rest — are just so much useless ‘metaphysical’ baggage, left over from the old enlightenment metanarrative of progress, reason and truth. What these thinkers have effected at the level of theory (or anti-theory) is equivalent
to the wholesale junking of principles by Labour Party politicians and advisers over the past few years. And they look dead
set to continue on this course despite the current signs (November 1989) that the Thatcherite consensus is falling apart, that
its ideological project now lacks all credibility, and that developments in Eastern Europe have completely undermined the
cold-war rhetoric on which that project has always been based.
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Epistemology Not First
Epistemology must be secondary to the prior question of political practice
Jarvis 00 (Darryl, Senior Lecturer in International Relations – University of Sydney, International
Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism, p. 128-9)
More is the pity that such irrational and obviously abstruse debate should so occupy us at a time of great
global turmoil. That it does and continues to do so reflect our lack of judicious criteria for evaluating theory
and, more importantly, the lack of attachment theorists have to the real world. Certainly it is right and
proper that we ponder the depths of our theoretical imaginations, engage in epistemological and ontological
debate, and analyze the sociology of our knowledge. But to support that this is the only task of international
theory, let alone the most important one, smacks of intellectual elitism and displays a certain contempt
for those who search for guidance in their daily struggle as actors in international politics. What does
Ashley’s project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to the truly marginalized,
oppressed, and destitute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor, the displaced refugees, the
casualties of war, or the émigrés of death squads? Does it in any way speak to those whose actions and
thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international relations? On all these questions one must
answer no. This is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its technical rationality and
problem-solving capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to support that problem-solving technical theory
is not necessary—or in some way bad—is a contemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving
some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront daily. As Holsti argues, we need ask of these
theorists and their theories the ultimate question, “So what?” To what purpose do they deconstruct,
problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this
get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this
“debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics” be judged pertinent, relevant, helpful,
or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract and recondite
debate. Contrary to Ashley’s assertions, then, a poststructural approach fails to empower the marginalized
and, in fact, abandons them. Rather than analyze the political economy of power, wealth, oppression,
production, or international relations and render and intelligible understanding of these processes, Ashley
succeeds in ostracizing those he portends to represent by delivering an obscure and highly convoluted
discourse. If Ashley wishes to chastise structural realism for its abstractness and detachment, he must be
prepared also to face similar criticism, especially when he so adamantly intends his work to address the real
life plight of those who struggle at marginal places.
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Methodology Not First
Methodologies are always imperfect – endorsing multiple epistemological
frameworks can correct the blindspots of each
Stern and Druckman 00 (Paul, National Research Council and Daniel, Institute for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution – George Mason University, International Studies Review, Spring, p. 62-63)
Using several distinct research approaches or sources of information in conjunction is a valuable strategy
for developing generic knowledge. This strategy is particularly useful for meeting the challenges of
measurement and inference. The nature of historical phenomena makes controlled experimentation—the
analytic technique best suited to making strong inferences about causes and effects—practically impossible
with real-life situations. Making inferences requires using experimentation in simulated conditions and
various other methods, each of which has its own advantages and limitations, but none of which can alone
provide the level of certainty desired about what works and under what conditions. We conclude that
debates between advocates of different research methods (for example, the quantitative-qualitative debate)
are unproductive except in the context of a search for ways in which different methods can complement
each other. Because there is no single best way to develop knowledge, the search for generic knowledge
about international conflict resolution should adopt an epistemological strategy of triangulation, sometimes
called “critical multiplism.”53 That is, it should use multiple perspectives, sources of data, constructs,
interpretive frameworks, and modes of analysis to address specific questions on the presumption that
research approaches that rely on certain perspectives can act as partial correctives for the limitations of
approaches that rely on different ones. An underlying assumption is that robust findings (those that hold
across studies that vary along several dimensions) engender more confidence than replicated findings (a
traditional scientific ideal, but not practicable in international relations research outside the laboratory).
When different data sources or methods converge on a single answer, one can have increased confidence in
the result. When they do not converge, one can interpret and take into account the known biases in each
research approach. A continuing critical dialogue among analysts using different perspectives, methods,
and data could lead to an understanding that better approximates international relations than the results
coming from any single study, method, or data source.
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Ontology Not First
Existence is a pre-requisite to examining ontology
Wapner 3 (Paul, Associate Professor and Director of the Global Environmental Policy Program –
American University, “Leftist Criticism of”, Dissent, Winter,
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=539)
THE THIRD response to eco-criticism would require critics to acknowledge the ways in which they themselves silence
nature and then to respect the sheer otherness of the nonhuman world. Postmodernism prides itself on criticizing the
urge toward mastery that characterizes modernity. But isn't mastery exactly what postmodernism is exerting as it
captures the nonhuman world within its own conceptual domain? Doesn't postmodern cultural criticism deepen the
modernist urge toward mastery by eliminating the ontological weight of the nonhuman world? What else could it mean
to assert that there is no such thing as nature? I have already suggested the postmodernist response: yes, recognizing the
social construction of "nature" does deny the self-expression of the nonhuman world, but how would we know what
such self-expression means? Indeed, nature doesn't speak; rather, some person always speaks on nature's behalf, and
whatever that person says is, as we all know, a social construction. All attempts to listen to nature are social
constructions-except one. Even the most radical postmodernist must acknowledge the distinction between physical
existence and non-existence. As I have said, postmodernists accept that there is a physical substratum to the
phenomenal world even if they argue about the different meanings we ascribe to it. This acknowledgment
of physical existence is crucial. We can't ascribe meaning to that which doesn't appear. What doesn't exist
can manifest no character. Put differently, yes, the postmodernist should rightly worry about interpreting
nature's expressions. And all of us should be wary of those who claim to speak on nature's behalf (including
environmentalists who do that). But we need not doubt the simple idea that a prerequisite of expression is
existence. This in turn suggests that preserving the nonhuman world-in all its diverse embodiments-must be
seen by eco-critics as a fundamental good. Eco-critics must be supporters, in some fashion, of
environmental preservation. Postmodernists reject the idea of a universal good. They rightly acknowledge the
difficulty of identifying a common value given the multiple contexts of our value-producing activity. In fact, if there is
one thing they vehemently scorn, it is the idea that there can be a value that stands above the individual contexts of
human experience. Such a value would present itself as a metanarrative and, as Jean-François Lyotard has explained,
postmodernism is characterized fundamentally by its "incredulity toward meta-narratives." Nonetheless, I can't see how
postmodern critics can do otherwise than accept the value of preserving the nonhuman world. The nonhuman is the
extreme "other"; it stands in contradistinction to humans as a species. In understanding the constructed quality of
human experience and the dangers of reification, postmodernism inherently advances an ethic of respecting the "other."
At the very least, respect must involve ensuring that the "other" actually continues to exist. In our day and age, this
requires us to take responsibility for protecting the actuality of the nonhuman. Instead, however, we are running
roughshod over the earth's diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems. Postmodern critics should find this particularly
disturbing. If they don't, they deny their own intellectual insights and compromise their fundamental moral
commitment. NOW, WHAT does this mean for politics and policy, and the future of the environmental movement?
Society is constantly being asked to address questions of environmental quality for which there are no easy answers. As
we wrestle with challenges of global climate change, ozone depletion, loss of biological diversity, and so forth, we need
to consider the economic, political, cultural, and aesthetic values at stake. These considerations have traditionally
marked the politics of environmental protection. A sensitivity to eco-criticism requires that we go further and include
an ethic of otherness in our deliberations. That is, we need to be moved by our concern to make room for the "other"
and hence fold a commitment to the nonhuman world into our policy discussions. I don't mean that this argument
should drive all our actions or that respect for the "other" should always carry the day. But it must be a
central part of our reflections and calculations. For example, as we estimate the number of people that a
certain area can sustain, consider what to do about climate change, debate restrictions on ocean fishing, or
otherwise assess the effects of a particular course of action, we must think about the lives of other creatures
on the earth-and also the continued existence of the nonliving physical world. We must do so not because
we wish to maintain what is "natural" but because we wish to act in a morally respectable manner.
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Security Inevitable
Security inevitable
Guzzini, Senior Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 98 Associate Professor
of Political Science, International Relations, and European Studies at the Central European University in
Budapest, 1998 (Stefano, Realism in International Relations, p. 212)
Therefore, in a third step, this chapter also claims that it is impossible just to heap realism onto the
dustbin of history and start anew.
This is a non-option. Although realism as a strictly causal theory has been a disappointment, various
realist assumptions are well alive in the minds of many practitioners and observers of international
affairs. Although it does not correspond to a theory which helps us to understand a real world with
objective laws, it is a world-view which suggests thoughts about it, and which permeates our daily
language for making sense of it. Realism has been a rich, albeit very contestable, reservoir of lessons
of the past, of metaphors and historical analogies, which, in the hands of its most gifted
representatives, have been proposed, at times imposed, and reproduced as guides to a common
understanding of international affairs. Realism is alive in the collective memory and selfunderstanding of our (i.e. Western) foreign policy elite and public whether educated or not. Hence, we
cannot but deal with it. For this reason, forgetting realism is also questionable. Of course, academic
observers should not bow to the whims of daily politics. But staying at distance, or being critical, does
not mean that they should lose the capacity to understand the languages of those who make significant
decisions not only in government, but also in firms, NGOs, and other institutions. To the contrary, this
understanding, as increasingly varied as it may be, is a prerequisite for their very profession. More
particularly, it is a prerequisite for opposing the more irresponsible claims made in the name although
not always necessarily in the spirit, of realism.
Without alternative security policy options the security sector will be
dominated by the most conservative policymakers.
Olav. F. Knudsen, Prof @ Södertörn Univ College, ‘1 [Security Dialogue 32.3, “Post-Copenhagen
Security Studies: Desecuritizing Securitization,” p. 366]
A final danger in focusing on the state is that of building the illusion that states have impenetrable walls,
that they have an inside and an outside, and that nothing ever passes through. Wolfers’s billiard balls have
contributed to this misconception. But the state concepts we should use are in no need of such an
illusion. Whoever criticizes the field for such sins in the past needs to go back to the literature. Of
course, we must continue to be open to a frank and unbiased assessment of the transnational politics which
significantly in- fluence almost every issue on the domestic political agenda. The first decade of my own
research was spent studying these phenomena – and I disavow none of my conclusions about the state’s
limitations. Yet I am not ashamed to talk of a domestic political agenda. Anyone with a little knowledge of
Euro- pean politics knows that Danish politics is not Swedish politics is not German politics is not British
politics. Nor would I hesitate for a moment to talk of the role of the state in transnational politics, where it
is an important actor, though only one among many other competing ones. In the world of transnational
relations, the exploitation of states by interest groups – by their assumption of roles as representatives of
states or by convincing state representatives to argue their case and defend their narrow interests – is a
significant class of phenomena, today as much as yesterday. Towards a Renewal of the Empirical
Foundation for Security Studies Fundamentally, the sum of the foregoing list of sins blamed on the
Copen- hagen school amounts to a lack of attention paid to just that ‘reality’ of security which Ole Wæver
consciously chose to leave aside a decade ago in order to pursue the politics of securitization instead. I
cannot claim that he is void of interest in the empirical aspects of security because much of the 1997 book
is devoted to empirical concerns. However, the attention to agenda-setting – confirmed in his most recent
work – draws attention away from the important issues we need to work on more closely if we want to
contribute to a better understanding of European security as it is currently developing. That inevitably
requires a more consistent interest in security policy in the making – not just in the development of
alternative security policies. The dan- ger here is that, as alternative policies are likely to fail grandly on
the political arena, crucial decisions may be made in the ‘traditional’ sector of security policymaking,
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unheeded by any but the most uncritical minds.
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Security Valuable/Not Biological Existence
Security Means Human Emancipation not Mere Survival - Providing Safety Create
Opportunities For Flourishing
Ken Booth, Prof. of IR @ Wales, ‘5 [Critical Security Studies and World Politics, p. 22]
The best starting point for conceptualizing security lies in the real conditions of insecurity
suffered by people and collectivities. Look around. What is immediately striking is that some
degree of insecurity, as a life determining condition, is universal. To the extent an individual or
group is insecure, to that extent their life choices and chances are taken away; this is because of
the resources and energy they need to invest in seeking safety from domineering threats whether these are the lack of food for one’s children or organizing to resist a foreign aggressor.
The corollary of the relationship between insecurity and a determined life is that a degree of
security creates life possibilities. Security might therefore be conceived as synonymous with
opening up space in people’s lives. This allows for individual and collective human becoming
- the capacity to have some choice about living differently - consistent with the same but
different search by others. Two interrelated conclusions follow from this. First, security can be
understood as an instrumental value; it frees its possessors to a greater or lesser extent from lifedetermining constraints and so allows different life possibilities to be explored. Second, security
is synonymous simply with survival. One can survive without being secure (the experience of
refugees in long-term camps in war-torn parts of the world, for example). Security is therefore
more than mere animal survival (basic animal existence). It is survival-plus, the plus being the
possibility to explore human becoming, As an instrumental value, security is sought because
it frees people(s) to some degree to do other than deal with threats to their human being. The
achievement of a level of security - and security is always relative - gives to individuals and
groups some time, energy, and scope to chose to be or become, other than merely survival as
human biological organisms. Security is an important dimension of the process by which the
human species can reinvent itself beyond the merely biological.
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****1AR
Even if they win their link arguments it is TOO LATE—threats have already been
constructed plan is key to solve them
Harvey, NATO Fellow & Associate Professor of Political Science at Dalhousie, 2001 [Frank P.,
“National Missile Defence Revisited, Again: A Reply to David Mutimer,” International Journal 56.2,
Hein, p, 358-360]
ROGUE STATES AND EVOLVING BALLISTIC MISSILE THREATS: MYTH OR REALITY?
'Before any argument supporting NMD can be taken seriously, there-fore, we must accept that a "rogue state threat" exists' (p 340). I
couldn't agree more. But this is perhaps the most fascinating of all of Mutimer's assertions because he himself acknowledges
the 'facts' of the rogue state threat -and I thought only proponents shared the burden of proving the case for NMD. Consider
the following quotes:
-'The rogue state needs, therefore, to be seen for what it was: the cre-ation of the United States military to justify its claim on
resources... The rogue state, however, is a myth. [It] is not mythical in the sense that it is not realbut rather in the sense that it has been
vested with a totemic importance by the United States' (p 344) (emphasis added).
-'Rogues are the enemies that make high levels of military spending legitimate. They are not a lie told by knowing capitalists in an
instru-mental fashion to hoodwink Congress into passing over-inflated budgets' (p 345, n 24) (emphasis added).
o 'I am not arguing that the United States fabricated evidence, but rather that it produced a particular frame
within which to interpret that evi-dence' (p 345) (emphasis added).
o 'The imagined nature of threats does not mean that there is no real danger or that nothing need ever be
done about risks' (p 345). -'The issue, therefore, is not the evidence but rather how the "facts" are "evidence" of a particular form
of threat labelled "proliferation" by actors labelled "rogue"' (p 344, n22).
-'There is, therefore, no need for me to engage in a discussion of the evidence of proliferation assembled, for example, in the Rumsfeld
Report to bolster the case for NMD. At issue are not "the facts" but the ways in which those facts are assembled and the interpretation
that is given to them' (p 344, n 22).
Mutimer's honesty is refreshing but not surprising. Ballistic missile proliferation is difficult to deny. It is a 'real'
security threat, driven by technological progress, the spread of scientific knowledge related to these
weapons systems, diminishing costs, ongoing regional security threats in the Middle East and Asia, and,
most importantly, time. Critics who are unconvinced should at least engage the evidence in the Rumsfeld
Report or any other American or European intelligence esti-mates of evolving proliferation threats. The
best (and perhaps only) way to establish the 'fabricated rogue-state' thesis is to challenge the specific evidence
in these reports rather than to claim that all of the information is one big lie.
Mutimer's position on proliferation is far more sophisticated than the 'big lie' thesis. He develops a very
interesting theory to explain why United States political and military leaders make conscious choices about who and what constitutes a
'threat.' He concludes that some (if not most) of the blame for creating the 'rogue' problem rests with the United States. The
threat, in other words, is a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy tied to efforts by the American defence
communi-ty to fill the 'threat blank' after the cold war. Understanding the condi-tions under which certain threats (and enemies) are in
and which are out -and a complex combination of political, military, and economic factors influence these decisions -is an important
area of research; indeed, Mutimer is doing some excellent work in applying this frame-work to both proliferation and NATO
expansion. But a debate about the 'origins' of the current security crisis is a separate issue-the key facts
regarding contemporary and evolving ballistic missile threats are not in dispute , as Mutimer himself
argues. Once you make that fundamental concession, much of the NMD debate is essentially over. This is precisely the position in
which the Russian president finds himself because he conceded the rogue threat during the 2000 summit with the former American
president, Bill Clinton. As a result, the current debate has shifted to comparing the relative utilities of land-based NMD versus ABM
compliant, sea-based (boost-phase) TMDs, versus full-blown space-based Strategic Defence Initiatives (SDIs). The need for defence,
however, is understood.
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Discourse Answers
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A2: Security Discourse Bad
Treating security as a speech act means there are an infinite number of security
threats, making it impossible to solve. The word “security” is not itself harmful, only
when used by actors in positions to make security choices, it doesn’t apply to us.
Williams 3 (Michael C., university of Whales, “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and
International Politics”, JSTOR) CC
This stance allows the Copenhagen School to argue simultaneously for both an expansion and a
limitation of the security agenda and its analysis. On the one hand, treating security as a speechact provides, in principle, for an almost indefinite expansion of the security agenda. Not only is
the realm of possible threats enlarged, but the actors or objects that are threatened (what are
termed the "referent objects" of security) can be extended to include actors and objects well
beyond the military security of the territorial state. Accordingly, the Copenhagen School has argued that
security can usefully be viewed as comprising five "sectors," each with their particular referent object and threat agenda
(Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde, 1998).6 In the "military" sector, for example, the referent object is the territorial integrity of
the state, and the threats are overwhelmingly defined in external, military terms. In the "political" sector, by contrast, what is
at stake is the legitimacy of a governmental authority, and the relevant threats can be ideological and sub-state, leading to
security situations in which state authorities are threatened by elements of their own societies, and where states can become
the primary threat to their own societies. Even further from an exclusively military-territorial focus is the concept of
"societal" security, in which the identity of a group is presented as threatened by dynamics as diverse as cultural flows,
economic integration, or population movements. Conversely, while treating security as a speech-act allows a remarkable
broadening of analysis, securitization theory seeks also to limit the security agenda. Security, the Copenhagen
School argues, is not synonymous with "harm" or with the avoidance of whatever else might
be deemed malign or damaging (Buzan et al., 1998:2-5, 203-12). As a speech-act, securitization
has a specific structure which in practice limits the theoretically unlimited nature of
"security." These constraints operate along three lines. First, while the securitization process is in
principle completely open (any "securitizing actor" can attempt to securitize any issue and
referent object), in practice it is structured by the differential capacity of actors to make socially
effective claims about threats, by the forms in which these claims can be made in order to be
recognized and accepted as convincing by the relevant audience, and by the empirical factors or
situations to which these actors can make reference. Not all claims are socially effective, and not
all actors are in equally powerful positions to make them. This means, as Buzan and Waever put
it, that the "Conditions for a successful speech-act fall into two categories: (1) the internal,
linguistic-grammatical-to follow the rules of the act (or, as Austin argues, accepted conventional
procedures must exist, and the act has to be executed according to these procedures); and (2) the
external, contextual and social-to hold a position from which the act can be made ('The particular
persons and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked')"
(Buzan et al., 1998:32). The claims that are likely to be effective, the forms in which they can be made, the objects to which
they refer, and the social positions from which they can effectively be spoken are usually deeply "sedimented" (rhetorically
and discursively, culturally, and institutionally) and structured in ways that make securitizations somewhat predictable and
thus subject to probabilistic analysis (Waever, 2000)-and not wholly open and expandable. Finally, while empirical contexts
and claims cannot in this view ultimately determine what are taken as security issues or threats, they provide crucial
resources and referents upon which actors can draw in attempting to securitize a given issue.
Security discourse isn’t inherently bad—presenting it in debate allows the negative
attributes to be avoided.
Williams 3 (Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, “Words, Images,
Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 47(4), AD: 7-10-9) BL
I have argued thus far that recognizing the roots of securitization theory within the legacy of a
Schmittian-influenced view of politics explains a number of its key and most controversial features.
Charges of an ethically and practically irresponsible form of objectivism in relation to either
the act of securitization or the concept of societal security are largely misplaced. Locating the
speech-act within a broader commitment to processes of discursive legitimation and practical
ethics of dialogue allows the most radical and disturbing elements of securitization theory
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emerging from its Schmittian legacy to be offset. Seen in this light, the Copenhagen School is
insulated from many of the most common criticisms leveled against it.
Treating Security as a speech act ruins the meaning of what security threats actually
are and trivializes security, making it impossible to actually evaluate threats.
Williams 3 (Michael C., university of Whales, “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and
International Politics”, JSTOR) CC
A second major criticism of the Copenhagen School concerns the ethics of securitization. Simply
put, if security is nothing more than a specific form of social practice-a speech-act tied to
existential threat and a politics of emergency-then does this mean that anything can be treated
as a "security" issue and that, as a consequence, any form of violent, exclusionary, or
irrationalist politics must be viewed simply as another form of "speech-act" and treated
"objectively"? Questions such as these have led many to ask whether despite its avowedly
"constructivist" view of security practices, securitization theory is implicitly committed to a
methodological objectivism that is politically irresponsible and lacking in any basis from
which to critically evaluate claims of threat, enmity, and emergency.29 A first response to this issue is
to note that the Copenhagen School has not shied away from confronting it. In numerous places the question of the ethics of
securitization are discussed as raising difficult issues.
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alter Reed). Housing is available to all members of the military. Educationally, the children of the
officers, even the Generals, go to a school with the children of the lowliest Private in the army.
The major institutions that produce our most elite officers come from a position of absolute
meritoriousness as opposed to wealth or contacts. Right now Annapolis and West Point are two of
the nation's most difficult colleges to get into. Those two schools, as well as the Air Force Academy
and the Coast Guard Academy, are blatantly transparent in who and how they admit because they
are federally funded. The students who are accepted have to come from the highest academic stock.
Were a qualified high school student to be be rejected in favor of somebody because of that person's
family's wealth or political connections, it would create a gigantic scandal, given that it is
Congressmen who nominate (though do not appoint) cadets and midshipmen.
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tional politics over the next century” (p. 361). First, he takes apart the main opposing arguments
that predict a peaceful world—institutions, economic interdependence, the “democratic peace,” and
nuclear weapons. These treatments are necessarily brief and essentially summarize arguments that
he has made in previous articles. For example, he argues that international institutions are
essentially irrelevant because they merely reflect state interests and policies and do not exert
any independent effects on the struggle for power (pp. 363–364).30
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A2: Realism Framing Bad
Realist framing is a powerful method of change through action-critical alternatives mischaracterize
power relationships and fail to solve their project
Murielle Cozette, John Vincent Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of International Relations, 2008
(Reclaiming the critical dimension of realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the ethics of scholarship, Review of
International Studies, 34, pp. 5-27)
This leads to the idea that it is impossible to be at the same time a realist scholar and critical, as the two
adjectives are implicitly presented as antithetical. This clearly amounts to an insidious high-jacking of the
very adjective ‘ critical’, which more often than not merely signals that one does not adopt a realist
approach. The meaning of the adjective is therefore presented as self-evident, and realism is denied any
critical dimension. This is highly problematic as this reinforces a typical ‘ self-righteousness’ from these ‘
critical’ approaches, which tend to rely on a truncated and misleading picture of what realism stands for
and conveniently never properly engage with realists’ arguments. The fact that Waltz is always the primary
target of these approaches is no coincidence: this article demonstrates that realism as expressed by
Morgenthau is at its very core a critical project. In order to challenge the use of the adjective ‘ critical’ by some who tend
to think of themselves as such simply by virtue of opposing what they mistakenly present as a conservative theoretical project, the
article highlights the central normative and critical dimensions underlying Morgenthau’s works. It does so by assessing his views
about the ethics of scholarship. The article is divided into two parts. First, it investigates Morgenthau’s ideal of the scholarly
activity, which rests upon a specific understanding of the relationship between truth and power. Second, it
focuses on some features which, for Morgenthau, constitute a ‘ betrayal’ of this ideal (a term he borrowed from Julien Benda). The
article demonstrates that contrary to the common interpretation of realism as a theoretical outlook that holds an
implicit and hidden normative commitment to the preservation of the existing order, Morgenthau’s
formulation of realism is rooted in his claim that political science is a subversive force, which should ‘ stir
up the conscience of society’, and in doing so, challenge the status quo. For Morgenthau, IR scholars
have the responsibility to seek truth, against power if needed, and then to speak this truth to power even
though power may try to silence or distort the scholar’s voice.11 Giving up this responsibility leads to
ideology and blind support for power, which is something that Morgenthau always saw as dangerous, and consistently
opposed. His commitment to truth in turn explains why, according to him , political science is always, by definition, a
revolutionary force whose main purpose is to bring about ‘ change through action’. In complete contrast to
what ‘ critical approaches’ consistently claim, the realist project is therefore best understood as a critique
of the powers-that-be.
A2: Realism Framing Bad
The affirmative internal link turns all of your realism bad arguments-framing critique through a
realist frame exposes masked power relationships and changes the squo
Murielle Cozette, John Vincent Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of International Relations, 2008
(Reclaiming the critical dimension of realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the ethics of scholarship, Review of
International Studies, 34, pp. 5-27)
Following Arendt, Morgenthau asserts a fundamental distinction between the vita contemplativa and the
vita activa.12 It corresponds to that of thought and action, and ultimately to that of truth and power.
Morgenthau therefore provides an ideal of scholarly activity which rests upon a differentiation between the
sphere of action (that of politics) and the sphere of thought (that of science). The two realms are
fundamentally at odds with one another as they are oriented towards different goals.13 Science is oriented
towards the pursuit of truth. The distinction between what is true and false lies at the core of scholarship
and gives it its specificity as a ‘ distinct human activity’.14 Academics thus perform a crucial and unique
function: they are ‘ the professional guardians of the truth’.15 This is clearly more than a job for
Morgenthau: it represents a lifetime commitment which should logically influence all aspects of the
scholars’ life: ‘ this is a profession which requires the dedication and ethos of the whole man. Of such a
man, it must be expected that he be truthful not only between 9 and 10 am when he teaches, but always’.16
By contrast, politics, which belong to the sphere of action, does not seek truth but power.17 This is why
the pursuit of truth necessarily conflicts with the requirements of power. Power always tries to subvert
truth, as it represents a danger: it reveals what power is composed of, how it works, while power ‘ in order
to be effective, must appear as something other than what it actually is. Deception – deception of others
and of self – is inseparable from the exercise of power.’18 Power can only work smoothly by successfully
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hiding under moral clothes so that its actions appear legitimate. This leads Morgenthau to assert that the
first task of a scholar worthy of the name is ‘ to speak truth to power’, and in doing so, to unmask power
for what it is, relations of domination.19 This moral responsibility to unmask power is crucial for
Morgenthau, and is particularly clear in Politics Among Nations, where he emphasises that power will
always use moral justifications as it cannot afford to appear for what it truly is: ‘ The true nature of the
policy is concealed by ideological justifications and rationalizations’.20 This is why he repeatedly stresses
that the use of moral claims by states is always to be regarded as a disguise for power politics, and
consequently denounced as such: power lies when it pretends to be the embodiment of Truth or Justice.
Morgenthau never tired of arguing that the Cold War should not be seen as a contest between good and
evil, but for what it was, that is, a classic contest for power where the United States had to face an equally
classic Russian expansionism. A realist theory is particularly well equipped to unmask Power and its
claims to Truth, as it contains two intrinsically linked dimensions. First, it analyses power for what it is –
social relations characterised by a will to dominate others. As Morgenthau writes, ‘ the truth of political
science is the truth about power, its manifestations, its configurations, its limitations, its implications, its
laws’.21 This is the explanatory side of realism: it wants to understand what power is, how it works, what
it seeks. Stemming from this explanatory dimension is the critical one: from this understanding of power,
realism can then unmask power’s claims to truth and morality by permanently emphasising their
instrumental dimension to disguise power politics. It can never be, therefore, as some present it, a defence
of power qua power. By permanently reminding Power that it lies when it pretends to embody Truth or
Justice, a realist theory is in essence a critical weapon turned against power. The realist scholar as an ‘
intellectual conscience’: the normative side of realism and the issue of commitment Arguing that the
scholar’s main role is to speak truth to power stresses the inherent normative component of realism: it is
not so much that the scholar must explain what power does, or does not. The scholar must also tell power
what ought to be done.
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Perm Ev-More Realisty
The permutation is necessary to navigate between the Scylla of inevitable war and the Charybdis of
the nation-state; critical realism solves
Michael Bess, Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Prof of History, 1993 (Realism, Utopia, and the
Mushroom Cloud: Four activist intellectuals and their strategies for peace, The University of Chicago
Press, Conclusion)
For the foreseeable future, the sovereign state as a political institution shows few signs of withering away;
and political theorists as diverse as Jean Bethke Elshtain and Hedley Bull have put forth convincing
arguments that this is not necessarily a bad thing. “So long as the international community consists of
sovereign states,” writes Elshtain,
War remains a possibility…[But] what is the alternative? Continuous eruption of murderous local
conflicts, whether tribal, familiar, ethnic, or religious wars that were enormously destructive and
repressive prior to the formation of states? The state is the guarantee of internal order. It has eliminated
much of that conflict.
On the other hand, it appears equally valid to argue that the sovereign state is finding its functions in world
politics eroded simultaneously from “above” and “below”, and that this slow process may be increasing
rather than diminishing in momentum. Below the nation-state, the past four decades have witnessed an
unprecedented burgeoning of nongovernmental organizations-from advocacy groups for human rights to
religious societies, from professional association to ecological lobbies-effectively communicating with each
other and building themselves into truly global networks; in a similar vein, international economic
competition has prompted a rapid expansion of multinational business corporations, whose activities have
now come to define a new sphere of interests and endeavors quite separate from those of any single state.
Meanwhile “above” the nation-state, formal and institutionalized cooperation among governments, as in the
European Community or the North American Free Trade Area, has slowly but steadily grown since 1945.
Thus, we are left with the unavoidable task of steering between Scylla and Charybdis. The continued
existence of nation-states poses serious dangers, not the last of which are war and bureaucratic ossification;
but such states also offer the advantage of providing a well-established source of order amid the welter of
competing groups in world politics. The experience of the post-Cold War Yugoslavia wrenchingly
demonstrates the painful truth that “smaller” is not necessarily more beautiful. On the other hand, the
erosion of the nation-state’s functions from “above” and “below” appears to be a fundamental fact of
twentieth-century history; it is a process that seems inextricably entwined with the growth of new
technologies for communication and transportation, and it appears likely to continue, regardless of the
hopes and fears that humans attach to it.
The middle line of the permutation is necessary to form a gradual bridge to complete critique-the
alternative links to a short term war DA
Michael Bess, Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Prof of History, 1993 (Realism, Utopia, and the
Mushroom Cloud: Four activist intellectuals and their strategies for peace, The University of Chicago
Press, Conclusion)
The contrast here is not mere theoretical quibble; it represents a dispute between two fundamentally
divergent ways of thinking about the future. Although Howard makes it clear in his essay that he hopes the
ethical component in politics will grow larger in the future, his conceptual framework actually leaves no
room for such a constructive development. In his schema, the most plausible pathway for action remains
the diagonal line, halfway between “ethics” and “power,” whether ten years or one hundred years from
today; any deviation from that line will inevitably constitute a proportionate loss either of efficacy or
moral rigor. Since the only way to achieve efficacy is through “coercive capability,” the ratio between
“coercive capability” and ethical action must always remain roughly the same. Violence and the threat of
violence, as crucial components of this concept of power, must continue to play approximately the same
role in tomorrow’s society as they always have done in the past. On the other hand, if one adopts the
alternative framework, in which at least two kind of power confront the political actor, then the range of
possibilities for the future becomes much wider. An increase in cooperative or noncoercive forms of action
would not necessarily imply a loss of effectiveness. As with Kenneth Boulding’s example of postwar
France and Germany, one can envision situations in which formerly antagonistic peoples have come to
regard coercive forms of conflict-resolution as unacceptable, “taboo.” These two peoples continue to
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engage in a wide variety of transactions, effectively shaping their common social environment, yet they
carry out these transactions according to an ethos of mutual accommodation rather than one of domination
by one actor over the other. Over time, if such a cooperative ethos indeed became more generalized, the
range of violent solutions in international politics might be gradually narrowed. Although the possibility of
violence would always exist, the probability of people resorting to it would have diminished significantly.
Thus, in this framework, coherent political forms that evolve toward diminishing levels of coercion become
at least conceivable. One simple way of picturing such a transition is through the metaphor of a piano
keyboard, in which the left edge represents the extreme coercive politics, while the right edge represents
the extreme of cooperative politics. At any given time, the range of human interactions is likely to
encompass a specific spectrum of keys and notes, corresponding to a specific constellation of power
relations among different individuals and peoples. The goal of a peace activist, in this sense, would be to
persuade as many people as possible to choose forms of power along the right side of the keyboard,
gradually shifting the “center of balance” from the left toward the right, from coercion to cooperation.
Although the option of coercion would always remain open, the frequency of cases in which people
resorted to it would then steadily decrease. To be sure, even if this optimistic picture became a reality,
renegade cases of aggression or violence would presumably still have to be countered with the tools of
coercion; but this would take place as part of a broader cooperative effort among a wide coalition of actors
seeking to restore the prevailing environment of cooperative conflict-resolution.
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Scenario Planning/Discussing Good
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1nc/2ac – framework
This card is just unfair.
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
This article introduces political scientists to scenarios—future counterfactuals—and demonstrates their value in
tandem with other methodologies and across a wide range of research questions. The authors describe best practices
regarding the scenario method and argue that scenarios contribute to theory building and development, identifying
new hypotheses, analyzing data-poor research topics, articulating “world views,” setting new research agendas,
avoiding cognitive biases, and teaching. The article also establishes the low rate at which scenarios are used in the
international relations subfield and situates scenarios in the broader context of political science methods. The conclusion offers two
detailed examples of the effective use of scenarios.
In his classic work on scenario analysis, The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz commented that “social scientists
often have a hard time [building scenarios]; they have been trained to stay away from ‘what if?’ questions and
concentrate on ‘what was?’” (Schwartz 1996:31). While Schwartz's comments were impressionistic based on his years of
conducting and teaching scenario analysis, his claim withstands empirical scrutiny. Scenarios—counterfactual narratives
about the future—are woefully underutilized among political scientists. The method is almost never taught
on graduate student syllabi, and a survey of leading international relations (IR) journals indicates that scenarios were used in only 302
of 18,764 sampled articles. The low rate at which political scientists use scenarios—less than 2% of the time—is
surprising; the method is popular in fields as disparate as business, demographics, ecology, pharmacology,
public health, economics, and epidemiology (Venable, Li, Ginter, and Duncan 1993; Leufkens, Haaijer-Ruskamp, Bakker,
and Dukes 1994; Baker, Hulse, Gregory, White, Van Sickle, Berger, Dole, and Schumaker 2004; Sanderson, Scherbov, O'Neill, and
Lutz 2004). Scenarios also are a common tool employed by the policymakers whom political scientists
study.
This article seeks to elevate the status of scenarios in political science by demonstrating their usefulness for
theory building and pedagogy . Rather than constitute mere speculation regarding an unpredictable future ,
as critics might suggest, scenarios assist scholars with developing testable hypotheses, gathering data, and
identifying a theory's upper and lower bounds. Additionally, scenarios are an effective way to teach students to
apply theory to policy . In the pages below, a “best practices” guide is offered to advise scholars, practitioners, and students,
and an argument is developed in favor of the use of scenarios. The article concludes with two examples of how political scientists
have invoked the scenario method to improve the specifications of their theories, propose falsifiable hypotheses, and design new
empirical research programs.
Scenarios in the Discipline
What do counterfactual narratives about the future look like? Scenarios may range in length from a few
sentences to many pages. One of the most common uses of the scenario method, which will be referenced throughout this
article, is to study the conditions under which high-consequence, low-probability events may occur.
Perhaps the best example of this is nuclear warfare , a circumstance that has never resulted, but has captivated
generations of political scientists. For an introductory illustration, let us consider a very simple scenario regarding how a first
use of a nuclear weapon might occur:
During the year 2023, the US military is ordered to launch air and sea patrols of the Taiwan Strait to aid in a crisis. These highly
visible patrols disrupt trade off China's coast, and result in skyrocketing insurance rates for shipping companies. Several days into the
contingency, which involves over ten thousand US military personnel, an intelligence estimate concludes that a Chinese conventional
strike against US air patrols and naval assets is imminent. The United States conducts a preemptive strike against anti-air and anti-sea
systems on the Chinese mainland. The US strike is far more successful than Chinese military leaders thought possible; a new source of
intelligence to the United States—unknown to Chinese leadership—allowed the US military to severely degrade Chinese targeting and
situational awareness capabilities. Many of the weapons that China relied on to dissuade escalatory US military action are now
reduced to single-digit-percentage readiness. Estimates for repairs and replenishments are stated in terms of weeks, and China's
confidence in readily available, but “dumber,” weapons is low due to the dispersion and mobility of US forces. Word of the successful
US strike spreads among the Chinese and Taiwanese publics. The Chinese Government concludes that for the sake of preserving its
domestic strength, and to signal resolve to the US and Taiwanese Governments while minimizing further economic disruption, it
should escalate dramatically with the use of an extremely small-yield nuclear device against a stationary US military asset in the
Pacific region.
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This short story reflects a future event that, while unlikely to occur and far too vague to be used for military
planning, contains many dimensions of political science theory. These include the following: what leaders
perceive as “limited,” “proportional,” or “escalatory” uses of force; the importance of private information about
capabilities and commitment; audience costs in international politics; the relationship between military expediency and
political objectives during war; and the role of compressed timelines for decision making, among others. The
purpose of this article is to explain to scholars how such stories , and more rigorously developed narratives that specify variables of
interest and draw on extant data, may improve the study of IR . An important starting point is to explain how future
counterfactuals fit into the methodological canon of the discipline.
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xt all debate impacts
Scenarios analysis is key for great power war, nuclear terror, nuclear war, climate change, cyber
war, and disease
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
Scenarios are a useful method for theory building and research design for topics that, despite being of high
importance, lack an empirical base. The best example of this type of research is scholarship on nuclear
warfare. An enormous literature evolved during the Cold War regarding how a nuclear war might be fought and how escalation
dynamics might occur (Kahn 1962; Brown and Mahnken 2011). This literature was based almost exclusively on future
counterfactuals, as there were no nuclear wars to study and a very low “n” —consisting of the Cuban Missile Crisis and
very few other crises—for publicly acknowledged “close calls” (Sagan 1995). Indeed, in our survey of the use of
scenarios in the discipline, more than 25% were about nuclear warfare. Other topics that are of high importance but
have a very low or zero “n” include great-power war, global epidemics, climate change, large-scale
cyber attack, and weapon of mass destruction terrorism.
The points made earlier regarding the identification of new variables and hypotheses are relevant here. In addition
to these advantages to new research topics, scenario analysis helps to identify new sources of data. This is partially
because scenarios help to identify new independent variables, thus leading the researcher to think about how to measure
their values, but also by helping him to think of proxies for measurement when direct observation is not possible. For
instance, a day-after analysis of a scenario of interest would cause the researcher to ask what he would have
needed to know to predict the occurrence of the future counterfactuals and in turn help the researcher to think
about ways in which the discipline could identify that low-probability process if it begins to happen in
the real world.
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Security K Answers
xt nuclear war
Lack of historical data makes nuke war scenarios UNIQUELY productive.
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
An obvious answer to these challenges is that some scenarios are better done than others , and their quality
may be evaluated in the same ways as other qualitative methods. A less obvious answer is that political scientists often
actively seek to turn off the speculative aspects of their minds, focusing instead on “being taken where the data go.”
This is an important problem, because data on many important political questions simply do not yet exist, and the
state of the field would be rather disappointing if scholars only focused on data-rich topics. This is
nowhere more obvious than the study of nuclear weapons ; while there are only two observations of
nuclear explosions in war, the potential for future uses is of the highest consequence. More specifically, there are zero
observations of nuclear war through accident or inadvertent outcomes of bureaucratic processes, but
influential works have demonstrated that speculation regarding such outcomes is made plausible through the
data that are available (Blair 1993; Sagan 1995).
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Security K Answers
xt cyber war
Data poor nature of cyber war studies means scenario building is key.
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
Finally, scenario analysis helps to explore completely new theoretical projects in a deductive way, whereas a great
deal of qualitative work in political science tends to be inductive from the case study method. The use of scenario analysis may help
scholars to pursue an “abductive,” or hybrid, method of theory building that draws on both deductive reasoning and
insights from cases (Mayer and Pirri 1995). For example, a data-poor research subject, such as how states may respond
to computer network attack, has few historical precedents (Mahnken 2011; Rid 2012). If a researcher were
interested in identifying the circumstances under which states are more likely to resort to violence in
response to cyber attack, he would be confounded by the problem that never in history has a state
responded with violence to such an attack. Scenario analysis beginning with the value of violent counterattack on the dependent variable (the DV being a state's strategy choice) would help the researcher to deduce likely
circumstances under which such an outcome may occur. Historical analysis, such as regarding other kinds of
information threats, would be helpful for such a project, but the differences between cyber and other kinds of
information transmission would result in an incomplete causal narrative based on inductive reasoning alone.
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Security K Answers
xt space weapons
Space weapons scenarios are good
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
As indicated in the preceding section of the article, scenarios are not uniform in their emphasis on theory and
empirics. Researchers ought to choose the type of scenario using the scenario/counterfactual characterization schema presented
above and based on the research question and dependent variable at hand. A quick rule of thumb is that in the absence of theory,
an obvious use of scenarios is to develop theory, or at least to better understand the most important questions to ask. In this regard,
scholars may benefit most from idiographic scenario vignettes used to spark a conversation about how the world could have ended
up in that place. For instance, a scholar generally interested in space warfare may have few theories to work
from, as most relevant thinking has taken place in the policy community, and few in traditional political
science departments have considered the unique material context of such competition. The data for
studying space warfare do not yet exist in a form usable for social science, and there are no general theories. A
researcher, therefore, may wish to write a vignette of a future in which a breakthrough in a new space
technology is (i) cheap, (ii) fast, and (iii) on the verge of diffusion from a first mover to the rest of the international
system. Thinking through what must have happened to arrive in such a world, and the social and political
consequences that follow, would help a scholar to set their research agenda regarding this emergent security
environment.
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Security K Answers
2nc/1ar – policy key
Scenarios are key to policy relevance AND policy is key to academic value.
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
The role of academics in policymaking is a cyclical debate in the IR subfield. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and
subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a vocal group has once again elevated the perspective that political
science professors should be contributing to these pressing national security problems (Andres and Beecher 1989;
George 1993; Putnam 2003; Monroe 2005; Nye 2009; Mead 2010). Nearly all of the discourse on “bridging the gap”
between academia and the policy world emphasizes how academics may help policymakers , particularly with
rigorous methods for testing social science hypotheses. The scenario method is one way in which political scientists
may improve the policy relevance of their work. It also shows that ideas flowing in the other direction
are promising: the policy community and other disciplines have potential to improve the quality of political
science research. The future counterfactual approach has been used by policymakers and wealth creators to improve decisions for
decades, while our discipline has consistently relied to a great degree on the past. Thinking and writing about the future in a
robust way offers political scientists an exciting opportunity to push the boundaries of current debates and
to generate new ones, while also improving the processes of teaching and theory building.
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Security K Answers
2nc/1ar – debate key
The specific way scenarios are done in debate is good – no roleplaying simulations AND focus on high
magnitude low probability events
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
Pedagogy
Scenarios offer many of the same benefits as simulations, recently a hot topic in the pedagological literature, to
teaching in political science (Newkirk and Hamilton 1979; Smith and Boyer 1996; Newmann and Twigg 2000; Simpson and
Kaussler 2009; Sasley 2010). Indeed, scenarios are often a key part of simulation learning. For instance, in a decisionmaking simulation in which students are assigned the roles of heads of state, the students are often offered a scenario vignette to
respond to with policy choices. The emphasis of scenarios and simulations in pedagogy, however, is different .
The literature on simulations tends to focus on experiential learning, but recent scholarship has cast some
doubt on whether or not this kind of learning improves students' knowledge of core course concepts (Raymond
2010).
Scenarios offer a way to make classroom exercises more explicitly oriented toward the incorporation of
theories. For instance, rather than asking students to take on the roles of the President, National Security
Advisor, etc., the students may be presented with a vignette and asked to analyze the strategic implications of
the scenario for the United States. Both coauthors of this article have used scenarios in classroom exercises. Tom Mahnken
has taught the use of scenarios for stategic planning at the Naval War College. Tim Junio used scenario exercises at the University of
Pennsylvania. Students in the class “International Security,” having been assigned Thomas Schelling's Arms and Influence and other
core readings on strategy, were asked to evaluate a scenario in which the United States had committed itself to military action, but was
subsequently held hostage by a foreign power.
In Junio's scenario, a future US President was led to believe that due to an intelligence breakthrough, North Korean nuclear weapon
targets were rendered vulnerable to a US first strike with conventional weapons. The United States and close allies saw this as an
opportunity for regime change and pre-positioned US forces in the region. The US President then issued an ultimatum to the North
Korean regime to vacate the country within 48 hours, akin to the US threat to Saddam Hussein in 2003, or face a forceful regime
change at the hands of the US-led coalition. To the surprise of US leaders, North Korea's Supreme Leader went on television to
announce that an unspecified number of nuclear warheads had been smuggled into the United States as a contingency against such a
situation. The Supreme Leader then declared that any act of aggression against the North Korean people would be met with retaliation
against the US homeland. Students in the class were asked to first discuss the strategic situation for the United States. What mistakes
had been made to get the United States into that scenario? What issues were at stake? Then, the students were asked to apply strategic
concepts to discuss how the United States might seek to extricate itself from the situation.
The North Korea's blackmail scenario is an example of an extremely low-probability event that almost
certainly would not justify much further analysis by the intelligence and defense policy communities,
but is extremely useful for pedagogy. This kind of scenario increases student interest in the material and
forces them to engage with the theories and concepts of the course. Rather than focus on policy decisions
alone, as simulations are likely to do, students are forced to bring deductive logic to bear to assess the
boundaries of the scenario.
Scenario building exercises are good pedagogical tools for policy students.
Mahnken and Junio 13 – (2013, Thomas, PhD, Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and
National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for
Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, and Timothy, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford
University, PhD in Political Science expected 2013, “Conceiving of Future War: The Promise of Scenario
Analysis for International Relations,” International Studies Review Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 374–395,
September 2013)
Setting Research Agendas
The remainder of this section describes ways in which scenarios are useful to political scientists in ways other than
developing theory. Scenarios are often used in the business and national security policy communities to have
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“smarter conversations.” This use of the scenario method differs from positivist social science and
instead seeks to improve knowledge through participation in scenario exercises . Such exercises usually
involve a facilitated discussion. One way in which scenario conversations may make researchers smarter is to
identify new research questions. Thinking about critical drivers of the future may help scholars to
understand areas that presently have no useful theories and to avoid the tendency of the political science
discipline to consistently focus on a small number of questions. For instance, the New Era Foreign Policy
Conference, initiated by the University of California, Berkeley, and currently cosponsored by the American University, University
of California, Berkeley, and Duke University, seeks to bring together graduate students of political science to engage in
scenario analysis and identify future research topics.8
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Security K Answers
Scenario Planning Generally Good
Our Scenario Evaluations are Crucial For Ethically Responsible Politics - Purely
Theoretical Kritik is Insufficient - We Need “As If” Stories to Offset the Worst
International Violence
Michael Williams, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales—Aberystwyth, ‘5 [The
Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 165-7]
Moreover, the links between skeptical realism and prevalent postmodern themes go more deeply
than this, particularly as they apply to attempts by post-structural thinking to reopen questions of
responsibility and ethics.8° In part, the goals of post-structural approaches can be usefully
characterized, to borrow Stephen White's illuminating contrast, as expressions of 'responsibility
to otherness' which question and challenge modernist equations of responsibility with a
'responsibility to act'. A responsibility to otherness seeks to reveal and open the constitutive
processes and claims of subjects and subjectivities that a foundational modernism has effaced in
its narrow identification of responsibility with a 'responsibility to act'.81 Deconstruction can
from this perspective be seen as a principled stance unwilling to succumb to modernist
essentialism which in the name of responsibility assumes and reifies subjects and structures,
obscures forms of power and violence which are constitutive of them, and at the same time
forecloses a consideration of alternative possibilities and practices. Yet it is my claim that the
wilful Realist tradition does not lack an understanding of the contingency of practice or a vision
of responsibility to otherness. On the contrary, its strategy of objectification is precisely an
attempt to bring together a responsibility to otherness and a responsibility to act within a
willfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of objectivity and calculations is not just a
consequence of a need to act - the framing of an epistemic context for successful calculation. It
is a form of responsibility to otherness, an attempt to allow for diversity and irreconcilability
precisely by - at least initially - reducing the self and the other to a structure of material
calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility, mediation, and stability. It is,
in short, a strategy of limitation: a willful attempt to construct a subject and a social world
limited - both epistemically and politically - in the name of a politics of toleration: a liberal
strategy that John Gray has recently characterized as one of mondus vivendi. If this is the case,
then the deconstructive move that gains some of its weight by contrasting itself to a non- or
apolitical objectivism must engage with the more complex contrast to skeptical Realist tradition
that is itself a constructed, ethical practice. The issue becomes even more acute if one considers
Iver Neumann’s incisive questions concerning postmodern construction of identity, action and
responsibility. As Neumann points out, the insight that identities are inescapably contingent and
relationally constructed, and even the claim that identities are indebted to otherness, do not in
themselves provide a foundation for practice, particularly in situations where identities are
‘sediment’ and conflictually defined. In these cases, deconstruction alone will not suffice unless
it can demonstrate a capacity to counter in practice (and not just philosophical practice) the
essential dynamics it confronts. Here, a responsibility to act must go beyond deconstruction to
consider viable alternatives and counter-practices. To take this critique seriously is not
necessarily to be subject yet again to the straightforward ‘blackmail of the Enlightenment and a
narrow ‘modernist’ vision of responsibility. While an unwillingness to move beyond a
deconstructive ethic of responsibility to otherness for fear that an essential stance is the only (or
most likely) alternative expresses legitimate concern, it should not license a retreat from such
questions or their practical demands. Rather, such situations demand also an evaluation of the
structures (of identity and institutions) that might viably be mobilised in order to offset the
worst implications of violently exclusionary identities. It requires, as Neumann nicely puts it,
the generation of compelling 'as if' stories around which counter-subjectivities and political
practices can coalesce. Willful Realism, 1 submit, arises out of an appreciation of these issues,
and comprises an attempt to craft precisely such 'stories' within a broader intellectual and
sociological analysis of their conditions of production, possibilities of success, and likely
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consequences. The question is, to what extent are these limits capable of success, and to what
extent might they he limits upon their own aspirations toward responsibility? These are crucial
questions, but they will not be addressed by retreating yet again into further reversals of the
same old dichotomies.
The Aff is Necessary for Practical Reduction in Violence - Acting “As If” Policy
Makers Threat Perceptions Are Correct Prevents Violence Without Naturalizing
Security
Vincent Pouliot, PhD Candidate in Political Science @ Univ. of Toronto, ‘8 [in Metaphors of
Globalization,
“Everything
Takes
Place
as
http://individual.utoronto.ca/nishashah/Drafts/Pouliot.pdf]
if
Threats
were
going
Global,”
In his brilliant exposition of the normative dilemma of writing security, Huysmans (2002)
concludes that there simply is no way out of it: social scientists, especially constructivists, must
learn to live with the fact that their academic discourse necessarily securitizes certain issues and
thus cannot but reinforce specific security practices to the detriment of others. Such a blunt
admission certainly deserves credit for making the politics of academic life more transparent.
Yet it may be overly pessimistic. The second part of the paper looks at two epistemological
alternatives to positivism in the hope that they may offer a way out of the Huysmans’ dilemma.
A subjectivist perspective, centered on what it is that international agents believe to be real,
succeeds in escaping the dilemma; yet it remains embroiled in common sense and lacks the
objectification that intertextualization and historicization allow. By contrast, an epistemology
that can be labeled metaphorical objectivism entices social scientists to study social realities not
in themselves, but metaphorically. This solution is certainly not perfect, and one should still bear
in mind Huysmans’ warning. And yet, arguing that everything takes place as if threats were
going global opens the possibility for a scientific study of the globalization/nexus without
reifying new, global threats. Of course, social science remains fundamentally political—like
any knowledge for that matter. But it is not only political. A) Subjectivism: Practitioners Believe
That Threats Are Going Global A first epistemological alternative for the notion that threats are
going global is subjectivism. In this scheme of things, the globalization of threats is not
necessarily “real” or taking place “out there.” Instead, it is agents (e.g., international elites,
security practitioners) who believe that threats are being globalized. Under such an
epistemology, sociologists of globalization such as Beck (2000) conceive of globality as a form
of consciousness which regards the earth as “one single place.” Globalization is a social construct which
varies across time and space; it impacts people’s lives on the basis of the meanings that they hold about it. To use a
much-rehearsed formula, globalization is what people make of it. While trying to define globalization, thus, what matters
is how actors, as opposed to analysts, define the social space in which they act. In this connection, Robertson (1992: 8)
contends that a crucial dimension of globalization is “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” It is
the subjective meanings attached by actors to world politics that matter, not a so-called objective reality. Polling data
such as the World Values Survey provides interesting insights to that extent, for it focuses on how people from all over
the world construe changes in their lives as well as in the meanings of globality (e.g., Diez-Nicolas, 2002). More
interpretive and historical research is also of great scientific value: Robertson and Inglis (2004), for instance, look at
historical documents to observe that a “global animus” was already present in the ancient Mediterranean world. This
subjectivist take on the globalization of threat is in line with what I have called the “observation
of essentialization” (Pouliot, 2004), that is, the interpretation of what agents interpret to be
real. Instead of reifying the world as in positivism, this approach builds on the reifications
already committed by social agents. In so doing, already essentialized realities provide scientists
with “epistemic foundations” (Adler, 2005) on which to ground their analyses. In this
postfoundationalist science (Pouliot, 2004), analysts remain ontologically agnostic as to what is
real and what is not. As Guzzini (2000: 160) astutely explains: “constructivism claims either to
be agnostic about the language independent real world out there, or simply uninterested—it often
is irrelevant for the study of society.” Such a principled refusal to either assume reality a priori
or deny it altogether avoids turning what the scientist believes to be real (based on her everyday
knowledge or on scientific knowledge) into an unquestionable, scientific Reality. Of course, no
one walks through closed doors. It is impossible to perfectly break with one’s taken for granted
reality so there cannot be such a thing as pure agnosticism. Instead, the scientist finds herself in
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the aspiring position of temporarily de-reifying, for the purpose of doing science, the reality she
needs to take for granted in her everyday life.8 Since agnosticism precludes ontological
foundations on which to ascertain constructivist knowledge, the best way forward consists of
building on the social facts9 that are reified by social agents in their everyday life. In this
postfoundationalist view, social facts become a kind of “essence” on which to build knowledge
(Pouliot, 2004). In the end, to know whether social reality is “really real” makes no analytical
difference from a postfoundationalist perspective: the whole point is to observe whether agents
take it to be real, and to draw the social and political implications that result. Interestingly,
this turn to phenomenology (c.f. Schutz, 1967 [1932]) runs counter to dominant strands of IR
theory, including constructivism. Indeed, over the last fifteen years constructivists have been
almost exclusively concerned with “epistemically objective”10 realities such as norms,
epistemes, institutions or collective identities. Such a focus is all good so long as it is
supplemented with an equivalent consideration for agent-level ideations. After all, only practices
and the subjective reasons that inform them can make the social construction of epistemically
objective realities possible. There is a clear analytical gain in reaching at the level of
“subjectivized intersubjectivity,” so to speak. A crucial reason why constructivist science needs
to recover subjective knowledge is to avoid what Bourdieu calls the “scholastic fallacy,” which
consists of “the illusion of the absence of illusion, of the pure viewpoint, absolute, disinterested”
(Bourdieu, 2001b: 183). Such a god-like posture carries huge epistemological implications, if
only because social practices have a logic which is not that of scientific logic (Bourdieu, 2001a
[1972]: 335). Indeed, the intellectualist bias “entices us to construe the world as a spectacle, as
a set of significations to be interpreted rather than as concrete problems to be solved
practically” (Wacquant, 1992: 39). Take, for instance, the issue of time. For the scientist, time is
almost eternal: the same Peloponnesian War can be restudied thousands of times over millennia
by hundreds of scholars. But for the agents involved, be they Pericles or Spartan soldiers, time is
the key to the war. Their understanding of the unfolding of the situation in time is what
characterizes the practical urgency they face. By contrast, for the scientist being out of the flow
of time is what allows her to comprehend the war. The theoretical relation to the world is
fundamentally different from the practical one—if only in the distance from which action is
played out (Bourdieu, 1990 [1980]: 14). The scientist is not engaged in actual action or invested
in the social game like the agents that she observes are (c.f. Bourdieu, 2003 [1997]: 81-82). And
Bourdieu (1990 [1980]: 81) to conclude: “Science has a time which is not that of practice.” It is
fitting that the concept of globalization perfectly illustrates the dangers of the scholastic fallacy.
As Scholte (2004: 103) concludes from his academic dialogue with observers from all over the
world: “definitions of globalization depend very much on where the definer stands.” In such a
context, the important thing researchers need to know is how different people across space and
time interpret the meanings of globalization. It would be nonsense to “scientifically” define
globalization and argue that it is happening just the same throughout the world. Imposing a
universalistic (scientific) conceptualization would destroy the richness and diversity of meanings
about globality across the globe. Globalization has no ontological essence that scientists could
define in theoretical abstraction. As a social construct globalization is subjectivized
intersubjectivity. Importantly, the point here is not only to fight against scientific ethnocentrism,
that is, to relativize the meanings of globalization in terms of geo-cultural epistemologies. More
largely, globalization scholars need to recognize that analyses of social and political action
which do not recover the reasons why people act in certain ways (based on their subjective
meanings) are fundamentally flawed: the theoretical relation to the world profoundly differs
from the practical one.
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Scenario Planning Doesn’t Cause War
Strategic Planning and Predictions do not Naturalize War - Quasi Predictions are
Practically and Humbly Used to Reduce Vioence
Vincent Pouliot, PhD Candidate in Political Science @ Univ. of Toronto, ‘7 [International Studies
Quarterly, “"Sobjectivism": Toward a Constructivist Methodology,” p. wiley]
Another traditional way to assess validity is generalizability: can the findings travel from one
case to another? From a constructivist perspective, the time is ripe to abandon the old dream of
discovering nomothetic laws in social sciences: human beings are reflexive and intentional
creatures who do not simply obey to external laws. Nonetheless, there exist certain patterns and
regularities in social life which constructivists are keen to analyze. As Price and Reus-Smit
(1998:275) correctly point out, "rejecting the pursuit of law-like generalizations does not entail a
simultaneous rejection of more contingent generalizations." Such contingent generalizations
usually derive from the abstracting power of concepts: by simplifying reality through
idealization, concepts such as constitutive mechanisms, for example, allow for analogies across
cases. Weber (2004 [1904]) used to call this "idealtypes"—theoretical constructs that depart
from social realities in order to gain explanatory spin across cases. Conceptual analogies are by
definition underspecified as they cannot fully put up with contingency. Consequently, the crucial
point while drawing contingent generalizations is to be explicit about their boundaries of
applicability (Hopf 2002:30). Inside these boundaries, sobjectivism may even yield to some
small-scale, quasi-predictions through one of two paths. On the one hand, "forward reasoning"
and the development of plausible scenarios helps narrow down the set of future possibilities
(Bernstein et al. 2000). On the other hand, by focusing on explaining change inside of a
delimited social situation, one needs not predict every single development but only those that are
likely to deviate from an observed pattern (cf. Welch 2005:28).Contrary to positivism, from a
constructivist point of view there cannot be such a thing as the valid interpretation or theory. As
there is no transcendental way to adjudicate among competing interpretations, validity never is a
black-or-white matter; it is all shades of gray. Inside a style of reasoning, validation is a
deliberative activity whereby judgments evolve in combination with their own criteria. In order
to convey the historicity of scientific reason, the best criterion to assess the relative validity of an
interpretation is its incisiveness, that is, its capacity to "see further" than previous interpretations.
As Geertz (1973:25) explains: "A study is an advance if it is more incisive—whatever that may
mean—than those that preceded it; but it less stands on their shoulders than, challenged and
challenging, runs by their side." Obvious from this quote is that incisiveness is not a primordial
and universal criterion; it is both space- and time-dependent. Indeed, the degree of
incisiveness of an interpretation hinges not only on its substance but also on its audience. In this
regard, this article argues that it is the appropriate combination of experience-near and
experience-distant concepts that generates interpretations that not only "make sense" to people,
scientists and laymen alike, but also "add sense" to already held interpretations. It is this
supplementary meaning, due to the objectification of subjective meanings, which leads to an
increased degree of incisiveness. A constructivist interpretation is all the more incisive (and thus
valid) that it strikes a fine balance between subjective and objectified knowledge.Overall, the
constructivist style of reasoning and sobjectivism in particular are animated by a quite similar
logic of discovery as the one that drives positivistic methodologies. In Lakatos' (1970) famous
argument, progressive research programs are those that lead to the discovery of "novel facts."
Like a good positivist, Lakatos probably had in mind hard facts that lead to universal Truth.
Constructivists adopt a more down-to-earth, low-key attitude with regards to scientific
discovery. What a refined level of incisiveness and the methodical practice of sobjectivism help
discover is, quite simply, a combination of subjective and objectified knowledge that makes
more sense of international politics than previous interpretations. That incisiveness, however, is
situated intersubjectively speaking. Social science is not as universal as eulogists of the
Enlightenment would like it to be, but it is no less worth pursuing to better understand the
pressing matters of world politics.
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*Aff Answers*
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Extinction First
Extinction of the species is the most horrible impact imaginable
Schell 82
(Jonathan, Professor at Wesleyan University, The Fate of the Earth, pages 136-137)
Implicit in everything that I have said so far about the nuclear predicament there has been a perplexity that I
would now like to take up explicitly, for it leads, I believe, into the very heart of our response-or, rather,
our lack of response-to the predicament. I have pointed out that our species is the most important of all the
things that, as inhabitants of a common world, we inherit from the past generations, but it does not go far
enough to point out this superior importance, as though in making our decision about ex- tinction we were
being asked to choose between, say, liberty, on the one hand, and the survival of the species, on the other.
For the species not only overarches but contains all the benefits of life in the common world, and to speak
of sacrificing the species for the sake of one of these benefits involves one in the absurdity of wanting to
destroy something in order to preserve one of its parts, as if one were to burn down a house in an attempt to
redecorate the living room, or to kill someone to improve his character. but even to point out this absurdity
fails to take the full measure of the peril of extinction, for mankind is not some invaluable object that lies
outside us and that we must protect so that we can go on benefiting from it; rather, it is we ourselves,
without whom everything there is loses its value. To say this is another way of saying that extinction is
unique not because it destroys mankind as an object but because it destroys mankind as the source of all
possible human subjects, and this, in turn, is another way of saying that extinction is a second death, for
one's own individual death is the end not of any object in life but of the subject that experiences all objects.
Death, how- ever, places the mind in a quandary. One of-the confounding char- acteristics of death"tomorrow's zero," in Dostoevski's phrase-is that, precisely because it removes the person himself rather
than something in his life, it seems to offer the mind nothing to take hold of. One even feels it
inappropriate, in a way, to try to speak "about" death at all, as. though death were a thing situated somewhere outside us and available for objective inspection, when the fact is that it is within us-is, indeed, an
essential part of what we are. It would be more appropriate, perhaps, to say that death, as a fundamental
element of our being, "thinks" in us and through us about whatever we think about, coloring our thoughts
and moods with its presence throughout our lives.
Nothing can outweigh extinction even if the risk is miniscule—must consider future lives
Matheny 7
(Jason, Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins
University, “Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction,” Risk Analysis, Vol 27, No 5)
Discussing the risks of “nuclear winter,” Carl Sagan (1983) wrote: Some have argued that the difference
between the deaths of several hundred million people in a nuclear war (as has been thought until recently to
be a reasonable upper limit) and the death of every person on Earth (as now seems possible) is only a
matter of one order of magnitude. For me, the difference is considerably greater. Restricting our attention
only to those who die as a consequence of the war conceals its full impact. If we are required to calibrate
extinction in numerical terms, I would be sure to include the number of people in future generations who
would not be born. A nuclear war imperils all of our descendants, for as long as there will be humans. Even
if the population remains static, with an average lifetime of the order of 100 years, over a typical time
period for the biological evolution of a successful species (roughly ten million years), we are talking about
some 500 trillion people yet to come. By this criterion, the stakes are one million times greater for
extinction than for the more modest nuclear wars that kill “only” hundreds of millions of people. There are
many other possible measures of the potential loss—including culture and science, the evolutionary history
of the planet, and the significance of the lives of all of our ancestors who contributed to the future of their
descendants. Extinction is the undoing of the human enterprise. In a similar vein, the philosopher Derek
Parfit (1984) wrote: I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse
than most people think. Compare three outcomes: 1. Peace 2. A nuclear war that kills 99% of the world’s
existing population 3. A nuclear war that kills 100% 2 would be worse than 1, and 3 would be worse than
2. Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between
1 and 2. I believe that the difference between 2 and 3 is very much greater . . . . The Earth will remain
habitable for at least another billion years. Civilization began only a few thousand years ago. If we do not
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destroy mankind, these thousand years may be only a tiny fraction of the whole of civilized human history.
The difference between 2 and 3 may thus be the difference between this tiny fraction and all of the rest of
this history. If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a
second. Human extinction in the next few centuries could reduce the number of future generations by
thousands or more. We take extraordinary measures to protect some endangered species from extinction. It
might be reasonable to take extraordinary measures to protect humanity from the same.19 To decide
whether this is so requires more discussion of the methodological problems mentioned here, as well as
research on the extinction risks we face and the costs of mitigating them.20
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No Alt SOlvency
Alt Doesn’t Solve – The Current Liberal Order Is Too Strong To Challenge
Dillon And Reid 2000
(PHD; researches the problematisation of politics, security and war & PhD in Politics (Michael And Dillon,
“Global Governance, Liberal Peace, and Complex Emerge” Alternatives: Local, Global, Political Vol. 25
Issue 1 Jan-Mar 2000 JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644986) //JES
To conclude: This confluence of sovereign and governmental power has no center that might be captured. It
has no single source that might be located and cut off. Neither does it have a defensive curtain wall that
might be fatally breached. It is subject to no historical law that will guarantee its success or bring about its
end. It operates according to no historical teleology that will re- sult in a just and equitable order for all. It
is a viral, self-repro- ducing, hybrid strategic operation of power that poses new chal-lenges to political and
democratic thought because of the ways in which it threatens to exhaust what politics and democracy might
be about. "
Their alternative fails – security can’t be deconstructed. The ethical response is to engage in scenario
planning to minimize violence
Weaver 2000
(Ole, Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of
Copenhagen.[1] He has published and broadcast extensively in the field of international relations, and is one
of the main architects of the so-called Copenhagen School in International Relations. Prior to his
professorate at University of Copenhagen, Wæver was a senior research fellow at Copenhagen Peace
Research Institute (1985-1999). His areas of research include:Theories of international relations,The study
of conflicts, what creates the conflict and how to mediate and resolve them, Danish security and defence
policy, The history of concepts, and Security theory.International relations theory and the politics of
European integration, p. 284-285)
The other main possibility is to stress' responsibility. Particularly in a field like security one has to make
choices and deal with the challenges and risks that one confronts – and not shy away into long-range or
principled trans-formations. The meta political line risks (despite the theoretical commit¬ment to the
concrete other) implying that politics can be contained within large 'systemic questions. In line with the
classical revolutionary tradition, after the change (now no longer the revolution but the meta-physical
trans¬formation), there will be no more problems whereas in our situation (until the change) we should not
deal with the 'small questions' of politics, only with the large one (cf. Rorty 1996). However, the ethical
demand in post-structuralism (e.g. Derrida's 'justice') is of a kind that can never be initiated in any concrete
political order – It is an experience of the undecidable that exceeds any concrete solution and reinserts
politics. Therefore, politics can never be reduced to meta-questions there is no way to erase the small,
particular, banal conflicts and controversies. In contrast to the quasi-institutionalist formula of radical
democracy which one finds in the 'opening' oriented version of deconstruction, we could with Derrida
stress the singularity of the event. To take a position, take part, and 'produce events' (Derrida 1994: 89)
means to get involved in specific struggles. Politics takes place 'in the singular event of engage¬ment'
(Derrida 1996: 83). Derrida's politics is focused on the calls that demand response/responsi¬bility
contained in words like justice, Europe and emancipation. Should we treat security in this manner? No,
security is not that kind of call. 'Security' is not a way to open (or keep open) an ethical horizon. Security is
a much more situational concept oriented to the handling of specifics. It belongs to the sphere of how to
handle challenges – and avoid 'the worst' (Derrida 1991). Here enters again the possible pessimism which
for the security analyst might be occupational or structural. The infinitude of responsibility (Derrida 1996:
86) or the tragic nature of politics (Morgenthau 1946, Chapter 7) means that one can never feel reassured
that by some 'good deed', 'I have assumed my responsibilities ' (Derrida 1996: 86). If I conduct myself
particularly well with regard to someone, I know that it is to the detriment of an other; of one nation to the
detriment of my friends to the detriment of other friends or non-friends, etc. This is the infinitude that
inscribes itself within responsibility; otherwise there would be no ethical problems or decisions. (ibid.; and
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Security K Answers
parallel argumentation in Morgenthau 1946; Chapters 6 and 7) Because of this there will remain conflicts
and risks - and the question of how to handle them. Should developments be securitized (and if so, in what
terms)? Often, our reply will be to aim for de-securitization and then politics meet meta-politics; but
occasionally the underlying pessimism regarding the prospects for orderliness and compatibility among
human aspirations will point to scenarios sufficiently worrisome that responsibility will entail securitization
in order to block the worst. As a security/securitization analyst, this means accepting the task of trying to
manage and avoid spirals and accelerating security concerns, to try to assist in shaping the continent in a
way that creates the least insecurity and violence - even if this occasionally means invoking/producing
`structures' or even using the dubious instrument of securitization. In the case of the current European
configuration, the above analysis suggests the use of securitization at the level of European scenarios with
the aim of pre¬empting and avoiding numerous instances of local securitization that could lead to security
dilemmas and escalations, violence and mutual vilification.
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Security K Answers
No Impact
There won’t be any genocidal state
O’Kane 97
(Prof Comparative Political Theory, U Keele (Rosemary, “Modernity, the Holocaust and politics,”
Economy and Society 26:1, p 58-9)
Modern bureaucracy is not 'intrinsically capable of genocidal action' (Bauman 1989: 106). Centralized state
coercion has no natural move to terror. In the explanation of modern genocides it is chosen policies which
play the greatest part, whether in effecting bureaucratic secrecy, organizing forced labour, implementing a
system of terror, harnessing science and technology or introducing extermination policies, as means and as
ends. As Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR have shown, furthermore, those chosen policies of genocidal
government turned away from and not towards modernity. The choosing of policies, however, is not
independent of circumstances. An analysis of the history of each case plays an important part in explaining
where and how genocidal governments come to power and analysis of political institutions and structures
also helps towards an understanding of the factors which act as obstacles to modern genocide. But it is not
just political factors which stand in the way of another Holocaust in modern society. Modern societies have
not only pluralist democratic political systems but also economic pluralism where workers are free to
change jobs and bargain wages and where independent firms, each with their own independent
bureaucracies, exist in competition with state-controlled enterprises. In modern societies this economic
pluralism both promotes and is served by the open scientific method. By ignoring competition and the
capacity for people to move between organizations whether economic, political, scientific or social,
Bauman overlooks crucial but also very 'ordinary and common' attributes of truly modern societies. It is
these very ordinary and common attributes of modernity which stand in the way of modern genocides.
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Security K Answers
Perm Do Both
Perm – do both; combining different methodological approaches is key to keeping security studies
politically relevant and support political change; the alt’s pure discussion consigns us to political
irrelevance
Walt 91
(Stephen, Professor at the University of Chicago, International Studies Quarterly 35)
Yet the opposite tendency may pose an even greater danger. On the whole, security studies have profited
from its connection to real-world issues; the main advances of the past four decades have emerged from
efforts to solve important practical questions. If security studies succumbs to the tendency for academic
disciplines to pursue “the trivial, the formal, the methodological, the purely theoretical, the remotely
historical–in short, the politically irrelevent” (Morgenthau, 1966:73), its theoretical progress and its
practical value will inevitably decline. In short, security studies must steer between the Scylla of political
opportunism and the Charybdis of academic irrelevance. What does this mean in practice? Among other
things, it means that security studies should remain wary of the counterproductive tangents that have
seduced other areas of international studies, most notably the “post-modern” approach to international
affairs (Ashley, 1984; Der Derian and Shapiro, 1989, Lapid, 1989). Contrary to their proponents’ claims,
post-modern approaches have yet to demonstrate much value for comprehending world politics; to date,
these works are mostly criticism and not much theory. As Robert Keohane has noted, until these writers
“have delineated...a research programe and shown...that it can illuminate important issues in world politics,
they will remain on the margins of the field” (Keohane, 1988:392). In particular, issues of war and peace
are too important for the field to be diverted into a prolix and self-indulgent discourse that is divorced from
the real world. CONTINUES... Because scientific disciplines advance through competition, we should not
try to impose a single methodological monolith upon the field. To insist that a single method constitutes the
only proper approach is like saying that a hammer is the only proper tool for building a house. The above
strictures are no more than a warning, therefore; progress will be best served by increased dialogue between
different methodological approaches (Downs, 1989).
Perm solves – the context of representations is key
Tuathail 96
(Gearoid, Department of Georgraphy at Virginia Polytechnic Institut, Professor of Government and
International Affairs and Director of the Government and International Affairs program, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, National Capital Region campus. received a B.A.
in History and Geography from National University of Ireland, Maynooth with First Class Honours in
1982. He obtained a M.A. in Geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and
a Ph.D. in Political Geography from Syracuse University in 1989. John O'Loughlin in Illinois and John A.
Agnew in Syracuse, were his academic advisors. Following his Ph D, Toal was hired in 1989 as Assistant
Professor of Geography at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg where he worked for ten years before moving to the
Washington DC region to establish what became the Government and International Affairs program in the
School of Public and International Affairs, Political Geography,15(6-7), p. 664)
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse and concerns
of foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so different that they constitute a distinctive
problem- solving, theory-averse, policy-making subculture. There is a danger that academics assume that
the discourses they engage are more significant in the practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power
than they really are. This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a general
institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in particular states. In
general, I do not disagree with Dalby’s fourth point about politics and discourse except to note that his
statement-‘Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways political decisions could be
taken, troops and material moved and war fought’-evades the important question of agency that I noted in
my review essay. The assumption that it is representations that make action possible is inadequate by itself.
Political, military and economic structures, institutions, discursive networks and leadership are all crucial
in explaining social action and should be theorized together with representational practices. Both here and
earlier, Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a form of idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its
three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He
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Security K Answers
analyzes certain CPD discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration
nor its public-policy reasoning on national security. Dalby’s book is narrowly textual; the general
contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find that the
distinction between critical theorists and post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by
Dalby and others. Third, Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow
as heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that
ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachev’s reforms and
his new security discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile attempt to save the
Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon
Dalby in his comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics.
While I agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political
geographers to engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so that we neglect the
institutional and the sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the political and the geographical
contexts within which particular discursive strategies become significant. Critical geopolitics, in other
words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical cant that sometimes accompanies
‘poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to always
be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
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Security K Answers
Reps don’t Matter
Reps don’t matter
Pinker 2
(Steven, , director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT, Johnstone Family Professor of
Psychology and earned his phD from Harvard in experimental psychology at Harvard, The Blank Slate:
The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p. 210-211)
Why do virtually all cognitive scientists and linguists believe that language is not a prisonhouse of
thought?34 First, many experiments have plumbed the minds of creatures without language, such as
infants and nonhuman primates, and have found the fundamental categories of thought working away:
objects, space, cause and effect, number, probability, agency (the initiation of behavior by a person or
animal), and the functions of tools." Second, our vast storehouse of knowledge is certainly not couched
in the words and sentences in which we learned the individual facts. What did you read in the page
before this one? I would like to think that you can give a reasonably accurate answer to the question.
Now try to write down the exact words you read in those pages. Chances are you cannot recall a single
sentence verbatim, probably not even a single phrase. What you remembered is the gist of those
passages—their content, meaning, or sense—not the language itself. Many experiments on human
memory have confirmed that what we remember over the long term is the content, not the wording, of
stories and conversations. Cognitive scientists model this "semantic memory" as a web of logical
propositions, images, motor programs, strings of sounds, and other data structures connected to one
another in the brain.36 A third way to put language in its place is to think about how we use it. Writing
and speaking do not consist of transcribing an interior monologue onto paper or playing it into a
microphone. Rather, we engage in a constant give-and-take between the thoughts we try to convey and
the means our language offers to convey them. We often grope for words, are dissatisfied with what we
write because it does not express what we wanted to say, or discover when every combination of words
seems wrong that we do not really know what we want to say. And when we get frustrated by a
mismatch between our language and our thoughts, we don't give up, defeated and mum, but change the
language. We concoct neologisms (quark, meme, clone, deep structure), invent slang (to spurn, to diss,
to flame, to surf the web, a spin doctor), borrow useful words from other languages (joie de vivre,
schlemiel, angst, machismo), or coin new metaphors (waste time, vote with your feet, push the outside
of the envelope). That is why every language, far from being an immutable penitentiary, is constantly
under renovation. Despite the lamentations of language lovers and the coercion of tongue troopers,
languages change unstoppably as people need to talk about new things or convey new attitudes.37
Finally, language itself could not function if it did not sit atop a vast infrastructure of tacit knowledge
about the world and about the intentions of other people. When we understand language, we have to
listen between the lines to winnow out the unintended readings of an ambiguous sentence, piece
together fractured utterances, glide over slips of the tongue, and fill in the countless unsaid steps in a
complete train of thought. When the shampoo bottle says "Lather, rinse, repeat," we don't spend the rest
of our lives in the shower; we infer that it means "repeat once." And we know how to interpret
ambiguous headlines such as "Kids Make Nutritious Snacks,""Prostitutes Appeal to Pope," and "British
Left Waffles on Falkland Islands," because we effortlessly apply our background knowledge about the
kinds of things that people are likely to convey in newspapers. Indeed, the very existence of ambiguous
sentences, in which one string of words expresses two thoughts, proves that thoughts are not the same
thing as strings of words.
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Security K Answers
State Sovereignty Good
State Sovereignty Good – Many Factors Work To Guide It’s Destructive Potential
Dillon And Reid 2000
(PHD; researches the problematisation of politics, security and war & PhD in Politics (Michael And Dillon,
“Global Governance, Liberal Peace, and Complex Emerge” Alternatives: Local, Global, Political Vol. 25
Issue 1 Jan-Mar 2000 JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644986) //JES
While drawing attention to the relevance that this Foucauldian- inspired account of power has for an
analysis of the global gover- nance of liberal peace, we do not, therefore, intend to add to the chorus of
those who insist that we are witnessing the simple demise of sovereignty. Sovereignty remains an important
aspect of the organization and operation of international power, including that of contemporary liberal
peace, because liberal states espe-cially, but others to the extent also that they effect structural adjustments economically and sign-up to good governance criteria politically, are deeply implicated as key
nodes in the networks of global governance. Hence the state form - whose strategic princi- ple of formation
is sovereignty - becomes just one form of subjec- tification upon which global liberal governance relies. It
may not enjoy the exclusivity that traditional accounts of international re- lations once said that it enjoyed,
but it nonetheless remains a key mode of subjectification. However, it is now supplemented by many
others. "Thus even as the state remains the primary actor in global politics, the results of interdependence
are to create new networks and associations, many of which are attempting to guide the state's activities in
the domestic and international sphere."19
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Security K Answers
Threats are Real/Good
Threats are real and our disaster discourse mobilizes people to deal with them
Kurasawa 4
(Fuyuki Kurasawa, Associate Professor of Sociology at York University in Toronto, Canada, 2004,
Constellations Vol 11, No 4, 2004, Cautionary Tales: The Global Culture of Prevention and the Work of
Foresight http://www.yorku.ca/kurasawa/Kurasawa%20Articles/Constellations%20Article.pdf)
In addition, farsightedness has become a priority in world affairs due to the appearance of new global
threats and the resurgence of ‘older’ ones. Virulent forms of ethno-racial nationalism and religious
fundamentalism that had mostly been kept in check or bottled up during the Cold War have reasserted
themselves in ways that are now all-too-familiar – civil warfare, genocide, ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and global
terrorism. And if nuclear mutually assured destruction has come to pass, other dangers are filling the
vacuum: climate change, AIDS and other diseases (BSE, SARS, etc.), as well as previously unheralded
genomic perils (genetically modified organisms, human cloning). Collective remembrance of past
atrocities and disasters has galvanized some sectors of public opinion and made the international
community’s unwillingness to adequately intervene before and during the genocides in the ex-Yugoslavia
and Rwanda, or to take remedial steps in the case of the spiraling African and Asian AIDS pandemics,
appear particularly glaring. Returning to the point I made at the beginning of this paper, the significance of
foresight is a direct outcome of the transition toward a dystopian imaginary (or what Sontag has called “the
imagination of disaster”).11 Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, two
groundbreaking dystopian novels of the first half of the twentieth century, remain as influential as ever in
framing public discourse and understanding current techno-scientific dangers, while recent paradigmatic
cultural artifacts – films like The Matrix and novels like Atwood’s Oryx and Crake – reflect and give shape
to this catastrophic sensibility.12 And yet dystopianism need not imply despondency, paralysis, or fear.
Quite the opposite, in fact, since the pervasiveness of a dystopian imaginary can help notions of historical
contingency and fallibilism gain traction against their determinist and absolutist counterparts.13 Once we
recognize that the future is uncertain and that any course of action produces both unintended and
unexpected consequences, the responsibility to face up to potential disasters and intervene before they
strike becomes compelling. From another angle, dystopianism lies at the core of politics in a global civil
society where groups mobilize their own nightmare scenarios (‘Frankenfoods’ and a lifeless planet for
environmentalists, totalitarian patriarchy of the sort depicted in Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale for Western
feminism, McWorld and a global neoliberal oligarchy for the alternative globalization movement, etc.).
Such scenarios can act as catalysts for public debate and socio-political action, spurring citizens’
involvement in the work of preventive foresight.
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Security K Answers
Vulnerability Ideology Good
System-Vulnerability Provides Pretext To Creating Solutions To Nuclear War And
Natural Disaster
Collier & Lakoff 8
(PhD in Anthropology @ Berkeley & PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology @ Berkley (Stephen J. &
Andrew, “The Vulnerability of Vital Systems: How “Critical Infrastructure” Became a Security Problem”
The Politics of Securing the Homeland: Critical Infrastructure, Risk and Securitisation 2008
http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/publications/2008/01/collier-and-lakoff.pdf)//JES
The civil defense approach to national vulnerability was initially designed for anticipating and organizing
response to a Soviet nuclear attack. However, planners soon recognized that many of the assessment
techniques and organizational forms developed to prepare for nuclear attack could also be useful in
preparing for other types of threats, such as natural disaster. Over the 1960s and early 1970s, techniques for
analyzing the vulnerability of systems and for planning response were generalized. This process was not
the result of an overarching, explicit strategy, nor was it a central aspect of U.S. national security thinking
at the time. Rather, it took place through a series of autonomous developments.