1ac
Plan:
Plan: The United States should legalize nearly all marihuana in the United States.
Cartels
Contention one is cartels:
Drug violence is spiraling out of control in Mexico
Jo Tuckman Mexico City, The Guardian, Friday 9 May 2014 09.10 EDT “Violence erupts again in Mexican state where drug
wars began” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/09/violence-mexico-tamaulipas-state-drug-wars ac 8-27
A spate of extreme violence in Mexico's north-eastern Tamaulipas state has ended the relative calm in the region
where the country's drug wars began. Officials say about 80 people have been killed in almost daily street
battles. This week the state's top detective, Salvador de Haro Muñoz, was among five people killed in a shootout. Ten police
officers have been arrested for allegedly leading him into an ambush. Fourteen people were killed in one day this month in a string
of gun battles between federal forces and unidentified gunmen in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. " It's
worse than ever ," said a local woman who saw three shootouts on three consecutive days while visiting relatives in
Tampico in early April. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said authorities did nothing to intervene beyond advising people
to stay off the streets. " This
is a failed state with no law and no authority." Tamaulipas has been a focal
point in the drug wars as one of the busiest places on the border for northbound drugs and
migrants and southbound weapons and cash. But the latest outbreak of bloodletting has
prompted fears that the region is set for a return to the worst days of 2010 , when entire
populations fled towns in the region to escape the violence.
Be skeptical of arguments that violence is decreasing—families deliberately
under-report deaths for fear of retaliation
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists260990
During Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto’s first year in office, after he had promised to cut back on everyday violence, there
were 22,732 recorded homicides the National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced Wednesday.¶ The figure, which the
institute called preliminary, is slightly lower than the previous year but still higher than when Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto’s
predecessor, took office. In 2007, shortly after Calderon declared war on drugs, the number of homicides reached 8,867. During his
six years in office, homicides peaked at 27,213, in 2011.¶ “This is lower than I expected,” said Rene Jimenez Ornelas, coordinator
of the unit for the analysis of violence at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, of the number of homicides in 2013. Jimenez
Ornelas said one of the reasons for a lower-than-expected number is that many people prefer to
have their loved ones’ death registered as a heart attack or another natural cause to avoid an
investigation. “Why? Because they make the rest of the family pay ,” said Jimenez Ornelas, implying
that criminals might seek revenge and kill family members who report a homicide.
Nation-wide legalization of marijuana is a game-changer for stopping violence in
Mexico—takes a huge chunk out of cartel profits and frees up police resources
Hesson 14 -- immigration editor, covers immigration and drug policy from Washington D.C.
[Ted, "Will Mexican Cartels Survive Marijuana Legalization?" Fusion, fusion.net/justice/story/mexican-cartels-survive-marijuanalegalization-450519, accessed 6-2-14]
1. Mexico is the top marijuana exporter to the U.S. A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that Mexican
marijuana accounted for somewhere between 40 and 67 percent of the drug in the U.S. The cartel grip on the U.S. market may not
last for long. Pot can now be grown for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, and for medical use in 20 states. For the first
time, American consumers can choose a legal product over the black market counterpart. Beau Kilmer, the co-director of
the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, says that a few states legalizing marijuana won’t eliminate
the flow of the drug from down south, but a change in policy from the federal government would
be a game changer. “Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the
national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico,” he wrote in a 2013 op-ed. 2.
Marijuana makes up more than $1 billion of cartel income Pot isn’t the main source of income for cartels. They
make most of their cash from drugs like cocaine and heroin. But marijuana accounts for 15 to 26 percent of the
cartel haul, according to RAND’s 2008 data. That translates to an estimated $1.1 billion to $2 billion of
gross income. The drop in sales certainly wouldn’t end the existence of drug traffickers — they bring in an estimated $6 billion
to $8 billion annually — but losing a fifth of one’s income would hurt any business. On top of that, Kilmer
says that marijuana likely makes up a higher percentage of the cartel take today than it did back in
2008. So
taking away pot would sting even more . 3. Authorities could focus on other drugs
Marijuana made up 94 percent of the drugs seized by Border Patrol in the 2012 fiscal year, judging by
weight. If pot becomes legal in the U.S. and cartels are pushed out of the market, that would allow
law-enforcement agencies to dedicate more resources to combat the trafficking of drugs like
heroin and cocaine.
Most comprehensive studies prove violence will be significantly reduced in the
long-run, and short-term lashout will be limited
Beau Kilmer et al 10, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer--Codirector, RAND Drug Policy
Research Center; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard
University; M.P.P., University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever
Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Bond--research economist in the Office of the
Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of
Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. “Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence
in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?” RAND occasional paper (peer reviewed),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf
However, there
is at least one countervailing factor that might reduce violence in the short run. Given
that the signal of market decline will be strong and unambiguous, experienced participants might
accept the fact that their earnings and the market as a whole are in decline. This could lead to a
reduced effort on their part to fight for control of routes or officials, since those areas of control
are now less valuable. Of course, that does presume strategic thinking in a population that appears to have a propensity for
expressive and instrumental violence. The natural projection
in the long run is more optimistic . Fewer young
males will enter the drug trade, and the incentives for violence will decline as the economic
returns to leader- ship of a DTO fall. 10 However, the long run is indeterminably measured: probably years, and
perhaps many years. The outcome, either in the short or long term, of a substantial decline in the U.S. market for Mexican marijuana
in 2011 is a matter of conjecture. One view is that, in the short run, there could be more violence as the DTO leadership faces a very
disturbing change in cir- cumstances. The fact that a decline in their share of the marijuana market would come after a period in
which there has been rapid turnover at the top of their organizations and much change in their relationships with corrupt police could
make it particularly difficult for the DTOs to reach a cooperative accommodation to their shrunken market. However, if the Mexi- can
government lessens pressures and signals its willingness to reach an accommodation with a more collaborative set of DTOs, the
result could be a reduction in violence. In the long run, the analysis is different. One would think that
DTO participation
would become less attractive . However, the government’s actions are again capable of reversing this. The government
might take advantage of the weakened state of its adversary to break up the larger DTOs; a configuration of many smaller
organizations could lead to greater competitive violence.
Alternative activities can’t make up for profits—post-prohibition effect on the
mafia proves
Robelo 13 -- Drug Policy Alliance research coordinator
[Daniel, "Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in
Latin America," Oregon Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1227, 2013, l/n]
It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in
violence is possible (as competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will decline. n106
Some analysts point out that organized crime may further diversify into other activities, such as extortion and
kidnapping, though these have been shown to be considerably less profitable than drug trafficking.
As one scholar [*1249] notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, "it would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of
cocaine revenues from the U.S. n107 While the American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors
after the Repeal of alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically. n108
Combining marijuana regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow
to the corrosive economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits,
purchase weapons, corrupt officials, operate with impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete
results - potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues - unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the United States have tried to
date. n109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their income, but they would
be left weaker and less of a threat to security. Furthermore, the U nited S tates and Latin American governments
would save resources currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate new revenues in
taxes - resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting violence and other
crimes that directly threaten public safety. n110
Even modest losses means cartels can’t corrupt the police and judiciary
Usborne 14
[David, "How Central Is Marijuana In The Drug War? Ctd," The Dish, quoted by Andrew Sullivan, 1-11-14,
dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/11/how-central-is-marijuana-in-the-drug-war-ctd/, accessed 6-9-14]
A 2012 research paper by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute in Mexico called ‘If Our Neighbours Legalise’, said that the
legalisation of marijuana in Colorado, Washington and California would depress cartel profits by as much as 30 per cent. A 2010
Rand Corp study of what would happen if just California legalised suggests a more modest fall-out. Using consumption in the US as
the most useful measure, its authors posit that marijuana accounts for perhaps 25 per cent of the cartels’
revenues. The cartels would survive losing that, but still. “ That’s enough to hurt , enough to cause massive
unemployment in the illicit drugs sector,” says [fellow at the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center
David] Shirk. Less money for cartels means weaker cartels and less capacity to corrupt the judiciary
and the police in Mexico with crumpled bills in brown envelopes. Crimes like extortion and kidnappings are
also more easily tackled.
Mexico instability undermines U.S. leadership and risks global arms races
Robert Haddick, contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, managing editor of Small Wars Journal, "This Week at War: If
Mexico Is at War, Does America Have to Win It?" FOREIGN POLICY, 9--10--10,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war_does_america_have_to_win_it, accessed 5-213.
Most significantly, a
strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest
of the world . An increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars,
corrupted government and media, and
a breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the U nited
S tates to question the importance of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world.
Should the southern border become a U.S. president's primary national security concern, nervous
allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a distracted
and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result. Secretary Clinton has looked
south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to
stop this one from getting out of control.
U.S. leadership is key to global stability and preventing nuclear great power wars
Brooks et al 13 Stephen, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank
Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs, William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor in the Department of Government at
Dartmouth College “Don’t Come Home America: The Case Against Retrenchment,” International Security, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Winter
2012/13), pp. 7–51
A core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the emergence
of a far more dangerous global security
environment. For one thing, as noted above, the United States’ overseas presence gives it the leverage to
restrain partners from taking provocative action . Perhaps more important, its core alliance commitments also
deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and make its partners more
secure, reducing their incentive to adopt solutions to their security problems that threaten others and thus stoke security
dilemmas. The contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy is consistent with influential variants of
realist theory. Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would emerge absent the “American
Pacifier” is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer, who forecasts dangerous multipolar regions replete with
security competition , arms races, nuclear proliferation and associated preventive war temptations , regional
rivalries, and even runs
at regional hegemony and full-scale great power war . 72 How do retrenchment
advocates, the bulk of whom are realists, discount this benefit? Their arguments are complicated, but two capture most of the
variation: (1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries and conflict in Eurasia; or (2) prevention of
rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a different theory or set of theories, which makes
sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasia’s security setting if the
United States truly disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each of these responses is nonetheless a weaker
argument for retrenchment than advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from defensive realism as well as other
international relations theories that discount the conflict-generating potential of anarchy under contemporary conditions. 73
Defensive realists maintain that the high expected costs of territorial conquest, defense dominance, and an array of policies and
practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasia’s major states could manage regional multipolarity
peacefully without the American pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet on this scholarship, particularly in regions where the kinds of
stabilizers that nonrealist theories point to—such as democratic governance or dense institutional linkages—are either absent or
weakly present. There are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause before making
this bet. First is regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net security effects of U.S. withdrawal. Regarding
each region, there are optimists and pessimists. Few experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American
Europe, but many doubt European governments will pay the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the budgetary
costs of increasing military outlays. 74 The result might be a Europe that
threats
is incapable of securing itself from various
that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a regional conflict akin to the 1990s Balkan wars),
lacks capacity for global security missions in which U.S. leaders might want European participation, and is vulnerable to the
influence of outside rising powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia where the United States has a substantial military
presence? Regarding the Middle East, the balance begins to swing toward pessimists concerned that states currently backed by
Washington— notably Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—might take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that
would intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia, pessimism regarding the region’s prospects without the American
pacifier is pronounced. Arguably the principal concern expressed by area experts is that Japan and South Korea are likely to
obtain a nuclear capacity and increase their military commitments, which could stoke a
destabilizing reaction from China . It is notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan
moved to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing so by a still-engaged
U nited S tates. 75 The second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realism’s sanguine portrayal is all of the
realism’s optimism about what would happen if
the United States retrenched is very much dependent on its particular—and highly restrictive—assumption about
state preferences; once we relax this assumption, then much of its basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the
research that undermines its conception of state preferences. Defensive
prediction of post-American tranquility throughout Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is the only relevant state preference,
with security defined narrowly in terms of protection from violent external attacks on the homeland. Under that assumption, the
security problem is largely solved as soon as offense and defense are clearly distinguishable, and offense is extremely expensive
relative to defense. Burgeoning research across the social and other sciences, however, undermines that core
assumption: states have preferences not only for security but also for prestige , status, and other aims, and
they engage in trade-offs among the various objectives. 76 In addition, they define security not just in terms of territorial protection
but in view of many and varied milieu goals. It follows that even states that are relatively secure may nevertheless
engage in highly competitive behavior. Empirical studies show that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77
In sum, a bet on a benign postretrenchment Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never allow these nonsecurity
preferences to influence their strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of scholarly knowledge have predictive leverage,
U.S. retrenchment would result in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least some of the world’s key regions.
We have already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship. Offensive realism predicts that the withdrawal of the
American pacifier will yield either a competitive regional multipolarity complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis
instability, nuclear proliferation, and the like, or bids for regional hegemony, which may be beyond the capacity of local great powers
to contain (and which in any case would generate intensely competitive behavior, possibly including regional great power war).
Hence it is unsurprising that retrenchment advocates are prone to focus on the second argument noted above: that avoiding wars
and security dilemmas in the world’s core regions is not a U.S. national interest. Few doubt that the United States could survive the
return of insecurity and conflict among Eurasian powers, but at what cost? Much of the work in this area has focused on the
economic externalities of a renewed threat of insecurity and war, which we discuss below. Focusing on the pure security
ramifications, there are two main reasons why decisionmakers may be rationally reluctant to run the retrenchment experiment. First,
overall higher levels of conflict make the world a more dangerous place. Were Eurasia to return to higher levels of
interstate military competition, one
would see overall higher levels of military spending and innovation and a
proxy wars and arming of client states—all of which would be concerning, in part
because it would promote a faster diffusion of military power away from the U nited S tates. Greater
higher likelihood of competitive regional
regional insecurity could well feed proliferation cascades, as states such as Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia
all might choose to create nuclear forces. 78 It is unlikely that proliferation decisions by any of these actors would be the end of the
game: they would likely generate pressure locally for more proliferation. Following Kenneth Waltz, many retrenchment advocates
are proliferation optimists, assuming that nuclear deterrence solves the security problem. 79 Usually carried out in dyadic terms, the
debate over the stability of proliferation changes as the numbers go up. Proliferation optimism rests on assumptions of
rationality and narrow security preferences. In social science, however, such assumptions are inevitably
probabilistic. Optimists assume that most states are led by rational leaders, most will overcome
organizational problems and resist the temptation to preempt before feared neighbors nuclearize , and most
pursue only security and are risk averse. Confidence in such probabilistic assumptions declines if the world were
to move from nine to twenty, thirty, or forty nuclear states. In addition, many of the other dangers noted by analysts who
are concerned about the destabilizing effects of nuclear proliferation—including the risk of accidents and the prospects that some
new nuclear powers will not have truly survivable forces—seem prone to go up as the number of nuclear powers grows. 80
Moreover, the risk of “unforeseen
crisis dynamics” that could spin out of control is also higher as the number of
nuclear powers increases. Finally, add to these concerns the enhanced danger of nuclear leakage, and a world with overall higher
levels of security competition becomes yet more worrisome. The argument that maintaining Eurasian peace is not a U.S. interest
faces a second problem. On widely accepted realist assumptions, acknowledging that
U.S. engagement preserves
peace dramatically narrows the difference between retrenchment and deep engagement. For many supporters of retrenchment,
the optimal strategy for a power such as the United States, which has attained regional hegemony and is separated from other great
powers by oceans, is offshore balancing: stay over the horizon and “pass the buck” to local powers to do the dangerous work of
counterbalancing any local rising power. The United States should commit to onshore balancing only when local balancing is likely
to fail and a great power appears to be a credible contender for regional hegemony, as in the cases of Germany, Japan, and the
Soviet Union in the midtwentieth century. The problem is that China’s rise puts the possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on
the table, at least in the medium to long term. As Mearsheimer notes, “The
U nited S tates will have to play a key role in
countering China, because its Asian neighbors are not strong enough to do it by themselves.” 81 Therefore, unless China’s
rise stalls, “the United States is likely to act toward China similar to the way it behaved toward the Soviet Union during the Cold
War.” 82 It follows that the United States should take no action that would compromise its capacity to move to onshore balancing in
the future. It will need to maintain key alliance relationships in Asia as well as the formidably expensive military capacity to intervene
there. The implication is to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, reduce the presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia— just what the United
States is doing. 83 In sum, the argument that U.S. security commitments are unnecessary for peace is
countered by a lot of scholarship , including highly influential realist scholarship. In addition, the argument that Eurasian
peace is unnecessary for U.S. security is weakened by the potential for a large number of nasty security consequences as well as
the need to retain a latent onshore balancing capacity that dramatically reduces the savings retrenchment might bring. Moreover,
switching between offshore and onshore balancing could well be difªcult. Bringing together the thrust of many of the arguments
discussed so far underlines the degree to which the case for retrenchment misses the underlying logic of the deep engagement
strategy. By supplying reassurance, deterrence, and active management, the United States lowers security competition in the
world’s key regions, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse atmosphere for growing new military capabilities. Alliance ties
dissuade partners from ramping up and also provide leverage to prevent military transfers to potential rivals. On top of all this, the
United States’ formidable military machine may deter entry by potential rivals. Current great power
military expenditures as a percentage of GDP are at historical lows, and thus far other major powers have shied away from seeking
to match top-end U.S. military capabilities. In addition, they have so far been careful to avoid attracting the “focused enmity” of the
United States. 84 All of the world’s most modern militaries are U.S. allies (America’s alliance system of more than sixty countries
now accounts for some 80 percent of global military spending), and the gap between the U.S. military capability and that of potential
rivals is by many measures growing rather than shrinking. 85
Drug cartel instability will spill over throughout Latin America
Bonner 10 – senior principal of the Sentinel HS Group
(Robert C., former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, “The New Cocaine Cowboys”, Foreign Affairs,
July/August 2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66472/robert-c-bonner/the-new-cocaine-cowboys)
The recent headlines from Mexico are disturbing: U.S. consular official gunned down in broad daylight; Rancher
murdered by Mexican drug smuggler; Bomb tossed at U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo. This wave of violence is eerily
reminiscent of the carnage that plagued Colombia 20 years ago, and it is getting Washington's
attention. Mexico is in the throes of a battle against powerful drug cartels, the outcome of which will
determine who controls the country's law enforcement, judicial, and political institutions. It will
decide whether the state will destroy the cartels and put an end to the culture of impunity they have
created. Mexico could become a first-world country one day, but it will never achieve that status
until it breaks the grip these criminal organizations have over all levels of government and
strengthens its law enforcement and judicial institutions. It cannot do one without doing the other. Destroying
the drug cartels is not an impossible task. Two decades ago, Colombia was faced with a similar -- and in many ways
more daunting -- struggle. In the early 1990s, many Colombians, including police officers, judges, presidential candidates, and
journalists, were assassinated by the most powerful and fearsome drug-trafficking organizations the world has ever seen: the Cali and
Medellín cartels. Yet within a decade, the Colombian government defeated them, with Washington's help. The United States played
a vital role in supporting the Colombian government, and it should do the same for Mexico. The stakes in Mexico are high.
If the cartels win, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate outside the state and the rule
of law, undermining Mexico's democracy. The outcome matters for the United States as well -- if the
drug cartels succeed, the United States will share a 2,000-mile border with a narcostate controlled
by powerful transnational drug cartels that threaten the stability of Central and South America.
That causes nuclear war and extinction
Manwaring 05 – adjunct professor of international politics at Dickinson
(Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, October 2005, pg.
PUB628.pdf)
President Chávez also understands that the process leading to state
failure is the most dangerous long-term
security challenge facing the global community today. The argument in general is that failing and failed state
status is the breeding ground for instability , criminality, insurgency, regional conflict , and
terrorism. These conditions breed massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows. They can host “evil”
networks of all kinds, whether they involve criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking, or
some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things
people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption, intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These
means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further human rights violations, torture, poverty,
starvation, disease, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in women and body parts, trafficking and
proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD , genocide, ethnic cleansing,
warlordism, and criminal anarchy. At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill
over into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict .62 Peru’s Sendero Luminoso calls
violent and destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure “armed propaganda.” Drug cartels operating
throughout the Andean Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities “business incentives.” Chávez
considers these actions to be steps that must be taken to bring about the political conditions necessary to establish Latin American
socialism for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to helping to provide wider latitude to further their tactical and operational
objectives, state and nonstate actors’ strategic efforts are aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regime’s credibility and
capability in terms of its ability and willingness to govern and develop its national territory and society. Chávez’s intent is to focus his
primary attack politically and psychologically on selected Latin American governments’ ability and right to govern. In that context, he
understands that popular perceptions of corruption, disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward mobility limit the right and the
ability of a given regime to conduct the business of the state. Until a given populace generally perceives that its government is
dealing with these and other basic issues of political, economic, and social injustice fairly and effectively, instability and the
threat of subverting or destroying such a government are real.64 But failing and failed states simply do not go
away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an unstable situation. The tendency is that the best motivated and best armed
organization on the scene will control that instability. As a consequence, failing and failed states become
dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states, narco-states, or new people’s democracies. In connection
with the creation of new people’s democracies, one can rest assured that Chávez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available
to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And, of course, the longer dysfunctional, rogue, criminal, and
narco-states and people’s democracies persist, the
security, peace, and prosperity .65
more they and their associated problems endanger global
Econ
Contention 2 is the Economy
US economy is stagnating now—annual growth rate is sluggish
Wall Street Journal 14 (8-26-14, "'Secular Stagnation' May Be for Real" Wall Street Journal)
online.wsj.com/articles/william-galston-secular-stagnation-may-be-for-real-1409095263
The U.S. has an economic growth problem , and it started before the Great Recession. Between 1949 and 2000,
Third Way's Jim Kessler calculates, the annual rate of growth exceeded 3% a total of 34 times—two years out of every three. During
the eight Clinton years, growth reached 4% five times and fell below 3% only twice. Since 2000 growth has reached 3% just two
times and did not reach 4% at all, even during 2003-07, the peak years of the recovery from the 2001 recession. Since the
beginning of the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09, annual growth has not yet
reached 3%, and 2014 looks to be no exception . The big picture puts these details in sharp relief: Between 1949
and 2000, the economy grew on average 3.6% annually. Since then, growth has averaged only 1.8%. In the
economic circumstances of recent decades, only a sustained period of robust growth has raised
wages and household incomes. Unless the economy can resume the more robust growth of the
second half of the 20th century, U.S. workers will be hard-pressed to regain the ground they have
lost, let alone offer the prospects of something better for their children.
Legalizing marijuana boosts the economy:
A. Job growth
Legalization creates new opportunities for innovation and spurs growth in other
industries which locks in resilience
Cassillas 14 (Cassandra, reporter, quoting Charles Arnold, business development and investment consultant, 6-13-14,
"Charles S. Arnold Claims Marijuana Could Save U.S. Economy" Opposing Views) www.opposingviews.com/i/society/druglaw/charles-s-arnold-claims-marijuana-could-save-us-economy
The U nited S tates economy has had a rough few years . Inequality has been rising. The middle class is
squeezed harder and harder with each passing year. Innovation is falling off. Outsourcing has become a regular
part of doing business for major corporations. A fresh industry of some sort needed to come along and,
fortunately for the economy, it has. Reports from across the board suggest that the “green rush,” or legalization of
recreational marijuana, may be exactly what the doctor ordered. By now, everyone has heard about the
impressive $2 million in taxes Colorado collected within the first month of recreational marijuana
being legalized, but that is actually just the cherry on top . Tax revenue from marijuana legalization is easy to
compute, which is why it is such a popular talking point. The real benefit of legalization is something else entirely: it opens the doors
to a slew of ancillary businesses, investment opportunities and even stock options. The weed market is relatively untapped
and provides entrepreneurs with nearly endless opportunities. Where there is marijuana, there is
also a simultaneous need for pipes, bongs, containers, growing apparatuses, and everything in
between. And this isn’t just the opinion of optimistic, pro-pot activists. The business community
agrees. Chuck S. Arnold, a long time business development and investment consultant who has
worked in a variety of industries, is constantly on the lookout for the most innovative new areas to
build businesses. Arnold believes the future is looking bright for people who are willing to bet on legal
marijuana. “Marijuana legalization is spurring growth in other industries ,” Chuck S. Arnold claims.
“From industrial lights to smoking apparatus, the legalization of marijuana is blazing a trail for
future businesses to not only be see moderate success, but thrive ostensibly well in an often
turbulent contemporary fiscal environment.”
B. State budgets
Massive state budget cuts to schools remain in place, which prevents growth and
destroys competitiveness—new revenue sources are needed
Leachman and Mai 14 (Michael, Director of State Fiscal Research with the State Fiscal Policy division of the Center, Ph.D.
in sociology from Loyola University Chicago, and Chris, Research Assistant with the State Fiscal Project, Master of Public Policy
from the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School, 5-20-14, "Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession"
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4011
States’ new budgets are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than
they did six years ago — often far less. The reduced levels reflect not only the lingering effects of the 2007-09
recession but also continued austerity in many states ; indeed, despite some improvements in overall state revenues,
schools in around a third of states are entering the new school year with less state funding than they had last year. At a time
when states and the nation are trying to produce workers with the skills to master new
technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in state educational
investment is cause for concern . Our review of state budget documents finds that: At least 35 states are
providing less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession
hit. Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent . (These figures, like
all the comparisons in this paper, are in inflation-adjusted dollars and focus on the primary form of state aid to local schools.) At
least 15 states are providing less funding per student to local school districts in the new school year than they provided a year ago.
This is despite the fact that most states are experiencing modest increases in tax revenues. Where funding has increased,
it has generally not increased enough to make up for cuts in past years. For example, New Mexico is
increasing school funding by $72 per pupil this year. But that is too small to offset the state’s $946 per-pupil cut over the previous
five years. Restoring
school funding should be an urgent priority . The steep state-level K-12
spending cuts of the last several years have serious consequences for the nation. State-level K12 cuts have large consequences for local school districts. Some 44 percent of total education
spending in the United States comes from state funds (the share varies by state).[2] Cuts at the state level
mean that local school districts have to either scale back the educational services they provide ,
raise more local tax revenue to cover the gap, or both. Local school districts typically have little ability to
replace lost state aid on their own. Given the still-weak state of many of the nation’s real estate markets, many school
districts struggle to raise more money from the property tax without raising rates, and rate increases are often politically very difficult.
Localities collected 2.1 percent less in property tax revenue in the 12-month period ending in March 2013 than in the previous year,
after adjusting for inflation.[3] The cuts deepened the recession and have slowed the economy’s recovery.
Federal employment data show that school districts began reducing the overall number of
teachers and other employees in July 2008, when the first round of budget cuts began taking
effect. As of August 2013, local school districts had cut a total of 324,000 jobs since 2008.[4] These job losses have
reduced the purchasing power of workers’ families, in turn reducing overall economic
consumption, and thus deepened the recession and slowed the pace of recovery . The cuts
undermine education reform and hinder school districts’ ability to deliver high-quality education,
with long-term negative consequences for the nation’s economic competitiveness. Many states and
school districts have undertaken important school reform initiatives to prepare children better for
the future, but deep funding cuts hamper their ability to implement many of these reforms. At a
time when producing workers with high-level technical and analytical skills is increasingly
important to a country’s prosperity, large cuts in funding for basic education threaten to
undermine the nation’s economic future.
Legalization generates up to $100 billion in new revenue
Easton 09 (Stephen, fellow at the Fraser Institute, "PRO: FUND CRIME—OR TAXES?" Businessweek)
www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2010/03/legalize_mariju.html
As California readies for its November referendum, the first public test of the marijuana-legalization issue, it makes sense for
Americans to have a look in the rearview mirror. The current prohibition on marijuana consumption exactly
parallels the 1920s alcohol prohibition. Every year, a widely consumed illegal substance makes potential criminals of
millions and actual criminals of hundreds of thousands. And like booze during Prohibition, this substance, marijuana,
is the easy revenue of organized crime, contributing tens of billions of dollars to growers, who
commit a variety of bad acts both at home and abroad. How much money is made from this single
illegal substance? In fairness, nobody knows for sure. "Illegal" means hard data are difficult to come by. We do know,
however, that according to recent figures, U.S. consumers number anywhere from 25 million to 60
million (depending on how likely survey respondents are to tell the whole truth), and at an average cost of $5 per
cigarette (and factoring in one per day for each user), total spending on marijuana may add up to $45 billion
to $110 billion a year. What about possible tax revenue? From Canada we’ve learned that the
production cost of (government-sponsored) marijuana is roughly 33¢ a gram. Currently, U.S.
marijuana consumers pay at least $10 per gram retail for illegal marijuana. If the cost of retailing and
distribution is the same as for legal tobacco cigarettes, about 10¢ a gram, then selling the (legal) product at exactly the
same price as on the street today ($10 per gram) could raise $40 billion to $100 billion in new revenue. Not
chump change. Government would simply be transferring revenue from organized crime to the public
purse.
Colorado proves significant revenue can be generated—taxes don’t deter people
from buying within the legal market
Walker 14 (Jon, author of “After Legalization”, 2-25-14, "These 5 Numbers Show Marijuana Legalization Is Going Well in
Colorado" Just Say Now) justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/02/25/these-5-numbers-show-marijua
Limited marijuana possession has been legal for over a year in Colorado and retail shops have
been open for almost two months. This means there is now real data showing that legalization is
going well and mostly as its backers intended. These five numbers tell the story: 1) 77 percent decrease in
state court marijuana cases - Legalization has caused marijuana arrest to plummet saving the
state money . This drop is remarkable given that Colorado already had fairly liberal marijuana laws before Amendment 64 was
approved. The Denver Post found, “the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana offense plunged 77
percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an
average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a decline of 81
percent.” 2)
$184 Million in new tax revenue – Legal marijuana sales are now projected to bring in
$184 million in new tax revenue for the state during the first 18 months. This is higher than initial
projections . Much of this money will go to education and drug treatment. This number isn’t just important because it will help
the state balance its budget. Significant
tax revenue also proves that people are choosing to move from
the black market to the new legal system even though there are high excise taxes. 3) 58 percent
support for legalization – Now the that people of Colorado have gotten a chance to directly experience legalization they are
increasingly supportive. Currently 58 percent of voters in Colorado support the new legalization law while only 39 percent oppose it.
By comparison, in 2012 the ballot measure only won by 55.3 percent yes to 44.7 percent no. 4) 10 percent last month
usage rate – In the first month after retail stores opened only 10 percent of Colorado voters said they actually used marijuana.
This is right in line with use rates before legalization, showing it has not turned the state into a
“land of potheads.” 5) 6.3 percent increase in airline flight searches – Early indications are that
legalization will also be a modest boost for tourism. According to Hopper, “Flight search demand for Denver has
been 6.3% above the national search average since December 1st.” During the first week of January flight searches were up 14
percent. Since marijuana was legalized in Colorado marijuana arrests are way down, tax revenue is up and support for reform
continues to grow.
This is what success looks like.
C. Substitution
Marijuana trades off with alcohol—multiple studies confirm
Anderson and Rees 2013, D. Mark Anderson Montanta State University Daniel I. Rees* University of Colorado Denver
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), “The Legalization of Recreational Marijuana How Likely is the Worst-Case Scenario?” Journal
of Policy Analysis and Management Winter 2013
Studies based on clearly-defined natural experiments generally support the hypothesis that marijuana
and alcohol are substitutes . For instance, DiNardo & Lemieux (2001) found that increasing the MLDA
from 18 to 21 encourages marijuana use. Using data from the NSDUH and a regression discontinuity design, Crost
& Guerrero (2012) found a sharp decrease in marijuana use at 21 years of age, suggesting that
young adults treat alcohol and marijuana as substitutes. Finally, Anderson, Hansen, & Rees (2013)
examined the relationship between legalizing medical marijuana and drinking using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System. These authors found that legalization was associated with reductions in heavy
drinking especially among 18- through 29-year-olds. In addition, they found that legalization was
associated with an almost 5 percent decrease in beer sales, the alcoholic beverage of choice among young
adults (Jones, 2008). The results of DiNardo & Lemieux (2001), Crost & Guerrero (2012) and Anderson, Hansen, & Rees (2013)
suggest that, as marijuana becomes more available, young adults in Colorado and Washington will
respond by drinking less, not more . If non-medical marijuana states legalize the use of recreational
marijuana, they should also experience reductions in drinking with the accompanying public
health benefits.
Economic costs from alcohol use are astronomical
Jaslow 13 (Ryan, reporter, citing a CDC report, 8-14-13, "Heavy drinking costs U.S. $223.5B a year: Which state has highest
tab?" CBS News) www.cbsnews.com/news/heavy-drinking-costs-us-2235b-a-year-which-state-has-highest-tab/
Heavy drinking carries major health risks, according to the C enters for D isease C ontrol and Prevention,
including elevated odds of long-term ailments like liver disease, heart problems, fertility issues,
some cancers and neurological issues like stroke or dementia. Shorter term, alcohol poisoning, traffic
accidents, falls, violence and risky sexual behaviors are risks also associated with large amounts
alcohol consumption. A new CDC report shows these alcohol-related health woes take a heavy
financial toll on the U.S., to the tune of $223.5 billion a year -- and some states' wallets fared worse than
others. Binge drinking -- defined as when men drink more than five drinks and women drink more than four drinks in two hours -was responsible for more than 70 percent of the excessive alcohol costs., a total of $171 billion annually. "It is striking to see most of
the costs of excessive drinking in states and D.C. are due to binge drinking, which is reported by about 18 percent of U.S. adults,"
report author Dr. Robert Brewer, alcohol program lead at CDC, said in a statement. A 2012 CDC study estimated about 38 million
U.S. adults, or about one in six people, are binge drinkers, with a reported average of four episodes per month. A study by the
agency one year later revealed almost 14 million women binge drink about three times a month, consuming an average of six drinks
per binge. The latest report, published Aug. 13 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, estimated
state-by-state economic costs of drinking including those from binge drinking and underage
drinking. The median state cost associated with excessive drinking was $2.9 billion, with about $2 out of every $5 of these costs
being paid for by the government. The state that absorbed the least alcohol costs was North Dakota, coming in at $420 million. The
most costs were found in California, totaling nearly $32 billion. The researchers broke down the numbers even further and found
based on population, the District of Columbia has the highest per-person cost associated with excessive drinking ($1,662 per
person) while Iowa had the lowest ($622).
"The state estimates calculated here are most likely substantial
underestimates ," wrote Brewer and the researchers.
Marijuana use has a minimal economic impact—decades worth of studies debunk
productivity claims
Dighe 14 (Ranjit, Professor of Economics, The State University of New York at Oswego, 1-30-14, "Legalize It -- The Economic
Argument" The Huffington Post, accessed 7-27-14) www.huffingtonpost.com/ranjit-dighe/legalize-marijuana-economicargument_b_4695023.html
As for the effect of marijuana on worker productivity, the first thing to note is that nobody is
advocating smoking marijuana or being high on the job, any more than anyone advocates
drinking or being drunk on the job. People are expected to show up for work sober, and
employers have always had the right to fire people who fail to meet that basic requirement. The
issue, then, is whether smoking marijuana in one's free time impairs one's job performance. Longterm memory loss and "amotivational syndrome" have been alleged, but decades' worth of
studies have debunked both of those claims.
Federal legalization is key—maintaining prohibition undermines investor
confidence and creates operational barriers
Mitchell 12 (Dan, 11-19-12, "What would a legal American marijuana industry look like?" Fortune)
fortune.com/2012/11/19/what-would-a-legal-american-marijuana-industry-look-like/
Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana in their states. Other states will likely follow
suit. But there won’t be a real “marijuana industry” until federal laws are repealed. If that
happens, everything will change. FORTUNE — Last week, Jerry Brown, the governor of California who
leads the world’s eighth-largest economy, issued his strongest plea yet for the federal government to back
off enforcing federal marijuana laws in his state. President Obama and the Justice Department, he said, must
“recognize the sovereignty of the states” and stop trying to “nullify a reasonable state regulation.” He sounded almost like a
Southern libertarian as he invoked “states’ rights.” Brown’s statement came in the wake of the passage of ballot measures in two
states, Washington and Colorado, to legalize marijuana. In California voters came very close in 2010 to doing the same, and such a
measure seems likely to pass next time out. Other states are sure to follow as well. But that doesn’t mean
that a real marijuana industry will grow out of the country’s changing sentiments toward pot —
with large-scale distribution, marketing, and retail sales — any time soon. For that to happen, the
federal government would have to do a lot more than merely back off and recognize “state’s
rights.” It would have to repeal the federal laws banning the possession, use, and distribution of
marijuana. And that might take a long while yet, given that the politics in, for example, Georgia, are a lot different from the
politics in Washington, Colorado, and California (even Oregon isn’t quite there yet — its ballot measure failed on Election Day).
There needs to be a national consensus, and the nation isn’t there yet. And
until full federal repeal of prohibition, a
multitude of insurmountable barriers will remain in place. The chief one is simple economics: the
industry simply can’t scale to a degree that would attract investors (who would be scared of
investing anyway). One of the many reasons that pot costs so much — about $300 an ounce on
average — is that growers must keep their operations relatively small and, usually, hidden. Forget
for the moment the direct impact that pot’s illegality (meaning, risk) has on prices: the costs of
production alone are enormous just because economies of scale aren’t achievable. Even if the
state police are no longer coming after growers, the feds might be. MORE: Big beer dresses up in craft
brewers’ clothing Then there is the problem that medical-marijuana businesses already face in states
where they are allowed: vendors of all kinds of necessary services can’t or don’t want to deal with
them. Banks won’t lend them money. Insurers won’t insure them. Many landlords won’t rent to
them. Credit-card companies won’t process their payments. If your customers can’t sign for
something with dignity, and you can’t obtain health insurance for your employees, it’s unlikely
that your business will ever scale.
US growth is key to reverse stagnation
Caploe ‘9 (David Caploe is CEO of the Singapore-incorporated American Centre for Applied Liberal Arts and Humanities in
Asia., “Focus still on America to lead global recovery”, April 7, The Strait Times, lexis)
IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to have missed perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire event,
made by United States President Barack Obama at his pre-conference meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: 'The
world has become accustomed to the US being a voracious consumer market, the engine that drives a lot of economic growth
worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be renewed growth, it just can't be the US as the engine.' While superficially sensible, this
view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores the fact that the
global economy has in fact been 'America-
centred' for more than 60 years . Countries - China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the
US or they sell to countries that sell to the US. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned. America gained
certain historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan,
and later, many in the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At the same time, this deep inter-connection between the
US and the rest of the world also explains
how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US economy - 'subprime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall Street's ingenious chicanery - has cascaded into the worst
global economic crisis since the Great Depression. To put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't seem to understand that there
is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does not drive
global economic growth,
growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis
are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. Consequently, it is a matter of global concern that the
Obama administration seems to be following Japan's 'model' from the 1990s: allowing major banks to avoid declaring massive
losses openly and transparently, and so perpetuating 'zombie' banks - technically alive but in reality dead. As analysts like Nobel
laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have pointed out, the administration's unwillingness to confront US banks is the main
reason why they are continuing their increasingly inexplicable credit freeze, thus ravaging the American and global economies.
Economic stagnation causes global WMD conflict
Hutchinson 14 (Martin, Business and Economics Editor at United Press International, MBA from Harvard Business School,
former international merchant banker, 1-3-14, “The chilling echoes of 1914, a century on” Wall Street Journal)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/william-galston-secular-stagnation-may-be-for-real-1409095263,
The years before 1914 saw the formation of trade blocs separated by high tariff barriers. Back then,
the world was dominated by several roughly equivalent powers, albeit with different strengths and weaknesses. Today, the world is
similarly multi-polar. The United States is in a position of clear leadership, but China is coming up fast. Europe is weaker than it was,
but is still a force to be reckoned with. Japan, Russia, Brazil, India are also too powerful to ignore. A hundred years ago, big
international infrastructure projects such as the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, and before it the Suez Canal, were built to protect favored
trading. Today’s equivalent may be the bilateral mining partnerships forged between, for instance, China and mineral-rich African
states. Today, the World Trade Organization offers some defence against tariffs. But
protectionism could be become
entrenched if prolonged economic stagnation leads countries to pursue their own narrow
interests. Germany, Austria, Russia and France lost between 20 and 35 percent of national output between 1913 and 1918,
according to Angus Maddison’s data used in Stephen Broadberry’s “The Economics of World War One: A Comparative Analysis”.
British GDP declined in 1914 and 1915, but grew 15 percent over the four years, as did the U.S. economy. The 37 million military
and civilian casualties may tell a more accurate story but if history were to repeat itself, the global conflict could
be both more universal and more destructive. Nuclear weapons proliferate. Warped diplomatic
anger could lead to the deployment of chemical and biological devices. Electromagnetic pulses
could wipe out our fragile electronic networks. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that sparked World
War One, the catalyst for cataclysm might be something quite surprising. A global run on bank and other investment assets or an
outbreak of hyperinflation, maybe? These threats get more serious the more policymakers pump up equity, bond, property and
banking bubbles. If global wealth evaporates, or is proven to be an illusion, today’s largely cordial global
entente could be smashed with precipitous speed.
2ac
Case
Fear of nukes exerts a restraining impulse --- even aggressive leaders are forced
to moderate
Robert Jervis 9, the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University, “Or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying”, The National Interest, November/December, 10.27.2009, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22356
Mueller may also be too quick to dismiss the possibility that in a world absent nuclear weapons, the Soviets would have seen limited conventional wars as safe. As
In the
prenuclear era, states used limited force to change the status quo even when they would have shied away from a
worldwide conflagration (think of the wars that led to the unification of Germany and Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century, for example). Without
nuclear weapons, the American threat to wage an all-out war might have seemed neither credible nor efficacious. And
in a world without them, aggression by the Soviets would have increased in probability.¶ Indeed, the influence of nuclear
weapons may have extended even more broadly. The Cold War saw multiple crises and several wars in which the United States and
the USSR were involved either directly or indirectly. So a story goes: back in the 1980s, an American said how significant it was that none of these involved
nuclear weapons. More perceptive, a Soviet analyst replied, “actually, they were all nuclear wars.” It is notable that these crises greatly diminished
after the onset of mutual second-strike capability in the mid-1960s. Of course, the chronology does not prove cause and effect,
and even scholars less ingenious than Mueller have been able to come up with alternative explanations like the effects
of learning or the mellowing of the Soviet system. But sometimes the obvious one is correct.¶ One can go further still and note that all
international politics in this period was conducted under the shadow of nuclear weapons. The knowledge that any
confrontation, not to speak of war, could lead to overwhelming destruction was likely never far from anyone’s mind. The effects
of this fear saturated our consciousness and ways of thinking about politics, and may well have influenced the selection of
leaders on both sides. Even Richard Nixon, who talked about his “madman theory,” was rash only in his private
statements.¶ Maybe nuclear weapons only had a modest impact, as Mueller insists. Maybe history would have been pretty much the same without them. But the
very pervasiveness of our nuclear fear—and the weapons’ very influence—was so widespread that trying to trace out
the likely course of a nonnuclear world simply does not make much sense.
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer showed, conventional deterrence can falter when the attacker believes that a quick victory is possible.4
Reps don’t cause war
Reiter 95 DAN REITER is a Professor of Political Science at Emory University and has been an Olin post-doctoral fellow in
security studies at Harvard “Exploring the Powder Keg Myth” International Security v20 No2 Autumn 1995 pp 5-34 JSTOR
A criticism of assessing the frequency of preemptive wars by looking only at wars themselves is that this misses the non-events, that is, instances in which preemption would be predicted but did not occur. However,
excluding non-events should bias the results in favor of finding that preemptive war is an important path to war, as the inclusion of non-events could only make it seem that the event was less frequent.
Therefore, if preemptive wars seem infrequent within the set of wars alone, then this would have to
be considered strong evidence in favor of the third, most skeptical view of preemptive war, because even
when the sample is rigged to make preemptive wars seem frequent (by including only wars), they are still rare
events. Below, a few cases in which preemption did not occur are discussed to illustrate factors that constrain preemption.¶ The rarity of preemptive wars offers
preliminary support for the third, most skeptical view, that the preemption scenario does not tell us much
about how war breaks out. Closer examination of the three cases of preemption, set forth below, casts doubt on
the validity of the two preemption hypotheses discussed earlier: that hostile images of the enemy increase the
chances of preemption, and that belief in the dominance of the offense increases the chances of preemption. In each case there are
motives for war aside from fear of an imminent attack, indicating that such fears may not be sufficient to cause war . In
addition, in these cases of war the two conditions hypothesized to stimulate preemption—hostile images of the
adversary and belief in the military advantages of striking first—are present to a very high degree . This implies that
these are insubstantial causal forces , as they are associated with the outbreak of war only when they are present to a very
high degree.
This reduces even further the significance of these forces as causes of war. To illustrate
this point, consider an analogy: say there is a hypothesis that saccharin causes cancer. Discovering that rats who were fed a lot of saccharin
and also received high levels of X-ray exposure, which we know causes cancer, had a higher risk for cancer does not, however, set off alarm
bells about the risks of saccharin. Though there might be a relationship between saccharin consumption and cancer, this is not
demonstrated by the results of such a test.
Discourse doesn’t shape reality
Fram-Cohen ’85 [Michelle, “Reality, Language, Translation: What Makes Translation Possible?” American Translators
Association Conference, enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/michelleframcohen//possibilityoftranslation.html]
Nida did not provide the philosophical basis of the view that the external world is the common source of all languages. Such a basis
can be found in the philosophy of Objectivism, originated by Ayn Rand. Objectivism, as its name implies, upholds the objectivity of
reality. This means that reality is independent of consciousness, consciousness being the means of
perceiving ?reality, not of creating it. Rand defines language as "a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote
concepts." (15) These symbols are the written or spoken words of any language. Concepts are defined as the "mental integration of
two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted." (16) This
means that concepts are abstractions of units perceived in reality. Since words denote concepts, words are the symbols of such
abstractions; words are the means of representing concepts in a language. Since reality provides the data from which
we abstract and form concepts, reality is the source of all words--and of all languages. The very existence of
translation demonstrates this fact. If there was no objective reality, there could be no similar
concepts expressed in different verbal symbols. There could be no similarity between the content of different
languages, and so, no translation. Translation is the transfer of conceptual knowledge from one language into another. It is the
transfer of one set of symbols denoting concepts into another set of symbols denoting the same concepts. This process is
possible because concepts have specific referents in reality. Even if a certain word and the concept it designates exist in one
referred to in translation by a descriptive
phrase or neologism. Language is a means describing reality, and as such can and should expand to include newly discovered or
innovated objects in reality. The revival of the ancient Hebrew language in the late 19th Century demonstrated the dependence of
language on outward reality. Those who wanted to use Hebrew had to innovate an enormous number of words in order to describe
the new objects that did not confront the ancient Hebrew speakers. On the other hand, those objects that existed 2000 years ago
could be referred to by the same words. Ancient Hebrew could not by itself provide a sufficient image of modern reality for modern
users.
language but not in another, the referent this word and concept stand for nevertheless exists in reality, and can be
K
No alternative to the law---other ideas bring more inequality and abuse
Jerold S. Auerbach 83, Professor of History at Wellesley, “Justice Without Law?”, 1983, p. 144-146
As cynicism about the legal system increases, so does enthusiasm for alternative dispute-settlement
institutions. The search for alternatives accelerates, as Richard Abel has suggested, "when some fairly powerful interest is threatened by an increase in the number or
magnitude of legal rights.*'6 Alternatives are designed to provide a safety valve, to siphon discontent from courts. With the danger of political confrontation reduced, the ruling
alternatives prevent the use of courts
for redistributive purposes in the interest of equality, by consigning the rights of disadvantaged
citizens to institutions with minimal power to enforce or protect them . It is, therefore, necessary to
power of legal institutions is preserved, and the stability of the social system reinforced. Not incidentally,
beware of the seductive appeal of alternative institutions . They may deflect energy from political
organization by groups of people with common grievances; or discourage effective litigation
strategies that could provide substantial benefits. They may, in the end, create a two-track justice system that dispenses informal "justice" to poor
people with "small" claims and "minor" disputes, who cannot afford legal services, and who are denied access to courts. (Bar associations do not recommend that corporate law
Justice
according to law will be reserved for the affluent, hardly a novel development in American history but one that needs little encouragement
firms divert their clients to mediation, or that business deductions for legal expenses—a gigantic government subsidy for litigation—be eliminated.)
from the spread of alternative dispute-settlement institutions.¶ It is social context and political choice that determine whether courts, or alternative institutions, can render justice
more or less accessible—and to whom. Both can be discretionary, arbitrary, domineering—and unjust. Law can symbolize justice, or conceal repression. It can reduce
Despite the
resiliency and power of law, it seems unable to eradicate the tension between legality and justice :
even in a society of (legal) equals, some still remain more equal than others. But diversion from the legal system is likely to
exploitation, or facilitate it. It can prohibit the abuse of power, or disguise abuse in procedural forms. It can promote equality, or sustain inequality.
accentuate that inequality . Without legal power the imbalance between aggrieved individuals and
corporations, or government agencies, cannot be redressed . In American society , as Laura Nader has
observed, "
disputing without the force of law ... [is| doomed to fail ."7 Instructive examples document
the deleterious effect of coerced informality (even if others demonstrate the creative possibilities of indigenous experimentation). Freed
slaves after the Civil War and factory workers at the turn of the century, like inner-city poor people
now, have all been assigned places in informal proceedings that offer substantially weaker
safeguards than law can provide. Legal institutions may not provide equal justice under law, but in a society ruled by law it is their responsibility.¶ It
is chimerical to believe that mediation or arbitration can now accomplish what law seems
powerless to achieve . The American deification of individual rights requires an accessible legal
system for their protection . Understandably, diminished faith in its capacities will encourage the yearning for alternatives. But the rhetoric of "community"
and "justice" should not be permitted to conceal the deterioration of community life and the unraveling of substantive notions of justice that has accompanied its demise. There
is every reason why the values that historically are associated with informal justice should remain compelling: especially the preference for trust, harmony, and reciprocity within
in their absence there is no effective
alternative to legal institutions.¶ The quest for community may indeed be "timeless and universal."8 In this century, however, the communitarian search
a communal setting. These are not, however, the values that American society encourages or sustains;
for justice without law has deteriorated beyond recognition into a stunted off-shoot of the legal system. The historical progression is clear: from community justice without formal
But injustice without law is an even worse possibility, which
misguided enthusiasm for alternative dispute settlement now seems likely to encourage. Our legal culture too accurately
expresses the individualistic and materialistic values that most Americans deeply cherish to inspire optimism about the imminent restoration of communitarian purpose. For
law to be less conspicuous Americans would have to moderate their expansive freedom to
compete, to acquire, and to possess, while simultaneously elevating shared responsibilities
above individual rights. That is an unlikely prospect unless Americans become, in effect, unAmerican . Until then, the pursuit of justice without law does incalculable harm to the prospect of
legal institutions to the rule of law, all too often without justice.
equal justice.
Liberal legal thought provides space for the K
Altman, Professor of Philosophy; Georgia State University, 90 (Andrew, Critical Legal Studies:
A Liberal Critique, page 8)
In addition, it would be a distortion of liberal theory to suggest that it has no place for nonlegal modes of social regulation, such as
mediation. Liberals can and do acknowledge the value of such nonlegal mechanisms in certain social contexts and can consis that
the liberal view requires us to recognize that such procedures and rules have a central role to play in resolving fairly and effectively
the conflicts that arise in a society characterized by moral, religious, and political pluralism. Thus, the liberal endorsement
of legalism does not necessarily involve a commitment to legalism in the sense that Judith Shldar
defines the term: “the ethical attitude that holds moral conduct to be a matter of rule following,
and moral relationships to consist of duties and rights determined by rules. ” Shldar, Legalism
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 1. Shlclar understands full weli that a commitment to the liberal rule of law
does not entail an acceptance of legalism in her sense of the term. See Legalism, pp. xi-xli. And those who
reject the rule of law can argue in the political arena for extending the role of such informal
mechanisms. Of course, a liberal state could not allow the antinomians to eradicate legal institutions; in that sense, one might
say that the liberal rule of law is not neutral. But the kind of political neutrality which the liberal defends does not aim to
guarantee that any normative view has an opportunity to remake society wholly in its vision. It does guarantee an
opportunity to negotiate and compromise within a framework of individual rights, and there is no
reason why those who defend non- legal modes of social regulation cannot seize the opportunity
under a liberal regime to carve out a significant role for nonlegal modes of social regulation within
the liberal state. The liberal ver sion of political neutrality demands that antinomians have such an opportunity, but there is
nothing remotely inconsistent in liberal thought in making that demand or prohibiting antilegalism from going so far as to destroy all
legal institution
Statistically proven that heg prevents war
Owen ‘11
John M. Owen Professor of Politics at University of Virginia PhD from Harvard "DON’T DISCOUNT HEGEMONY" Feb 11 www.catounbound.org/2011/02/11/john-owen/dont-discount-hegemony/
Andrew Mack
and his colleagues at the Human Security Report Project are to be congratulated. Not only do they present
a study with a striking conclusion, driven by data, free of theoretical or ideological bias, but they also
do something quite unfashionable: they bear good news. Social scientists really are not supposed to do that. Our job is, if not
to be Malthusians, then at least to point out disturbing trends, looming catastrophes, and the imbecility
and mendacity of policy makers. And then it is to say why, if people listen to us, things will get better. We do this as if our
careers depended upon it, and perhas they do; for if all is going to be well, what need then for us? Our colleagues at Simon Fraser
University are brave indeed. That may sound like a setup, but it is not. I shall challenge neither the data nor the
general conclusion that violent conflict around the world has been decreasing in fits and starts
since the Second World War. When it comes to violent conflict among and within countries, things
have been getting better. (The trends have not been linear—Figure 1.1 actually shows that the frequency of interstate wars
peaked in the 1980s—but the 65-year movement is clear.) Instead I shall accept that Mack et al. are correct on the macro-trends,
and focus on their explanations they advance for these remarkable trends. With apologies to any readers of this forum who recoil
from academic debates, this might get mildly theoretical and even more mildly methodological. Concerning international
wars, one version of the “nuclear-peace” theory is not in fact laid to rest by the dat a. It is certainly true
that nuclear-armed states have been involved in many wars. They have even been attacked (think of Israel), which falsifies the
simple claim of “assured destruction”—that any nuclear country A will deter any kind of attack by any country B because B fears a
retaliatory nuclear strike from A. But the most important “nuclear-peace” claim has been about mutually
assured destruction, which obtains between two robustly nuclear-armed states. The claim is that
(1) rational states having second-strike capabilities—enough deliverable nuclear weaponry to survive a nuclear
first strike by an enemy—will have an overwhelming incentive not to attack one another; and (2) we can safely assume
that nuclear-armed states are rational. It follows that states with a second-strike capability will not fight one another.
Their colossal atomic arsenals neither kept the United States at peace with North Vietnam during the Cold War nor the Soviet Union
at peace with Afghanistan. But the argument remains strong that those arsenals did help keep the United States and Soviet Union at
peace with each other. Why non-nuclear states are not deterred from fighting nuclear states is an important and
open question. But in a time when calls to ban the Bomb are being heard from more and more quarters, we must be clear about
precisely what the broad trends toward peace can and cannot tell us. They may tell us nothing about why we have had no World
War III, and little about the wisdom of banning the Bomb now. Regarding the downward trend in international war,
Professor Mack is friendlier to more palatable theories such as the “democratic peace” (democracies
the interdependence or
“commercial peace” (states with extensive economic ties find it irrational to fight one another, and interdependence
has increased, hence less war); and the notion that people around the world are more anti-war than
their forebears were. Concerning the downward trend in civil wars, he favors theories of economic
growth (where commerce is enriching enough people, violence is less appealing—a logic similar to that of the “commercial
do not fight one another, and the proportion of democracies has increased, hence less war);
peace” thesis that applies among nations) and the end of the Cold War (which end reduced superpower support for rival rebel
factions in so many Third-World countries). These are all plausible mechanisms for peace. What is more,
none of them excludes any other; all could be working toward the same end. That would be somewhat
puzzling, however. Is the world just lucky these days? How is it that an array of peace-inducing factors
happens to be working coincidentally in our time, when such a magical array was absent in the past? The
answer may be that one or more of these mechanisms reinforces some of the others, or perhaps
some of them are mutually reinforcing. Some scholars, for example, have been focusing on whether economic growth
might support democracy and vice versa, and whether both might support international cooperation, including to end civil wars. We
would still need to explain how this charmed circle of causes got started, however. And here let
me raise another factor, perhaps even less appealing than the “nuclear peace” thesis, at least
outside of the United States. That factor is what international relations scholars call hegemony—
specifically American hegemony. A theory that many regard as discredited, but that refuses to go away, is called
hegemonic stability theory. The theory emerged in the 1970s in the realm of international political
economy. It asserts that for the global economy to remain open—for countries to keep barriers to
trade and investment low—one powerful country must take the lead. Depending on the theorist we consult,
“taking the lead” entails paying for global public goods (keeping the sea lanes open, providing
liquidity to the international economy), coercion (threatening to raise trade barriers or withdraw military
protection from countries that cheat on the rules), or both . The theory is skeptical that
international cooperation in economic matters can emerge or endure absent a hegemon. The
distastefulness of such claims is self-evident: they imply that it is good for everyone the world over if one country has more wealth
and power than others. More precisely, they imply that it has been good for the world that the United States has been so
predominant. There is no obvious reason why hegemonic stability theory could not apply to other
areas of international cooperation, including in security affairs, human rights, international law,
peacekeeping (UN or otherwise), and so on. What I want to suggest here—suggest, not test—is that
American hegemony might just be a deep cause of the steady decline of political deaths in the
world.How could that be? After all, the report states that United States is the third most war-prone country since 1945. Many of the
deaths depicted in Figure 10.4 were in wars that involved the United States (the Vietnam War being the leading one).
Notwithstanding politicians’ claims to the contrary, a candid look at U.S. foreign policy reveals that the
country
is as ruthlessly self-interested as any other great power in history. The answer is that U.S.
hegemony might just be a deeper cause of the proximate causes outlined by Professor Mack. Consider
economic growth and openness to foreign trade and investment, which (so say some theories) render
violence irrational. American power and policies may be responsible for these in two related ways.
First, at least since the 1940s Washington has prodded other countries to embrace the market
capitalism that entails economic openness and produces sustainable economic growth. The
United States promotes capitalism for selfish reasons, of course : its own domestic system depends upon
growth, which in turn depends upon the efficiency gains from economic interaction with foreign countries, and the more the better.
During the Cold War most of its allies accepted some degree of market-driven growth. Second, the U.S.-led western
victory in the Cold War damaged the credibility of alternative paths to development —communism and
import-substituting industrialization being the two leading ones—and left market capitalism the best model. The end of
the Cold War also involved an end to the billions of rubles in Soviet material support for regimes that tried to make these alternative
models work. (It also, as Professor Mack notes, eliminated the superpowers’ incentives to feed civil violence
in the Third World.) What we call globalization is caused in part by the emergence of the United
States as the global hegemon. The same case can be made, with somewhat more difficulty, concerning the
spread of democracy. Washington has supported democracy only under certain conditions—the
chief one being the absence of a popular anti-American movement in the target state—but those
conditions have become much more widespread following the collapse of communism . Thus in the
1980s the Reagan administration—the most anti-communist government America ever had—began to dump America’s old dictator
friends, starting in the Philippines. Today Islamists tend to be anti-American, and so the Obama
administration is skittish about democracy in Egypt and other authoritarian Muslim countries. But
general U.S. material and moral support for liberal democracy remains strong.
Global violence decreasing – civilization has become more moral
Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor at Harvard University, ‘7 (Steven, March 19, “A History of Violence” The New Republic,
lexis)
In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and
slowly lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, "[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with
laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized." Today, such sadism would be unthinkable
in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the most important and most underappreciated
trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are
probably living
in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth. In the decade of Darfur and Iraq,
the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem
somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of
violence point to exactly that conclusion. Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history
has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment,
human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of
government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine
punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of
political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of
conflict resolution--all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they
are rare to nonexistent in the West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when
they do occur, and widely condemned when they are brought to light. At one time, these facts were widely
and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao,
appreciated. They were the source of notions like progress, civilization, and man's rise from savagery and barbarism. Recently,
however, those ideas have come to sound corny, even dangerous. They seem to demonize people
in
other times and places, license colonial conquest and other foreign adventures, and conceal the crimes of our own
societies. The doctrine of the noble savage--the idea that humans are peaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutions-pops up frequently in the writing of public intellectuals like Jose Ortega y Gasset ("War is not an instinct but an invention"), Stephen
Jay Gould ("Homo sapiens is not an evil or destructive species"), and Ashley Montagu ("Biological studies lend support to the ethic
of universal brotherhood"). But, now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have
discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in
modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler. To be sure, any attempt to document changes in
violence must be soaked in uncertainty. In much of the world, the distant past was a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it,
and, even for events in the historical record, statistics are spotty until recent periods. Long-term trends can be discerned only by
smoothing out zigzags and spikes of horrific bloodletting. And the choice to focus on relative rather than absolute numbers brings up
the moral imponderable of whether it is worse for 50 percent of a population of 100 to be killed or 1 percent in a population of one
billion. Yet, despite these caveats, a picture is taking shape. The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at
the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of
violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And
it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially
England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth
century. At the widest-angle view, one can see a whopping difference across the millennia that separate us from our pre-state
ancestors. Contra leftist anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage, quantitative body-counts--such as the
proportion of prehistoric skeletons with axemarks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in
a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men--suggest that pre-state societies were far more
violent than our own. It is true that raids and battles killed a tiny percentage of the numbers that die in modern warfare. But ,
in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the population who
fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher. According to anthropologists like Lawrence Keeley,
Stephen LeBlanc, Phillip Walker, and Bruce Knauft, these factors combine to yield population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare
that dwarf those of modern times. If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the
wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million. Political correctness from the other end of
the ideological spectrum has also distorted many people's conception of violence in early civilizations--namely, those featured in the
Bible. This supposed source of moral values contains many celebrations of genocide, in which the Hebrews, egged on by God,
slaughter every last resident of an invaded city. The Bible also prescribes death by stoning as the penalty for a
long list of nonviolent infractions, including idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery,
disrespecting one's parents, and picking up sticks on the Sabbath. The Hebrews, of course, were no more
murderous than other tribes; one also finds frequent boasts of torture and genocide in the early histories of the Hindus, Christians,
Muslims, and Chinese. At the century scale, it is hard to find quantitative studies of deaths in warfare spanning medieval and
modern times. Several historians have suggested that there has been an increase in the number of recorded wars across the
centuries to the present, but, as political scientist James Payne has noted, this may show only that "the Associated Press is a more
comprehensive source of information about battles around the world than were sixteenth-century monks." Social histories of
the West provide evidence of numerous barbaric practices that became obsolete in the last five
centuries, such as slavery, amputation, blinding, branding, flaying, disembowelment, burning at
the stake, breaking on the wheel, and so on. Meanwhile, for another kind of violence--homicide--the data are
abundant and striking. The criminologist Manuel Eisner has assembled hundreds of homicide estimates from Western European
localities that kept records at some point between 1200 and the mid-1990s. In every country he analyzed, murder rates
declined steeply--for example, from 24 homicides per 100,000 Englishmen in the fourteenth century to 0.6 per 100,000 by the
early 1960s. On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture: Global violence has
fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the
number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to
less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a
steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots . Zooming in by a further
power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in
state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements
rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the
number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent. The decline of killing and cruelty poses several
challenges to our ability to make sense of the world. To begin with, how could so many people be so wrong about
something so important? Partly, it's because of a cognitive illusion: We estimate the probability of an event from how easy it is to
recall examples. Scenes of carnage are more likely to be relayed to our living rooms and burned into our memories than footage of
people dying of old age. Partly, it's an intellectual culture that is loath to admit that there could be
anything good about the institutions of civilization and Western society. Partly, it's the incentive structure of
the activism and opinion markets: No one ever attracted followers and donations by announcing that things
keep getting better. And part of the explanation lies in the phenomenon itself. The decline of violent behavior has
been paralleled by a decline in attitudes that tolerate or glorify violence, and often the attitudes are in the
lead. As deplorable as they are, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the lethal injections of a few murderers in
Texas are mild by the standards of atrocities in human history. But, from a contemporary vantage
point, we see them as signs of how low our behavior can sink, not of how high our standards have
risen. The other major challenge posed by the decline of violence is how to explain it. A force that pushes in the same direction
across many epochs, continents, and scales of social organization mocks our standard tools of causal explanation. The usual
suspects--guns, drugs, the press, American culture--aren't nearly up to the job. Nor could it possibly be explained by evolution in the
biologist's sense: Even if the meek could inherit the earth, natural selection could not favor the genes for meekness quickly enough.
In any case, human nature has not changed so much as to have lost its taste for violence. Social psychologists find
that at least 80 percent of people have fantasized about killing someone they don't like. And modern humans still take pleasure in
viewing violence, if we are to judge by the popularity of murder mysteries, Shakespearean dramas, Mel Gibson movies, video
games, and hockey. What has changed, of course, is people's willingness to act on these fantasies. The sociologist Norbert Elias
suggested that European modernity accelerated a "civilizing process" marked by increases in self-
control, long-term planning, and sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others. These are precisely
the functions that today's cognitive neuroscientists attribute to the prefrontal cortex. But this only raises the question of why humans
have increasingly exercised that part of their brains. No one knows why our behavior has come under the control of the better
angels of our nature, but there are four plausible suggestions. The first is that Hobbes got it right. Life in a state of nature is nasty,
brutish, and short, not because of a primal thirst for blood but because of the inescapable logic of anarchy. Any beings with a
modicum of self-interest may be tempted to invade their neighbors to steal their resources. The resulting fear of attack will tempt the
neighbors to strike first in preemptive self-defense, which will in turn tempt the first group to strike against them preemptively, and so
on. This danger can be defused by a policy of deterrence--don't strike first, retaliate if struck--but, to guarantee its credibility, parties
must avenge all insults and settle all scores, leading to cycles of bloody vendetta. These tragedies can be averted by a
state with a monopoly on violence, because it can inflict disinterested penalties that eliminate the
incentives for aggression, thereby defusing anxieties about preemptive attack and obviating the
need to maintain a hair-trigger propensity for retaliation. Indeed, Eisner and Elias attribute the decline in
European homicide to the transition from knightly warrior societies to the centralized governments of early modernity. And, today,
violence continues to fester in zones of anarchy, such as frontier regions, failed states, collapsed empires, and
territories contested by mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband. Payne suggests another possibility: that the critical variable
in the indulgence of violence is an overarching sense that life is cheap. When pain and early death are everyday features of one's
own life, one feels fewer compunctions about inflicting them on others. As technology and economic efficiency lengthen and improve
our lives, we place a higher value on life in general. A third theory, championed by Robert Wright, invokes the logic of non-zero-
sum games: scenarios in which two agents can each come out ahead if they cooperate, such as
trading goods, dividing up labor, or sharing the peace dividend that comes from laying down their arms. As people
acquire know-how that they can share cheaply with others and develop technologies that allow them to spread their goods and
ideas over larger territories at lower cost, their incentive to cooperate steadily increases, because other people become more
valuable alive than dead. Then there is the scenario sketched by philosopher Peter Singer. Evolution, he suggests, bequeathed
people a small kernel of empathy, which by default they apply only within a narrow circle of friends and relations. Over the millennia,
people's moral circles have expanded to encompass larger and larger polities: the clan, the tribe, the nation, both sexes, other
races, and even animals. The circle may have been pushed outward by expanding networks of reciprocity, a la Wright, but it might
also be inflated by the inexorable logic of the golden rule: The more one knows and thinks about other living
things, the harder it is to privilege one's own interests over theirs. The empathy escalator may also be
powered by cosmopolitanism, in which journalism, memoir, and realistic fiction make the inner lives of other people, and the
contingent nature of one's own station, more palpable--the feeling that "there but for fortune go I." Whatever its causes, the
decline of violence has profound implications. It is not a license for complacency : We enjoy the peace
we find today because people in past generations were appalled by the violence in their time and worked to end it, and so we should
work to end the appalling violence in our time. Nor is it necessarily grounds for optimism about the immediate future, since the world
has never before had national leaders who combine pre-modern sensibilities with modern weapons. But the phenomenon
does force us to rethink our understanding of violence. Man's inhumanity to man has long been a subject for
moralization. With the knowledge that something has driven it dramatically down, we can also treat it as a matter of cause and
effect. Instead of asking, "Why is there war?" we might ask, "Why is there peace?" From the
likelihood that states will commit genocide to the way that people treat cats, we must have been
doing something right. And it would be nice to know what, exactly, it is.
Focus on representations sanitizes power structures and doesn’t solve
Doug Stokes, University of Bristol Politics Department, “Gluing the Hats On: Power, Agency, and Reagan’s Office of Public
Diplomacy,” PAPER PRESENTED FOR THE BRITISH INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION, 2001,
http://web.archive.org/web/20060221025303/http://www.aqnt98.dsl.pipex.com/hats.htm.
In her discursive practices approach, Doty argues that more poststructurally inclined questions as to “how” foreign policy is made
possible (that is, an examination of the prior conditions of possibility) provides a more nuanced account of foreign policy formation
than questions which ask “why” (that is, why a particular decision or policy was pursued). She rightly argues that “why” questions
pre-suppose a discursive matrix, a mode of being and a background of social practices. Furthermore, these “why” questions fail to
account for “how these meanings, subjects, and interpretative dispositions are constructed”.66 However, in arguing for the
superiority of analyses of possibility conditions, she misses a crucial point and simplifies the very nature of the “how” of foreign
policy practice. Whilst it is important to analyse the discursive conditions of possibility of policy formation, in
failing to account for how various discourses were employed and through what institutional mechanisms,
how some discourses gained ascendancy and not others, and how social actors intervene in hegemonic
struggles to maintain various discourses, Doty seriously compromises the critical potential of her analysis. By working with
a notion of power free from any institutional basis and rejecting a notion of power that “social actors possess and use”,67 she
produces a narrative of foreign policy whereby the differential role of social actors is erased from foreign
policy processes and decision making. For Doty it seems, power resides in discourses themselves and their endless
production of and play on meaning, not in the ability on the part of those who own and control the means of social reproduction to
manipulate dominant social and political discourses and deploy them institutionally and strategically. The ability to analyse the
use of discourses by foreign policy elites for purposeful ends and their ability to deploy hegemonic
discourses within foreign policy processes is lost through a delinking of those elites and discursive
production (her “dispersed” notion of power). Furthermore, Doty assumes that the “kind of power that works through
social agents, a power that social actors posses and use” is somehow in opposition to a “power that is productive of meanings,
subject identities, their interrelationships and a range of imaginable conduct”. But these forms of power are not mutually exclusive.
Social agents can be both subject to discourse and act in instrumental ways to effect discourse precisely
through producing meanings and subject identities, and delineating the range of policy options. Through her
erasure of the link between foreign policy processes and purposeful social agents, she ends up producing an account of
hegemonic foreign policy narratives free from any narrator.68 This is particularly problematic because the
power inherent within representational practices does not necessarily operate independently from the power
to deploy those representations. The power to represent, in turn, does not operate independently from
differential access to the principal conduits of discursive production, sedimentation and transmission (for
example, the news media).69 Thus, Doty’s account fails to provide an adequate analysis of the socially
constructed interests that constitute the discursive construction of reality. As Stuart Hall argues “there are centers
that operate directly on the formation and constitution of discourse. The media are in that business. Political parties are in that
business. When you set the terms in which the debate proceeds, that is an exercise of symbolic power [which] circulates between
constituted points of condensation.”70 The overall critical thrust of poststructurally inclined IR theorists is blunted
by both the refusal to examine or even acknowledge the limits and constraints on social discourses and the
denial of any linkage between identity representations and the interests that may infuse these representations.
Pursuit of hegemony’s locked-in – the only question is effectiveness, means the
impact to the K is non-unique
Dorfman 12, Assistant editor of Ethics and International Affairs
(Zach What We Talk About When We Talk About Isolationism, http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=605)
The rise of China notwithstanding, the United States remains the world’s sole superpower. Its military
(and, to a considerable extent, political) hegemony extends not just over North America or even the Western hemisphere, but also
Europe, large swaths of Asia, and Africa. Its interests are global; nothing is outside its potential sphere of
influence. There are an estimated 660 to 900 American military bases in roughly forty countries worldwide,
although figures on the matter are notoriously difficult to ascertain, largely because of subterfuge on the part of the military.
According to official data there are active-duty U.S. military personnel in 148 countries, or over 75
percent of the world’s states. The
United States checks Russian power in Europe and Chinese power in
South Korea and Japan and Iranian power in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkey. In order to maintain a frigid
peace between Israel and Egypt, the American government hands the former $2.7 billion in military aid every year, and the latter
$1.3 billion. It also gives Pakistan more than $400 million dollars in military aid annually (not including counterinsurgency operations,
which would drive the total far higher), Jordan roughly $200 million, and Colombia over $55 million. U.S. long-term military
commitments are also manifold. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the only institution legally
permitted to sanction the use of force to combat “threats to international peace and security.” In 1949 the United States helped
found NATO, the first peacetime military alliance extending beyond North and South America in U.S. history, which now has twentyeight member states. The United States also has a trilateral defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand, and bilateral mutual
defense treaties with Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea. It is this sort of reach that led Madeleine Albright to call the
United States the sole “indispensible power” on the world stage. The idea that global military dominance and
political hegemony is in the U.S. national interest—and the world’s interest—is generally taken for
granted domestically. Opposition to it is limited to the libertarian Right and anti-imperialist Left, both groups on
the margins of mainstream political discourse. Today, American supremacy is assumed rather
than argued for: in an age of tremendous political division, it is a bipartisan first principle of foreign policy, a
presupposition. In this area at least, one wishes for a little less agreement. In Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a
Global Age, Christopher McKnight Nichols provides an erudite account of a period before such a consensus existed, when ideas
about America’s role on the world stage were fundamentally contested. As this year’s presidential election
approaches, each side will portray the difference between the candidates’ positions on foreign
policy as immense. Revisiting Promise and Peril shows us just how narrow the American worldview
has become, and how our public discourse has become narrower still. Nichols focuses on the years
between 1890 and 1940, during America’s initial ascent as a global power. He gives special attention to the formative debates
surrounding the Spanish-American War, U.S. entry into the First World War, and potential U.S. membership in the League of
Nations—debates that were constitutive of larger battles over the nature of American society and its fragile political institutions and
freedoms. During this period, foreign and domestic policy were often linked as part of a cohesive political vision for the country.
Nichols illustrates this through intellectual profiles of some of the period’s most influential figures, including senators Henry Cabot
Lodge and William Borah, socialist leader Eugene Debs, philosopher and psychologist William James, journalist Randolph Bourne,
and the peace activist Emily Balch. Each of them interpreted isolationism and internationalism in distinct ways, sometimes deploying
the concepts more for rhetorical purposes than as cornerstones of a particular worldview. Today, isolationism is often
portrayed as intellectually bankrupt, a redoubt for idealists, nationalists, xenophobes, and fools .
Yet the term now used as a political epithet has deep roots in American political culture. Isolationist principles can be traced back to
George Washington’s farewell address, during which he urged his countrymen to steer clear of “foreign entanglements” while
actively seeking nonbinding commercial ties. (Whether economic commitments do in fact entail political commitments is another
matter.) Thomas Jefferson echoed this sentiment when he urged for “commerce with all nations, [and] alliance with none.” Even the
Monroe Doctrine, in which the United States declared itself the regional hegemon and demanded noninterference from European
states in the Western hemisphere, was often viewed as a means of isolating the United States from Europe and its messy alliance
system. In Nichols’s telling, however, modern isolationism was born from the debates surrounding the Spanish-American War and
the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Here isolationism began to take on a much more explicitly anti-imperialist bent. Progressive
isolationists such as William James found U.S. policy in the Philippines—which it had “liberated” from Spanish rule just to fight a
bloody counterinsurgency against Philippine nationalists—anathema to American democratic traditions and ideas about national
self-determination. As Promise and Peril shows, however, “cosmopolitan isolationists” like James never called for “cultural,
economic, or complete political separation from the rest of the world.” Rather, they wanted the United States to engage with other
nations peacefully and without pretensions of domination. They saw the United States as a potential force for good in the world, but
they also placed great value on neutrality and non-entanglement, and wanted America to focus on creating a more just domestic
order. James’s anti-imperialism was directly related to his fear of the effects of “bigness.” He argued forcefully against all
concentrations of power, especially those between business, political, and military interests. He knew that such vested interests
would grow larger and more difficult to control if America became an overseas empire. Others, such as “isolationist imperialist”
Henry Cabot Lodge, the powerful senator from Massachusetts, argued that fighting the Spanish-American War and annexing the
Philippines were isolationist actions to their core. First, banishing the Spanish from the Caribbean comported with the Monroe
Doctrine; second, adding colonies such as the Philippines would lead to greater economic growth without exposing the United
States to the vicissitudes of outside trade. Prior to the Spanish-American War, many feared that the American economy’s rapid
growth would lead to a surplus of domestic goods and cause an economic disaster. New markets needed to be opened, and the
best way to do so was to dominate a given market—that is, a country—politically. Lodge’s defense of this “large policy” was public
and, by today’s standards, quite bald. Other proponents of this policy included Teddy Roosevelt (who also believed that war was
good for the national character) and a significant portion of the business class. For Lodge and Roosevelt, “isolationism” meant what
is commonly referred to today as “unilateralism”: the ability for the United States to do what it wants, when it wants. Other
“isolationists” espoused principles that we would today call internationalist. Randolph Bourne, a precocious journalist working for the
New Republic, passionately opposed American entry into the First World War, much to the detriment of his writing career. He
argued that hypernationalism would cause lasting damage to the American social fabric. He was especially repulsed by wartime
campaigns to Americanize immigrants. Bourne instead envisioned a “transnational America”: a place that, because of its distinct
cultural and political traditions and ethnic diversity, could become an example to the rest of the world. Its respect for plurality at
home could influence other countries by example, but also by allowing it to mediate international disputes without becoming a party
to them. Bourne wanted an America fully engaged with the world, but not embroiled in military conflicts or alliances. This was also
the case for William Borah, the progressive Republican senator from Idaho. Borah was an agrarian populist and something of a
Jeffersonian: he believed axiomatically in local democracy and rejected many forms of federal encroachment. He was opposed to
extensive immigration, but not “anti-immigrant.” Borah thought that America was strengthened by its complex ethnic makeup and
that an imbalance tilted toward one group or another would have deleterious effects. But it is his famously isolationist foreign policy
views for which Borah is best known. As Nichols writes: He was consistent in an anti-imperialist stance against U.S. domination
abroad; yet he was ambivalent in cases involving what he saw as involving obvious national interest….He also without fail argued
that any open-ended military alliances were to be avoided at all costs, while arguing that to minimize war abroad as well as conflict
at home should always be a top priority for American politicians. Borah thus cautiously supported entry into the First World War on
national interest grounds, but also led a group of senators known as “the irreconcilables” in their successful effort to prevent U.S.
entry into the League of Nations. His paramount concern was the collective security agreement in the organization’s charter: he
would not assent to a treaty that stipulated that the United States would be obligated to intervene in wars between distant powers
where the country had no serious interest at stake. Borah possessed an alternative vision for a more just and pacific international
order. Less than a decade after he helped scuttle American accession to the League, he helped pass the Kellogg-Briand Pact
(1928) in a nearly unanimous Senate vote. More than sixty states eventually became party to the pact, which outlawed war between
its signatories and required them to settle their disputes through peaceful means. Today, realists sneer at the idealism of
Kellogg-Briand, but the Senate was aware of the pact’s limitations and carved out clear exceptions for cases of national defense.
Some supporters believed that, if nothing else, the law would help strengthen an emerging international norm against war. (Given
what followed, this seems like a sad exercise in wish-fulfillment.) Unlike the League of Nations charter, the treaty faced almost no
opposition from the isolationist bloc in the Senate, since it did not require the United States to enter into a collective security
agreement or abrogate its sovereignty. This was a kind of internationalism Borah and his irreconcilables could proudly support. The
United States today looks very different from the country in which Borah, let alone William James, lived, both domestically
(where political and civil freedoms have been extended to women, African Americans, and gays and lesbians) and internationally
(with its leading role in many global institutions). But different strains of isolationism persist. Newt Gingrich has
argued for a policy of total “energy independence” (in other words, domestic drilling) while fulminating against President Obama for
“bowing” to the Saudi king. While recently driving through an agricultural region of rural Colorado, I saw a giant roadside billboard
calling for American withdrawal from the UN. Yet in the last decade, the Republican Party, with the partial exception of
its Ron Paul/libertarian faction, has veered into such a belligerent unilateralism that its graybeards—one of
whom, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, just lost a primary to a far-right challenger partly because of his reasonableness on foreign
affairs—were barely able to ensure Senate ratification of a key nuclear arms reduction treaty with
Russia. Many of these same people desire a unilateral war with Iran . And it isn’t just Republicans.
Drone attacks have intensified in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere under the Obama administration.
Massive troop deployments continue unabated. We spend over $600 billion dollars a year on our
military budget; the next largest is China’s, at “only” around $100 billion. Administrations come
and go, but the national security state appears here to stay.
Our advantage isn’t based on myopic security discourse- multiple independent
fields support our hegemony advantage, prefer our advantage because it is
interdisciplinary
Wohlforth 9 William, professor of government at Dartmouth College, “ Unipolarity, Status Competition, and Great Power
War”Project Muse
Mainstream theories generally posit that states come to blows over an international status quo only when it has
implications for their security or material well-being. The guiding assumption is that a state’s satisfaction [End Page 34] with its place in the existing order is a
function of the material costs and benefits implied by that status.24 By that assumption, once a state’s status in an international order ceases to affect its material wellbeing, its
the assumption is undermined by cumulative research in disciplines
ranging from neuroscience and evolutionary biology to economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology that human
beings are powerfully motivated by the desire for favorable social status comparisons. This research suggests that the
preference for status is a basic disposition rather than merely a strategy for attaining other goals.25 People often seek
tangibles not so much because of the welfare or security they bring but because of the social status they confer. Under certain
relative standing will have no bearing on decisions for war or peace. But
conditions, the search for status will cause people to behave in ways that directly contradict their material interest in security and/or prosperity.
Reject non interdisciplinary explanations of IR
Steve Smith, Vice Chancellor of the Univ. of Exeter, BA, MA, PhD IR From Univ. of Southhampton, , Are Dialogue and Synthesis
Possible in International Relations? International Studies Review (2003) 5,
No research agenda can lead to synthesis, simply because different approaches see different worlds. With regard to dialogue, it is
important to make four points: (1) Any research agenda should be empirically (or problem) driven and not determined a priori by the
kinds of empirical questions deemed relevant. (2) Such an agenda needs to be open to all interpretations of events and not preclude
ex cathedra any particular approach. (3) Such an agenda should also be interdisciplinary because the study of international
relations cannot be restricted to any one discipline. Being interdisciplinary permits us to open up epistemological and
methodological space while, lessening claims for the exceptionalism of international relations as a field. (4) Such an agenda
would not use methodology and epistemology to police the boundaries of what can and cannot be talked about and studied.
Several other contributors to this forum, namely, Frank Harvey, Joel Cobb, and Andrew Moravcsik, criticize this author’s answers to
the questions posed to us. Harvey and Cobb’s basic complaint is that these responses fail to provide the criteria by which to assess
work in each approach. The argument here, however, is decidedly not that there are no standards but that the standards for
assessing work within any one approach must be the standards of that research tradition. Appealing to any neutral ground for
judging work merely reintroduces the epistemological orthodoxy of the mainstream in the disguise of neutral scholarly standards. In
this regard, this author sides with Friedrich Kratochwil’s comment that there is no philosopher’s stone on which to build foundational
truth claims. This statement does not imply, however, that there are no standards for assessing work. Far from wishing to protect
any theory from fatal criticism, the point is to ensure that no one theory gets protected by epistemological gatekeeping. (143)
Their insistence on being ‘first’ reifies extremism and fragmentation in the academy – only the
perm avoids scholarship shutdown
David Lake 11, political science prof at UC-San Diego, Why "isms" Are Evil: Theory, Epistemology, and Academic Sects as
Impediments to Understanding and Progress, International Studies Quarterly (2011) 55, 465-480
My critique of our profession is a common one, but one worth repeating. Most generally, we
organize ourselves into
academic "sects" that engage in self-affirming research and then wage theological debates
between academic religions. This occurs at both the level of theory and epistemology. In turn, we
reward those who stake out extreme positions within each sect. Unfortunately, this academic
sectarianism, a product of our own internal political struggles, produces less understanding rather than more.
Some reasonably fear intellectual "monocultures," as McNamara (2009) has called the possible hegemony of
rationalism. But the current cacophony is not a sign of productive intellectual ferment in the pursuit
of meaningful knowledge." Rather, we have produced a clash of competing theologies each
claiming its own explanatory "miracles" and asserting its universal truth and virtue.
Instead, a large measure of intellectual humility Is in order. Theoretically, we are far from the holy grail of a universal theory of
international politics—if indeed such a grail even exists. We should focus instead on developing contingent,
midlevel theories of specific phenomena. This analytical eclecticism is likely to be more productive (Sil
and Katzenstein 2010). But we aLso need a lexicon for translating otherwise incommensurable theories and making them mutually
intelligible. In the following section, I outline the problems with theoretical sects and affirm the case for analytic eclecticism. I then
end with one possible "Rosetta stone" that aims to facilitate conversation across research traditions by suggesting that all theories of
international studies can be disaggregated into the basic and common concepts of interests, interactions, and institutions.
Epistemologically, there is perhaps an even deeper divide that is, unfortunately, not so easily bridged. The nomothetic vs narrative
divide cuts through all of the social sciences and possibly beyond. This divide endures because scholars—either innately or through
socialization—find one form of explanation more intellectually satisfying than the other. Yet, in international studies, we
have reified this divide and, as with our theories, have formed mutually exclusive churches.
Rather than claiming one or the other epistemology Is always and everywhere superior, we should
recognize that both are valid and perhaps even complementary paths to understanding. The
question is not which approach is inherently superior, but which yieIds greater insights under what
circumstances. The second major section below takes up epistemology and its consequences for professional practice and
knowledge.
1ar
Econ
Nuke war Turns dehum
Peter Beckman, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, et al, The Nuclear Predicament: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First
Century, 3rd edition, 2K, p. 296-297
Individual death is not the only death that affects the way people live. Since humans are social beings who define themselves
naturally as parts of families, societies, kinship groups, religions, nations, and humanity as a whole, how they view themselves will
depend largely on whether they anticipate the continuing existence of these social entities. In the prenuclear age, the individual
obviously dies, but the social unit, the nation, the family, the species, was understood as outliving death. But in the nuclear
age, we must anticipate nuclear death as a collective experience, what Norman Cousins called “irrational death”—death of a new
kind, a nondiscriminating death without warning, death en masse. ‘While all deaths are individual, in the mass deaths of the
twentieth century, be they at Auschwitz or at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the individual is lost in a faceless, mindless,
random destruction. Writer Norman Mailer described the transformation as follows: For the first time in civilized history,
perhaps for the first time in all history, we have been forced to live with the suppressed knowledge that the smallest facets of
our personality or the most minor projections of our ideas ... might be doomed to die as a cipher in some vast
statistical operation in which our teeth would be counted, and our hair would be saved, but our death itself unknown,
unhonored and unrewarded, a death which could not follow with dignity as a possible consequence to serious actions we have
chosen, but rather a death in a gas chamber or a radioactive city; and so ... in the midst of civilization ... our psyche was subjected
itself to the intolerable anxiety that death being causeless, life was causeless as well, and time deprived of cause and effect had
come to a stop. If the type of death we anticipate is important because it affects how we view ourselves in the world, then the
pervasive fear of nuclear annihilation does not necessarily tell us anything about death per se, but rather it reveals something about
the perception humans have of their place and worth in the world. Nuclear weapons challenge a basic belief in the importance
of the individual. They challenge possibly the most central tenet of the Judeo-Christian world view:
Each individual is
unique and important and created in the image of God. If you save one life it is like saving the entire world, the Talmud
teaches. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son,” John says. Now, we are haunted with the image of human
beings as objects, as matter, to be burned, radiated, turned into ashes or vapor.
Cartels
Mexican cartels cause massive structural violence and commit human rights
abuses
AP 12 (1-11-12, "Mexican drug war toll: 47,500 killed in 5 years" CBS News) www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll47500-killed-in-5-years/
Two decapitated bodies were found inside a burning SUV early Wednesday at the entrance to one of
Mexico's most luxurious malls, feeding fears drug violence is infiltrating privileged realms previously
thought safe. Police recovered the mutilated bodies before dawn off a toll highway at a shopping mall entrance in the heart of
the Santa Fe district that's a haven for international corporations, diplomats and the wealthy. The heads and a threatening
message were dumped a few yards away, Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement. Hours later,
the government released a drug war body count recording more than 47,500 victims in five years ,
echoing independent death
Pot is key to cartels—blocks their ability to recruit, buy weapons, and corrupt
politicians
Laura Carlsen Director, Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy; columnist, Foreign Policy in
Focus “How Legalizing Marijuana Would Weaken Mexican Drug Cartels” Posted: 11/02/2010 3:55 pm EDT Updated: 05/25/ 2011
6:10 pm EDT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/how-legalizing-marijuana_b_777837.html ac 8-28
opponents of
legalization have issued a barrage of confused and contradictory arguments. Their aim is to somehow
debunk the common-sense fact that legal sourcing erodes the black-market profits of organized crime. The most recent
argument thrown out in the anti-Prop. 19 campaign, claims that the California marijuana market is
insignificant to Mexican drug traffickers. That argument was blown out of the water on October 18
when the Mexican Army and police seized 134 tons of marijuana, wrapped and ready to be
smuggled from Tijuana across the border. The huge cache was estimated to be worth at least
$338 million dollars on the street. Mexican authorities guessed that it was owned by the nation's most powerful drugtrafficking organization, the Sinaloa Cartel. Even if much of that is distributed to other states, the sheer size
of the potential shipment shows that the U.S. marijuana market for Mexican traffickers, calculated
at $20 billion a year, is well worth fighting for. Since before Prop. 19 came along, reports showed that Mexico's drug
cartels were concerned about how U.S. production and legalization of medical marijuana cut into their profits. Prohibition
creates the underground market that generates their economic, political and military strength.
In the months leading up to today's vote on California's Proposition 19 to legalize recreational use of marijuana,
With the drop in income from marijuana sales, cartels have less money for buying arms and
politicians, or recruiting young people into the trade. The drug cartels also consider the marijuana black market
worth killing for. Just days after the historic bust, thirteen young men were massacred at a drug rehabilitation center. An anonymous
voice came over police radio saying the act was "a taste of Juarez" and that up to 135 people could be murdered in retaliation for
the bust--one per ton. Although calculating Mexican cartel earnings from marijuana sales will always be
a guessing game, it's indisputable that as long as it's illegal every penny of those earnings goes
into the pockets of organized crime. From the peasant who converts his land from corn to pot to
feed his family, to the truckdriver who takes on a bonus cargo, to the Mexican and U.S. border
officials who open "windows" in international customs controls, to the youth gangs who sell in
U.S. cities--all are sucked into a highly organized and brutal system of contraband. Legalization in
part of the world's leading market would take a huge chunk out of this transnational business.
War turns gender violence
Eaton 04. [Shana JD Georgetown University Law Center 35 Geo. J. Int'l L. 873 Summer lexis]
While sexual violence against women has always been considered a negative side effect of war, it is only
in recent years that it has been taken seriously as a violation of humanitarian law. In the "evolution" of war, women themselves have
become a battlefield on which conflicts are fought. Realizing that rape is often more effective at achieving their aims than plain
killing, aggressors have used shocking sexual violence against women as a tool of conflict, allowing battling
forces to flaunt their power, dominance, and masculinity over the other side. The stigma of rape is used to effectuate genocide,
destroy communities, and demoralize opponents-decimating a woman's will to survive is often only a secondary side effect. Sexual
violence against women during wartime had to reach horrifying levels before the international community was shocked enough to
finally take these atrocities seriously. It took the extremely brutal victimization of vast numbers of women, played out against a
backdrop of genocide, to prove that rape is not simply a natural side effect of war to be lightly brushed aside. The conflicts in both
Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia put women's rights directly in the spotlight, and the international community could no longer
avoid the glare. In both Yugoslavia and Rwanda, ethnic cleansing was central to the conflict. Raping women helped to achieve this
aim in a number of ways, from forced impregnation, where offspring would have different ethnicities than their mothers, to the use of
sexual violence to prevent women from wanting to have sex again (thus limiting their likelihood of bearing children in the future).
Additionally, rape was used as a means of destroying families and communities. Raping a woman
stigmatized her, making it unlikely that she would ever want to return home, and in many cases, ensuring that if she did return home
that she would be rejected. Civilians, particularly women, came to be used as tools to achieve military ends, putting the human
rights of these women at the heart of the conflict.
Empirically true
Levy and Sidel, 7 (Barry Levy- Adjunct Professor of Community Health at Tufts University School of Medicine, Victor SidelProfessor of Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein Medical College, War and Public Health, Edition 2)
Women are especially vulnerable during war (see Chapter 12). Rape has been used as a weapon in
many wars- in Korea, Bangladesh, Algeria, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda, the former
Yugslavia, and elsewhere. As acts of humiliation and revenge, soldiers have raped the female family members of their enemies.
For example, at least 10,000 women were raped by military personnel during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The social chaos
brought about by war also creates situations and conditions conductive to sexual violence.