1NC
GOP will win the House now.
Nate Silver, NYT, “G.O.P. Now Projected to Gain 53 House Seats,” 10/27/2010, http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/choppy-day-in-houseforecast-projected-g-o-p-gains-inch-forward-to-53-seats/#more-2783
Republicans strengthened their position in a couple of districts that received fresh polling from The Hill. In particular, John Spratt, the longtime
Democratic incumbent in South Carolina’s 5th congressional district, was shown 10 points behind the Republican, Mick Mulvaney. Because the district had not
received polling in some time, the poll has a lot of influence on Mr. Spratt’s forecast. The model now gives him just a 12 percent chance of holding his seat, a sharp
decline from 53 percent yesterday. The
chances for two other Democrats, John Salazar in the Colorado 3rd district, and Baron Hill in the Indiana 9th,
also dropped on The Hill’s polling. But the same set of polls contained good news for other Democrats whom it tested, like Leonard
Boswell in the Iowa 3rd district, and the two Democratic incumbents in the Dakotas, Earl Pomeroy and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, although both Mr. Pomeroy and Ms.
Herseth-Sandlin are still rated as underdogs in the model. Another Democrat to see her odds improve today was Colleen Hanabusa in the Hawaii 1st district, who was
given a 5-point lead in a new poll that ordinarily has a strong Republican lean. Ms. Hanabusa is one of two Democrats favored to knock off a Republican incumbent,
along with Cedric Richmond of the Lousiana 2nd district in New Orleans. The Democrats’ position on the generic ballot also improved slightly, particularly with a
Marist College poll showing them in an overall tie with Republicans among likely voters, a better result than most other recent polls. But
this improvement
was offset by a series of downgrades made by CQ Politics, which changed its ratings in a couple dozen races,
almost all of the changes favoring Republicans. The model gives a heavy emphasis to the race ratings issued by CQ and the three other agencies
that it tracks. Overall, the model resolved these changes in favor of Republicans, who added one more seat to their
projected total for the second evening in a row. The model’s best guess is that the new Congress will be
composed of 203 Democrats and 232 Republicans: a net gain of 53 seats for the G.O.P.
B. Action on immigration is key to Dem victories.
Lawrence, 8/12/10 – Washington, DC-based immigration policy specialist (Stewart J. “Obama and Latinos.” Counterpunch.
http://www.counterpunch.org/lawrence08122010.html)
President Obama’s
decision to sue Arizona over its proposed immigration enforcement law may have reflected the administration’s honest
election-year politics, a way of
stigmatizing the GOP, and rallying the liberal faithful, especially Latinos. A Gallup poll in June found that
Latinos were increasingly disaffected from Obama and his policies, while the President’s favorability rating with Whites and Black
judgment that such laws are repugnant and violate federal authority. But the lawsuit was also calculated
was unchanged. From a high of 69% in January, Obama's rating with Latinos had fallen 12 points to 57%. Among Spanish-speaking Latinos, the drop was even more
According to Gallup, the slide was largely due to Obama’s failure to pursue comprehensive immigration
reform, a cause that is near and dear to the country’s fastest-growing ethnic constituency, which some pollsters rightly refer
to as the “sleeping giant” of American politics.
But thus far the Obama gambit isn’t working - and that spells trouble. According to the most recent polls, a
majority of Latinos - nearly 60%, in fact - are still disappointed with his handling of immigration. Unless that
perception is reversed, the Democrats face electoral disaster this November.
Without a strong Latino turnout in at least 30-35 congressional races where their votes could sway the outcome,
the GOP is almost certain to recapture the House, regaining control of the key committee and subcommittee
chairmanships that will shape the nation's policy agenda – including immigration - leading up to 2012. And Republicans could also win a
precipitous: 25%.
majority of the governorships and state legislatures which would allow them to dominate the upcoming federal redistricting process, influencing the composition of the
House for at least another decade – perhaps two.
GOP-controlled House gets SKFTA passed
Green, 9/13 – senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Matt, 9/13/10. “[Viewpoint] U.S. mid-term
elections and us.” http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2925891)
Americans came back from a three-day holiday the week of September 7 to see new public opinion poll numbers from most of the news media confirming that the
Democrats will take a major hit in mid-term Congressional elections in November. The general favorability rating for Republicans and
Democrats is now roughly even after several years in which the Democrats had a significant lead, and polls in specific House and Senate races
have influential political analysts predicting the Republicans will take the House of Representatives and could
take the Senate as well. Politics is always a guessing game, but by some calculations these are the most dismal polls for an incumbent party before a mid-term
election in over fifty years. This is not an election about U.S.-Korea relations or even foreign policy, of course. The big issues are a lack of new U.S. jobs and concern
that the Federal Government has grown too large and fiscally irresponsible under Barack Obama’s administration. (Many also blame the final Bush years for this as
well, but he is not running this time). That said, a
change of leadership in the House and maybe the Senate could have some impact
on U.S.-Korea relations. One potentially positive impact could be on the U.S.-Korea FTA (Korus). When President
Obama announced that he wanted to pass Korus by the end of the year, over 100 Democratic members of Congress sent
him a letter expressing their opposition to the FTA. Republicans in the House are much more supportive of
free trade than Democrats, and Obama could have the numbers to pass Korus if he were willing to work with a
new Republican majority. (Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has to approve all commercial treaties). There is a precedent for this.
Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 under the slogan, “It’s the economy stupid,” and initially pushed more protectionist and interventionist
economic policies after he was elected. When the Republicans took the House in November 1994, they cut spending for Clinton’s industrial
policy initiatives and forced a rethink about economic strategy in the White House. Clinton ended up advancing the North America Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta), which had been negotiated by the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, and he did so by reaching across the aisle and working with
Republicans over some strong objections within his own caucus. There is some speculation that Obama may do the same thing
this time. He has already highlighted trade promotion as one way to create new jobs and his political advisors
will be looking for some area where they can make progress with an opposition-controlled Congress.
That’s key to US-ROK relations – failure to pass SKFTA after the midterm tanks them
Snyder et al, 10 – adjunct senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea
Policy at the Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum at CSIS (Scott A, June. With Charles L. Pritchard, John H. Tilelli, and the CFR
Independent Task Force. “U.S. Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula.” Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report
No. 64. http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Korean_PeninsulaTFR64.pdf)
The KORUS FTA also helps bind the United States and South Korea more closely together strategically,
economically, and politically.52 The economic significance of the KORUS FTA is substantial, but the oppor- tunity to bring South Korea
closer to the United States as a partner— especially given that China is currently South Korea’s primary trade
and investment partner—is significant. Failure to approve the agree- ment would send a negative message: that
despite South Korea’s role and significance as one of the top twenty economies in the world, there are limits to U.S. economic
and, by extension, strategic cooperation with South Korea. Following U.S. midterm elections and in the context
of steady U.S. economic improvement, ratification of the KORUS FTA should be a top Obama administration
priority for 2011.
US-ROK relations key to prevent a North Korean nuclear crisis
Pritchard et al, 09 – President of the Korea Economic Institute (Charles L, 6/16. With John H. Tilelli Jr., Chairman and CEO,
Cypress International, and Scott A. Snyder, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korea Studies, CFR. “A New Chapter for U.S.-South Korea
Alliance.” Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/publication/19635/new_chapter_for_ussouth_korea_alliance.html)
While all eyes have been trained on North Korea's belligerent and aggressive actions in recent weeks, it is important to note that the
U.S.-South Korea
alliance has emerged as a linchpin in the Obama administration's efforts to successfully manage an overcrowded global agenda, and a pivotal tool
for safeguarding U.S. long-term interests in Asia. When South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Barack Obama at the
White House Tuesday, the two leaders must effectively address three main areas: policy coordination to address North Korea's nuclear threat, the development of a
global security agenda that extends beyond the peninsula, and collaboration to address the global financial crisis as South Korea takes a lead on the G-20 process. By
conducting a second nuclear test in May, followed by a number of missile launches, North Korea has forced its way onto the Obama administration's agenda. First and
foremost, effective
U.S.-South Korea alliance coordination is critical to managing both the global effects of North
Korea's nuclear threat on the nonproliferation regime and the regional security challenges posed by potential
regime actions that lead to further crisis in the region. North Korea's internal focus on its leadership succession, and the apparent naming of
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's little-known and inexperienced youngest son as his successor, make the task of responding to North Korea's aggressive and
destabilizing actions all the more challenging. Both
deterrence and negotiation must be pursued on the basis of close
consultations. Presidents Obama and Lee must also develop coordinated contingency plans in the event of internal instability in
North Korea. Through effective U.S.-South Korea alliance coordination, it should be possible to forge a combined
strategy capable of managing the nuclear, proliferation, and regional security dimensions of North Korea's
threat. A coordinated position would also strengthen the administration's hand in its efforts to persuade China to put pressure on North Korea.
North Korean crisis causes nuclear war and triggers every impact
Hayes and Green, 10 - *Victoria University AND **Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute (Peter and Michael, “-“The Path Not
Taken, the Way Still Open: Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia”, 1/5,
http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/10001HayesHamalGreen.pdf)
The consequences of failing to address the proliferation threat posed by the North Korea developments, and related political and economic
issues, are serious, not only for the Northeast Asian region but for the whole international community. At worst, there is the possibility of nuclear
attack1, whether by intention, miscalculation, or merely accident, leading to the resumption of Korean War
hostilities. On the Korean Peninsula itself, key population centres are well within short or medium range missiles. The whole of Japan is likely to come within
North Korean missile range. Pyongyang has a population of over 2 million, Seoul (close to the North Korean border) 11 million, and Tokyo over 20 million. Even a
limited nuclear exchange would result in a holocaust of unprecedented proportions. But the catastrophe within the region
would not be the only outcome. New research indicates that even a limited nuclear war in the region would rearrange our
global climate far more quickly than global warming. Westberg draws attention to new studies modelling the effects of even a limited nuclear
exchange involving approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized 15 kt bombs2 (by comparison it should be noted that the United States currently deploys warheads in the range
100 to 477 kt, that is, individual warheads equivalent in yield to a range of 6 to 32 Hiroshimas). The
studies indicate that the soot from the fires
produced would lead to a decrease in global temperature by 1.25 degrees Celsius for a period of 6-8 years.3 In Westberg’s
view: That is not global winter, but the nuclear darkness will cause a deeper drop in temperature than at any time during the
last 1000 years. The temperature over the continents would decrease substantially more than the global average. A decrease in rainfall over the continents would
also follow...The period of nuclear darkness will cause much greater decrease in grain production than 5% and it will continue for many years...hundreds of
millions of people will die from hunger...To make matters even worse, such amounts of smoke injected into the
stratosphere would cause a huge reduction in the Earth’s protective ozone.4 These, of course, are not the only consequences.
Reactors might also be targeted, causing further mayhem and downwind radiation effects, superimposed on a smoking, radiating ruin left by nuclear next-use. Millions
of refugees would flee the affected regions. The
direct impacts, and the follow-on impacts on the global economy via
ecological and food insecurity, could make the present global financial crisis pale by comparison. How the great
powers, especially the nuclear weapons states respond to such a crisis, and in particular, whether nuclear weapons are used in response to nuclear first-use,
could make or break the global non proliferation and disarmament regimes. There could be many unanticipated
impacts on regional and global security relationships5, with subsequent nuclear breakout and geopolitical
turbulence, including possible loss-of-control over fissile material or warheads in the chaos of nuclear war, and
aftermath chain-reaction affects involving other potential proliferant states. The Korean nuclear proliferation issue is not just a
regional threat but a global one that warrants priority consideration from the international community.
1NC
Uniqueness – wages are rising now.
Katie Johnston Chase, Boston Globe, “Raises give workers a lift,” 8/22/2010,
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/08/22/companies_plan_to_raise_wages_but_will_workers_spend_or_save/
As the economy sputters back to life, businesses that made major cuts to survive the recession are beginning to
invest in their employees again during the recovery. Nearly 90 percent of companies are increasing salaries this
year, according to two national surveys, and 98 percent expect to do so next year.
Link – Increasing the labor supply increases competition for jobs, which drives wages downward.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, “Opposing view: A corporate 'feeding frenzy' Visas push is about helping companies
rather than workers,” 3/25/2008, http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16502&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1681
Today we are watching an amazing spectacle: Many
in Congress — including allegedly labor-friendly Democrats — are pushing to increase the
importation of foreign labor just as the USA slips into what may be its worst recession in decades.
Why? Because the greed of a handful of multinationals is demanding more and more access to "skilled" foreign labor.
Sure, we hear bogus "studies" that claim garden-variety foreign programmers will save the U.S. economy. But former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
recently admitted the real agenda: "Significantly
opening up immigration to skilled workers … would compete with highincome people, driving more income equality." In 2007, he further opined that, "Our skilled wages are higher than
anywhere in the world. If we open up a significant window for skilled (foreign) workers, that would suppress
the skilled-wage level and end the concentration of income."
Wage deflation kills the economy – consumer demand and investment.
Patrick Belser, Global Labour University, “Why we should care about wages,” 1/18/ 2010, http://column.global-labour-university.org/2010/01/why-we-shouldcare-about-wages_3262.html
The second reason why we should care is that a continued
deterioration in wages is bad news for the economic recovery.
The pace of the recovery depends largely on the extent to which people are able to consume whatever the global
economy produces. And consumption, in turn, depends on the level of wages. In fact, in some advanced economies, almost 80%
of household income comes from wages and salaries. Although GDP figures in the course of 2009 provided indications of a possible economic rebound, the trends
in real wages observed during the past few quarters raise serious questions about the true extent of a global
economic recovery and also highlight the risks of phasing out government rescue packages too early. As the
experience of Japan during the past decade has cruelly shown, wage deflation deprives national economies of much needed demand
and can result in lengthy periods of economic stagnation.
Finally, we should already be thinking about the post-crisis world. Before the crisis, in the period from 1995-2007, the share of wages in GDP had declined in a
majority of countries for which data is available. This may have been due to a combination of weaker trade unions, labour-saving technology, openness to trade and the
pressures arising from the financial of markets. Whatever the cause, the
imbalance between increasing profits and stagnating wages
has contributed to the crisis by creating an explosive mixture of high liquidity on financial markets, low rates of
interest, and huge household debts. A system of bonuses which distorted incentives towards short-term risk provided the additional dynamite. For a
more stable future, we should identify policies which ensure that productivity growth - when it is back - translates into
adequate increases in wages for a majority, and not just higher bonuses for a few. Only this way can advanced
economies achieve more sustainable patterns of consumption and investment.
Wage deflation causes protectionism, kills global trade.
Bloomberg, 09 (Patrick Rial, U.S. Debt Crisis May Cause ‘Fall of Rome’ Scenario, Duncan Says, Richard Duncan, author of “The Dollar Crisis.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJ6jnKWHrQgI)
U.S. workers are now likely to face declining wages and that may create a political backlash against free-trade policies,
he said. The nation’s jobless rate jumped to a 26-year high of 9.7 percent in August, while wages logged a 2.6 percent increase from
the previous year.
“As unemployment remains above 10 percent well into the foreseeable future, it won’t be long before
Americans start voting for protectionism,” Duncan said. “That’s going to be bad because protectionism will mean
world trade will diminish and will overall reduce global prosperity.”
CP 1NC
The United States federal government should establish a sealed-bid, single-price auction system for the
distribution of tradable visa permits to employers wishing to sponsor employment-based visas for
noncitizens that hold advanced degrees in science or technology from accredited universities in the
United States. Auctions should take place quarterly, with an initial yearly allocation of 280,000 visas. The
non-disclosed target price for visa permits should be $10,000. Subsequent allocations of visas should rise
proportionally when the average price of permits was above $10,000, and fall proportionally when the
average price was below $10,000, in the prior auction. If the allocation of permits disproportionately
favors large companies, the United States federal government should set aside an adequate number of
permits on which for small companies to bid.
Quarterly auction accurately sets the optimal number of visas for the labor market – means zero job
losses or wage deflation
Peri 10 [Peri, Giovanni. 2010. Professor of Economics @ UC Davis. The Impact of Immigrants in Recession
and Economic
Expansion. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute]
These facts suggest that legal
immigration should also be made to respond to labor market conditions. How can this be done? One
principle would be to allow the number of employer visa applications to serve as the main indicator of how strong
labor demand is under current economic conditions. This obviates the need for the government to undertake the very
difficult task of determining labor demand through incomplete and insufficiently timely statistical sources. For
instance, suppose firms were able to apply and bid one quarter in advance for foreign workers' permits in programs
such as the H-1B, in an auction. While the government could set the total number of permits, the relative bidding by employers
would ensure that visas are allocated efficiently. Moreover a high winning price would signal high demand and
could prompt a larger number of permits in the following quarter. In order to implement this policy, one would need to determine
several details of the auction and some economists have spelled out how such a system could work. An independent government agency or commission could be called
upon to determine the number of permits issued and the details of implementation. How much would net immigration ideally vary over the economic cycle? As a
thought experiment, let us present here a few simple reference calculations. The current foreign-born population in the United States is about 40 million people
rate has been about 1.5 percent of the stock each year. On average,
600,000 new immigrants arrived each year, the size of the foreign-born population would remain
unchanged (resulting in zero net immigration). While the number of returnees should be calculated more carefully if one would really like to implement
(according to 2009 data) and over the last 20 years the return migration
therefore, if
immigration policies based on it, the basic point here is the following: as it is net immigration that affects the labor market and the productive outcomes in the US
economy,
we should think of 600,000 new immigrants as "the floor" that produces no changes at all in the current
US labor market. Allowing new entries through work-related visas in years of economic expansion on top of the
600,000 needed to maintain the stock would allow the United States to retain the positive long-run effects of
immigration while minimizing the negative short-run effects. Implementing this policy would, of course, require careful thought about
which types of visas should be encouraged to respond to the economic cycle, and I will not go into detail here. The basic principle, however, is that a labordemand driven number of new visas can simply reinforce the natural cyclicality of immigration and speed up the
capital and technology adjustment in the face of immigration. For instance if we assume that gross inflows of
workers on employment-based visas of some kind (temporary or permanent) were allowed to increase by 300,000 during
economic expansion in addition to the baseline of 600,000, and if we assume that in a given decade half of the years, on average, have
strong economic growth, this would imply 1.5 million net new immigrants per decade, representing about 1 percent of
the labor force of 150 million people. This, in turn, would imply a net increase of 0.26 percent of income per
native worker over that period and no job losses either in the short or in the long run for native workers of high and
low skill levels. These numbers are quite small and the US economy could easily adjust to such an inflow of immigrant workers
in expansionary years.
CP 1NC
The United States federal government should exempt non-Russians from the employment-visa quota and
preference category system if they hold an advanced degree in science or technology from a school in the
United States.
The Russians are trying to push more spies in the country – the plan can only help that
Hennessy and Knight ‘10 (Peter and Richard, 17 August, “Russia's intelligence attack: The Anna Chapman
danger”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10986334)
**Cites Stephen Lander, former Director-General of M15**
But that's not how everyone saw it. Sir Stephen Lander, Director-General of MI5 until 2002, has told a BBC Radio 4 documentary,
Why Russia Spies, that the very existence of a ring of Russian "illegals" (spies operating without diplomatic cover) is no laughing
matter. "The fact that they're nondescript or don't look serious is part of the charm of the business," he says. "That's why the Russians
are so successful at some of this stuff. " They're able to put people in those positions over time to build up their cover
to be useful. They are part of a machine... And the machine is a very professional and serious one." Illegal and invisible The
use of illegals, says Lander, is a menacing type of espionage, perfected by the Russians during the Cold War. " They were posted
into the West with one of two roles," he says. "One, to build up long-term cover with the eventual intention over
many years to get a position in a government machine somewhere in the West, where they could spy for good.
"The other role was to be a head agent of a network of spies who had been recruited by others, perhaps the
legal residency, and were run from a third country by an illegal - still an intelligence officer, but not under any official
cover." To British intelligence, the fact that Russia is still prepared to fund and deploy illegals against the West is a cause for concern,
not least because illegals are extremely difficult to uncover. Sir Gerry Warner, former deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service,
MI6, says illegals are heavily deployed in Russia's neighbouring states, like Ukraine and Georgia. "If they wanted to have illegals they
could have them here," says Warner, "I've no doubt about that. Whether they would think it worthwhile, I simply don't know."
Whether there are Russian illegals in Britain or not - and if there are, they are unlikely to be detected, Sir Gerry says - there is no
doubt that "legal" Russian spies, those operating under diplomatic cover, are mounting an intelligence attack here. In fact,
that attack is about as intense now as it was at the height of the Cold War. "If you go back to the early 90s, there was a
hiatus," says Lander. "Then the spying machine got going again and the SVR [formerly the KGB], they've gone back to their old
practices with a vengeance. "I think by the end of the last century they were back to where they had been in the Cold
War, in terms of numbers."
Russian spies will disable our military and our nuclear arsenal
Rifat ‘10 (Tim, is the world’s leading expert on RV and RI, Unlike all other RV/RI companies, has never
worked for any government. He is therefore able to give you the real RV and RI technology –
RV Science. See FBI warnings, Last modified March 19, “US psi-spies”,
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vision_remota/esp_visionremota_9c.htm)
News of this massive Russian paranormal-warfare research projects eventually filtered out to the West. It was thought by CIA analysts
that the Soviets might be capable of telepathically controlling the thoughts of leading US military and political
leaders, as well as being able to remotely kill US citizens. Telekinesis could be used to disable US hardware
such as computers, nuclear weapon systems and space vehicles. The report stated: ‘The major impetus behind the
Soviet drive to harness the possible capabilities of telepathic communication, telekinetics, and bionics are said to
come from the Soviet military and the KGB.’ No wonder they were worried!
Telekinesis is real – Psi-warfare leads to our destruction
Rifat ‘6 (Tim, is the world’s leading expert on RV and RI. Unlike all other RV/RI companies, has never
worked for any government. He is therefore able to give you the real RV and RI technology – RV Science. See
FBI warnings, Last modified 3/24, “Conclusion”,
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vision_remota/esp_visionremota_9j.htm)
It seems from the standpoint of conventional science, that the concept of remote viewing cannot possibly exist.
Unfortunately, there are numerous declassified CIA and DIA documents amounting to tens of thousands of pages, which
catalogue the U.S. government’s top secret remote viewing programme. First hand corroboration about the U.S.
military’s secret RV projects, comes from actual military remote viewers such as Joe McMoneagle and Lyn Buchanan, who now teach
the general public remote viewing. More extraordinary are the declassified documents released by the U.S. government
which document the Soviet paranormal warfare programme which are reproduced in full in appendices i and ii; they mention
psychotronics giving the capability to Russian Psi-warriors to remotely influence, effect electronics by
telekinesis and even remotely kill. These documents are freely available under the American Freedom of Information Act, and
the author recommends that the serious researcher look at these papers. The concept that the superpowers engaged in an inner space
arms race using Psi-warriors seems far fetched, but sometimes truth is stranger than fact. It is alleged that both U.S. and
Russian psychic warriors engaged in a secret paranormal war, remotely influencing and remotely killing each other. There is some
mention of there being a seventy percent failure rate in the training of remote influencers, these trainees being driven mad by the
hypnosis and drug regimens needed to induce these high level Psi-abilities. David Morehouse mentions this remote influencing
programme in his account of his military remote viewing training. The ramifications of this knowledge that remote viewing
and Psi-warfare not only actually exist, but have a long history of development by the superpowers, leads to a
rather disturbing new vision of recent history and the advent of the new millennium which will be dominated by Psi. If humanity and
its nation states develop more and more powerful weapon systems such as: HAARP, the billion watt ionispheric heater, based in
Alaska, Russian beam weapons, Chinese nuclear and biological weapons, the ability to remotely view these top secret installations is
secondary, to the ability to remotely influence the politicians and generals which control these awesome weapon systems. It does
nor matter how powerful the weapon may be, if the brain that controls it can be remotely influenced. The
advent of Psi-warfare leads to a dramatic new turn in the way future wars will be fought.
1NC – Generic Solvency
Text: The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services should grant advance parole with all
necessary extensions to non-citizens if they hold an advanced degree in science or technology from a
school in the United States.
Solves 100% of case and avoids politics
Endelman and Mehta ‘10
(Gary Endelman, practices immigration law at BP America Inc, serves on the Editorial Advisory
Board of Immigration Daily, and Cyrus D. Mehta, nationally recognized in the field of immigration law. He represents corporations
and individuals from around the world in business and employment immigration, family immigration, consular matters, naturalization,
federal court litigation and asylum. He also advises lawyers on ethical issues. Based on 18 years of experience in immigration law, He
is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School where he teaches a course, Immigration and Work, Chair of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) National Pro Bono Committee and Co-Chair of the AILA-NY Chapter Pro
Bono Committe COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM THROUGH EXECUTIVE FIAT, April 25, 2010,
http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2010/04/comprehensive-immigration-reform.html)
For instance, there
is nothing that would bar the USCIS from allowing the beneficiary of an approved employment
based I-140 or family based I-130 petition, and derivative family members, to obtain an employment authorization document (EAD) and parole.
The Executive, under INA § 212(d)(5), has the authority to grant parole for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public
benefits. The crisis in the priority dates where beneficiaries of petitions may need to wait for green cards in excess of 30 years may qualify for invoking § 212(d)(5)
under “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefits.” Similarly, the authors credit David Isaacson who pointed out that the Executive has the authority to
grant EAD under INA §274A(h)(3), which defines the term “unauthorized alien” as one who is not “(A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or (B)
authorized to be so employed by this Act or by the Attorney General” (emphasis added). Under sub paragraph (B), the USCIS may grant an EAD to people who are
adversely impacted by the tyranny of priority dates. Likewise, the
beneficiary of an I-130 or I-140 petition who is outside the U.S. can also be
paroled into the U.S. before the priority date becomes current. The principal and the applicable derivatives would enjoy
permission to work and travel regardless of whether they remained in nonimmigrant visa status. Even those who
are undocumented or out of status, but are beneficiaries of approved I-130 and I-140 petitions, can be granted employment
authorization and parole. The retroactive grant of parole may also alleviate those who are subject to the three or ten year bars since INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(ii)
defines “unlawful presence” as someone who is here “without being admitted or paroled.” Parole, therefore, eliminates the accrual of unlawful
presence. While parole does not constitute an admission, one conceptual difficulty is whether parole can be granted to an individual who is already admitted on a
nonimmigrant visa but has overstayed. Since parole is not considered admission, it can be granted more readily to one who
entered without inspection. On the other hand, it is possible for the Executive to rescind the grant of admission under INA
§212(d)(5), and instead, replace it with the grant parole. As an example, an individual who was admitted in B-2 status
and is the beneficiary of an I-130 petition but whose B-2 status has expired can be required to report to the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). who can retroactively rescind the grant of admission in B-2 status and instead be granted parole
retroactively.
Semiconductors
1. The US industry is strong and growing – dominates the global market.
Semiconductor Industry Association, “Doubling Semiconductor Exports Over the Next Five Years,” 6/17/2010,
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=19&ved=0CE8QFjAIOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.siaonline.org%2Fgalleries%2FPublications%2FDoubling_Exports_Paper_0610.pdf&rct=j&q=United%20States%20semiconductor%20industry%20offshore%20suppliers
&ei=HbTFTP3FBoL48AbfzbmbBg&usg=AFQjCNFuaZKVqhT5xYyAjiGalikcWwfJVA&cad=rja
The U.S. industry’s share of the
worldwide semiconductor market share has been in the high 40 percents since 1996, and was 51 percent in 2009
(See Table 1, Row 4). The U.S. is particularly strong in microprocessors and microperipherals (82% worldwide share in 2009) and
analog (62% share), and weaker in memory (22% share) and discrete devices (28% share). The 58 percent U.S. share in the U.S. market is
higher than its 49 percent share in markets outside the U.S., although in 2009 its share in the U.S. market
dropped but increased in markets outside the U.S. market. (See Table 1, row 6-8).
The SIA collects data on U.S. headquartered companies sales in a number of product and regional markets.
2. Alt causes –
a. Taxes
Dewey & LeBoeuf, 9 leading global law firm providing clients with both local and cross-border solutions, more than 1,100 lawyers in 26 offices in 15
countries, (“MAINTAINING AMERICA’S COMPETITIVE EDGE: GOVERNMENT POLICIES AFFECTING SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY R&D AND
MANUFACTURING ACTIVITY,” Report prepared for the Semiconductor Industry Association, March,
http://www.choosetocompete.org/downloads/Competitiveness_White_Paper.pdf
Further tax reductions abroad make U.S. burden heavier. U.S. competitiveness as an investment location for
semiconductor firms is further undermined by substantial tax and financial incentives widely available to
semiconductor companies locating abroad. Investment location decisions are not made solely based on the availability of tax and related investment
incentives. Proximity to the customer and market size tied to purchasing power of the domestic population, fit with
the multinational’s global supply chain, and certain other factors critical to semiconductor companies, such as
intellectual property protection and the ability to influence global-standards-setting activities, all factor into the
decision-making process. However, when other factors in the decisionmaking process are roughly equal and when a firm has already
fully exploited its domestic market, tax and other financial incentives are critical determinants in the decision whether
and where to locate overseas. As ties binding U.S. semiconductor manufacturers to the United States are
frayed and attenuated, these government incentives overseas gain in importance and accelerate the push to locate
overseas.
b. Export controls
Richard Van Atta, et al., Institute for Defense Analysis, Mark Bittmann, Paul Collopy, Bradley Hartfield, Bruce Harmon, Marshall Kaplan, Nicolas
Karvonides, Michael J. Lippitz, Jay Mandelbaum, Michael Marks, Malcolm Patterson, Kay Sullivan, “Export Controls and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base,” January
2007, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=17&ved=0CEYQFjAGOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acq.osd.mil%2Fip%2Fdocs%2Fida_studyexport_controls_%2520us_def_ib.pdf&rct=j&q=United%20States%20semiconductor%20industry%20offshore%20suppliers&ei=HbTFTP3FBoL48AbfzbmbBg&usg=
AFQjCNFpNnV9qD8HRocdAbipipWN23afcQ&cad=rja
US-based IC, SME and materials firms depend on exports. For US-based IC firms, much of their market is serving
electronics products manufacturers (both US and foreign-owned) located outside of the US. For SME and materials firms, this is due to
rapid growth of advanced IC manufacturing in Taiwan, China and Korea (a significant portion of which is due to foreign direct investment by US-based firms). Some
observers of the US semiconductor industry are concerned about this migration as well as the loss of US
commercial participation in certain SME segments. Disparities in application of export controls by the US relative
to its Wassenaar partners is said to exacerbate the problem by restricting US industry in accessing rapidly growing Asian
markets, without conferring any national security benefit, due to the ability of the Chinese to access comparable technologies from Europe and Japan.
Semiconductor industry leaders have called on the US government to address these disparities as part of a broader effort to respond to purported unfair trade practices
by foreign governments, organizations, or firms.
This study found that, since the inception of Wassenaar, US-based IC, SME and materials companies have not been severely impacted by export controls, but this may
not be the case going forward. US
implementation of semiconductor export controls burdens US semiconductor
companies with more conditions on foreign sales and longer and less predictable waiting periods for license
approval than that faced by competitors in Europe or Japan selling comparable products, but licenses are rarely
denied. Companies contacted by this study and published reports cite only a handful of instances where sales were lost to a foreign competitor due to delays or
conditions in US export licensing. However, staffing requirements and the administrative burden of export controls represent a unilateral cost to US industry relative to
its foreign competitors. The
costs of compliance are rising and threaten to become a competitive disadvantage to
USbased firms in the increasingly competitive international semiconductor industry. More importantly, licensing delays and
uncertainties threaten to give US suppliers a reputation for being unreliable partners in the lean, “just in time,” worldwide supply chains that increasingly characterize
high technology industries. Implementation of “deemed exports”—a license that must be obtained before providing to foreign nationals information related to
controlled technologies—has led some companies to no longer hire Chinese researchers and other controlled foreign nationals due to the risk and difficulty of
complying with these regulations. Many of these talented individuals are doubtless hired by foreign competitors.
3. Advanced semiconductors play a very small role in military tech, and the DOD is the only buyer.
Richard Van Atta, et al., Institute for Defense Analysis, Mark Bittmann, Paul Collopy, Bradley Hartfield, Bruce Harmon, Marshall Kaplan, Nicolas
Karvonides, Michael J. Lippitz, Jay Mandelbaum, Michael Marks, Malcolm Patterson, Kay Sullivan, “Export Controls and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base,” January
2007, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=17&ved=0CEYQFjAGOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acq.osd.mil%2Fip%2Fdocs%2Fida_studyexport_controls_%2520us_def_ib.pdf&rct=j&q=United%20States%20semiconductor%20industry%20offshore%20suppliers&ei=HbTFTP3FBoL48AbfzbmbBg&usg=
AFQjCNFpNnV9qD8HRocdAbipipWN23afcQ&cad=rja
For the purposes of this sector study, the
“semiconductor industry” comprises firms producing semiconductor materials,
semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME), and semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs).9 Worldwide revenues in 2005
were $31 billion, $34 billion, and $227 billion, respectively. The semiconductor industry is widely viewed as “strategic,” supporting
economic growth through innovative clusters of electronics and broader information technology (IT) firms (such as in “Silicon Valley”), as well providing high valueadded exports and high-wage employment. Beyond the economic importance of the semiconductor industry, today’s
dominant US conventional
military capabilities derive from the US Department of Defense’s relative success in fostering and exploiting
semiconductor-based computer, communication and sensor networks for military purposes. Advantages in “network
centric warfare” based on advanced electronics, is assumed in much of current US defense strategy and planning.
While electronics and IT are critical to US military capabilities, the most advanced ICs today play a
relatively small role, and the US Department of Defense (DoD) is a niche player in the market. With a few
exceptions in areas such as sensors and intelligence systems, the ICs embedded within today’s most advanced military systems tend
to be far from commercial state-of-the-art. Nevertheless, the US government has sought to prevent adversaries from accessing the most advanced
ICs, SME and materials through the CCL, administered by the US Department of Commerce. Radiation hardened (RADHARD) ICs used in nuclear and space systems
are controlled by the Department of State through the ITAR. US export controls are coordinated internationally through the “Wassenaar Arrangement on Export
Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies,” which came into force in 1996 as successor to the Soviet-era “Coordinating Committee for
Multilateral Export Controls” (CoCom).
1. No WMD terrorism- they see it as counterproductive.
Brad Roberts, Inst Dfnse Analyses, and Michael Moodie, Chem & Bio Arms Cntrl Inst, ‘2 (Defense
Horizons 15, July)
The argument about terrorist motivation is also important. Terrorists generally have not killed as many as
they have been capable of killing. This restraint seems to derive from an understanding of mass casualty
attacks as both unnecessary and counterproductive. They are unnecessary because terrorists, by and
large, have succeeded by conventional means. Also, they are counterproductive because they might
alienate key constituencies, whether among the public, state sponsors, or the terrorist leadership group.
In Brian Jenkins' famous words, terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead. Others
have argued that the lack of mass casualty terrorism and effective exploitation of BW has been more a
matter of accident and good fortune than capability or intent. Adherents of this view, including former
Secretary of Defense William Cohen, argue that "it's not a matter of if but when." The attacks of
September 11 would seem to settle the debate about whether terrorists have both the motivation and
sophistication to exploit weapons of mass destruction for their full lethal effect. After all, those were
terrorist attacks of unprecedented sophistication that seemed clearly aimed at achieving mass casualties-had the World Trade Center towers collapsed as the 1993 bombers had intended, perhaps as many as
150,000 would have died. Moreover, Osama bin Laden's constituency would appear to be not the "Arab
street" or some other political entity but his god. And terrorists answerable only to their deity have proven
historically to be among the most lethal. But this debate cannot be considered settled. Bin Laden and his
followers could have killed many more on September 11 if killing as many as possible had been their
primary objective. They now face the core dilemma of asymmetric warfare: how to escalate without
creating new interests for the stronger power and thus the incentive to exploit its power potential more
fully. Asymmetric adversaries want their stronger enemies fearful, not fully engaged--militarily or
otherwise. They seek to win by preventing the stronger partner from exploiting its full potential. To kill
millions in America with biological or other weapons would only commit the United States--and much of
the rest of the international community--to the annihilation of the perpetrators.
Low impact to nuclear terrorism
John Mueller, professor of political science at the University of Rochester, and Karl Mueller, assistant professor of Comparative
Military Studies at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, May/June 19 99, Foreign Affairs,
“Sanctions of Mass Destruction,” p. Lexis
Nuclear weapons clearly deserve the “weapons of mass destruction” designation because they can indeed destroy masses of people in
a single blow. Even so, it is worth noting that any nuclear weapons acquired by terrorist groups or rogue states, at least initially, are
likely to be small. Contrary to exaggerated Indian and Pakistani claims, for example, independent analyses of their May 1998 nuclear
tests have concluded that the yields were Hiroshima-sized or smaller. Such bombs can cause horrible though not apocalyptic damage.
Some 70,000 people died in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. People three miles away from the blast sites received only superficial
wounds even when fully exposed, and those inside bomb shelters at Nagasaki were uninjured even though they were close to ground
zero. Some buildings of steel and concrete survived, even when they were close to the blast centers, and most municipal services were
restored within days. A Hiroshima-sized bomb exploded in a more fire-resistant modern city would likely be considerably less
devastating. Used against well-prepared, dug-in, and dispersed troops, a small bomb might actually cause only limited damage. If a
single such bomb or even a few of them were to fall into dangerous hands, therefore, it would be terrible, though it would hardly
threaten the end of civilization.
No retaliation
John Mueller, Professor Political Science - Ohio State University, ‘5 (Conflict Studies Conference,
psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller/NB.PDF)
However, history clearly demonstrates that overreaction is not necessarily inevitable. Sometimes, in
fact, leaders have been able to restrain their instinct to overreact. Even more important, restrained
reaction--or even capitulation to terrorist acts--has often proved to be entirely acceptable politically.
That is, there are many instances where leaders did nothing after a terrorist attack (or at least
refrained from overreacting) and did not suffer politically or otherwise.
No chance of US – Sino war --- no incentive for China
Bremmer, 10 – president of Eurasia Group and author (Ian Bremmer, “China vs. America: Fight of the
Century,” Prospect, March 22, 2010, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/china-vs-america-fight-ofthe-century/)
China will not mount a military challenge to the US any time soon. Its economy and living standards have
grown so quickly over the past two decades that it’s hard to imagine the kind of catastrophic event that could
push its leadership to risk it all. Beijing knows that no US government will support Taiwanese independence,
and China need not invade an island that it has largely co-opted already by offering Taiwan’s business elite
privileged investment opportunities.
US-China conflict won’t go nuclear
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania) September 9/29, 2004
U.S. military capacity is now so overstretched by the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts that a Chinese move to
realize its own top strategic objective, the scooping up of Taiwan to complete the hat trick with Hong Kong and
Macao, would find the United States hard-pressed to be able to respond at all. A U.S. threat of a nuclear attack
on China -- with China's inevitable nuclear counterstrike -- would be so wildly unacceptable in political terms in
the United States itself as to be out of the question for any U.S. administration. The idea of causing Los Angeles to disappear because China had seized
Taiwan would be a trade-off that no American leader would even dare contemplate. America is lucky so far that China has not yet sought to match its economic reach in Asia with a
corresponding assertion of political influence. That doesn't mean that Asia will inevitably become a sphere of Chinese dominance. What will happen instead -- what is already happening, in
fact -- is that other Asian powers such as Japan, Korea and India will increasingly take steps to check Chinese power by increasing their own military capacity. In other words, what was a
situation in which the United States stood between Japan and Korea and the imposition of Chinese influence will now become one in which those countries will become more dependent on
their own resources to defend themselves. The response of the Koreans could be said to be a move toward resolving the problems between South and North Korea to enable them to present a
united front to the Chinese. The response of Japan that can be expected will be limited remilitarization. The health and peace of the region will depend on the degree to which the competition
among these countries will be economic, rather than political and military. What will this modification of the balance of power in Asia mean for the United States? First of all, none of this will
happen tomorrow. The extension of China's reach and the Japanese and Korean response will be gradual and spread out across the years, although there may well be some pinpricks at the
. The Chinese themselves will avoid direct confrontation with the United States at all costs.
It is not their way. Conflict between the two countries would be asymmetrical in the extreme in any case.
Basically, the two can't attack each other. Nuclear warfare is out. The million-man People's Liberation Army
isn't portable. The Chinese are definitely not into terrorism.
extremities sooner rather than later
No Nukes – NIE
MacAskill 7 [Ewen MacAskill, Guardian's Washington DC bureau chief. He was diplomatic editor from
1999-2006, chief political correspondent from 1996-99 and political editor of the Scotsman from 1990-96,
“US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat”, 12/3/2007,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/03/iran.usa]
US intelligence agencies undercut the White House today by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been
pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the last four years. The disclosure makes it harder for
President George Bush and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to make a case for a military strike against Iran next year. It also makes
it more difficult to persuade countries such as Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a new round of
sanctions on Tehran. The national security estimate which pulls together the work of the 16 US intelligence
agencies, today published a declassified report revising previous assessments of Iran's weapons programme.
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear
weapons than we have been judging since 2005," it said. Bush and Cheney have been claiming that Tehran is
bent on achieving a nuclear weapon. The British government, which is planning to discuss the report with its
US counterparts over the next few days, has also repeatedly said it suspects Iran of seeking a nuclear weapons
capability. The Iranian government insists it is only pursuing a civilian nuclear programme. The US national
security estimate disclosed that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and had not restarted
it.
Long range missiles fail – all the major countries could defeat them
UCS 9 (Union of Concerned Scientists, the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization, Missile Defense
No Answer to North Korean Missiles, 4-3-9, http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/missile-defense-noanswer-0216.html) LE
If North Korea's upcoming satellite launch is successful, it will represent a significant step for the nation's missile program, but it does
not mean that North Korea has a missile that could carry a nuclear weapon to intercontinental range, according to the Union of
Concerned Scientists (UCS). Nor does it mean that the United States should bolster its missile defense capability. "Whether or not
North Korea's satellite launch is successful, missile defense advocates are likely to use it to argue for a boost in spending on missile
defense," said David Wright, co-director of UCS's Global Security Program. "But missile defense is not the answer to longrange missile development by North Korea or other countries." Wright, a physicist, pointed out that government and
independent technical studies have concluded that decoys and other countermeasures can defeat anti-missile systems.
These analyses show that any country that is capable of developing and building a long-range missile and nuclear
weapon also would have the technologies to deploy effective countermeasures. Moreover, he added, a September
1999 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on foreign missile developments noted that " Russia and China each have
developed numerous countermeasures and probably are willing to sell the requisite technologies." "Given the
U.S. missile defense system's high profile, any country developing missiles to fire at the United States would
incorporate decoys in its missile design," Wright said. "And it is highly unlikely the United States would know
details about the decoys before an attack, giving any attacker the advantage of surprise." The technical reality is that
missile defense is not an effective way to stop a missile attack once an attack has been launched, Wright said. "If U.S. policymakers
believe a missile attack is a significant security threat, it is irresponsible for them to advocate missile defense as a realistic response.
Doing so could create a false sense of security, divert defense dollars from more important uses, and reduce any incentive to develop
more effective measures to reduce a missile threat."
Nmd Causes Global Arms Race, Weapons Prolif, And Space Weps
CAMILLE GRAND, Institut français des Relations internationales (IFRI), Paris. Lecturer, Institut d’études
politiques de Paris, and Ecole spéciale militaire, and Adviser for arms control and non-proliferation at the
French Ministry of Defense. 01 "NMD and arms control: a European view."
http://www.mi.infn.it/~landnet/NMD/grand.pdf [JWu]
Analysts opposing NMD and European leaders have written numerous pieces, and made numerous statements
demonstrating a genuine concern that, if mishandled, NMD could or would jeopardize 30 years of arms control
efforts. French President Jacques Chirac stated that NMD is “of a nature to retrigger a proliferation of weapons,
notably nuclear missiles.”3 German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed a similar view when he said,
“Neither economically, nor politically, can we afford a new round of the arms race.”4 According to these views,
the worst-case arms control scenario is that NMD deployment by the US will be followed by Russia’s
withdrawal from major arms treaties and verification regimes (the INF Treaty, the tactical nuclear regime of
1991, START), as well as its development of greater offensive and defensive capabilities. China would also
block further arms control efforts and increase the expansion of its nuclear forces, followed by India and
Pakistan. Additionally, Russia and China could loosen their already weak export controls and deliberately
accelerate missile and WMD technology proliferation. “States of concern” could engage in a missile buildup to
try to challenge the emerging NMD and local TMD programs. This would lead to a renewed interest and
potential arms race among the major powers in more modern offensive capabilities and counteroptions
including space-based weapons. Many would therefore share the view expressed at the 2000 NPT review
conference by Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh that NMD “could run counter to efforts to halt the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” \
Proliferation leads to a global nuclear war.
Taylor 6 [Theodore B., Chairman of NOVA. July 6 2006, “Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,”
http://wwwee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/chapters/taylor.html] JL
Nuclear proliferation - be it among nations or terrorists - greatly increases the chance of nuclear violence on a
scale that would be intolerable. Proliferation increases the chance that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands
of irrational people, either suicidal or with no concern for the fate of the world. Irrational or outright psychotic
leaders of military factions or terrorist groups might decide to use a few nuclear weapons under their control to
stimulate a global nuclear war, as an act of vengeance against humanity as a whole. Countless scenarios of this
type can be constructed. Limited nuclear wars between countries with small numbers of nuclear weapons could
escalate into major nuclear wars between superpowers. For example, a nation in an advanced stage of "latent
proliferation," finding itself losing a nonnuclear war, might complete the transition to deliverable nuclear
weapons and, in desperation, use them. If that should happen in a region, such as the Middle East, where major
superpower interests are at stake, the small nuclear war could easily escalate into a global nuclear war.
Hege Frontline
Can’t solve entrepreneurship – plan causes diploma mills
Miano 09 [John Miano has been with the Center for Immigration Studies since 2008 and his area of expertise is in guest worker programs, particularly in how
they affect the technology work force. Mr. Miano has a BA in Mathematics from The College of Wooster and a JD from Seton Hall University. Mr. Miano is also the
founder of the Programmers’ Guild, an organization committed to advancing the interests of technical and professional workers; “No Green Cards for Grads”, July 20,
http://www.cis.org/miano/grads]
What Mr. Frank advocates is tantamount to granting universities the ability to sell U.S. immigration benefits.
How much is a green card worth on the open market? If Mr. Frank had his way, we would soon find out. The U.S. would
have quickie graduate programs spring up all over. Fourth tier and for-profit universities would set up programs
tailored to foreign students. The ability of universities to sell immigration benefits could justify high tuition
prices for such programs. Consider the simplest case. U.S. universities could market graduate programs to people who already have a PhD or MS from foreign institutions.
Take one or two courses at the U.S. school and get an MS degree in the exact same field. The university could
even include it as part of the package employment. What Mr. Frank has completely lost in his call for foreign
student to remain in the U.S. is the benefit gained from such students returning home. Foreign students create a
pool of people who have learned about American and Americans in general. When they return home they serve as
American ambassadors to the world. If foreign students remain in the U.S., our national investment in them
(financial investment that could have been used to fund education for Americans) is squandered.
Immigrants don’t leave because of our visa restrictions – their author
Vivek Wadhwa et al 9 Executive in Residence Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University Senior Research
Associate Labor & Worklife Program, Harvard Law School AnnaLee Saxenian Dean and Professor School of
Information University of California, Berkeley Richard Freeman Herbert Asherman Chair in Economics,
Harvard University Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School Director, Labor Studies
Program, National Bureau of Economic Research Gary Gereffi Director, Center on Globalization, Governance
& Competitiveness, Professor Sociology Department Duke University Alex Salkever Visiting Researcher
Masters of Engineering Management Program Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, “America’s Loss
Is the World’s Gain”, Kauffman Foundation, March,
http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/americas_loss.pdf)
We find that, though
restrictive immigration policies caused some returnees to depart the United States, the most
significant factors in the decision to return home were career opportunities, family ties, and quality of
life. Demographic characteristics Here are some of the characteristics of the returnees we surveyed and some comparisons with the population of Indian and Chinese
immigrants in the United States in 2006. • The vast majority were relatively young. The average age of Indians was 30, and of Chinese was 33. •
The majority (89.8 percent of Indians and 72.4 percent of Chinese) were male; most (72.7 percent of Indians and 67.1 percent of Chinese) were married; and most (59.5
percent of Indians and 58.6 percent of Chinese) had no children. • They were highly educated, with degrees primarily in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one
percent and 40.8 percent respectively of Chinese respondents held Masters and PhD degrees. Of Indian respondents, 65.6 percent held Masters and 12.1 percent held
PhD degrees.2 • A comparison of our sample with national data on Indian and Chinese immigrants shows that these returnees are at the very top of the educational
distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups—precisely the kind of people that our earlier research has shown make the greatest contribution to the U.S.
economy and business and job growth. Visa status of returnees • A third (32.2 percent) of the Chinese respondents were in the United States on student visas, in
comparison with about a fifth (20.2 percent) of Indians. 19.8 percent of the Chinese and 48.0 percent of the Indians were on temporary work visas. • Even those who are
permanently settled in the U.S. choose to return. 26.9 percent of Indian respondents and 34 percent of Chinese respondents held green cards or U.S. Citizenship. •
Most returnees did not appear to be motivated by visa issues. Seventy-six percent indicated that
considerations regarding their visa did not contribute to their decision to return to their home country.
Reasons for coming to and for leaving the U.S. The returnees cited career, education, and quality of life as the main reasons to come to the United States. • Amongst the
strongest factors bringing these immigrants to the U.S. were professional and educational development opportunities. Of Indian and Chinese respondents, 93.5 percent
and 91.6 percent respectively said that professional development was an important3 factor, and 85.9 percent and 90.5 percent respectively said that 2 This difference in
the level of educational attainment between highly skilled Indian and Chinese immigrants to the U.S. is consistent with the findings of comparable surveys. See
Saxenian (2002). 3 In the text, percentages of responses given as “important” are those to which respondents answered “somewhat important”, “very important”, or
“extremely important”; percentages of responses given as “unimportant” are those to which respondents answered “not very important” or “not at all important”. 3
America’s Loss Is the World’s Gain educational development was important in their decision to migrate to the United States. • Other key factors were quality-of-life
concerns, better infrastructure and facilities, and better compensation. The majority (67.4 percent of Indians and 69.1 percent of Chinese) said that the availability of
jobs in their home countries was not a consideration in their decision to migrate to the United States. Returnees cited career and quality of life as the main reason to
return to their home country rather than stay in the United States. • The commonest professional factor (86.8 percent of Chinese and 79.0 percent of Indians) motivating
workers to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. • A significant majority (84.0 percent of Chinese and 68.7 percent of Indians)
believed that their home countries provided better career opportunities. Furthermore, 87.3 percent of Chinese and 62.3 percent of Indians saw better career opportunities
in their home countries than in the United States. • Financial compensation was a factor important to 62.1 percent of Chinese and 49.2 percent of Indian returnees.
Social/family factors Family considerations are strong magnets pulling immigrants back to their home countries. Care for aging parents was considered by 89.4 percent
of Indians and 79.1 percent of Chinese respondents to be much better in their home countries. Family values were also considered to be better in their home countries by
79.7 percent of Indians and 67.0 percent of Chinese. Additionally, 88.0 percent of Indians and 76.8 percent of Chinese reported that the opportunity to be close to
family and friends was better at home.
No worker shortage – their ev is based on false allegations by corporations.
Gene Nelson, IT professional, “Foreign workers take jobs away from skilled Americans,” 8/21/ 2008, http://www.numbersusa.com/content/node/1304
Wealthy advocates of H-1B visas have industriously worked to keep this employer-designed program hidden
from middle-class Americans, who are outraged when they learn how it harms them.
In 2002, Nobel economics laureate Milton Friedman correctly identified the 1990 H-1B visa program as a "government subsidy" because
it allows employers access to imported, highly skilled labor at below-market wages.
False allegations of worker shortages have been a popular ₪ stopped here at 08:24 ₪
approach. But American colleges and universities graduate four to six times the number of students needed to
fill openings in technology fields that are generated by retirements and business expansion.
Econ is growing now
Jack Phillips, Epoch Times, “Beige Book: US Economy Growing Modestly,” 10/21/2010, http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/44624/
The US Federal Reserve's Beige Book, released on the afternoon of Wednesday Oct. 20, highlighted that the nation’s economic
activity has been rising “at a modest pace” between September and October. The Beige Book gives an overall report of
the 12 Federal Reserve Districts in the US. Overall activity remains somewhat limited in the districts but is
showing signs of progress has emerged. “Manufacturing activity continued to expand, with production and new
orders rising across most Districts,” the report said. “Demand for non-financial services was reported to be stable to
modestly increasing overall. Consumer spending was steady to up slightly, but consumers remained pricesensitive, and purchases were mostly limited to necessities and non-discretionary items.”
Companies won’t use the plan to hire – they’re hoarding cash
Jia Lynn Yang, Washington Post, “U.S. companies buy back stock in droves as they hold record levels of cash,” 10/7/2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100606772.html?hpid=topnews
For months, companies
have been sitting on the sidelines with record piles of cash, too nervous to spend. Now
they're starting to deploy some of that money - not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share
prices. Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves. So far this year, firms
have announced they will purchase $273 billion of their own shares, more than five times as much compared with this time last year, according to Birinyi Associates, a
stock market research firm. But the
rise in buybacks signals that many companies are still hesitant to spend their cash
on the job-generating activities that could produce economic growth. Some companies are buying back shares partly because they don't want to invest
in developing new products or services while consumer demand remains weak, analysts said. "They don't know what they want to do with all the cash they're sitting
on," said Zachary Karabell, president of RiverTwice Research. Historically
low interest rates are also prompting some companies to
borrow to repurchase shares. Microsoft, for instance, borrowed $4.75 billion last month by issuing new bonds at rock-bottom interest rates and announced
it would use some of that money to buy back shares. The company already has nearly $37 billion in cash, but much of that money is being held by its
operations overseas. The tech company is reluctant to repatriate the money, because it would get hit with a huge
corporate tax bill. A share buyback is a quick way to make a stock more attractive to Wall Street. It improves a closely watched
metric known as earnings per share, which divides a company's profit by the total number of shares on the market. Such a move can produce a sudden
burst of interest in a stock, improving its price.
Global collapse has become impossible – the rise of central banks has made a 1930s repeat impossible.
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, “The Secrets of Stability,” 12/12/2009, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/12/11/the-secrets-of-stability.html
One year ago, the
world seemed as if it might be coming apart. The global financial system, which had fueled a great
expansion of capitalism and trade across the world, was crumbling. All the certainties of the age of globalization—about the virtues of
free markets, trade, and technology—were being called into question. Faith in the American model had collapsed. The financial
industry had crumbled. Once-roaring emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil were sinking. Worldwide trade was shrinking to a degree not seen
since the 1930s. Pundits whose bearishness had been vindicated predicted we were doomed to a long, painful bust, with cascading failures in sector after sector, country
after country. In a widely cited essay that appeared in The Atlantic this May, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, wrote: "The
conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump 'cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.' This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be
worse than the Great Depression." Others
predicted that these economic shocks would lead to political instability and
violence in the worst-hit countries. At his confirmation hearing in February, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair,
cautioned the Senate that "the financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging-market nations over the next year."
Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim view. And she was hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious unrest in several emerging markets. Of one thing
One year later, how much has the world
really changed? Well, Wall Street is home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch). Some regional banks
have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely unrelated to the financial crisis) in Iran. Severe problems
remain, like high unemployment in the West, and we face new problems caused by responses to the crisis—soaring debt and fears of
inflation. But overall, things look nothing like they did in the 1930s. The predictions of economic and political
collapse have not materialized at all. A key measure of fear and fragility is the ability of poor and unstable
countries to borrow money on the debt markets. So consider this: the sovereign bonds of tottering Pakistan have returned 168 percent so far this
year. All this doesn't add up to a recovery yet, but it does reflect a return to some level of normalcy. And that
rebound has been so rapid that even the shrewdest observers remain puzzled. "The question I have at the back
of my head is 'Is that it?' " says Charles Kaye, the co-head of Warburg Pincus. "We had this huge crisis, and now we're back to
business as usual?" This revival did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves on their own. Rather, governments, having
learned the lessons of the Great Depression, were determined not to repeat the same mistakes once this
crisis hit. By massively expanding state support for the economy—through central banks and national
treasuries—they buffered the worst of the damage. (Whether they made new mistakes in the process remains to be seen.) The extensive social
safety nets that have been established across the industrialized world also cushioned the pain felt by many. Times are still tough, but things are
nowhere near as bad as in the 1930s, when governments played a tiny role in national economies. It's true that
the massive state interventions of the past year may be fueling some new bubbles: the cheap cash and
government guarantees provided to banks, companies, and consumers have fueled some irrational exuberance in
stock and bond markets. Yet these rallies also demonstrate the return of confidence, and confidence is a very
powerful economic force. When John Maynard Keynes described his own prescriptions for economic growth, he believed government action could provide
everyone was sure: nothing would ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization.
only a temporary fix until the real motor of the economy started cranking again—the animal spirits of investors, consumers, and companies seeking risk and profit.
Beyond all this, though, I believe there's
a fundamental reason why we have not faced global collapse in the last year. It is
the same reason that we weathered the stock-market crash of 1987, the recession of 1992, the Asian crisis of
1997, the Russian default of 1998, and the tech-bubble collapse of 2000. The current global economic system is
inherently more resilient than we think. The world today is characterized by three major forces for stability, each reinforcing the other and each
historical in nature.
Worker shortages are crucial to refocus businesses to adaptive strategies – this is a bigger internal link to
the economy
Eleanor Bloxham, CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance, “How companies can fill the skilled worker gap -- start training them again!”
10/6/2010, http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/05/news/economy/joblessness_training_hiring_practices.fortune/index.htm
Joblessness erodes our national optimism, our enthusiasm for innovation, as well as our overall economic
outlook and it leads to the wealthiest nation in the world having a poverty problem. Some of the solutions to
joblessness are intractable and complex. Others are more manageable, like for instance, better utilization of the huge idled
workforce just waiting for another job in this country. Among the recent issues being discussed with respect to U.S.
joblessness is the number of available jobs for which there are no skilled applicants. But, like the mortgage modeler who came
to believe that housing prices couldn't go down, we may not be operating with the right model when it comes to our views
on hiring and training. Being able to find people with precisely the right skills to step into a job is a relatively new assumption, historically speaking. Does
this model of filling jobs really serve us? Will it help us solve U.S. joblessness? Thirty years ago, computer companies hired pools of
programmers and engineers who did not know how to write code when they were hired but who were expected
to learn on the job. Requiring previous Fortran and machine language experience wasn't the norm in those days, and the best programmers may not have even
had the opportunity to learn those languages in college. Rather, finding smart people who would learn and put their aptitude to work was the goal. Fast forward to
today when many companies have allowed software -- and the companies that make software -- to rule their businesses. Rather
than thinking through what's actually crucial in running a business, companies have become accustomed to
buying software from enterprise software companies like Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500), SAP (SAP), and IBM (IBM, Fortune 500 ), and organizing
their business practices around the less-than-robust thinking required to run the programs. Then, when laying out job
descriptions, instead of looking for someone who has handled certain challenges or achieved certain goals,
companies simply require several years of experience with that particular accounting, or CRM, or invoicing, or HR suite, and
tend to look at little else. It's not only software firms that have hijacked the thinking inside U.S. business; consultant models have done so also.
Management techniques like TQM, Lean, and Six Sigma are quite valuable, but it's the concepts behind these programs
rather than an automaton following them that is important. Yet, again, in developing job descriptions, firms persist
in requiring specific experience in those particular techniques. Why is this? Because just as in the time of rising housing prices the
mortgage models seemed to work fine, in the time of nearly full employment, requiring specifics was easy and convenient. The need for businesses to work together to
shoulder this responsibility of sustained unemployment was not critical, the way it is today. Time to retool the hiring process Just as mortgage firms
have had to retool, so must companies, with board oversight, rethink the recruiting process. The human-resource function has always been one of the least recognized
and least addressed in U.S. businesses. The first place to start is with those who recruit. Companies and boards need to ensure that their
recruiters are people who can think beyond the keywords of software programs and recognize real talent, who can understand that someone right out of college-or
someone in their 50s, 60s, or 70s-may have as much to bring to the company as a disgruntled 30- or 40-year-old with the specific experience that the job description
asked for. Reconsidering
recruiting systems is important not only for our current situation of joblessness and
economic malaise, it's also important in strengthening our firms. Future software packages will change-what was
necessary before is obsolete now-and firms need employees who can bridge that gap, not people who know only one thing
very well, and resist change or innovation. Companies will need people who can imagine the future and can
meet whatever new challenge this changing world brings. Creating a resilient and enthusiastic staff with diverse experiences is important
both in the C-suite and on the shop floor. It begins with boards recognizing that their role in creating the economy includes
ensuring that the recruiting practices of the firms they oversee are not convenience- and short-term oriented but
rather are aimed at building a core of individuals who can carry the firm through unforeseen changes. Those
individuals may or may not have six years of Six Sigma and two years of SAS. Those valuable employees, if they can think, can easily learn those skills. But it's the
thinking that ultimately will matter -- to the firm and collectively to our economic growth.
Innovation’s high now
Tom Price, Miller-McCune Magazine, “U.S. Challenged for High-Tech Global Leadership,” 3/13/2010, http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/u-schallenged-for-high-tech-global-leadership-10818/
Despite negative trends, U.S. R&D continues to lead the world by a large margin. In 2007, America’s $369 billion
R&D spending exceeded all of Asia’s $338 billion and all of the European Union’s $263 billion. The United States spent
more than the next four countries — Japan, China, Germany and France — combined. America’s share of all high-tech
manufacturing has risen — and it continues to lead the world — even though the U.S. share of exports has
declined. That’s because the United States consumes so much of its product domestically. The United States
makes nearly a third of the world’s high-tech goods, compared with the European Union’s 25 percent and China’s 14 percent. It’s the
world leader in communications, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and aerospace. It trails only the EU in scientific instruments
and China in computers. U.S. inventors obtained 81,000 U.S. patents in 2008, more than double Japan’s 35,000 and all of Europe’s 23,000. America’s 49 percent share
inventors also led in what the report calls “high-value” patents — those that were
given protection by the EU and Japan as well as by the United States. The U.S. share of 30 percent was down from 34 percent in 1997.
China obtained just about 1 percent of both kinds of patents. But its scientists have become the second-most-prolific contributors to
of those patents dropped from 55 percent in 1995. U.S.
scholarly journals, another area in which the United States continues to lead the world. The globalization of science is illustrated by the worldwide growth in many
measures of scientific prowess, no matter which countries dominate, the board said. For example, high-tech exports more than tripled to $2.3 trillion worldwide between
1995 and 2008. The estimated number of researchers increased to 5.7 million in 2007 from 4 million in 1995. Global R&D expenditures totaled $1.1 trillion in 2007, up
from $525 billion in 1996. Cross-boarder co-authorship also increased from 8 percent of scientific articles published in 1988 to 22 percent in 2007. Foreign
corporations actually invested more in U.S.-based research ($34 billion) in 2006 than U.S. firms invested
overseas $28.5 billion. Both more than doubled since 1995.
Heg doesn’t solve conflict
Hachigan and Sutphen 2008
(Nina and Monica, Stanford Center for International Security, The Next American Century, p. 168-9)
In practice, the strategy of primacy failed to deliver. While the fact of being the world’s only superpower has
substantial benefits, a national security strategy based on suing and ratiaing primacy has not made America
more secure. America’s military might has not been the answer to terrorism, disease, climate change, or
proliferation. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea have become more dangerous in the last seven years, not less. Worse
than being ineffective with transnational threats and smaller powers, a strategy of maintaining primacy is
counterproductive when it comes to pivotal powers. If America makes primacy the main goal of its national
security strategy, then why shouldn’t the pivotal powers do the same? A goal of primacy signals that sheer
strength is most critical to security. American cannot trumpet its desire to dominate the world military and then
question why China is modernizing its military.
No impact to the transition
Ikenberry 08 professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University (John, The Rise of China
and the Future of the West Can the Liberal System Survive?, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb)
Some observers believe that the American era is coming to an end, as the Western-oriented world order is replaced by one increasingly
dominated by the East. The historian Niall Ferguson has written that the bloody twentieth century witnessed "the descent of the West" and "a reorientation of the world"
toward the East. Realists go on to note that as China gets more powerful and the United States' position erodes, two things are likely to happen: China will try to use its
growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests, and other states in the system -- especially the declining
hegemon -- will start to see China as a growing security threat. The
result of these developments, they predict, will be tension,
distrust, and conflict, the typical features of a power transition. In this view, the drama of China's rise will feature an increasingly
powerful China and a declining United States locked in an epic battle over the rules and leadership of the international
system. And as the world's largest country emerges not from within but outside the established post-World War II international order, it is a drama that will end
with the grand ascendance of China and the onset of an Asian-centered world order. That course, however, is not inevitable. The rise of China
does not have to trigger a wrenching hegemonic transition. The U.S.-Chinese power transition can be very different
from those of the past because China faces an international order that is fundamentally different from those that past
rising states confronted. China does not just face the United States; it faces a Western-centered system that is open, integrated,
and rule-based, with wide and deep political foundations. The nuclear revolution, meanwhile, has made war among
great powers unlikely -- eliminating the major tool that rising powers have used to overturn international systems
defended by declining hegemonic states. Today's Western order, in short, is hard to overturn and easy to join. This
unusually durable and expansive order is itself the product of farsighted U.S. leadership. After World War II, the United States did not simply establish itself as
the leading world power. It led in the creation of universal institutions that not only invited global membership but also
brought democracies and market societies closer together. It built an order that facilitated the participation and
integration of both established great powers and newly independent states. (It is often forgotten that this postwar order was
designed in large part to reintegrate the defeated Axis states and the beleaguered Allied states into a unified international system.) Today, China can gain full access to
and thrive within this system. And if it does, China will rise, but the Western order -- if managed properly -- will live on.
Threats are always exaggerated – multiple warrants
Layne, Associate Professor, 1997
(Christopher Layne, Visiting Associate Professor at Naval Postgraduate School, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand Strategy”,
International Security, Vol. 22 Issue. 1 Summer 1997).
The security/interdependence nexus results in the exaggeration of threats to American strategic interests because it requires the
United States to defend its core interests by intervening in the peripheries. There are three reasons for this. First, as Johnson points out, order-maintenance
strategies are biased inherently toward threat exaggeration. Threats to order generate an anxiety “that has at its center the fear of the
unknown. It is not just security, but the pattern of order upon which the sense of security depends that is threatened.” Second, because the strategy of
preponderance requires U.S. intervention in places that concededly have no intrinsic strategic value, U.S.
policymakers are compelled to overstate the dangers to American interests to mobilize domestic support for
their policies. Third, the tendency to exaggerate threats is tightly linked to the strategy of preponderance’s
concern with maintaining U.S. credibility.
Latent power can sustain Heg
Wohlforth ‘7 (William, Prof and Chair of Dept. of Government @ Dartmouth, “Unipolar stability: the rules of power analysis”, Harvard International Review,
Vol. 29, No. 1, Spring)
US military forces are stretched thin, its budget and trade deficits are high, and the country continues to finance its profligate ways by borrowing from abroad--notably
from the Chinese government. These developments have prompted many analysts to warn that the United States suffers from "imperial
overstretch." And if
US power is overstretched now, the argument goes, unipolarity can hardly be sustainable for long. The problem with this argument is that it fails to distinguish
between actual and latent power. One must be careful to take into account both the level of resources that can be mobilized and the degree to which a
government actually tries to mobilize them. And how much a government asks of its public is partly a function of the severity of the challenges that it faces. Indeed, one
can never know for sure what a state is capable of until it has been seriously challenged. Yale historian Paul Kennedy coined the term "imperial overstretch" to describe
the situation in which a state's actual and latent capabilities cannot possibly match its foreign policy commitments. This situation should be contrasted with what might
be termed "self-inflicted overstretch"--a
situation in which a state lacks the sufficient resources to meet its current foreign policy commitments in
the short term, but has untapped latent power and readily available policy choices that it can use to
draw on this power. This is arguably the situation that the U nited S tates is in today. But the US government has not attempted to
extract more resources from its population to meet its foreign policy commitments. Instead, it has moved strongly in the opposite direction by slashing personal and
corporate tax rates. Although it is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and claims to be fighting a global "war" on terrorism, the United States is not acting like a
country under intense international pressure. Aside from the volunteer servicemen and women and their families, US citizens have not been asked to make sacrifices for
the sake of national prosperity and security. The
country could clearly devote a greater proportion of its economy
to military spending: today it spends only about 4 percent of its GDP on the military, as compared to 7 to 14 percent during the peak years of the Cold
War. It could also spend its military budget more efficiently, shifting resources from expensive weapons systems to boots on the
ground. Even more radically, it could reinstitute military conscription, shifting resources from pay and benefits to training and equipping more soldiers. On the
economic front, it could raise taxes in a number of ways, notably on fossil fuels, to put its fiscal house back in order. No one knows for sure what would
happen if a US president undertook such drastic measures, but there is nothing in economics, political science, or history to suggest that such policies would be any less
likely to succeed than China is to continue to grow rapidly for decades. Most of those who study US politics would argue that the likelihood and potential success of
such power-generating policies depends on public support, which is a function of the public's perception of a threat. And as unnerving as terrorism is,
there is
nothing like the threat of another hostile power rising up in opposition to the United States for mobilizing public support.
With latent power in the picture, it becomes clear that unipolarity might have more built-in self-reinforcing
mechanisms than many analysts realize. It is often noted that the rise of a peer competitor to the United States might be thwarted by the
counterbalancing actions of neighboring powers. For example, China's rise might push India and Japan closer to the United States--indeed, this has already
happened to some extent. There is also the strong possibility that a peer rival that comes to be seen as a threat would create strong incentives for the U nited S tates
to end its self-inflicted overstretch and tap potentially large wellsprings of latent power.
Competitiveness isn’t key to hege
Reihan Salam, Schwartz Fellow at the New American Foundation, “ROBERT PAPE IS OVERHEATED,” 1/21/2009,
http://www.theamericanscene.com/2009/01/21/robert-pape-is-overheated
Pape spends a lot of time demonstrating that U.S. economic output represents a declining share of global output,
which is hardly a surprise. Yet as Pape surely understands, the more relevant question is how much and how readily can economic
output be translated into military power? The European Union, for example, has many state-like features, yet it
doesn’t have the advantages of a traditional state when it comes to raising an army. The Indian economy is taxed in a
highly uneven manner, and much of the economy is black — the same is true across the developing world. As for
China, both the shape of the economy, as Yasheng Huang suggests, and its long frontiers, ₪ stopped here at 08:25 ₪ as
Andrew Nathan has long argued, pose serious barriers to translating potential power into effective power. (Wohlforth and Brooks
give Stephen Walt’s balance-of-threat its due.) So while this hardly obviates the broader point that relative American economic power is eroding — that was the whole
idea of America’s postwar grand strategy — it is worth keeping in mind. This
is part of the reason why sclerotic, statist economies can
punch above their weight militarily, at least for a time — they are “better” at marshaling resources. Over the long run,
the Singapores will beat the Soviets. But in the long run, we’re all dead. And given that this literature is rooted in the bogey of long-term coalition warfare, you can see
why the unipolarity argument holds water. At the risk of sounding overly harsh, Pape’s understanding of “innovativeness” — based on the number of patents
filed, it seems — is
crude to say the least. I recommend Amar Bhidé‘s brilliant critique of Richard Freeman, which I’ll be talking about a lot. Pape cites
Zakaria, who was relying on slightly shopworn ideas that Bhidé demolishes in The Venturesome Economy. The “global diffusion of technology” is
real, and if anything it magnifies U.S. economic power. “Ah, but we’re talking about the prospect of coalition warfare!” The global
diffusion of technology is indeed sharply raising the costs of military conquest, as the United States discovered in Iraq. The
declining utility of military power means that a unipolar distribution of military power is more likely to persist.
And yes, it also means that unipolar military power is less valuable than it was in 1945.
npolarity now and inevitable
ass ‘8 [Richard. Pres of CFR. “What Follows American Dominion?” The Financial Times, 16 April 08. lexis]
The unipolar era, a time of un-precedented American dominion, is over. It lasted some two decades, little more than a moment in
historical terms. Why did it end? One explanation is history. States get better at generating and piecing together the human, financial and technological
resources that lead to productivity and prosperity. The same holds for companies and other organisations. The rise of new powers cannot be stopped. The result is an
ever larger number of actors able to exert influence regionally or globally. It
is not that the US has grown weaker, but that many other
entities have grown much stronger. A second reason unipolarity has ended is US policy. By both what it has done and what it has failed to do, the US
has accelerated the emergence of new power centres and has weakened its own position relative to them. US energy policy (or the lack thereof) is one driving force
behind the end of unipolarity. Since the first oil shocks of the 1970s, US oil consumption has grown by some 20 per cent and, more important, US imports of petroleum
This growth in demand for foreign oil has
helped drive up the world price from just over $20 a barrel to more than $100 a barrel. The result is an
enormous transfer of wealth and leverage to those states with energy reserves. US economic policy has played a role as well. President George W. Bush
products have more than doubled in volume and nearly doubled as a percentage of consumption.
has fought costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, allowed discretionary spending to increase by 8 per cent a year and cut taxes. The US fiscal position declined from a
surplus of more than $100bn in 2001 to an estimated deficit of about $250bn in 2007. The
ballooning current account deficit is now more
than 6 per cent of gross domestic product. This places downward pressure on the dollar, stimulates inflation and contributes
to the accumulation of wealth and power elsewhere in the world. Poor regulation of the US mortgage market and the credit crisis it spawned have exacerbated these
problems. Iraq
has also contributed to the dilution of American primacy. The conflict has proved to be an expensive
war of choice - militarily, economically and diplomatically, as well as in human terms. Years ago, the historian
Paul Kennedy outlined his thesis about "imperial overstretch", which posited that the US would eventually
decline by overreaching, just as other great powers had. Prof Kennedy's theory turned out to apply most
immediately to the Soviet Union, but the US - for all its corrective mechanisms and dynamism - has not proved
to be immune. Finally, unipolarity's end is not simply the result of the rise of other states and organisations or of the failures and follies of US policy. It is also a
consequence of globalisation. Globalisation has increased the volume, velocity and importance of cross-border flows of just about everything, from drugs, e-mails,
greenhouse gases, goods and people to television and radio signals, viruses (virtual and real) and weapons. Many of these flows take place outside the control of
governments and without their knowledge. As a result ,
globalisation dilutes the influence of big powers, including the US. These
same flows often strengthen non-state actors, such as energy exporters (who are experiencing a dramatic increase in wealth),
terrorists (who use the internet to recruit and train, the international banking system to move resources and the global transport system to move people), rogue
states (which can exploit black and grey -markets) and Fortune 500 companies (which quickly move personnel and investments). Being the strongest
state no longer means having a near-monopoly on power. It is easier than ever before for individuals and groups to accumulate and project substantial power. All of this
raises a critical question: if unipolarity is gone, what will take its place? Some predict a return to the bipolarity that characterised international relations during the cold
war. This is unlikely. China's military strength does not approximate that of the US; more important, its focus will remain on economic growth, a choice that leads it to
seek economic integration and avoid conflict. Russia may be more inclined towards re-creating a bipolar world, but it too has a stake in co-operation and, in any event,
lacks the capacity to challenge the US. Still others predict the emergence of a modern multipolar world, one in which China, Europe, India, Japan and Russia join the
US as dominant influences. This view ignores how the world has changed. There are literally dozens of meaningful power centres ,
including regional powers, international organisations, companies, media outlets, religious movements, terrorist organisations, drug cartels and non-governmental
organisations. Today's
world is increasingly one of distributed, rather than concentrated, power. The successor to
unipolarity is neither bipolarity or multipolarity. It is non-polarity.