1AC

Joshua D.
, “The Uncomfortable Truth about the United States’ Role in the Failure of the Global War on Drugs and How It is Going to Fix It,” SUFFOLK TRANSNATIONAL LAW REVIEW v. 36, Summer 2013, p. 437-446
The War on Drugs' demise started when the bellicose analogy was created. n77 The correct classification of the global drug problem was and still is as a set of interlinked health and social challenges to be managed, not a war to be won.
n78 The U.S. has worked strenuously for the past fifty years to ensure that all countries adopt its rigid, prohibitionist approach to drug policy , essentially repressing the potential for alternative policy development and experimentation . n79 This was an expensive mistake that the U.S. unfortunately cannot take back. n80 The current emergence from the economic recession of 2008-2009 has set the stage for a generational, political and cultural shift, placing the U.S. in a unique moment in its history; the necessary sociopolitical context to revoke its prohibitionist ideals and replace them with more modern policies grounded in health, science and humanity. n81 The
U.S. can remedy its mistake by using its considerable diplomatic influence and international presence to foster reform in other countries.
n82 One way to do this is by capitalizing [*438] on this unique moment in its existence and experimenting with models of legal regulation , specifically with marijuana because nearly half of U.S. citizens favor legalization of it. n83 This will help redeem our image internationally and help repair foreign relations because the monumental scope of the international marijuana market is largely created by the exorbitant
U.S. demand for the drug which partially stems from the illegality of the market. n84 B. Step 1: Recognize the Ineffectiveness of The
Global War on Drugs and Consider Alternatives An objective way to gauge the effectiveness of a drug policy is to examine how the policy manages the most toxic drugs and the problems associated with them. n85 With that in mind , at the global level, having one in five intravenous drug users have HIV and one in every two users having Hepatitis C is clearly an epidemic and not the result of effective drug control policies . n86 The threat of arrest and punishment as a deterrent from people using drugs is sound in theory, but in practice this hypothesis is tenuous. n87 Countries that have enacted harsh, punitive laws have higher levels of drug use and related problems than countries with more tolerant approaches . n88 Additionally, the countries that have experimented with forms of legal regulation outside of punitive approaches have not seen rises in drug use and dependence [*439] rates. n89 Therefore, one sensible first step in placing this issue back into a manageable position is for national governments to encourage other governments to experiment with models of legal regulation of drugs which fit their context. n90 This will in turn, undermine the criminal market, enhance national security, and allow other countries to learn from their application. n91 1. Easier to Say Than Do - A Suggestion for Overcoming Difficulties Associated With
Legal Regulation For this movement to be successful and effectively manage the epidemic at hand there must be a broad consensus around the world that the current drug control policies are morally harmful. n92 This consensus however is precluded by the stigma and fear associated with more toxic drugs such as heroin. n93 This note does not propose that heroin and other toxic drugs should be legalized but instead suggests that society and drug policies tend to consolidate and classify all illicit drugs as equally dangerous. n94 This in turn restrains any progressive debate about experimenting with the regulation of different drugs under different standards. n95 [*440] Regardless of these false dichotomies, which often restrain progressive debate, it is difficult not to give credence to the idea of marijuana being socially acceptable when it has been by far the most widely produced and consumed illicit drug. n96 There is between 125 and 203 million users worldwide and no indication of that number declining. n97
With this many users, it is reasonable to conclude that if the international community could reach a consensus about the moral noxiousness of any drug control policy, the repression of marijuana would likely be it. n98 Marijuana , arguably socially acceptable, represents a simple mechanism to enter into the experimentation process with the legal regulation of drugs . n99 Without advocating for the UN to adopt new commissions or encouraging drastic moves such as the decriminalization of all illicit substances, the global decriminalization of marijuana would be a relatively minor adjustment compared to the monumental impact. n100 If national governments were to decriminalize marijuana, the scope of this movement would essentially eradicate the public health problem of marijuana abuse and the associated criminality because of its illegal status. n101 Public health problems can be remedied because it will afford governments the ability to regulate the market and control the quality and price of the drug, essentially removing toxic impurities and setting a price that will diminish an illegal market. n102 This will in turn diminish the criminal market [*441] by eradicating the need for users to commit crimes to procure marijuana and removing

the economic incentive for other countries to get involved in the drug's market. n103 Without arguing that this is the panacea for the global war on drugs, proponents of legalization can aptly point to the archaic drug control policies in place and this macro approach as an effective way to tackle the problem now. n104 C. Step 2: Real Reform - the U.S. Needs to Stand at the Forefront of Drug Policy Reformation The U.S. wields considerable influence over the rest of the world , so it is no surprise that its call for the development and maintenance of prohibitive, punitive drug policies resulted in a majority of the international community following. n105 Conversely, if the U.S. leads the call for the development and maintenance of more tolerant drug policies grounded in health, humanity and science, a majority of the international community will also follow . n106 Cultural shifts do not take place overnight, and the idea of complete U.S. drug policy reformation is too aggressive and stark in contrast to succeed against modern bureaucracy and political alliances. n107 On the other hand, a more moderate, piecemeal approach could effectively act as a catalyst for this transformation while simultaneously serving as a case study for opponents of legal regulation. n108 [*442] If the U.S. is serious about addressing the ineffectiveness of the War on Drugs, then the federal government must remove marijuana from its list of criminally banned substances.
n109 The tone of the Obama administration is a significant step in this direction. n110 President Obama has explicitly acknowledged the need to treat drugs as more of a public health problem, as well as the validity of debate on alternatives, but he does not favor drug legalization. n111 This progressive rhetoric is a significant step in the right direction, but until there is some real reform confronting the issue , reducing punitive measures and supporting other countries to develop drug policies that suit their context, there is still an abdication of policy responsibility . n112 1. Starting Small - Potential
Positive Effects of Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana in the U.S. If marijuana was legal in the U.S., it would function similarly to the market of legal substances such as liquor, coffee and tobacco. n113 Individual and corporate participants in the market would pay taxes, increasing revenues and saving the government from the exorbitant cost of trying to enforce prohibition laws. n114
Consumers' human rights would be promoted through self-determination, autonomy and access to more accurate information about the product they are consuming. n115 Additionally, case studies and research suggest that the decriminalization or legalization
[*443] of marijuana reduces the drugs' consumption and does not necessarily result in a more favorable attitude towards it. n116
The legal regulation of marijuana would relieve the current displaced burden the drug places on law enforcement, domestically and internationally. n117 In the U.S., law enforcement could refocus their efforts away from reducing the marijuana market per se and instead towards reducing harm to individuals, communities and national security. n118 Abroad, U.S. international relations would improve because of the reduced levels of corruption and violence at home and afar.
n119 The precarious position repressive policies place on foreign governments when they have to destroy the livelihoods of ag ricultural workers would be reduced . n120 Additionally, legalization and regulation would provide assistance to governments in regaining some degree of control over the regions dominated by drug dealers and terrorist groups because those groups would lose a major source of funding for their organizations.
n121 2. Health Concerns? - Marijuana in Comparison to Other Similar Legal
Substances The federal government, acknowledging the risks inherent in alcohol and tobacco, argues that adding a third substance to that mix cannot be beneficial. n122 Adding anything to a class of [*444] dangerous substances is likely never going to be beneficial; however marijuana would be incorrectly classified if it was equated with those two substances. n123 Marijuana is far less toxic and addictive than alcohol and tobacco. n124 Long term use of marijuana is far less damaging than long term alcohol or tobacco use. n125 Alcohol use contributes to aggressive and reckless behavior, acts of violence and serious injuries while marijuana actually reduces likelihood of aggressive behavior or violence during intoxication and is seldom associated with emergency room visits. n126 As with most things in life, there can be no guarantee that the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana would lead the U.S. to a better socio-economical position in the future. n127 Two things however, are certain: that the legalization of marijuana in the U.S. would dramatically reduce most of the costs associated with the current drug policies, domestically and internationally, and [*445] if the U.S. is serious about its objective of considering the costs of drug control measures, then it is vital and rational for the legalization option is considered . n128
D. Why the Time is Ripe for U.S. Drug Policy Reformation The political atmosphere at the end of
World War I and II was leverage for the U.S., emerging as the dominant political, economic and military power.
n129 This leverage allowed it to shape a prohibitive drug control regime that until now has remained in perpetuity
. n130
Today, we stand in a unique moment inside of U.S. history
. n131
The generational, political and cultural shifts that accompanied the U.S. emergence from the "Great
Recession" resulted in a sociopolitical climate that may be what is necessary for real reform.
n132
Politically, marijuana has become a hot issue; economically, the marijuana industry is bolstering a faltering economy and socially, marijuana is poised to transform the way we live and view medicine. n133 The public disdain for the widespread problems prohibition caused in the early 20th century resulted in the end of alcohol prohibition during the Great Depression. n134 If history does actually repeat itself than the Great recession may have been much more telling than expected. n135 V. Conclusion The U.S. and its prohibitionist ideals exacerbated the failure of both the international and its own domestic drug policies. n136 As a result
, the U.S. should accept accountability for its mistakes by reforming its drug policies in a way that will help [*446] place the global drug market back into a manageable position . n137 Marijuana is an actionable
, evidence based mechanism for constructive legal and policy reform that through a domino effect can transform the global drug prohibition regime . n138 The generational, political and cultural shifts that accompanied the U.S. emergence from the "Great Recession" have resulted in a sociopolitical climate ready for real reform. n139 The U.S.

will capitalize on this unique moment by removing marijuana from the list of federally banned substances, setting the stage for future international and domestic drug policies that are actually effective. n140
Steven
, senior policy analyst, George Murkin, Martin Powell, Danny Kushlick, founder, and Jane Slater, Transform
Drug Policy Foundation, THE ALTERNATIVE WORLD DRUG REPORT: COUNTING THE CSTS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS, 2012, p. 9-12.
5. Threatening public health, spreading disease and death While the war on drugs has primarily been promoted as a way of protecting health, it has in reality achieved the opposite. It has not only failed in its key aim of reducing or eliminating drug use, but has increased risks and created new health harms – all while establishing political and practical obstacles to effective public health interventions that might reduce them . • Prevention and harm reduction messages are undermined by criminalisation of target populations, leading to distrust and stigmatisation • Criminalisation encourages high-risk behaviours , such as injecting in unhygienic, unsupervised environments, polydrug use and bingeing • Enforcement tilts the market towards more potent but profitable drug products. It can also fuel the emergence of high-risk , new “designer” drugs, or domestically manufactured drugs (“krokadil”, for instance) • Illegal ly produced and supplied drugs are of unknown strength and purity, increas ing the risk of overdose, poisoning and infection • The emotive politics of the drug war, and stigmatisation
of drug users, has created obstacles to provision of effective harm reduction
, which despite proven cost-effectiveness remains unavailable in many parts of the world. This contributes to increased overdose deaths, and fuels the spread of HIV/ AIDS , hepatitis , and tuberculosis among people who inject drugs • The growing population of people who use drugs in prisons has created a particularly acute health crisis , as prisons are highrisk environments, inadequately equipped to deal with the challenges they face • The development impacts of the war on drugs have had much wider negative impacts on health service provision • Drugwar politics have had a chilling effect on provision of opiates for pain control and palliative care, with over five billion people having little or no access There is an absence of evidence that either supply- or user-level enforcement interventions have reduced or eliminated use . Instead, drug-related risk is increased and new harms created – with the greatest burden carried by the most vulnerable populations.
(
)
Washington AIDS International Foundation, staff, 20 04 . Available from the World Wide Web at: www.waifaction.org/, accessed 5-27-09.
Virtually every nation in the world has been severely hit by the plague of AIDS ; we are experiencing an extinction-causing event.
There are no vaccines, no cures, and no group that is not vulnerable .
And, because it is spread largely by sex and by mother-to-child contact, and to a smaller degree by blood contact, it is hitting those of childbearing age the hardest. This is a silent killer.
Without testing, it can go undetected for many years, even as the carrier transmits it to others. Unfortunately, we know only the most advanced cases in most of the countries of the world. Many millions of others may be infected, but in the latent stage. WAIF is committed to educate the public about the emergency of the AIDS epidemic.
Ethan
2/3/
“Sudden collapse of Harappan civilization may foreshadow superbug threat to modern humans” http://www.naturalnews.com/043757_harappan_civilization_superbugs_antibiotic_resistance.html#
The mystery surrounding the sudden collapse of the ancient city of Harappa, a major urban center that was a prominent feature of the now defunct Indus civilization, recently became a little bit less mysterious thanks to new research out of Appalachian State
University. An international team of climatologists, archaeologists and biologists found that rampant disease, among other things, played a major role in the swift decline of this primordial people group -- and the same thing could happen to modern humanity as a result of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs," believe some. What exists from the historical record shows that Harappa flourished even before the Indus civilization as a whole reached its peak, spanning 1 million square kilometers in what is now Pakistan and India.
Scholars say the city thrived primarily between the years of 2600 and 1700 B.C. but suddenly collapsed for reasons that up until

now have remained elusive due to a lack of reliable records and other concrete evidence. But we now know that the uncontrolled spread of disease played a significant role in the downfall of Harappa , as did the violence and chaos that erupted as a result of a widening social hierarchy. Specifically, the new research found that
a combination of socioeconomic inequality and disease -- tuberculosis and leprosy, which were new at the time, are believed to have spread quickly during the final days before the collapse -- were largely to blame for the city's ultimate demise. "In this case, it appears that the rapid urbanization process in Indus cities, and the increasingly large amount of culture contact, brought new challenges to the human population," says Gwen Robbins Schug, one of the lead researchers involved with the project. "Infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis were probably transmitted across an interaction sphere that spanned Middle and South Asia." Rapid urbanization spawned disease spread that killed off entire civilization A recent exhumation of remains from Harappa revealed that, toward the end of the city's existence, violence and disease had reached epic proportions. Because of this, Harappa was essentially being evacuated in droves by its residents during the final days leading up to its collapse, a previously unknown fact about the civilization that came as a surprise to historians. "The collapse of the Indus civilization and the reorganization of its human population has been controversial for a long time," says Schug.
Though the exact cause of all the violence and corresponding disease that ravished Harappa is still somewhat shrouded in mystery, experts now know that a period of rapid urbanization definitely precluded its undoing. Much like what appears to be occurring in modern society, Harappa "advanced" too quickly and eventually imploded on itself. "The evidence from Harappa offers insights into how social and biological challenges impacted past societies facing rapid population growth, climate change and environmental degradation," adds Schug, as quoted by Science Daily. "Unfortunately, in this case, increasing levels of violence and disease accompanied massive levels of migration and resource stress and disproportionate impacts were felt by the most vulnerable members of society." Drug-resistant 'superbugs' threaten to kill off modern civilization There is a tendency when looking at ancient history through the lens of today to assume that what happened to them could never happen to us. Modern humanity is simply far too advanced to ever just collapse in on itself, goes the assumption. And yet history also has a seemingly sinister way of repeating itself when you least expect it, in modern times with the threat of drug-resistant "superbugs" brought about as a result of so-called advancements in medicine.
Verity
, “China’s Flawed Drugs Policy,” Foreign Policy Centre, 6—22—11, http://fpc.org.uk/articles/514, accessed 12-
20-14.
China has woken up to its drug problem, but it is failing woefully in trying to tackle it. Nestled between two major heroin-producing regions, the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran), China has long been a transit path for drugs headed toward the rest of the world. Along an ever-expanding network of routes that lead to
China's international seaports, domestic heroin use is soaring. No longer just a transit country, it now has a sizable user population of its own. The rise in domestic heroin addiction has had disastrous social consequences , with an increase in Chinese drug cultivation and organised criminal activity, as well as a rise in intravenous drug use and a spiralling HIV/AIDS epidemic . China's role as a drugs conduit has increased considerably over the past two decades. Throughout the 20th century, opium and later heroin, from the Golden Triangle, was smuggled to Thailand's seaports and then on to satiate drug markets throughout the world. More effective law enforcement and a stricter drug policy in
Thailand in the late 1980s and early 90s reduced the state as an effective trafficking route. Concurrently, Burmese drug lord Khun
Sa, the prime heroin producer and distributer along the Thai-Burmese border, surrendered to the Burmese authorities. With the collapse of Khun Sa's army, Burma's foremost heroin trafficking route into Thailand was disrupted. Consequently, China's role as a narcotics conduit became even more crucial. Well over half the heroin produced in the Golden Triangle now travels through China, wending its way through southern provinces Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong towards Hong Kong. This shift in regional drug trade routes coincided with rapid economic development in China's southwest. More robust roads allow for faster and easier transportation of illicit drugs, while an increased fiscal and technological ability to refine heroin locally has driven down its market value and increased local consumption. By 1989, the HIV virus was detected amongst injecting drug users in China's most southwesterly province Yunnan. Needle sharing drove the epidemic, and HIV/AIDS rapidly spread to drug users in neighbouring provinces and along trafficking routes. At the turn of the century, HIV infections had been reported in all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, with drug users accounting for 60-70 per cent of reported cases. While the Chinese government was slow to engage substantively with a generalised AIDS epidemic in the country, a new administration taking office in 2003 under
President Hu Jintao accelerated the commitment to and implementation of evidence-based HIV policies. Having woken up to the seriousness of its HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Chinese government sought increasingly progressive means to combat the crisis, calling on a range of outside actors to implement new and innovative pilot projects. During the 2000s, the government seemingly revoked its zero-tolerance attitude towards drug users, introducing needle exchange programmes and controlled methadone maintenance treatments in the most affected areas. While the Chinese government continues to take a pragmatic approach to its
HIV/AIDS crisis, the good work of these projects is offset by the 2008 Narcotics Law that vastly emphasises law enforcement over medical treatment in the government's response to drug use. This law calls for the rehabilitation of illicit drug users and for their treatment as patients rather than as criminals, yet the law also allows for the incarceration - without trial or judicial oversight
– of individuals suspected by police of drug use for up to six years in drug detention centres. To allow for this, the 2008 Narcotics Law considerably enhances police power to randomly search people for possession of drugs, and to subject them to urine tests for drug use without reasonable suspicion of crime. The law also empowers the

police , rather than medical professionals, to make judgements on the nature of the suspected users' addiction, and to subsequently a ssign alleged drug users to detention centres.
According to Human Rights Watch, whilst in detention centres suspected drug users receive no medical care, no support for quitting drugs, and no skills training for re-entering society upon release. In the name of treatment, suspected drug users are confined under "horrific conditions, subject to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and forced to engage in unpaid labour". Not only is this law ineffective in tackling China's growing drug problem and rehabilitating its users, but incarceration of suspected addicts in detention centres represents a serious breach of the basic human rights guaranteed by both China's domestic and international legal commitments. Furthermore, the law is a counter productive policy for combating
HIV/AIDS in China. The threat of forcible detention only discourages users from seeking professional help to tackle their addictions, and from utilising needle exchange programmes for fear of incarceration. The result is to encourage "underground" illicit drug use that leads to needle sharing and hence the spread of HIV/AIDS. Effective tackling of illicit drug use requires developing voluntary, outpatient treatment based upon effective, proven approaches to drug addiction . Specific reform of the law should reverse the expanded police powers to detain suspected users without trial, and implement specific procedural mechanisms to protect the health and human rights of drug users in a standardised and appropriate way. The Chinese government has sought to work with outside actors in combating its HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly in its most affected province Yunnan. The UK Department for
International Development (DfID) has been engaged in HIV/AIDS prevention throughout southwest China since the launch of the
China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Programme in 2001. DfID's Multilateral Aid Review, published in March this year, cut all future development aid to China. The discontinuation of DfID projects in southwest China will weaken efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS and rehabilitate drug users in the region. It also lessens pressure on China to combat these issues in a reasonable and felicitous way. The international donor community present in China must implement policies that reflect realities on the ground by ensuring that the health care and treatment of drug users is at the core of their HIV/AIDS policies. They should also use their position of influence to nudge Beijing to rectify the flaws in the 2008 Narcotics Law with its negative implications for the human rights of suspected drug users, and for combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. If the country's skyrocketing number of i ntra v enous drug users and the resultant HIV/AIDS epidemic are left to fester , it could result in severe health consequences, economic loss and social devastation . China still has time to act, but it should do so now before it is too late.
, Taipei-based journalist and contributor to The Diplomat who focuses on military issues in Northeast Asia and in the
Taiwan Strait. He previously served as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Where Would Beijing
Use External Distractions?, J Michael, http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/where-would-beijing-use-external-distractions/
Throughout history, embattled governments have often resort ed to external distractions to tap into a restive population’s nationalist sentiment and thereby release, or redirect, pressures that otherwise could have been turned against those in power. Authoritarian regimes in particular , which deny their citizens the right to punish the authorities through retributive democracy
— that is, elections — have used this device to ensure their survival during periods of domestic upheaval or financial crisis. Would the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose legitimacy is so contingent on social stability and economic growth, go down the same path if it felt that its hold on power were threatened by domestic instability? Building on the premise that the many contradictions that are inherent to the extraordinarily complex Chinese experiment, and rampant corruption that undermines stability, will eventually catch up with the CCP, we can legitimately ask how, and where,
Beijing could manufacture external crises with opponents against whom nationalist fervor, a major characteristic of contemporary China, can be channeled. In past decades, the
CCP has on several occasions tapped into public outrage to distract a disgruntled population, often by encouraging (and when necessary containing) protests against external opponents, namely Japan and the United States. While serving as a convenient outlet, domestic protests, even when they turned violent (e.g., attacks on Japanese manufacturers), were about as far as the CCP would allow. This self-imposed restraint, which was prevalent during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, was a fun ction both of China’s focus on building its economy (contingent on stable relations with its neighbors) and perceived military weakness. Since then
, China has established itself as the world’s second-largest economy and now deploys, thanks to more than a decade of double-digit defense budget growth, a first-rate modern military.
Those impressive achievements have, however, fueled Chinese nationalism , which has increasingly approached the dangerous zone of hubris . For many, China is now a rightful regional hegemon demanding respect, which if denied can
— and should — be met with threats, if not the application of force. While it might be tempting to attribute China’s recent assertiveness in the South and
East China Seas to the emergence of Xi Jinping, Xi alone cannot make all the decisions; nationalism is a component that cannot be dissociated from this new phase in Chinese expressions of its power. As then-Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi is said to have told his counterparts at a tense regional forum in
Hanoi in 2010, “There is one basic difference among us. China is a big state and you are smaller countries.” This newfound assertiveness within its backyard thus makes it more feasible that, in times of serious trouble at home, the Chinese leadership could seek to deflect potentially destabilizing anger by exploiting some external distraction
. Doing so is always a calculated risk, and sometimes the gambit fails, as Slobodan Milosevic learned the hard way when he tapped into the furies of nationalism to appease

mounting public discontent with his bungled economic policies. For an external distraction to achieve its objective (that is, taking attention away from domestic issues by redirecting anger at an outside actor), it must not result in failure or military defeat. In other words, except for the most extreme circumstances, such as the imminent collapse of a regime, the decision to externalize a domestic crisis is a rational one: adventurism must be certain to achieve success, which in turn will translate into political gains for the embattled regime. Risk-taking is therefore proportional to the seriousness of the destabilizing forces within. Rule No. 1 for
External Distractions: The greater the domestic instability, the more risks a regime will be willing to take , given that the scope and, above all, the symbolism of the victory in an external scenario must also be greater. With this in mind, we can then ask which external distraction scenarios would Beijing be the most likely to turn to should domestic disturbances compel it to do so. That is not to say that anything like this will happen anytime soon. It is nevertheless not unreasonable to imagine such a possibility. The intensifying crackdown on critics of the CCP, the detention of lawyers, journalists and activists, unrest in Xinjiang, random acts of terrorism, accrued censorship — all point to growing instability. What follows is a very succinct (and by no means exhaustive) list of disputes, in descending order of likelihood, which Beijing could use for external distraction. 1. South China Sea
The S outh C hina S ea, an area where China is embroiled in several territorial disputes with smaller claimants, is ripe for exploitation as an external distraction. Nationalist sentiment, along with the sense that the entire body of water is part of China’s indivisible territory and therefore a “core interest ,” are sufficient enough to foster a will to fight should some “incident,” timed to counter unrest back home, force China to react. Barring a U.S. intervention, wh ich for the time being seems unlikely, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has both the numerical and qualitative advantage against any would be opponent or combination thereof. The Philippines and Vietnam, two countries which have skirmished with China in recent years, are the likeliest candidates for external distractions, as the costs of a brief conflict would be low and the likelihood of military success fairly high. For a quick popularity boost and low-risk distraction, these opponents would best serve Beijing’s interests.
(Avery Goldstein, Professor of Global Politics and International Relations, Director of the Center for the Study of
Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania, “China’s Real and Present Danger”, Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct 2013, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139651/avery-goldstein/chinas-real-and-present-danger) gender edited
Uncertainty about what could lead either Beijing or Washington to risk war makes a crisis far more likely, since neither side knows when, where, or just how hard it can push without the other side pushing back. This situation bears some resemblance to that of the early Cold War, when it took a number of serious crises for the two sides to feel each other out and learn the rules of the road. But today’s environment might be even more dangerous.¶ The balance of nuclear and conventional military power between China and the United States, for example, is much more lopsided than the one that existed between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Should Beijing and Washington find themselves in a conflict, the huge U.S. advantage in conventional forces would increase the temptation for Washington to
threaten to or actually use force
. Recognizing the temptation facing Washington, Beijing might in turn feel pressure to use its conventional forces before they are destroyed. Although China could not reverse the military imbalance, it might believe that quickly imposing high costs on the United States would be the best way to get it to back off.¶ The fact that both sides have nuclear arsenals would help keep the situation in check, because both sides would want to avoid actions that would invite nuclear retaliation. Indeed, if only nuclear considerations mattered, U.S.-Chinese crises would be very stable and not worth worrying about too much. But the two sides’ conventional forces complicate matters and undermine the stability provided by nuclear deterrence .
During a crisis, either side might believe that using its conventional forces would confer bargaining leverage, manipulating the other side’s fear of escalation through what the economist Thomas Schelling calls a “competition in risk-taking.” In a crisis, China or the United States might believe that it valued what was at stake more than the other and would therefore be willing to tolerate a higher level of risk. But because using conventional forces would be only the first step in an unpredictable process subject to misperception , missteps, and miscalculation, there is no guarantee that brinkmanship [ brinkspersonship] would end before it led to an unanticipated nuclear catastrophe .
¶ China, moreover, apparently believes that nuclear deterrence opens the door to the safe use of conventional force. Since both countries would fear a potential nuclear exchange, the
Chinese seem to think that neither they nor the Americans would allow a military conflict to escalate too far. Soviet leaders, by contrast, indicated that they would use whatever military means were necessary if war came -- which is one reason why war never came. In addition, China’s official “no first use” nuclear policy, which guides the Chinese military’s preparation and training for conflict, might reinforce Beijing’s confidence that limited war with the United States would not mean courting nuclear escalation. As a result of its beliefs, Beijing might be less cautious about taking steps that would risk triggering a crisis. And if a crisis ensued,
China might also be less cautious about firing the first shot .
¶ Such beliefs are particularly worrisome given recent developments in technology that have dramatically improved the precision and effectiveness of conventional military capabilities. Their lethality might confer a dramatic advantage to the side that attacks first, something that was generally not true of conventional military operations in the main European theater of U.S.-Soviet confrontation. Moreover, because the sophisticated computer and satellite systems that guide contemporary weapons are highly vulnerable to conventional military strikes or cyberattacks, today’s more precise weapons might be effective only if they are used before an adversary has struck or adopted countermeasures. If peacetime restraint were to give way to a search for advantage in a crisis, neither China nor the United States could be confident about the durability of the systems managing its advanced conventional weapons.
¶ Under such circumstances,

both Beijing and Washington would have incentives to initiate an attack .
China would feel particularly strong pressure , since its advanced conventional weapons are more fully dependent on vulnerable computer networks , fixed radar sites, and satellites. The effectiveness of U.S. advanced forces is less dependent on these most vulnerable systems. The advantage held by the United States, however, might increase its temptation to strike first, especially against China’s satellites, since it would be able to cope with Chinese retaliation in kind.
(Seth, journalist, 10-31-13, "Is Pot-Growing Bad for the Environment?" The Nation) www.thenation.com/article/176955/pot-growing-bad-environment?page=0,2
As cannabis production has ramped up
in Northern California to meet the demand for medical and black-market marijuana, the ecological impacts of its cultivation have ballooned. From shrunken, muddy streams to rivers choked with algae and wild lands tainted with chemical poisons, large-scale cannabis agriculture is emerging as a significant threat to the victories that have been won in the region to protect wilderness, keep toxic chemicals out of the environment , and rebuild salmon runs that had once provided the backbone of a coast-wide fishing industry. River advocate
Scott Greacen has spent most of his career fighting dams and the timber industry, but now he’s widened his focus to include the costs of reckless marijuana growing. Last year was a time of region-wide rebound for threatened salmon runs, but one of his colleagues walked his neighborhood creek and sent a downbeat report that only a few spawning fish had returned. Even more alarming was the condition of the creek bed: coated with silt and mud, a sign that the water quality in this stream was going downhill.
“The problem with the weed industry is that its impacts are severe, it’s not effectively regulated, and it’s growing
so rapidly
,
” says Greacen, executive director of Friends of the Eel River, which runs through the heart of the marijuana belt. That lack of regulation sets marijuana’s impacts apart
from those that stem from legal farming or logging , yet the 76year-old federal prohibition on cannabis has thwarted attempts to hold its production to any kind of environmental standard . As a result, the ecological impact of an ounce of pot varies tremendously, depending on whether it was produced by squatters in national forests, hydroponic operators in homes and warehouses, industrial-scale operations on private land, or conscientious mom-and-pop farmers. Consumers could exert market power through their choices, if only they had a reliable, widely accepted certification program, like the ones that guarantee the integrity of organic agriculture. But thanks to the prohibition on pot, no such certification program exists for cannabis products. To understand how raising some dried flowers —the prized part of the cannabis plant —can damage the local ecosystem, you first have to grasp the skyrocketing scale of backwoods agriculture on the redwood coast.
Last fall, Scott Bauer of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife turned a mapping crew loose on satellite photos of two adjoining creeks. In the Staten
Island –sized area that drains into those streams, his team identified more than 1,000 cannabis farms, estimated to produce some 40,000 small-tree-sized plants annually. Bauer holds up the maps, where each greenhouse is marked in blue and each outdoor marijuana garden in red, with dots that correspond to the size of the operation. It looks like the landscape has a severe case of Technicolor acne. “In the last couple of years, the increase has been exponential,” Bauer says. “On the screen, you can toggle back and forth between the 2010 aerial photo and the one from 2012. Where there had been one or two sites, now there are ten.” Each of those sites represents industrial development in a mostly wild landscape, with the hilly terrain flattened and cleared. “When someone shaves off a mountaintop and sets a facility on it,”
Bauer says, “that’s never changing. The topsoil is gone.” The displaced soil is then spread by bulldozer to build up a larger flat pad for greenhouses and other farm buildings. But heavy winter rains wash some of the soil into streams, Bauer explains, where it sullies the salmon’s spawning gravels and fills in the pools where salmon fry spend the summer. Ironically, these are the very impacts that resulted from the worst logging practices of the last century. “We got logging to the point that the rules are pretty tight,” Bauer says, “and now there’s this whole new industry where nobody has any idea what they’re doing. You see guys building roads who have never even used a Cat [Caterpillar tractor]. We’re going backwards.” Then there’s irrigation. A hefty cannabis plant needs several gallons of water per day in the rainless summer growing season, which doesn’t sound like much until you multiply it by thousands of plants and consider that many of the streams in the area naturally dwindle each August and September. In the summer of 2012, the two creeks that Bauer’s team mapped got so low that they turned into a series of disconnected pools with no water flowing between them, trapping the young fish in shrinking ponds. “It’s a serious issue for the coho salmo n,” Bauer says. “How is this species going to recover if there’s no water?” The effects extend beyond salmon. During several law enforcement raids last year, Bauer surveyed the creeks supplying marijuana farms to document the environmental violations occur ring there. Each time, he says, he found a sensitive salamander species above the grower’s water intakes, but none below them, where the irrigation pipes had left little water in the creek. On one of these raids, he chastised the grower, who was camped out onsite and hailed from the East Coast, new to the four- to sixmonth dry season that comes with California’s
Mediterranean climate. “I told him, ‘You’re taking most of the flow, man,’ ” Bauer recalls. “’It’s just a little tiny creek, and you’ve got three other growers downstream. If you’re all taking 20 or 30 percent, pretty soon there’s nothing left for the fish.’ So he says, ‘I didn’t think about that.’ ” While some growers raise their pot organically, many do not. “Once you get to a certain scale, it’s really hard to operate in a sustainable way,” Greacen says. “Among other things, you’ve got a monoculture, and monocultures invite pests.” Spider mites turn out to be a particular challenge for greenhouse growers. Tony Silvaggio, a lecturer at
Humboldt Sta te University and a scholar at the campus’s year-old Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research, found that potent poisons such as Avid and Floramite are sold in small vials under the counter at grower supply stores, in defiance of a state law that requires they be sold only to holders of a pesticide applicator’s license. Nor are just the workers at risk: the miticides have been tested for use on decorative plants, but not for their impacts if smoked. Otherwise ecologically minded growers c an be driven to spray with commercial pesticides, Silvaggio has found in his research. “After you’ve worked for months, if you have an outbreak of mites in your last few weeks when the buds are going, you’ve got to do something—otherwise you lose everything,” he says. Outdoor growers face another threat: rats, which are drawn to the aromatic, sticky foliage of the cannabis plant. Raids at growing sites typically find packages of the long-acting rodent poison warfarin, which has begun making its way up the food chain to predators such as the rare, weasel-like fisher. A study last year in the online scientific journal PLOS One found that more than 70 percent of fishers have rat poison in their bloodstream, and attributed four fisher deaths to internal bleeding triggered by the poison they absorbed through their prey. Deep in the back-country, Silvaggio says, growers shoot or poison bears to keep them from raiding their encampments. The final blow to environmental health from outdoor growing comes from fertilizers. Growers dump their used potting soil, enriched with unabsorbed fertilizers, in places where it washes into nearby streams and is suspected of triggering blooms of toxic algae. The deaths of four dogs on Eel River tributaries have been linked to the algae, which the dogs ingest after swimming in the river and then licking their fur. The cannabis industry —or what Silvaggio calls the “marijuana-industrial complex”—has been building toward this collision with the environment ever since California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana under state law. Seven years later, the legislature passed Senate Bill 420, which a llows patients growing pot with a doctor’s blessing to form collectives and sell their herbal remedy to fellow patients. Thus were born the storefront dispensaries, which grew so common that they came to outnumber Starbucks ou tlets in Los Angeles. From the growers’ point of view, a 100-plant operation no longer had to be hidden, because its existence cou ldn’t be presumed illegal under state law. So most growers stopped hiding their plants in discreet back-country clearings or buried shipping containers and instead put them out in the open. As large grows became less risky, they proliferated
—and so did their effects on the environment. Google Earth posted satellite photos taken in August 2012, when most outdoor pot gardens were nearing their peak. Working with Silvaggio, a graduate student identified large growing sites in the area, and posted a Google Earth flyover tour of the region that makes it clear that the two creeks Bauer’s team studied are representative of the situation across the region. With all of the disturbance from burgeoning backwoods marijuana gardens, it might seem that raising cannabis indoors would be the answer. Indoor growers can tap into municipal water supplies and don’t have to clear land or build roads to farms on hilltop hideaways. But indoor growing is responsible instead for a more insidious brand of damage: an outsize carbon footprint to power the electric-intensive lights, fans and pumps that it takes to raise plants inside. A dining-table-size hydroponic unit yielding five one-pound crops per year would consume as much electricity as the average US home, according to a 2012 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy. All told, the carbon footprint of a single gram of cannabis is the same as driving seventeen miles in a Honda Civic. In addition, says Kristin Nevedal, president of the Emerald Growers Association, “the tendency indoors is to lean toward chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides to stabilize the manmade environment, because you don’t have the natural beneficials that are found outdoors.” Nevertheless, the appeal of indoor growing is strong, explains Sharon (not her real name), a single mother who used to raise marijuana in the sunshine but moved her operation indoors after she split up with her husband. Under her 3,000 watts of electric light, she raises numerous smaller plants in a space the size of two sheets of plywood, using far less physical effort than when she raised large plants outdoors. “It’s a very mommy-friendly business that provides a dependable, year-round income,” she says. Sharon harvests small batches of marijuana year-round, which fetch a few hundred dollars more per pound than outdoorgrown cannabis because of consumers’ preferences. Sharon’s growing operation supports her and her teenage daughter in the rural area where she settled more than two decades ago. Add up the energy used by in door growers, from those on Sharon’s scale to the converted warehouses favored by urban dispensaries, and the impact is significant —estimated at 3 percent of the state’s total power bill, or the electricity consumed by 1 million homes. On a local level, indoor cannabis production is blocking climate stabilization efforts in the coastal city of Arcata, which aimed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over twelve years. But during the first half of that period, while electricity consumption was flat or declining slightly statewide, Arcata’s household electrical use grew by 25 percent. City staff traced the increase to more than 600 houses that were using at least triple the electricity of the average home—a level consistent with a commercial cannabis operation. The city has borne other costs, too, besides simply missing its climate goals. Inexpertly wired grow houses catch fire, and the conversion of residential units to indoor hothouses has cut into the city’s supply of affordable housing. Last November, city voters approved a stiff tax on jumbo electricity consumers. Now the city council is working with other Humboldt County local governments to pass a similar tax so that growers can’t evade the fee simply by fleeing the city limits, says City Councilman Michael Winkler. “We don’t want any place in Humboldt County to be a cheaper

place to grow than any other. And since this is the Silicon Valley of marijuana growing, there are a lot of reasons why peopl e would want to stay here if they’re doing this,” he says. “My goal is to make it expensive enough to get largescale marijuana growing out of the neighborhoods.”
A tax on excessive electricity use may seem like an indirect way of curbing household cannabis cultivation, but the city had to back away from its more direct approach —a zoning ordinance—when the federal government threatened to prosecute local officials throughout the state if they sanctioned an activity that is categorically forbidden under US law. Attempts in neighboring Mendocino County to issue permits to outdoor growers meeting environmental and publicsafety standards were foiled when federal attorneys slapped county officials with similar warnings —illustrating, yet again, the way prohibition sabotages efforts to reduce the industry’s environmental damage. Indeed, observers cite federal cannabis prohibition as the biggest impediment to curbing the impacts of marijuana cultivation , which continues to expand despite a decadeslong federal policy of zero tolerance. “We don’t have a set of best management practices for this industry, partly because of federal prohibition,” says researcher Silvaggio. “If a grower comes to the county agricultural commissioner and asks, ‘What are the practices I can use that can limit my impact?’, the county ag guy says, ‘I can’t talk to you about that because we get federal money.’ ”
(Mourad, Greta Wengert, Mark Higley, Shane Krogan, Warren Sargent, and Deana Clifford, 4-11-13, "Silent
Forests? Rodenticides on Illegal Marijuana Crops Harm Wildlife" Wildlife Society News) news.wildlife.org/twp/2013-spring/silentforests/
Problem Spreading Like Weeds Illegal marijuana growing is not just a problem for wildlife. The High Sierra Volunteer Trail
Crew is a nonprofit trail-maintenance crew that has spent the past seven years maintaining and cleaning trails throughout the Sierra
Nevadas’ national forests. In the mid-2000s, the group realized that risks associated with large-scale marijuana production throughout most, if not all, California national forests threatened backcountry use of public lands. Since then, the trail crew’s
Environmental Reclamation Team ( ERT) has remediated more than 600 large-scale marijuana cultivation sites on public lands. The numbers are daunting , especially when considering that these 600 sites were in only two of
California’s 17 national forests and may constitute only a fraction of the actual marijuana cultivation sites that exist in these forests. Tommy Lanier, Director of the National Marijuana Initiative, a White House supported program, states that “60 percent to 70 percent of the national marijuana seizures come from California annually, and of those totals, about 60 percent comes from public lands.” Based on data from ERT-remediated sites, at least 50 percent of them have SGARs. Beyond finding anticoagulant rodenticides, the team and other remediation groups frequently find and remove restricted and banned pesticides including organo- phosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates as well as thousands of pounds of nitrogenrich fertilizers. Many of the discovered pesticides have been banned for use in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, specifically certain carbamates, which gained notoriety worldwide after an explosion of public awareness about their use to kill
African wildlife. Unfortunately, these same malicious uses are occurring in California, where marijuana cultivators place pourable carbamate pesticides in opened tuna or sardine cans in order to kill black bears, gray foxes, raccoons, and other carnivores that damage marijuana plants or raid food caches at grow-site encampments. In many cases, law enforcement officers approaching grow sites observe wildlife exposed to what officers call “wildlife bombs” due to their high potential for mass wildlife killing. For example, as federal and state officers approached a grow site in Northern California, they discovered a black bear and her cubs seizing and convulsing as they slowly succumbed to the neurological effects of these pesticides. Because toxicants are usually dispersed throughout cultivation sites, it is remarkably difficult to detect and remove all pesticide threats.
(A, LC-MS Laboratory, DiSTeVA, University of Urbino, Piazza Rinascimento 6, 61029, Urbino, Italy, G
Famiglini, Palma P, V Termopoli, AM Lavezzi, L Matturri, May 2014, "Determination of selected endocrine disrupting compounds in human fetal and newborn tissues by GC-MS." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24633505
Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) include organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), organophosphate pesticides (OPPs), carbamate pesticides , and plasticizers, such as bisphenol A (BPA). They persist in the environment because of their degradation resistance and bioaccumulate in the body tissues of humans and other mammals. Many studies are focused on the possible correlation between in utero exposure to EDCs and adverse health hazards in fetuses and newborns. In the last decade, environmental pollution has been considered a possible trigger for Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Sudden Intrauterine Unexplained Death Syndrome (SIUDS), the most important death-causing syndromes in fetuses and newborns in developed countries. In this work, a rapid and sensitive analytical method was developed to determine the level of OCPs and OPPs, carbamates, and phenols in human fetal and newborn tissues (liver and brain) and to unveil the possible presence of non-targeted compounds. The target analytes where selected on the basis of their documented presence in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, an intensive agricultural area in northern Italy. A liquid-solid extraction procedure was applied on human and animal tissues and the extracts, after a solid phase extraction (SPE) clean-up procedure, were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometric detector (GC-qMS). A GC-TOFMS (time-of-flight) instrument, because of its higher full-scan sensitivity, was used for a parallel detection of non-targeted compounds. Method validation included accuracy, precision, detection, and quantification limits (LODs; LOQs), and linearity response using swine liver and lamb brain spiked at different concentrations in the range of 0.4-8000.0 ng/g. The method gave good repeatability and extraction efficiency. Method
LOQs ranged from 0.4-4.0 ng/g in the selected matrices. Good linearity was obtained over four orders of magnitude starting from

LOQs. Isotopically labeled internal standards were used for quantitative calculations. The method was then successfully applied to the analysis of liver and brain tissues from SIUDS and SIDS victims coming from the above mentioned region.
(Tatsuo, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering – Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Technology in
Society, August)
Advanced technology provides a comfortable life for many people, but it also produces strong destructive forces that can cause extinction of the human race if used accidentally or intentionally. As stated in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, hydrogen bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.1 Nuclear weapons are not the only risks that arise from modem technologies.
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote in her book, Silent Spring [2], that the amount of the pesticide parathion used on California farms alone at that time could provide a lethal dose for five to ten times the whole world's population. Destruction of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, and chemical pollution by endocrine destructive chemicals began to appear as the result of advanced technology, and they are now considered to be potential causes of extinction of the human race unless
they are effectively controlled.

Brandon J.
, J.D. Candidate, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, “Note and Comment: Was
Gonzales v. Raich the Death Knell of Federalism? Assessing Meaningful Limits on Federal Intrastate Regulation in Light of U.S. v.
Nascimento”, 23 BYU J. Pub. L. 317, lexis
When the Supreme Court decided Gonzales v.
Raich2
in 2005, it marked the first occasion in
over a decade that the Court broadly construed the Commerce Clause to permit federal regulation of intrastate activity. More importantly, Raich signaled an abrupt end to the Rehnquist Court’ s “federalism revolution” by circumscribing three recent cases delineating meaningful limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers.3 It represents the boldest assertion of congressional power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states” in the history of the
Court .4 Indeed, Raich and its progeny threaten to undermine the delicate balance of federal and state power structurally imbued in our constitutional republic by acquiescing to the unbridled exercise of federal power .
Though some have expressed skepticism about the ostensibly broad effect Raich might have on federalism jurisprudence, recent circuit court cases decided pursuant to the standards set forth in Raich demonstrate federal appropriation of
“core” state powers,5 including, in particular, state police powers . This Comment argues that the Supreme Court should limit Raich by reviving the limitation on congressional regulation of noneconomic intrastate activity to circumstances where failure to regulate such activity would undermine a broader regulatory program. The
Court should also narrowly confine Raich’s definition of “economic activity” to prevent lower courts from “piling inference upon inference” to demonstrate otherwise tenuous connections to interstate commerce. This approach would not require the Court to overrule Raich, but merely to enforce the clear standards articulated in United States v. Lopez6 and United States v. Morrison.7 Part
II provides background on the Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence between 1937 and 1994—a period of virtually unchecked federal expansion —and the Rehnquist Court’ s “federalism revolution” between 1995 and 2005 that reestablished limits on federal commerce powers . This section examines in particular how United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison limited the scope and nature of activity within Congress’s regulatory purview by (1) moving away from the “rational basis” test when evaluating Commerce Clause challenges, (2) limiting regulation to quintessential “economic” activity, and (3) enforcing the “essential” component of the broader regulatory regime exception. Part III explains how Raich largely unraveled the progress made by the Rehnquist Court. First, the Court adopted a definition of “economic” that fails to limit the scope of activity within Congress ’s regulatory purview. Second, the decision opens the door to federal regulation of noneconomic, intrastate activity that falls within a broader regulatory scheme regardless of whether such activity is “essential” to the larger regulatory program. Finally, the Court reasserted a “rational basis” test that effectively eliminates judicial scrutiny of the actual aggregate effect of a regulated activity on interstate commerce, inquiring rather “whether a ‘rational basis’ exists for so concluding.”8
These standards have reduced judicial review of Commerce Clause challenges to a rubberstamping exercise where the regulated activity is rationally related to commerce. More important, they have rendered “as-applied” challenges to otherwise valid statutes nearly impossible. Part IV considers one of the first casualties in the breakdown of meaningful limits on federal commerce powers in Raich’s
jurisprudential wake: appropriation of state police powers through RICO prosecutions. This section contrasts two nearly identical cases in which federal prosecutors charged local street gangs members with racketeering for engaging in intrastate, noneconomic criminal activity. The Sixth Circuit reversed the federal conviction in United
States v. Waucaush9 by applying the clear principles articulated in Morrison and Lopez without the encumbrances of Raich. The
First Circuit, however, affirmed the criminal convictions in United States v. Nascimento10 by taking Raich to its logical end, which is to say, by not imposing meaningful limits on the federal government’s prosecutorial powers under RICO. These cases aptly demonstrate how Raich encourages judicial acquiescence to federal appropriation of traditional state powers by narrowly limiting the force of judicial review .
Erica
, Legal Analyst for Heritage, Brian W. Walsh, Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies at Heritage, Federalizing “Gang Crime” is Counterproductive and Dangerous, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Crime/wm1221.cfm

More broadly,
Congress should discontinue its habit of expanding federal criminal law.
The phenomenon of overfederalization of crime undermines
state and local accountability for law enforcement, undermines more cooperative and creative efforts to fight crime (that is, allowing the states to act as "laboratories of democracy"), and injures America's federalist system of government.
One of the more concrete problem s that comes with federal overcriminalization is the misallocation of scarce federal law enforcement resources , which results in selective prosecution. New demands distract the F ederal
B ureau of
I nvestigation, the U.S. Attorneys, and other federal law enforcers from national problems
that undeniably require federal attention, such as
the investigation and prosecution of espionage and terrorism
. Moreover, federal prosecution is more expensive than state-level prosecution.
, Andrew Majoran (MS from the Transnational Security Studies program at Royal Holloway, University of London in the United Kingdom, specializes in international security, counter-terrorism, multilateral defense, and maritime security), The
Mackenzie Institute, “Wolves Among Us: The Dangers Of Lone Wolf Terrorism”, July 5, 2014, acc 12/19, http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/wolves-among-us-dangers-lone-wolf-terrorism/
In conclusion, Western understanding of terrorism must evolve to ensure that the threat of lone wolf terrorism is contained. For too long Western governments, media outlets, and general populations have stereotyped terrorism as large recognizable extremist groups like Al-Qaeda , ISIS, and Boko Haram. Although these terrorist groups do pose a threat to Western security, they have been hindered
in recent years by increased law enforcement
, government presence, and counter-insurgency efforts.23 On the other side of the terrorism spectrum, the societal focus on large terrorist groups has benefitted the individual lone wolf terrorist efforts domestically and internationally. Lone wolves are difficult to detect due to their isolationist nature and are seldom discovered until after their terrorist attacks have taken place. It is evident that lone wolf terrorism is difficult to stop using traditional counter-terrorism tactics; however, this does not mean that more cannot be done to prevent lone wolf terrorism from continuing to grow. Measures such as monitoring of the internet, identifying overly aggressive political activism publically, enhancement of weapon id entification devices , the expansion of CCTV in public areas, and the use of advanced biometrics to simplify surveillance and gather data must be taken .24 It is evident that lone wolves pose a significant threat to the security of the West, and they will continue to do so as long as we remain complacent. Lone wolf terrorism can be fought effectively, but it requires us to move away from associating terrorism with large international terrorist groups and practicing vigilance in our own communities.
Gary A.
& Lauren E. Pinson, Gary is Director of the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Lauren is
Senior Researcher and Project Manager for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses of Terrorism, An
Army of One: Assessing CBRN Pursuit and Use by Lone Wolves and Autonomous Cells, Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume
26, Issue 1
The first question to answer is whence the concerns about the nexus between CBRN weapons and isolated actors come and whether these are overblown. The general threat of mass violence posed by lone wolves and small autonomous cells has been detailed in accompanying issue contributions, but the potential use of CBRN weapons by such perpetrators presents some singular features that either amplify or supplement the attributes of the more general case and so are deserving of particular attention. Chief among these is the impact of rapid technological development. Recent and emerging advances in a variety of areas, from synthetic biology 3 to nanoscale engineering, 4 have opened doors not only to new medicines and materials, but also to new possibilities for malefactors to inflict harm on others. What is most relevant in the context of lone actors and small autonomous cells is not so much the pace of new invention, but rather the commercialization and consumerization of CBRN weapons relevant technologies. This process often entails an increase in the availability and safety of the technology, with a concurrent diminution in the cost, volume, and technical knowledge required to operate it. Thus, for example, whereas fifty years ago producing large quantities of certain chemical weapons might have been a dangerous and inefficient affair requiring a large plant, expensive equipment, and several chemical engineers, with the advent of chemical microreactors, 5 the same processes might be accomplished far more cheaply and safely on a desktop assemblage, purchased commercially and monitored by a single chemistry grad uate student.¶ The rapid global spread and increased user-friendliness of many technologies thus represents a potentially radical shift from the relatively small scale of harm a single individual or small autonomous group could historically cause. 6 From the limited reach and killing power of the sword, spear, and bow, to the introduction of dynamite and eventually the use of our own infrastructures against us (as on September 11), the number of people that an individual who was unsupported by a broader political entity could kill with a single action has increased
from si ngle digits to thousands. Indeed, it has even been asserted that “over time … as the leverage provided by technology increases, this threshold will finally reach its culmination —with the ability of one man to declare

war on the world and win .” 7 Nowhere is this trend more perceptible in the current age than in the area of unconventional weapons.¶ These new technologies do not simply empower users on a purely technical level. Globalization and the expansion of information networks provide new opportunities for disaffected individuals in the farthest corners of the globe to become familiar with core weapon concepts and to purchase equipment
—online technical courses and eBay are undoubtedly a boon to would-be purveyors of violence. Furthermore, even the most solipsistic misanthropes, people who would never be able to function socially as part of an operational terrorist group, can find radicalizing influences or legitimation for their beliefs in the maelstrom of virtual identities on the Internet.¶ All of this can spawn, it is feared, a more deleterious breed of lone actors, what have been referred to in some quarters as “super-empowered individuals.” 8 Conceptually, super-empowered individuals are atomistic game-changers, i.e., they constitute a single (and often singular) individual who can shock the entire system (whether national, regional, or global) by relying only on their own resources . Their core characteristics are that they have superior intelligence, the capacity to use complex communications or techno logy systems, and act as an individual or a “lone-wolf.” 9 The end result, according to the pessimists, is that if one of these individuals chooses to attack the system, “the unprecedented nature of his attack ensures that no counter-measures are in place to prevent it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill massive amounts of people, but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social systems that govern modern life.” 10 It almost goes without saying that the same concerns attach to small autonomous cells, whose members' capabilities and resources can be combined without appreciably increasing the operational footprint presented to intelligence and law enforcement agencies seeking to detect such behavior.¶ With the exception of the largest truck or aircraft bombs, the most likely means by which to accomplish this level of system perturbation is through the use of CBRN agents as WMD . On the motivational side, therefore, lone actors and small autonomous cells may ironically be more likely to select CBRN weapons than more established terrorist groups —who are usually more conservative in their tactical orientation—because the extreme asymmetry of these weapons may provide the only subjectively feasible option for such actors to achieve their grandiose aims of deeply affecting the system. The inherent technical challenges presented by CBRN weapons may also make them attractive to self-assured individuals who may have a very different risk tolerance than larger, traditional terrorist organizations that might have to be concerned with a variety of constituencies, from state patrons to prospective recruits. 11 Many other factors beyond a “perceived potential to achieve mass casualties” might play into the decision to pursue CBRN weapons in lieu of conventional explosives, 12 including a fetishistic fascination with these weapons or the perception of direct referents in the wouldbe perpetrator's belief system.¶ Others are far more sanguine about the capabilities of lone actors (or indeed non-state actors in general) with respect to their potential for using
CBRN agents to cause mass fatalities, arguing that the barriers to a successful large-scale CBRN attack remain high, even in today's networked, tech-savvy environment. 13 Dolnik, for example, a rgues that even though homegrown cells are “less constrained” in motivations, more challenging plots generally have an inverse relationship with capability, 14 while Michael Kenney cautions against making presumptions about the ease with which individuals can learn to produce viable weapons using only the
Internet. 15 However, even most of these pundits concede that low-level CBR attacks emanating from this quarter will probably lead to political, social, and economic disruption that extends well beyond the areas immediately affected by the attack. This raises an essential point with respect to CBRN terrorism: irrespective of the harm potential of CBRN weapons or an actor's capability (or lack thereof) to successfully employ them on a catastrophic scale, these weapons invariably exert a stronger psychological impact on audiences —the essence of terrorism—than the traditional gun and bomb. This is surely not lost on those lone actors or autonomous cells who are as interested in getting noticed as in causing cas ualties.¶ Proven Capability and Intent¶
While legitimate debate can be had as to the level of potential threat posed by lone actors or small autonomous cells wielding CBRN weapons, possibly the best argument for engaging in a substantive examination of the issue is the most concrete one of all —that these actors have already demonstrated the motivation and capability to pursue and use CBRN weapons, in some cases even close to the point of constitut ing a genuine WMD threat . In the context of bioterrorism, perhaps the most cogent illustration of this is the case of Dr. Bruce Ivins, the perpetrator behind one of the most serious episodes of bioterrorism in living memory, the 2001 “anthrax letters,” which employed a highly virulent and sophisticated form of the agent and not only killed five and seriously sickened 17 people, but led to widespread disruption of the U.S. postal services and key government facilities.
16¶ Other historical cases of CBRN pursuit and use by lone actors and small autonomous cells highlight the need for further exploration. Among the many extant examples: 17¶ Thomas Lavy was caught at the Alaska-Canada border in 1993 with 130 grams of 7% pure ricin. It is unclear how Lavy obtained the ricin, what he planned to do with it, and what motivate d him.¶ In 1996, Diane
Thompson deliberately infected twelve coworkers with shigella dysenteriae type 2. Her motives were unclear.¶ In 1998, Larry
Wayne Harris, a white supremacist, was charged with producing and stockpiling a biological agent —bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax.¶ In 1999, the Justice Department (an autonomous cell sympathetic to the Animal Liberation Front) mailed over
100 razor blades dipped in rat poison to individuals involved in the fur industry.¶ In 2000, Tsiugio Uchinshi was arrested for mailing samples of the mineral monazite with trace amounts of radioactive thorium to several Japanese government agencies to persuade authorities to look into potential uranium being smuggled to North Korea.¶ In 2002, Chen Zhengping put rat poison in a rival snack shop's products and killed 42 people.¶ In 2005, 10 letters containing a radioactive substance were mailed to major organizations in
Belgium including the Royal Palace, NATO headquarters, and the U.S. embassy in Brussels. No inj uries were reported.¶ In 2011, federal agents arrested four elderly men in Georgia who were plotting to use ricin and explosives to target federal buildings, Justice
Department officials, federal judges, and Internal Revenue Service agents.¶ Two recent events may signal an even greater interest in CBRN by lone malefactors. First, based on one assessment of Norway's Anders Breivik's treatise, his references to CBRN weapons a) suggest that CBRN weapons could be used on a tactical level and b) reveal (to perhaps previously uninformed audiences) that even low-level CBRN weapons could achieve far-reaching impacts driven by fear. 18 Whether or not Breivik would actually have sought or been able to pursue CBRN, he has garnered a following in several (often far-right) extremist circles and his treatise might inspire other lone actors. Second, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released two issues of Inspire magazine in 2012. Articles, on the one hand, call for lone wolf jihad attacks to target non-combatant populations and, on the other, permit the use of chemical and biological weapons. The combination of such directives may very well influence the weapon selection of lone actor jihadists in Western nations. 19¶

-- PhD, recognized international biodefense expert
[Patrick, Center for Health & Homeland Security senior policy analyst & biosecurity expert, National Defense University lecturer, and
Adam Bernier, expert in counter-terrorism, "DIY Bioterrorism Part II: The proliferation of bioterrorism through synthetic biology,"
CBRNePortal, 2-24-14, www.cbrneportal.com/diy-bioterrorism-part-ii-the-proliferation-of-bioterrorism-through-synthetic-biology/, accessed 8-16-14]
In Part I of this series, we examined how the advancement of synthetic biology has made bio-engineering accessible to the mainstream biological community . Non-state actors who wish to employ biological agents for ill intent are sure to be aware of how tangible bio-weapons are becoming as applications of synthetic biology become more affordable and the probability of success increases with each scientific breakthrough.
The willingness of non-state actors to engage in biological attacks is not a new concept; however, the past biological threat environment has been subdued compared to that of conventional or even chemical terrorism. The frequency and deadliness of biological attacks has, thankfully, been limited; much of which can be attributed to the technical complexity or apparent ineptitude of the perpetrators developing biological weapons. Despite the infrequency and ineffectiveness of bio logical attacks in the last four decades , the threat may be changing with the continued advancement of synthetic biology applications. Coupled with the ease of info rmation sharing and a rapidly growing do-ityourself-biology
(DIYbio) movement
(discussed in Part I), the chances of not only
, more attacks
, but potentially more deadly ones will inevitably increase .
¶ During the last half century terrorist organization s have consistently had an interest in using bio logical weapons as a means of attacking their targets, but only few have actually made a weapon and used it. The attraction is that terrorist activities with biological weapons are difficult to detect and even more difficult to attribute without a specific perpetrator claiming responsibility. Since 1971 there have been more than 113,113 terrorist attacks globally and 33 of them have been biological. The majority of bio-terrorism incidents recorded occurred during the year 2001 (17 of the 33); before 2001 there were 10 incidents and since 2001 there were 6 (not counting the most recent Ricin attacks). The lack of a discernable trend in use of bio-terrorism does not negate the clear intent of extremist organizations to use biological weapons. In fact, the capacity to harness biological weapons more effectively today only increases the risk that they will successfully be employed.
¶ The landscape is changing : previously the instances where biological attacks had the potential to do the most harm (e.g., Rajneeshees cult’s Salmonella attacks in 1984, Aum Shinri Kyo’s Botulinum toxin, and Anthrax attacks in the early 90’s) included non-state actors with access to large amounts of funding and scientists. Funding and a cadre of willing scientists does not guarantee success though. The assertion was thus made that bio logical weapons are not only expensive, they require advanced technical training to make and are even more difficult to effectively perpetrate acts of terrorism with. While it is difficult to determine with certainty whether the expense and expertise needed to create biological weapons has acted as a major deterrent for groups thinking of obtaining them, many experts would argue that the cost/expertise barrier makes the threat from biological attacks extremely small. This assertion is supported by the evidence that the vast majority of attacks have taken place in Western countries and was performed by Western citizens with advanced training in scientific research.
¶ In the past decade the cost/expertise assertion has become less accurate . Despite the lack of biological attacks, there are a number of very dangerous and motivated organizations that have or are actively pursuing bio logical weapons . The largest and most outspoken organization has been the global Al Qaeda network, whose leaders have frequently and passionately called for the development (or purchase) of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). The principal message from Al Qaeda Central and Al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula ( AQAP ) has included the call to use biological WMDs to terrorize Western nations. Al Qaeda has had a particular focus on biological and nuclear weapons because of their potential for greatest harm. Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-
Zawahiri and Anwar al-Awlaki have all called for attacks using biological weapons, going so far as to say that Muslims everywhere should seek to kill Westerners wherever possible and that obtaining WMDs is the responsibility of all Muslims. Before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda had spent significant funds on building a bio-laboratory and had begun collecting scientists from around the world; however, the Afghanistan invasion and subsequent global War on Terrorism is thought to have disrupted their capabilities and killed or captured many of their assets. Despite the physical setbacks, this disruption does not appear to have changed the aggressive attitude towards obtaining WMDs (e.g., more recently U.S. Intell igence has been concerned about AQAP attempting to make Ricin).
¶
The emergence of synthetic biology and DIYbio has increased the likelihood that Al Qaeda will succeed in developing biological
WMDs . The low cost and significantly reduced level of necessary expertise may change how many non-state actors view bio logical weapons as a worthwhile investment. This is not to say that suddenly anyone can make a weapon or that it is easy. To the contrary making an effective biological weapon will still be difficult, only much easier and cheaper than it has been in the past.
¶
The rapid advancements of synthetic bio logy could be a game changer , giving organizations currently pursuing biological weapons more options, and encouraging other organizations to

reconsider their worth.
Because the bar for attaining bio logical weapons has been lowered and is likely to continue to be lowered as more advances in biological technology are made, it is important that the international community begin to formulate policy that protects advances in science that acts to prevent the intentional misuse of synthetic biology. Disregard for this consideration will be costly. A successful attack with a potent biological weapon, where no pharmaceutical interventions might exist, will be deadly and the impact of such an attack will reverberate around the globe because biological weapons are not bound by international borders.
, the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), is a global pro bono law firm that provides legal assistance to foreign governments and international organizations on the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements, the drafting and implementation of post-conflict constitutions, and the creation and operation of war crimes tribunals. PILPG also assists states with the training of judges and the drafting of legislation, “brief of the public international law & policy group as amicus curiae in support of petitioners”, http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/preview/publiced_preview_briefs_pdfs_09_10_08_1234_PetitionerAmCuPI
LPG.authcheckdam.pdf iii. transnational judicial dialogue confirms this court’s leadership in promoting adherence to rule of law in times of conflict.
¶
PILPG’s on-the-ground experience demonstrating the leadership of this Court is confirmed by a study of transnational judicial dialogue . Over the past half century, the world’s constitutional courts have been engaged in a rich and growing transnational judicial dialogue on a wide range of constitutional law issues. See, e.g., Melissa A. Waters, Mediating Norms and
Identity: The Role of Transnational Judicial Dialogue in Creating and Enforcing International Law, 93 Geo. L.J. 487 (2005); Anne-
Marie Slaughter, Judicial Globalization, 40 Va. J. Int’l L. 1103 (2000). Courts around the world consider, discuss, and cite foreign judicial decisions not out of a sense of legal obligation, but out of a developing sense that foreign decisions are valuable resources in elucidating complex legal issues and suggesting new approaches to common problems. See Waters, supra, at 493-94.
¶ In this transnational judicial dialogue, the decisions of this Court have exercised a profound — and profoundly positive — influence on the work of foreign and international courts . See generally Constitutionalism and Rights: The Influence of the
United States Constitution Abroad (Louis Henkin & Albert J. Rosenthal eds., 1990); Anthony Lester, The Overseas
Trade in the American Bill of Rights, 88 Colum. L. Rev. 537 (1988). As Anthony Lester of the British House of Lords has noted, ¶
“ there is a vigorous overseas trade in the Bill of Rights, in international and constitutional litigation involving norms derived from American constitutional law. When life or liberty is at stake, the landmark judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving fresh meaning to the principles of the Bill of Rights, are studied with as much attention in New Delhi or Strasbourg as they are in Washington ,
D.C.” Id. at 541.
¶
This Court’s overseas influence is not limited to the Bill of
Rights. From Australia to India to Israel to the U nited K ingdom, foreign courts have looked to the seminal decisions of this Court as support for their own rulings upholding judicial review, enforcing separation of powers, and providing a judicial check on the political branches .
¶ Indeed, for foreign courts, this Court’s rulings in seminal cases such as Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803),4 Brown v. Board of
Education, 347 U.S. 436 (1954),5 United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974),6 and Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)7 take on a special significance.
Reliance on the moral authority of this Court can provide invaluable support for those foreign courts struggling to establish their own legitimacy , to shore up judicial authority against overreaching by powerful executives, and to develop a strong rule of law within their own national legal systems.
Adam M.
, Chayes Fellow, Harvard Law School, “Making Itself at Home Understanding Foreign Law in Domestic
Jurisprudence: The Indian Cas e” 24 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 218
Modern
India has
also been strongly influenced by many states that never ruled its territory.
For instance,
American influence can be found
both in the state's judicial process and its constitutional text
. 83 The
Indian Constitution's
express declaration of fundamental rights coupled with the introduction of judicial review 84 marked a radical departure from the British doctrine
of parliamentary supremacy, and thoroughly
"Americanized" the system
. 85 In addition to judicial review, the framers of the Indian Constitution explicitly used the
American
Bill of Rights as a starting point
in their discussions. 86 Moreover,
India even adapted its constitution upon the recommendation of an American jurist
. Following the terror of partition and Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, many representatives to the constitutional convention began to argue for carving out a constitutional allowance for preventive detention, placing "citizens' freedom at the disposition of a legislature for the sake of a public peace." 87 As a result, constitutional guarantees
to due process

were removed
from the document, a change supported by
(and potentially instigated by) U.S.
Supreme Court Justice
Felix Frankfurter, who served as an unofficial - though evidently persuasive - legal consultant
to the assembly. 88
Sanjay Satyanarayan
, Research Scholar at NC Law College, Nanded, "Judicial Review of Legislative Action: a tool to balance the supremacy of the Constitution", 2011 is last date cited, www.internationalseminar.org/XIV_AIS/TS%202/12.%20Sanjay%20Satyanarayan%20Bang.pdf
The future of democracy in this country will depend upon the preservation
and maintains of
the
Rule of Law
.
One of the important achievements of democracy is that law must be just for human safety and it must be subservient to the human needs.
A federal republican country in order to establish an ideal democratic rule and
to create confidence in the mind of the people about democratic federalism must allow Judicial Review to thrive so as to eliminate
unjust and unconstitutional laws and to relieve the people from legislative tyranny
.
¶
We are living in an age of constitutional and limited democracy which imposes limitations on the power of the Government and banks on majority rule to avoid tyranny and arbitrariness. But democracy cannot thrive in the absence of an all pervading justice.
The Preamble of the Indian Constitution has promised equality and justice to all citizen of India
and has the laws of India liable to be tested judicially.
The majority rule, though the best rule is found generally to be addicted to tyranny. That why the existence of some impartial body is essential for the maintenance of democracy
.
¶
Even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who possessed a very large political and constitutional experience, said: “With all my admiration and love for democracy, I am not prepared to accept the statement that the largest number of people is always right.” The danger of oppression by majority is so obvious that the history of modern democracy is hunted by the ambition of including the minority in the controlling electoral body.” But this solution of inclusion of minority is not the real solution. It is the judicial review which has tried to relieve political tension and tyranny to a greater degree.
The democratic aspect of judicial review has been summarized “If democracy means very simply that the majority is to have whatever it at present hankers after, then judicial review is an intrusive body in democracy. If democracy means that the majority is generally to have its way because human beings are to be respected and the conception of their own interests not disregarded, then the commitment of the majority to limits set by law is of the essence of democracy”. ¶
B.K. Gokhale has enumerated the merits of judicial review in democracy:
¶
1) Judges are competent to make judicial review by virtue of their knowledge and experience
.
¶ 2) Courts are less biased than
Legislatures
.
¶
3) It guarantees the rights of minorities
.
¶
4) It protects the rights if the individual and also those of the federal units in a federation.
Atul
, Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University, 2004 [Federalism and Territorial Cleavages, p. 282
Finally, the simple answer that is most readily compatible with this essay's thesis is that it is still too early to predict how the Kashmir crisis will end. If Pakistan's role diminishes
(a role which, at the time of writing, seems to be actually increasing) and
if government maintains a firm but flexible set of policies , the ethnic conflict in Kashmir may well decline over the next few years.
However, if the
BJP
government attempts to curtail the autonomy of Kashmir, moving farther in the direction of centralization and
/or if Pakistan's role in the conflict escalates
, the regional conflict may well be exacerbated
. This volume seeks to understand why territorial cleavages are accommodated better in some states than in others.
While the editors of the volume will provide the broader, cross-national generalizations, the Indian case alone also sheds some light on this central question. First, for the most part,
Indian federalism works . Sharing of power within the framework of a relatively well-established
central state has enabled the accommodation of a number of ethnic groups within Indian democracy. Ever since the linguistic reorganization of the Indian federal system in the late 1950s, it is a notable fact that most of India's large states have accepted the legitimacy of the system
. When they have not, the resulting political conflict has been mostly peaceful. The case of Tamilnadu discussed above underlined the general process of how such successful accommodation has been achieved. A well-institutionalized federal democracy both encouraged ethnic demands to emerge and provided firm limits on how far such demands can go.
Concessions by secure but accommodating national leaders
, in turn, gave ethnic elites what they wanted most
, namely, enhanced power.
As a result, the ethnic movement lost its radical edge and settled down as part and parcel of politics of
peaceful negotiation within a federal structure
.
Greg
, Research Assistant at Foreign Policy in Focus, July 8, “Reorienting U.S. Security Strategy in South Asia,” online: http://www.fpif.org/articles/reorienting_us_security_strategy_in_south_asia
The greatest threat
to regional security (although curiously not at the top of most lists of U.S. regional concerns) is
the possibility that
increased
India-
Pakistan tension will erupt into all-out warthat could quickly escalate into a nuclear exchange.
Indeed, in just the past two decades, the two
neighbors have come perilously close to war on several occasions.
India and Pakistan remain the most likely belligerents
in the world to engage in nuclear war
.
Due to an Indian preponderance of conventional forces, Pakistan would have a strong incentive to use its nuclear arsenal very early on before a routing of its military installations and weaker conventional forces. In the event of conflict, Pakistan’s only chance of survival would be the early use of its nuclear arsenal to inflict unacceptable damage to Indian military and (much more likely) civilian targets. By raising the stakes to unacceptable levels, Pakistan would hope that India would step away from the brink. However, it is equally likely that
India would respond in kind
, with escalation ensuing
.
Neither state possesses tactical nuclear weapons
, but both possess scores of city-sized bombs like those used on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Furthermore, as more damage was inflicted (or as the result of a decapitating strike), command and control
elements would be disabled
, leaving individual commanders to respond in an environment
increasingly clouded by the

fog of war and decreasing the likelihood
that either government
(what would be left of them) would
be able to guarantee that their forces would follow a negotiated settlement or phased reduction in hostilities
. As a result any such conflict would
likely continue to escalate until one side
incurred an unacceptable or wholly debilitating level of injury or exhausted its nuclear arsenal
.
A nuclear conflict in the subcontinent would have disastrous effects on the world
as a whole. In a January 2010 paper published in Scientific American, climatology professors
Alan
Robock and
Owen
Brian
Toon forecast
the global repercussions of a regional nuclear war
. Their results are strikingly similar to
those of studies
conducted in 1980 that conclude
that a nuclear war between the U nited
S tates and the Soviet Union wouldresult in a catastrophic
and prolonged nuclear winter
, which could
very well place the survival of the human race in jeopardy
. In their study, Robock and Toon use computer models to simulate the effect of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each were to use roughly half their existing arsenals (50 apiece). Since Indian and Pakistani nuclear devices are strategic rather than tactical, the likely targets would be major population centers
. Owing to the population densities of urban centers in both nations, the number of direct casualties could climb as high as 20 million. The fallout of such an exchange would not merely be limited to the immediate area. First, the detonation
of a large number of nuclear devices would propel as much as seven million metric tons of ash, soot, smoke, and debris as high as the lower stratosphere
. Owing to their small size (less than a tenth of a micron) and a lack of precipitation at this altitude, ash particles would remain aloft for as long as a decade
, during which time the world would remain perpetually overcast
.
Furthermore, these particles would
soak up heat from the sun, generating intense heat in the upper atmosphere that would severely damage the earth’s ozone layer
. The inability of sunlight to penetrate
through the smoke and dust would lead to global cooling
by as much as 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
This shift
in global temperature would lead to
more drought, worldwide food shortages, and widespread political upheaval.
Although the likelihood of this doomsday scenario remains relatively low, the consequences are dire enough to warrant greater U.S. and international attention. Furthermore, due to
the ongoing conflict over Kashmir and the deep animus held between India and Pakistan
, it might not take much to set them off
. Indeed, following the successful U.S. raid on bin
Laden’s compound, several members of India’s security apparatus along with conservative politicians have argued that India should emulate the SEAL Team Six raid and launch their own cross-border incursions to nab or kill anti-Indian terrorists, either preemptively or after the fact. Such provocative action could very well lead to all-out war
between the two that could quickly escalate
.