Leadership Impacts: Index
**Leadership Good** ..................................................................... 2
Leadership Sustainable: F/L (1/2) ....................................................................................................... 3
Leadership Sustainable: F/L (2/2) ....................................................................................................... 4
Leadership Sustainable: General (1/2) ................................................................................................ 5
Leadership Sustainable: General (2/2) ................................................................................................ 6
Leadership Sustainable: Economy ...................................................................................................... 7
Leadership Sustainable: Hard Power .................................................................................................. 8
Leadership Sustainable: A2 "China" ................................................................................................... 9
Leadership Good: Multiwarrant (1/2) ................................................................................................. 10
Leadership Good: Multiwarrant (2/2) ................................................................................................. 11
Leadership Good: China ................................................................................................................... 12
Leadership Good: Democracy .......................................................................................................... 13
Leadership Good: Economy.............................................................................................................. 14
Leadership Good: Europe Stability.................................................................................................... 15
Leadership Good: Great Power Wars ............................................................................................... 16
Leadership Good: Korea Stability...................................................................................................... 17
Leadership Good: Mideast ................................................................................................................ 18
Leadership Good: Prolif .................................................................................................................... 19
Leadership Good: Russia ................................................................................................................. 20
Leadership Good: Terrorism ............................................................................................................. 21
Leadership Good: Transition Wars.................................................................................................... 22
Leadership Good: A2 "Offshore Balancing" (1/2) .............................................................................. 23
Leadership Good: A2 "Offshore Balancing" (2/2) .............................................................................. 24
Leadership Good: A2 "Peaceful Retrenchment" ................................................................................ 25
**Leadership Bad** ...................................................................... 26
Leadership Unsustainable: F/L ......................................................................................................... 27
Leadership Unsustainable: General .................................................................................................. 28
Leadership Unsustainable: A2 "China".............................................................................................. 29
Leadership Unsustainable: Economy ................................................................................................ 30
Leadership Unsustainable: Hard Power ............................................................................................ 31
Leadership Bad: China ..................................................................................................................... 32
Leadership Bad: Economy (1/2) ........................................................................................................ 33
Leadership Bad: Economy (2/2) ........................................................................................................ 34
Leadership Bad: Faster Better/Transition Key (1/2) ........................................................................... 35
Leadership Bad: Faster Better/Transition Key (2/2) ........................................................................... 36
Leadership Bad: Korea ..................................................................................................................... 37
Leadership Bad: Prolif ...................................................................................................................... 38
Leadership Bad: Russia .................................................................................................................... 39
Leadership Bad: Russia-China ......................................................................................................... 40
Leadership Bad: Terrorism ............................................................................................................... 41
Leadership Bad: A2 "Multipolarity Bad" ............................................................................................. 42
Leadership Bad: A2 "Offshore Balancing Bad/Fails" (1/2) ................................................................. 43
Leadership Bad: A2 "Offshore Balancing Bad/Fails" (2/2) ................................................................. 44
Leadership Bad: A2 "Retrenchment Bad/Fails" (1/2) ......................................................................... 45
Leadership Bad: A2 "Retrenchment Bad/Fails" (2/2) ......................................................................... 46
Leadership Bad: A2 "Transition Wars" (1/2) ...................................................................................... 47
Leadership Bad: A2 "Transition Wars" (2/2) ...................................................................................... 48
Leadership Bad: A2 "U.S. Lashout" .................................................................................................. 49
**Leadership Good**
Leadership Sustainable: F/L (1/2)
Hegemony is sustainable but the US has to choose to maintain its primacy
Kagan 12 [Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, B.A., Yale University, M.P.P., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Ph.D., American University,
January 17, 2012, “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline”, Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/01/17-us-power-kagan, DMintz]
The challenges today are great, and the rise of China is the most obvious of them. But they are not greater than the challenges the United States
faced during the Cold War. Only in retrospect can the Cold War seem easy. Americans at the end of World War II faced a major strategic crisis. The Soviet Union, if only by virtue of its size and
location, seemed to threaten vital strategic centers in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. In all these regions, it confronted nations devastated and prostrate from the war. To meet this
challenge, the United States had to project its own power, which was great but limited, into each of those regions. It had to form
alliances with local powers, some of them former enemies, and provide them with economic, political, and military assistance to help
them stand on their own feet and resist Soviet pressure. In the Cold War, the Soviets wielded influence and put pressure on American interests merely by standing still, while the United States had to scramble. It is
worth recalling that this strategy of “containment,” now hallowed by its apparent success, struck some influential observers at the time as entirely unworkable. Walter Lippmann attacked it as “misconceived,” based on
“hope,” conceding the “strategic initiative” to the Soviets while the United States exhausted its resources trying to establish “satellite states, puppet governments” that were weak, ineffective, and unreliable. Today, in the
. Although China is and will be much richer, and will wield greater economic influence in the world than the Soviet Union ever
its geostrategic position is more difficult. World War II left China in a comparatively weak position from which it has been working hard to recover ever
since. Several of its neighbors are strong nations with close ties to the United States. It will have a hard time
becoming a regional hegemon so long as Taiwan remains independent and strategically tied to the United States, and so long as strong regional
powers such as Japan, Korea, and Australia continue to host American troops and bases. China would need at least a few allies to
have any chance of pushing the United States out of its strongholds in the western Pacific, but right now it is the United States that has the allies . It is the
United States that has its troops deployed in forward bases. It is the United States that currently enjoys naval
predominance in the key waters and waterways through which China must trade . Altogether, China’s task as a
rising great power, which is to push the United States out of its present position, is much harder than America’s task, which is
case of China, the situation is reversed
did,
only to hold on to what it has. Can the United States do that? In their pessimistic mood today, some Americans doubt that it can. Indeed, they doubt whether the United States can afford to continue playing in any part of
the world the predominant role that it has played in the past. Some argue that while Paul Kennedy’s warning of imperial overstretch may not have been correct in 1987, it accurately describes America’s current
The fiscal crisis, the deadlocked political system, the various maladies of American society (including wage
), the weaknesses of the educational system, the deteriorating infrastructure —all of these are
cited these days as reasons why the United States needs to retrench internationally, to pull back from some overseas commitments, to focus on “nation building at
home” rather than try to keep shaping the world as it has in the past. Again, these common assumptions require some examination . For one thing, how
“overstretched” is the United States? The answer, in historical terms, is not nearly as much as people
imagine. Consider the straightforward matter of the number of troops that the United States deploys overseas. To listen to the debate today, one might imagine there were more American troops committed
predicament.
stagnation and income inequality
abroad than ever before. But that is not remotely the case. In 1953, the United States had almost one million troops deployed overseas—325,000 in combat in Korea and more than 600,000 stationed in Europe, Asia,
and elsewhere. In 1968, it had over one million troops on foreign soil—537,000 in Vietnam and another half million stationed elsewhere. By contrast, in the summer of 2011, at the height of America’s deployments in its
two wars, there were about 200,000 troops deployed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and another roughly 160,000 troops stationed in Europe and East Asia. Altogether, and including other forces stationed
around the world, there were about 500,000 troops deployed overseas. This was lower even than the peacetime deployments of the Cold War. In 1957, for instance, there were over 750,000 troops deployed overseas.
Only in the decade between the breakup of the Soviet empire and the attacks of September 11 was the number of deployed forces overseas lower than it is today. The comparison is even more striking if one takes into
account the growth of the American population. When the United States had one million troops deployed overseas in 1953, the total American population was only 160 million. Today, when there are half a million troops
. The country is twice as large, with half as many troops deployed as fifty years
ago. What about the financial expense? Many seem to believe that the cost of these deployments , and of the armed forces generally, is a major
contributor to the soaring fiscal deficits that threaten the solvency of the national economy. But this is not the case, either. As the former budget czar Alice
Rivlin has observed, the scary projections of future deficits are not “caused by rising defense spending,” much less by spending on
foreign assistance. The runaway deficits projected for the coming years are mostly the result of ballooning entitlement
spending. Even the most draconian cuts in the defense budget would produce annual savings of only $50 billion to $100 billion, a small fraction—between 4 and 8 percent—of the $1.5 trillion in annual deficits
deployed overseas, the American population is 313 million
the United States is facing. In 2002, when Paul Kennedy was marveling at America’s ability to remain “the world’s single superpower on the cheap,” the United States was spending about 3.4 percent of GDP on
. The cost of remaining the world’s
predominant power is not prohibitive. If we are serious about this exercise in accounting, moreover, the costs of
maintaining this position cannot be measured without considering the costs of losing it . Some of the costs of reducing the American
role in the world are, of course, unquantifiable. What is it worth to Americans to live in a world dominated by democracies rather than
by autocracies? But some of the potential costs could be measured, if anyone cared to try. If the decline of American military power produced an
unraveling of the international economic order that American power has helped sustain; if trade routes and
waterways ceased to be as secure, because the U.S. Navy was no longer able to defend them; if regional wars
broke out among great powers because they were no longer constrained by the American superpower; if
American allies were attacked because the United States appeared unable to come to their defense; if the
generally free and open nature of the international system became less so—if all this came to pass, there would
be measurable costs. And it is not too far-fetched to imagine that these costs would be far greater than the savings gained by cutting the defense and foreign aid budgets by $100 billion a year. You
can save money by buying a used car without a warranty and without certain safety features, but what happens when you get into an accident? American military strength reduces
the risk of accidents by deterring conflict, and lowers the price of the accidents that occur by reducing the
chance of losing. These savings need to be part of the calculation, too. As a simple matter of dollars and cents, it may be a lot
cheaper to preserve the current level of American involvement in the world than to reduce it. Perhaps the greatest concern
defense. Today it is spending a little under 4 percent, and in years to come, that is likely to head lower again—still “cheap” by historical standards
underlying the declinist mood at large in the country today is not really whether the United States can afford to continue playing its role in the world. It is whether the Americans are capable of solving any of their most
pressing economic and social problems. As many statesmen and commentators have asked, can Americans do what needs to be done to compete effectively in the twenty-first-century world? The only honest answer
Americans have experienced this unease before,
is, who knows? If American history is any guide, however, there is at least some reason to be hopeful.
and many previous
generations have also felt this sense of lost vigor and lost virtue: as long ago as 1788, Patrick Henry lamented the nation’s fall from past glory, “when the American spirit was in its youth.” There have been many times
over the past two centuries when the political system was dysfunctional, hopelessly gridlocked, and seemingly unable to find solutions to crushing national problems—from slavery and then Reconstruction, to the
dislocations of industrialization at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of social welfare during the Great Depression, to the confusions and paranoia of the early Cold War years. Anyone who honestly recalls
the 1970s, with Watergate, Vietnam, stagflation, and the energy crisis, cannot really believe that our present difficulties are unrivaled. Success in the past does not guarantee success in the future. But one thing does
the American system, for all its often stultifying qualities, has also shown a greater
capacity to adapt and recover from difficulties than many other nations, including its geopolitical
competitors. This undoubtedly has something to do with the relative freedom of American society, which
rewards innovators, often outside the existing power structure, for producing new ways of doing things; and
with the relatively open political system of America, which allows movements to gain steam and to influence the
behavior of the political
seem clear from the historical evidence:
Leadership Sustainable: F/L (2/2)
establishment. The American system is slow and clunky in part because the Founders designed it that way, with a federal structure, checks and balances, and a written Constitution and Bill of Rights—but
the system also possesses a remarkable ability to undertake changes just when the steam kettle looks about to blow its lid. There are occasional “critical elections” that allow transformations to occur, providing new
political solutions to old and apparently insoluble problems. Of course, there are no guarantees: the political system could not resolve the problem of slavery without war. But on many big issues throughout their history,
Americans have found a way of achieving and implementing a national consensus. When Paul Kennedy was marveling at the continuing success of the American superpower back in 2002, he noted that one of the main
reasons had been the ability of Americans to overcome what had appeared to him in 1987 as an insoluble long-term economic crisis. American businessmen and politicians “reacted strongly to the debate about ‘decline’
by taking action: cutting costs, making companies leaner and meaner, investing in newer technologies, promoting a communications revolution, trimming government deficits, all of which helped to produce significant
.” It is possible to imagine that Americans may rise to this latest economic challenge as well .
other nations will, as in the past, run into difficulties of their own. None of the nations currently
enjoying economic miracles is without problems. Brazil, India, Turkey, and Russia all have bumpy histories that suggest the route ahead will not be one of simple and
year-on-year advances in productivity
It is also reasonable to expect that
smooth ascent. There is a real question whether the autocratic model of China, which can be so effective in making some strategic decisions about the economy in the short term, can over the long run be flexible
it may be more than good fortune that has allowed the
United States in the past to come through crises and emerge stronger and healthier than other nations while its
various competitors have faltered. And it may be more than just wishful thinking to believe that it may do so again. But there is a danger. It is that in the
meantime, while the nation continues to struggle, Americans may convince themselves that decline is indeed
inevitable, or that the United States can take a time-out from its global responsibilities while it gets its own house in order. To many Americans, accepting decline may
enough to permit adaptation to a changing international economic, political, and strategic environment. In sum:
provide a welcome escape from the moral and material burdens that have weighed on them since World War II. Many may unconsciously yearn to return to the way things were in 1900, when the United States was rich,
The underlying assumption of such a course is that the present world order will more or
less persist without American power, or at least with much less of it; or that others can pick up the slack; or simply that the benefits of the world
order are permanent and require no special exertion by anyone. Unfortunately, the present world order—with its widespread freedoms, its general
prosperity, and its absence of great power conflict—is as fragile as it is unique. Preserving it has been a
struggle in every decade, and will remain a struggle in the decades to come. Preserving the present world order
requires constant American leadership and constant American commitment. In the end, the decision is in the hands of Americans. Decline,
as Charles Krauthammer has observed, is a choice. It is not an inevitable fate —at least not yet. Empires and great powers rise and fall, and the only question is when. But the when
powerful, and not responsible for world order.
does matter. Whether the United States begins to decline over the next two decades or not for another two centuries will matter a great deal, both to Americans and to the nature of the world they live in.
Heg is durable – status quo conditions of accommodation and nuclear peace sustain unipolarity
Monteiro 11 - Nuno P., Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University (June 13, 2011, “BALANCING ACT WHY UNIPOLARITY MAY BE DURABLE,” http://www.nunomonteiro.org/wp-content/uploads/NunoMonteiro-Balancing-Act-20110613.pdf)
the impact of the nuclear revolution on the structure of
international politics reduces the salience of survival concerns for major powers, then unipolarity should
What is, then, wrong with the argument that unipolarity is indeed durable? Why are primacists not right? If
necessarily las t . 44 This should settle the debate on unipolar durability in favor of primacist views. Not so fast. Survival is indeed the first goal of states and,
therefore, nuclear weapons, by guaranteeing state survival, eliminate the need for major powers to balance
against a unipole. But states do not care only about survival. Economic growth is also important for states, for at least two reasons. First, states care about economic growth as an end in itself. 45 One of
the primary raisons d’être of the state is, after all, the well-being of its citizens, defined largely in terms of material wealth. Second, and more importantly for the purposes of this paper, states care about economic growth
also for security reasons. If a major power is prevented from continuing to grow economically, then its future security may be imperiled. Nothing ensures xthat nuclear weapons will continue to guarantee survival
indefinitely. A major technological breakthrough, such as comprehensive missile defense, might erode the deterring effect of a survivable nuclear arsenal. Major powers therefore have strong incentives not to fall behind
, I expect major powers to pursue wealth only once the goal of
state survival is fully ensured and in ways that do not undermine it. To borrow a concept from John Rawls, this means that
survival has ‘lexical priority’ over all other state aims, including wealth creation . 46 What does this mean for balancing and, consequently, for
in economic terms. But this pursuit of wealth is subordinated to survival concerns. In other words
the durability of a unipolar world? In the previous section, I introduced a revised logic of balancing focused exclusively on the goal of state survival. It is now time to expand it to account for the secondary goal of
economic growth. This means that (2’) must be revised to include not only threats to state survival but also to their economic growth. In the expanded logic, then, states will (3’) balance against concentrated power to the
states will now balance until they minimize (4’’) both threats to their survival and to
their economic growth. The expanded logic goes like this (with italics indicating change from the revised version above): 1) States care first
and foremost about their own survival and only pursue other goals, such as wealth, to the extent they do not threaten survival; 2’’)
An unmatched concentration of power in one state may threaten the survival of others as well as their pursuit of
economic growth; 3’) To the extent that it does, other states will balance against concentrated power; 4’’) Threats to
survival and to economic growth may be minimized short of amassing as much or more power than any other
state; 5’) Balancing efforts will therefore not necessarily lead to shifts in the systemic balance-of-power; 6’) As a
result, unmatched concentrations of power in one state may be longlasting. The result (6’) is the same. But the conditions
of possibility for an unmatched concentration of power in one state to be long-lasting have changed. Now, the
durability of unipolarity depends, beyond major powers’ guaranteed survival, on a second factor: the presence of
international conditions that make the continuation of their economic growth possible . The absence of such conditions, by
endangering the long-term ability of the state to maintain its deterrent capability, ultimately places the survival of the state at risk. Therefore, major
powers have a strong incentive to balance against a unipole that is -- purposely or not -- containing their economic
growth. This extends the conditions of possibility of a durable unipolar world from the structural to the strategic level. In a nutshell, if a major
power’s economic growth is constrained by the unipole’s strategy then that major power has incentives to
continue to balance against the unipole beyond the point at which nuclear weapons ensure its immediate
survival. In sum, a strategy of containment on the part of the unipole , by constraining the economic growth of major powers, will lead
the latter to balance, converting their latent capabilities into military power. Containment, therefore, leads major powers to balance
beyond the point at which their immediate survival is guaranteed , up to the point at which they effect a shift in the systemic
balance of power, bringing about the end of unipolarity. A strategy of accommodation, on the contrary, allows major powers to
continue their economic growth, thus guaranteeing that their immediate ability to secure their own survival will
not be eroded over time. By doing so, accommodation takes away the incentives major powers might have to
balance beyond the point at which their immediate survival is guaranteed. Consequently, a strategy of
accommodation -- when implemented under conditions in which survival may be guaranteed even in the absence of a systemic balance of power -- makes unipolarity
extent that it threatens both these goals. Consequently,
durable. V. EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS AND ILLUSTRATION This section extracts empirical implications from my theory and tests the argument against the evolving empirical record. My “qualified durability”
for as long as the United States pursues a strategy of economic
accommodation, major powers, all of which today possess a survivable nuclear arsenal, should not pursue
further balancing against the United States. Second, in case the United States shifts towards a strategy of
containment, major powers should initiate a balancing effort, increasing the rate at which they convert their
latent power into military capabilities and pooling those capabilities together through the formation of alliances,
eventually shifting the systemic balance of power and putting an end to unipolarity.
argument yields two empirical implications for contemporary world politics. First,
Leadership Sustainable: General (1/2)
Primacy is completely sustainable – cries of decline are one-sided and historically disproven.
Brooks and Wohlforth 9 (Steven G. and William C., Foreign Affairs, March and April, “Reshaping the World Order,”, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64652/stephen-gbrooks-and-william-c-wohlforth/reshaping-the-world-order, mat]
Now, the conventional
wisdom is that the world is rapidly approaching the end of the unipolar system with the United States
as the sole superpower. A dispassionate look at the facts shows that this view understates U.S. power as much as recent talk of
empire exaggerated it. That the United States weighs more on the traditional scales of world power than has any other state in modern history is as true now as it was when the
The United States continues to account
for about half the world's defense spending and one-quarter of its economic output. Some of the reasons for bearishness concern
commentator Charles Krauthammer proclaimed the advent of a "unipolar moment" in these pages nearly two decades ago.
public policy problems that can be fixed (expensive health care in the United States, for example), whereas many of the reasons for bullishness are more fundamental (such as the
So why has opinion shifted so quickly from visions of empire to gloomy
declinism? One reason is that the United States' successes at the turn of the century led to irrational exuberance, thereby setting
unreasonably high standards for measuring the superpower's performance. From 1999 to 2003, seemingly easy U.S. victories in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq led
some to conclude that the United States could do what no great power in history had managed before: effortlessly defeat its adversaries. It was only a matter of time
before such pie-in-the-sky benchmarks proved unattainable. Subsequent difficulties in Afghanistan and Iraq dashed illusions of omnipotence, but
greater demographic challenges faced by the United States' potential rivals).
these upsets hardly displaced the United States as the world's leading state, and there is no reason to believe that the militaries of its putative rivals would have performed any better.
The United States did not cease to be a superpower when its polities in Cuba and Vietnam failed in the 1960s; bipolarity lived on
for three decades. Likewise, the United States remains the sole superpower today. Another key reason for the multipolar mania is "the rise of
the rest." Impressed by the rapid economic growth of China and India, many write as if multipolarity has already returned. But such pronouncements mistake
current trajectories for final outcomes a common strategic error with deep psychological roots. The greatest concern in
the Cold War, for example, came not from the Soviet Union's actually attaining parity with the United States but from the expectation that it would do so in the future, Veterans of that
era recall how the launch of Sputnik in 1957 fed the perception that Soviet power was growing rapidly, leading some policymakers and analysts to start acting as if the Soviet Union
were already as powerful as the United States. A state that is rising should not be confused with one that has risen, just as a state that is
declining should not be written off as having already declined. China is generally seen as the country best positioned to emerge as a superpower challenger to the United States. Yet
Chinas economy is between 20 percent and 43 percent the size of the U nited States'. More
dramatic is the difference in GDP per capita, for which all measures show Chinas as being less than 10 percent of the
United States'. Absent a 1930s-style depression that spares potential U.S. rivals, the United States will not be replaced as the sole superpower for a very
long time. Real multipolarity--an international system of three or more evenly matched powers--is nowhere on the horizon. Relative power between
depending on how one measures GDP,
states shifts slowly. This tendency to conflate trends with outcomes is often driven by the examination in isolation of certain components of state power. If the habit during the Cold
War was to focus on military power, the recent trend has been to single out economic output. No declinist tract is complete without a passage noting that although the United States
may remain a military superpower, economic multipolarity is, or soon will be, the order of the day. Much as highlighting the Soviet Union's military power meant overlooking the
country's economic and technological feet of clay, examining only economic output means putting on blinders. In 1991, Japan's economy was two-thirds the size of the United States',
which, according to the current popular metric, would mean that with the Soviet Union's demise, the world shifted from bipolarity to, well, bipolarity. Such a partial assessment of
power will produce no more accurate an analysis today. Nor will giving in to apprehension about the growing importance of nonstate actors. The National Intelligence Council's report
Global Trends 2025 grabbed headlines by forecasting the coming multipolarity, anticipating a power shift as much to nonstate actors as to fast-growing countries. But nonstate actors
are nothing new--compare the scale and scope of today's pirates off the Somali coast with those of their eighteenth-century predecessors or the political power of today's
multinational corporations with that of such behemoths as the British East India Company--and projections of their rise may well be as much hype as reflections of reality. And even if
the power of nonstate actors is rising, this should only increase the incentives for interstate cooperation; nonstate threats do not affect just the United States. Most nonstate actors'
behavior, moreover, still revolves around influencing the decisions of states. Nongovernmental organizations typically focus on trying to get states to change their policies, and the
same is true of most terrorists. When it comes to making, managing, and remaking international institutions, states remain the most important actors and the United States is the most
important of them. No
other country will match the United States' combination of wealth, size, technological capacity, and
productivity in the foreseeable future. The world is and will long remain a 1 + x world, with one superpower and x number of major
powers. A shift from 1 + 3 to 1 + 4 or 5 or 6 would have many important consequences, but it would not change the fact that
the United States will long be in a far stronger position to lead the world than any other state.
Leadership Sustainable: General (2/2)
The U.S. lead is insurmountable – still dominates economically and militarily
Kagan 12 [Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, B.A., Yale University, M.P.P., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Ph.D., American University,
January 17, 2012, “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline”, Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/01/17-us-power-kagan, DMintz]
Less than a decade ago, most observers spoke not of America’s decline but of its enduring primacy. In 2002, the
historian Paul Kennedy, who in the late 1980s had written a much-discussed book on “the rise and fall of the
great powers,” America included, declared that never in history had there been such a great “disparity of power”
as between the United States and the rest of the world. Ikenberry agreed that “no other great power” had held
“such formidable advantages in military, economic, technological, cultural, or political capabilities.... The
preeminence of American power” was “unprecedented.” In 2004, the pundit Fareed Zakaria described the United
States as enjoying a “comprehensive uni-polarity” unlike anything seen since Rome. But a mere four years later
Zakaria was writing about the “post-American world” and “the rise of the rest,” and Kennedy was discoursing
again upon the inevitability of American decline. Did the fundamentals of America’s relative power shift so
dramatically in just a few short years? The answer is no. Let’s start with the basic indicators. In economic terms,
and even despite the current years of recession and slow growth, America’s position in the world has not
changed. Its share of the world’s GDP has held remarkably steady, not only over the past decade but over the
past four decades. In 1969, the United States produced roughly a quarter of the world’s economic output. Today
it still produces roughly a quarter, and it remains not only the largest but also the richest economy in the world.
People are rightly mesmerized by the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations whose share of the global
economy has been climbing steadily, but this has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and
Japan, which have had a declining share of the global economy. Optimists about China’s development predict
that it will overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world sometime in the next two decades.
This could mean that the United States will face an increasing challenge to its economic position in the future.
But the sheer size of an economy is not by itself a good measure of overall power within the international
system. If it were, then early nineteenth-century China, with what was then the world’s largest economy, would
have been the predominant power instead of the prostrate victim of smaller European nations. Even if China
does reach this pinnacle again—and Chinese leaders face significant obstacles to sustaining the country’s
growth indefinitely—it will still remain far behind both the United States and Europe in terms of per capita GDP.
Military capacity matters, too, as early nineteenth-century China learned and Chinese leaders know today. As
Yan Xuetong recently noted, “military strength underpins hegemony.” Here the United States remains
unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and there has been no decline
in America’s relative military capacity—at least not yet. Americans currently spend less than $600 billion a year
on defense, more than the rest of the other great powers combined. (This figure does not include the
deployment in Iraq, which is ending, or the combat forces in Afghanistan, which are likely to diminish steadily
over the next couple of years.) They do so, moreover, while consuming a little less than 4 percent of GDP
annually—a higher percentage than the other great powers, but in historical terms lower than the 10 percent of
GDP that the United States spent on defense in the mid-1950s and the 7 percent it spent in the late 1980s. The
superior expenditures underestimate America’s actual superiority in military capability. American land and air
forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, and are the most experienced in actual combat. They
would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle. American naval power remains predominant in every
region of the world. By these military and economic measures, at least, the United States today is not remotely
like Britain circa 1900, when that empire’s relative decline began to become apparent. It is more like Britain circa
1870, when the empire was at the height of its power. It is possible to imagine a time when this might no longer
be the case, but that moment has not yet arrived.
Leadership Sustainable: Economy
US economic dominance is durable
Kagan ’12 – Senior Fellow @ Brookings (Robert, Not Fade Away, The New Republic, January 11th, 2012,
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/99521/america-world-power-declinism?page=0,1)
The answer is no. Let’s start with the basic indicators. In economic terms, and even despite the current years of recession and slow
growth, America’s position in the world has not changed. Its share of the world’s GDP has held remarkably
steady, not only over the past decade but over the past four decades. In 1969, the United States produced roughly a quarter of the world’s
economic output. Today it still produces roughly a quarter, and it remains not only the largest but also the richest economy in the world. People are rightly
mesmerized by the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations whose share of the global economy has been
climbing steadily, but this has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have had
a declining share of the global economy. Optimists about China’s development predict that it will overtake the
United States as the largest economy in the world sometime in the next two decades. This could mean that the
United States will face an increasing challenge to its economic position in the future. But the sheer size of an
economy is not by itself a good measure of overall power within the international system. If it were, then early
nineteenth-century China, with what was then the world’s largest economy, would have been the predominant
power instead of the prostrate victim of smaller European nations. Even if China does reach this pinnacle
again—and Chinese leaders face significant obstacles to sustaining the country’s growth indefinitely—it will still
remain far behind both the United States and Europe in terms of per capita GDP.
US isn’t declining soon – military and political influence
Larison ’11 – PhD from UChicago, contributing editor to the American Conservative and The Week (Daniel,
Empire and Hegemony, The American Conservative, October 25th,
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/empire-and-hegemony/)
Almost everyone can agree that the U.S. is still the world’s hegemonic military and political power, and the main
points of contention here in the U.S. concern how to use that power and whether the U.S. should try to maintain
“undisputed leadership” of the world. Obviously, global hegemony is a much more ambitious goal in some ways
than traditional territorial/colonial empire, and it is based in what may possibly be an even more arrogant vision
of America’s proper role in the world, but it shares many features with imperial projects. The U.S. considers the internal affairs
of other states to be the legitimate concern of our government, and it asserts the right to interfere in those affairs to influence them. The U.S. treats several key
regions of the world as privileged space where it is supposed to have military and political supremacy, and
regional challengers to that supremacy are treated as potential threats to the U.S. because they infringe on what
our government considers its sphere of influence. U.S. military commands divide up the world, because it is
taken for granted that the U.S. has some proper military role in every part of the globe, and the U.S. has
hundreds of bases scattered around the globe. The President has the ability to wage war largely on his own
authority, and when he condescends to consult Congress it is now little more than a formality, so that the phrase “imperial Presidency” is as appropriate now as it has ever
been. What the U.S. does not do is to establish direct political and administrative control over territories overseas. That sort of colonial empire became unfashionable and politically
untenable in the decades after 1945, and the U.S. has not tried to bring it back. U.S. hegemony is a form of indirect empire, and an indirect empire is one most suited the idea of an
empire dedicated to the liberal principle of self-determination. Withdrawal from Iraq doesn’t demonstrate that the U.S. is not an empire. Just because a state withdraws its forces from
a country it has invaded and occupied for years doesn’t mean that it hasn’t acted as an empire does. After toppling a country’s government, installing a new government that it initially
believed would be more cooperative and subservient, and occupying its territory against the will of most of the population for almost a decade, the U.S. certainly acted imperially in
Iraq, as Jacob Heilbrunn notes. When a government reserves the right to overthrow other governments that oppose its policy goals, it assumes that other states’ sovereignty is so
limited that it can and should be violated when it suits the more powerful state. This is how many empires have acted in the past, and so it seems appropriate and accurate to refer to
a contemporary American empire. If we call it hegemony instead, the substance of what we are talking about doesn’t change at all, and the criticism of hegemonist policies remains
the same. Hegemonists who reject the label of empire really do protest too much.
Heg is sustainable – military and economic power
Marks ’10 - Senior Fellow, George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (Ron, Superpower or Spendthrift?: The Decline
Redux, June 1, National Journal, http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/06/superpower-or-spendthrift.php#1589150)
We are still the largest economy in the world with one of
the highest GDP's per head. We have 300 million people who are mostly middle class. Our society is fairly lacking in wholesale
political corruption. And no one is touching the dollars in terms of a worldwide currency. GDP devoted to
defense is still running about 3-4 percent -- low versus Cold War and certainly to major conflicts like WW II and
VIetnam. On the lousy side, we have a big debt left over from the Bush Administration's refusal to bump up taxes to pay for a war on terror and a very badly timed tax cut. And
Ok, let's get some facts on the table before we start talking national security strategy.
we are paying for the financial excesses of banking system that got out of control -- here and around the world. Consequently, the economy is still trundling along at a very slow
Chinese are still moving ahead with some speed and
want a share of the power. Fine, Welcome to the table. Let's play world superpower. They have some economic
power. Good, they have earned it. From a political and military standpoint, they are more talk and speculation
than reality. And, their military is more interested in making money through their own little industrial projects
than invading countries and making blue water navies. They are also not sticking their necks out too far as they
have major headaches with a dodgy banking system and a billion citizens who are not middle class and are
being financially squeezed. China is Brazil with more people and a few more bucks. So what about the new National security
recovery -- though better than our European and Japanese friends. And, yes, our bogeyman
document -- a lovely statement based on the current snapshot of the world as they always are. We are going to have more soft power and more emphasis on bilateralism. W e are
going to have a emphasis on fighting to control cyberspace. We are going to battle terrorism world wide. And we are going to talk about extending national security within the
We are engaged globally
because we are a global power. We have political, financial and cultural influences around the world. The war in
Iraq is winding down and the one in Afghanistan is muddling along. Our defense against Al-Queda and their fellow travelers in other lands
Homeland. As I said, a lovely statement of intention. And like most such documents gone with wind the moment something happens.
is not that expensive and necessary because our European bretheren would rather spend it on a welfare state they can no longer afford -- one thing the current euro crisis is
The bottom line is the United States is the indispensible nation. Whatever document we put our
and whatever our temporary financial problems, we will continue to make global commitments for the sake of
our interests and others. We are not spending that much of our national treasury on it. And, please chattering
classes, find another nation to decline for awhile because this is getting boring.
beginning to drive home.
Leadership Sustainable: Hard Power
Hegemony is sustainable – military innovations
Parrish ’12 – American Forces Press Service (Karen, DOD Leaders: U.S. Will Remain World’s Strongest Military, US DOD, January 8 th, 2012,
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=66711)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2012 – The Defense Department’s new, 10-year strategy will ensure the United States remains
the world’s strongest military power, DOD leaders emphasized in weekend interviews. “Clearly, we face the constriction
of having to reduce the budget by almost half a trillion dollars,” the secretary said. “We developed a strategy
that said [the military] is going to be leaner, it is going to be smaller, but it has to be agile, it has to adaptable, it
has to be flexible, quickly deployable, and it has to be technologically advanced. That’s the kind of force we
need for the future.” The department’s plan calls for priority emphasis on the Pacific and the Middle East, while maintaining a
presence elsewhere, Panetta noted. “The bottom line is, when we face an aggressor anyplace in this world, we’re
going to be able to respond and defeat them,” he added. The chairman said a popular misconception about the new strategy
assumes the nation’s forces will no longer be able to fight more than one conflict at a time. “In fact, we were pretty adamant that
we must be able to do more than one thing at a time, and by the way not limit ourselves to two,” Dempsey said.
“The threat, and the environment in which we find ourselves in this decade of the 21st century, suggests to us
that it’s likely to be more than two.” The strategy aims to build a force capable across the military operational spectrum with the
leadership, manning and equipment to provide options to the national command authority, the chairman noted. One point that may have
been underemphasized, he added, is that the military has “learned an enormous amount over the last 10 years about how to wage war.”
Dempsey said the military has developed strengths unforeseen a decade ago, noting its capabilities in special operations, intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance, and cyber. “What we’re looking to do here is not constrain ourselves to a two-war
construct, but rather build a force that has the kind of agility the secretary mentioned, that is a learning
organization that will adapt itself to what it confronts,” he said. The military has seen a decade of high demand,
and defense leaders are working to ensure the force size remains adequate and adaptive to future missions, he
said. “We do have a … significant, capable [National] Guard and reserve component, and we do have an active
component that has learned a lot over the last 10 years,” Dempsey noted. “What we’re trying to do is break the
template and think about different ways of accomplishing the task, to give more options to our nation’s leaders.”
The geopolitical and economic challenges of 2012 demand a shift in military power, the general said. “What
we’re trying to do is challenge ourselves to respond to that shift and to react to that strategic inflection point,”
he said. Dempsey said his concern is that in light of changing strategy and budget issues, some will see the United States as a nation
and a military in decline. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” the chairman asserted. “That miscalculation could be troublesome …
it could cause even our close partners to wonder, what kind of partner are we? So what I’d like to say right now is, we’re the same
partner we’ve always been, and intend to remain that way.”
No overstretch--latent power
Wohlforth 7 - Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Chair of the Department of Government (Spring 2007, William, "Unipolar stability: the rules of power analysis," Harvard
International Review 29.1, p.44, Academic OneFile)
US military forces are stretched thin, its budget and trade deficits are high, and the country continues to finance its profligate ways by borrowing from abroad--notably from the
many analysts to warn that the United States suffers from "imperial
overstretch." And if US power is overstretched now, the argument goes, unipolarity can hardly be sustainable for
long. The problem with this argument is that it fails to distinguish between actual and latent power. One must be
careful to take into account both the level of resources that can be mobilized and the degree to which a
government actually tries to mobilize them. And how much a government asks of its public is partly a function of
the severity of the challenges that it faces. Indeed, one can never know for sure what a state is capable of until it has been
seriously challenged. Yale historian Paul Kennedy coined the term "imperial overstretch" to describe the situation in
which a state's actual and latent capabilities cannot possibly match its foreign policy commitments. This
situation should be contrasted with what might be termed "self-inflicted overstretch"--a situation in which a
state lacks the sufficient resources to meet its current foreign policy commitments in the short term, but has
untapped latent power and readily available policy choices that it can use to draw on this power. This is arguably the situation that the United States is in today. But
the US government has not attempted to extract more resources from its population to meet its foreign policy
commitments. Instead, it has moved strongly in the opposite direction by slashing personal and corporate tax
rates. Although it is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and claims to be fighting a global "war" on terrorism, the United States is not acting like a country under intense
Chinese government. These developments have prompted
international pressure. Aside from the volunteer servicemen and women and their families, US citizens have not been asked to make sacrifices for the sake of national prosperity and
The country could clearly devote a greater proportion of its economy to military spending: today it spends
only about 4 percent of its GDP on the military, as compared to 7 to 14 percent during the peak years of the Cold War. It could also
spend its military budget more efficiently, shifting resources from expensive weapons systems to boots on the ground. Even more radically, it could reinstitute
military conscription, shifting resources from pay and benefits to training and equipping more soldiers. On the
economic front, it could raise taxes in a number of ways, notably on fossil fuels, to put its fiscal house back in
order. No one knows for sure what would happen if a US president undertook such drastic measures, but there is nothing in economics, political science, or history to suggest that
such policies would be any less likely to succeed than China is to continue to grow rapidly for decades. Most of those who study US politics would
argue that the likelihood and potential success of such power-generating policies depends on public support,
which is a function of the public's perception of a threat. And as unnerving as terrorism is, there is nothing like the threat of another hostile power
security.
rising up in opposition to the United States for mobilizing public support. With latent power in the picture, it becomes clear that unipolarity might have more built-in self-reinforcing
mechanisms than many analysts realize. It is often noted that the rise of a peer competitor to the United States might be thwarted by the counterbalancing actions of neighboring
China's rise might push India and Japan closer to the United States --indeed, this has already happened
to some extent. There is also the strong possibility that a peer rival that comes to be seen as a threat would create strong incentives for
powers. For example,
the United States to end its self-inflicted overstretch and tap potentially large wellsprings of latent power.
Leadership Sustainable: A2 "China"
The US can still surpass China – their studies are flawed
Beckley ’12 – PhD student at Columbia University and a predoctoral/research fellow in the International Security Program fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs (Michael Charles, The Unipolar Era: Why American Power Persists and China's Rise Is Limited, Columbia Academic Commons, 2012,
http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146399)
Much has been written on the decline of the United States and the rise of China . With a few exceptions,9 however, existing studies suffer from
at least one of the following shortcomings. First, most studies do not look at a comprehensive set of indicators. Instead they paint
impressionistic pictures of the balance of power, presenting tidbits of information on a handful of metrics. In
general, this approach biases results in favor of the declinist perspective because most standard indicators of
national power – for example, gross domestic product (GDP), trade flows, population, and energy consumption – conflate size with power and thereby overstate the capabilities of large but
underdeveloped countries. For example, in a recent study Arvind Subramanian contends that “China’s dominance is a sure thing” based on “an index of dominance combining just three factors: a country’s GDP, its
trade (measured as the sum of its exports and imports of goods), and the extent to which it is a net creditor to the world.”10 The United States and China, however, are each declining by some measures while rising in
many
studies are static, presenting single--‐year snapshots of U.S. and Chinese relative power. 11 This flaw tends to
bias results in favor of the alternative perspective because the United States retains a significant lead in most
categories. The key question, however, is not whether the United States is more powerful than China at present,
but whether it will remain so in the future. Without a dynamic analysis, it is impossible to answer this question . I
address these by shortcomings by comparing the United States and China across a large set of economic,
technological, and military indicators from 1991 to the present. I also supplement these quantitative data with
qualitative analyses about what the indicators mean, how they relate to each other, and which ones are more
important than others. The results of this first--‐cut analysis are mixed, but the bulk of the evidence supports the alternative perspective. Over the last twenty years, globalization andU.S. hegemonic
burdens have expanded significantly, yet the United States has not declined; in fact it is now wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991. China has
narrowed the gap in terms of GDP and now exports a greater volume of high--‐technology products and employs
more scientists than any country in the world. But GDP correlates poorly with national power; over 90 percent of
China’s high--‐tech exports are produced by foreign firms and consist of low--‐tech components; and China’s
quantitative advantage in scientists has not yet translated into qualitative advantages in innovation. The United States
terms of others. To distinguish between ascendance and decline writ large, therefore, requires analyzing many indicators and determining how much each one matters in relation to others. Second,
suffers from an enormous debt problem that its political system currently looks ill--‐suited to solve. But China faces its own fiscal mess, which may be more intractable than America’s. The widespread misperception that
China is catching up to the United States stems from several analytical mistakes, the most common being the tendency to conflate growth rates with total growth. For example, some studies note that the growth rates of
China’s per--‐capita income, value--‐added in high--‐technologygrowth rates of China’s per--‐capita income, value--‐added in high--‐technology industries, and military spending exceed those of the United States and
This focus on growth rates, however, obscures China’s decline relative to the United States
in all of these categories. China’s growth rates are high because its starting point was low. China is rising, but it
is not catching up.
then conclude that China is catching up.
The US is still ahead of China – 3 reasons
CSM ’12 (Christian Science Monitor, 3 reasons why China isn't overtaking the US, CSM, January 24
th
, 2012, http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0124/3-reasons-why-
China-isn-t-overtaking-the-US/They-confuse-growth-rates-with-total-growth)
While China’s economy grows at 9 percent per year, the US reels from economic recession and political
paralysis. US opinion polls consistently show that majorities of Americans believe China is the world’s dominant economic power. And according to the Pew Research Center,
pluralities in 15 out of 22 countries believe that China will overtake the US as the world’s superpower. But this widespread view is wrong, says Michael
Beckley, of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. It’s a fabrication
based on sloppy analysis and outdated conceptions of national power. Mr. Beckley argues that people who believe
that China is overtaking the US make at least one of the following three mistakes . 1. They confuse growth rates
with total growth Since 1991, China’s per capita income grew 15 percent annually, and its military spending rose
10 percent annually. By contrast, America’s per capita income and military spending grew at annual rates of 4
percent and 2 percent respectively. Yes, 15 is greater than 4, and 10 is greater than 2. What could be simpler?
But growth rates are not comparable. The average Chinese income in 2010 was $7,500. Fifteen percent of $7,500 is actually less money than 4 percent of $47,000, the average
American income that year. Despite China’s higher growth rates, the average Chinese citizen is $17,000 poorer compared with the average American today than he was in 1991. Over the same time period, Chinese
military spending declined by $140 billion relative to America’s, even when excluding funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. China’s growth rates are high because its starting point was low. China is rising, but it is
Many observers rely on flawed indicators to gauge Chinese economic power For example, some
analysts believe that China is the world’s “leading technology-based economy” because it exports more hightechnology products than any other country. But Chinese high-tech exports are not very Chinese and not very
high-tech: Over 90 percent are produced by foreign firms and consist of imported components that are merely
assembled in China. These percentages have increased over time, a trend that suggests Chinese firms are
falling further behind foreign competitors. Indeed, in any category – research and development, patents, profits
– Chinese high-tech firms have fallen further behind their American counterparts over the last two decades . Another
not catching up. 2.
misleading statistic is China’s debt-to-GDP ratio, which the Chinese government lists at 17 percent. America’s debt-to-GDP ratio, by contrast, will remain above 60 percent through 2020. But most Chinese state
spending is not reported in official figures because it is funneled through investment entities connected to local governments. Studies that account for this spending place China’s debt-to-GDP ratio between 75 and 150
percent. And things are only likely to get worse for China. Because of the one-child policy, China will soon suffer the most severe aging process in human history. The ratio of Chinese workers per retiree will plummet
from 8:1 today to 2:1 by 2040. The fiscal cost of this swing in dependency ratios alone may exceed 100 percent of China’s GDP. The American working-age population, by contrast, will expand by 17 percent over the
People mistake size for power China will soon boast the largest
economy in the world, and many observers interpret this event as a power transition between the United States
and China. But size is not power. After all, China was the world’s largest economy during its “century of
humiliation” when it was ripped apart by Western powers and Japan. Britain, by contrast, ruled a quarter of the
globe in the 19th century but was never, even at its peak, the largest economy. In fact, Britain’s GDP was half the size of China’s and
next 40 years. America’s fiscal future may not be bright, but it is brighter than China’s. 3.
far smaller than India’s when it invaded and subjugated both nations. Of course, China’s size makes it an important player on transnational issues, particularly climate change and
trade. Moreover, China’s military can threaten the United States without catching up, compensating for technological inferiority with asymmetric strategies and a greater willingness to
take risks and bear casualties. But China is not an emerging superpower in the mold of the Soviet Union, nor is it a great power like early-twentieth century Germany. It is a large
developing country and will remain so for the foreseeable future . Americans, therefore, should not fear China . But neither should they shy away from
competing with this rising power for influence in Asia. Michael Beckley is a research fellow in the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs and a fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. This article is based on a study in International Security, a quarterly journal of
international affairs.
Leadership Good: Multiwarrant (1/2)
Heg is good
Kagan 12, Robert, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution [“Why the World Needs America,” February 11th,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213262856669448.html]
With the outbreak of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalism—of European civilization approaching its pinnacle—collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity.
The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian
collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age—though if Nazi
Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating. Would the end of the
neighbors. The
present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end
of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order, with its widespread freedom, unprecedented global prosperity (even amid the current economic
Ikenberryargues, but "the underlying foundations of the
liberal international order will survive and thrive." The commentator FareedZakaria believes that even as the balance shifts
against the U.S., rising powers like China "will continue to live within the framework of the current international system." And
there are elements across the political spectrum—Republicans who call for retrenchment, Democrats who put their faith in international
law and institutions—who don't imagine that a "post-American world" would look very different from the American world. If all of this
sounds too good to be true, it is. The present world order was largely shaped by American power and reflects American
interests and preferences. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other nations, the world order will change to suit their
interests and preferences. Nor can we assume that all the great powers in a post-American world would agree on the
benefits of preserving the present order, or have the capacity to preserve it, even if they wanted to. Take the issue of
democracy. For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American
world, the balance would shift toward the great-power autocracies. Both Beijing and Moscow already protect dictators
like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. If they gain greater relative influence in the future, we will see fewer democratic transitions
and more autocrats hanging on to power. The balance in a new, multipolar world might be more favorable to democracy if some of
the rising democracies—Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa—picked up the slack from a declining U.S. Yet not all of them have the
desire or the capacity to do it. What about the economic order of free markets and free trade? People assume that China and other
rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. They wouldn't kill the goose that
lays the golden eggs. Unfortunately, they might not be able to help themselves. The creation and survival of a liberal economic order
has depended, historically, on great powers that are both willing and able to support open trade and free markets, often with naval
crisis) and absence of war among the great powers. American power may diminish, the political scientist G. John
power. If a declining America is unable to maintain its long-standing hegemony on the high seas, would other nations take on the burdens and the expense of sustaining navies to fill in the gaps? Even if they did, would
this produce an open global commons—or rising tension? China and India are building bigger navies, but the result so far has been greater competition, not greater security. As Mohan Malik has noted in this
newspaper, their "maritime rivalry could spill into the open in a decade or two," when India deploys an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and China deploys one in the Indian Ocean. The move from Americandominated oceans to collective policing by several great powers could be a recipe for competition and conflict rather than for a liberal economic order. And do the Chinese really value an open economic system? The
Chinese economy soon may become the largest in the world, but it will be far from the richest. Its size is a product of the country's enormous population, but in per capita terms, China remains relatively poor. The U.S.,
Germany and Japan have a per capita GDP of over $40,000. China's is a little over $4,000, putting it at the same level as Angola, Algeria and Belize. Even if optimistic forecasts are correct, China's per capita GDP by
Although the Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open
international economic order, they could end up undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to
preserve the state's control of wealth and the power that it brings. They might kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive. Finally, what about the long peace that has held
among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Would it survive in a post-American world? Most commentators who
welcome this scenario imagine that American predominance would be replaced by some kind of multipolar harmony. But
multipolar systems have historically been neither particularly stable nor particularly peaceful. Rough parity among powerful nations
is a source of uncertainty that leads to miscalculation. Conflicts erupt as a result of fluctuations in the delicate power equation. War
among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods of multipolarity from the 16th to the 18th centuries, culminating in
2030 would still only be half that of the U.S., putting it roughly where Slovenia and Greece are today.
the series of enormously destructive Europe-wide wars that followed the French Revolution and ended with Napoleon's defeat in 1815. The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly
four decades each, punctuated by major conflicts. The Crimean War (1853-1856) was a mini-world war involving well over a million Russian, French, British and Turkish troops, as well as forces from nine other nations;
it produced almost a half-million dead combatants and many more wounded. In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the two nations together fielded close to two million troops, of whom nearly a half-million were
killed or wounded. The peace that followed these conflicts was characterized by increasing tension and competition, numerous war scares and massive increases in armaments on both land and sea. Its climax was
World War I, the most destructive and deadly conflict that mankind had known up to that point. As the political scientist Robert W. Tucker has observed, "Such stability and moderation as the balance brought rested
ultimately on the threat or use of force. War remained the essential means for maintaining the balance of power." There is little reason to believe that a return to multipolarity in the 21st century would bring greater peace
and stability than it has in the past. The era of American predominance has shown thatthere
is no better recipe for great-power peace than certainty about who
holds the upper hand. President Bill Clinton left office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to
live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage." It is an
eminently sensible-sounding proposal. But can it be done? For particularly in matters of security, the rules and institutions of
international order rarely survive the decline of the nations that erected them. They are like scaffolding around a
building: They don't hold the building up; the building holds them up. Many foreign-policy experts see the present international order as the inevitable result of human
progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior and the gradual but inevitable triumph of
liberal democracy over other forms of government—forces of change that transcend the actions of men and nations. Americans certainly like to believe that our preferred order survives because it is right and just—not
only for us but for everyone. We assume that the triumph of democracy is the triumph of a better idea, and the victory of market capitalism is the victory of a better system, and that both are irreversible. That is why
Francis Fukuyama's thesis about "the end of history" was so attractive at the end of the Cold War and retains its appeal even now, after it has been discredited by events. The idea of inevitable evolution means that
there is no requirement to impose a decent order. It will merely happen. But international order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others—in America's case, the domination of
free-market and democratic principles, together with an international system that supports them. The present order will last only as long as those who favor it and benefit from it retain the will and capacity to defend it.
There was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II. No divine providence or unfolding Hegelian dialectic required the triumph of democracy and capitalism, and there is no guarantee that
progress and liberal economics have been and can be reversed and undone.
The ancient democracies of Greece and the republics of Rome and Venice all fell to more powerful forces or through their own failings.
The evolving liberal economic order of Europe collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s. The better idea doesn't have to win just because it is a
better idea. It requires great powers to champion it. If and when American power declines, the institutions and norms that
American power has supported will decline, too. Or more likely, if history is a guide, they may collapse altogether as we make a
transition to another kind of world order, or to disorder. We may discover then that the U.S. was essential to keeping the present
world order together and that the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and catastrophe—which
is what the world looked like right before the American order came into being.
their success will outlast the powerful nations that have fought for them. Democratic
Leadership Good: Multiwarrant (2/2)
Hegemony solves all the impacts – Economy, Free Trade, Great Power, Nuclear, Regional and
Smaller Wars. Collapse triggers those impacts
Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate, 11
(Robert, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, 7-17-07, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” Hoover
Institution, No. 144, August/September, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136, Accessed 6/27/12, THW)
Others have. For decades “realist” analysts have called for a strategy of “offshore balancing.” Instead of the United States providing
security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the
balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher
Layne has long proposed “passing the mantle of regional stabilizer” to a consortium of “Russia, China, Iran, and
India.”In East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others
manage their own problems, without U.S. involvement—again, until the balance broke down and war erupted,at
which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if necessary, intervene with its
own forces to restore peace and stability. Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the only
genuine alternative to the one the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit, Layne and others who support the concept of offshore balancing have eschewed
halfway measures and airy assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either the United States is actively involved in
providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are frank in
calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II, perpetuated through the Cold W ar, and continued by four successive post-Cold War
The idea of relying on Russia,
China, and Iran to jointly “stabilize” the Middle East and Persian Gulf will not strike many as an attractive
proposition. Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to have a stabilizing effect on that
region. The prospects of a war on the Korean Peninsula would increase. Japan and other nations in the region
would face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking unilateral steps for self-defense, which in
Japan’s case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable nuclear arsenal. Layne and other offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John
administrations. At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy.
Mearsheimer, point to two notable occasions when the United States allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years
against Iran in the hope that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in the 1920s and 1930s, when the United States allowed the great
European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out.
Whether this was really American strategy in that era is open for debate—most would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered
strategic judgment but as an end in itself. Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first decades of the 20th century, however, would we really call that
strategy a success? The United States wound up intervening with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful wars in
It was with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar years
had been mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy
that the United States has pursued ever since. Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman and Dean
Acheson, American leaders determined that the safest course was to build “situations of strength” (Acheson’s phrase)
in strategic locations around the world, to build a “preponderance of power,” and to create an international system
human history.
with American power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air bases to
enable the rapid projection of force to strategically important parts of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the
They believed their
new global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and less expensive in
the long run. Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the proper course in many areas of foreign policy, have all agreed on this
core strategic approach. From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious and too expensive . At the dawn of the Cold War,
offshore balancing strategy, and they did so because they believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again .
Walter Lippmann railed against Truman’s containment strategy as suffering from an unsustainable gap between ends and means that would bankrupt the United States and exhaust
its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of “imperial overstretch,” arguing that American decline was inevitable “if the trends in national
indebtedness, low productivity increases, [etc.]” were allowed to continue at the same time as “massive American commitments of men, money and materials are made in different
parts of the globe.” Today,
we are once again being told that this global strategy needs to give way to a more restrained
and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face in coming years is not caused by the
present, largely successful global strategy. Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy that is taken for
granted. The enormous benefits that this strategy has provided, including the financial benefits, somehow never
appear on the ledger. They should. We might begin by asking about the global security order that the United
States has sustained since Word War II—the prevention of major war, the support of an open trading system,
and promotion of the liberal principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order worth?
What would be the cost of its collapse or transformation into another type of order? Whatever the nature of the current
economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global prosperity than any time in human
history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-backward nations have become economic
dynamos. And the American economy, though suffering ups and downs throughout this period, has on the
whole benefited immensely from this international order. One price of this success has been maintaining a sufficient military capacity to provide
the essential security underpinnings of this order. But has the price not been worth it ? In the first half of the 20th century, the United States found
itself engaged in two world wars. In the second half, this global American strategy helped produce a peaceful
end to the great-power struggle of the Cold War and then 20 more years of great-power peace. Looked at coldly, simply in
terms of dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs. The danger, as always, is that we don’t even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided .
Many assume that the world has simply become more peaceful, that great-power conflict has become
impossible, that nations have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is what counts.
This belief in progress and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions of international order is always alluring to Americans and
Europeans and other children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the
first years after World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people spoke of the “end of
history.” It is always tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained with
its power can exist in the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden assumption
of those who call for a change in American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its role and yet all
the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in. This is a great if recurring illusion, the idea that you
can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not fall over.
Leadership Good: China
Hegemony decreases chances of war with China
Lieber ‘5 [Robert J. Lieber, PhD from Harvard, Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown,
former consultant to the State Department and for National Intelligence Estimates , “The American Era: Power and
Strategy for the 21st Century”, pg. 158]
Parallels between America's role in East Asia and its involvements in Europe might seem far-fetched. Asia's geography and history are
enormously different, there is no regional organization in any way comparable to the European Union, the area is not a zone of peace, conflict
among its leading states remains a potential risk, and there is nothing remotely resembling NATO as a formal multilateral alliance binding the
United States to the region's security and the regional states to one another. Yet, as in Europe, the United States plays a unique
stabilizing role in Asia that no other country or organization is capable of playing . Far from being a source of
tension or instability, this presence tends to reduce competition among regional powers and to deter armed conflict.
Disengagement, as urged by some critics of American primacy, would probably lead to more dangerous competition or
power-balancing among the principal countries of Asia as well as to a more unstable security environment and
the spread of nuclear weapons. As a consequence, even China acquiesces in America's regional role despite the fact that
it is the one country with the long-term potential to emerge as a true major power competitor
US Hege deters any risk of China war and is on balance better for relations
Odgaard 01 [Liselotte Ogaard, Assistant Prof, of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark, August 1, 2001,
“Deterrence and Co-operation in the South China Sea, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Lexis] (Liselotte, , “Deterrence
and Co-operation in the South China Sea”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Aug 1, lexis)
The South China Sea constitutes a first line of defence for the littoral states of Southeast Asia. As a
consequence, they cannot afford to ignore the worst-case scenario of conflict involving China. The majority of
the Southeast Asian states have embarked on a modernization of their naval capabilities, aimed at developing a
deterrent force as well as a force capable of engaging in military operations at sea. However, the financial crisis of the late
1990s delayed some of these efforts, making the Southeast Asian states more reliant on bilateral defence
arrangements, in particular with the United States. The main countries in the U.S. network of military co-operation
agreements are Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. In substitution of the permanent base arrangements during the Cold War, U.S.
troops have resumed joint exercises with the Philippines from 2000. In general, the military agreements facilitate training,
exercises, and interoperability, permitting the United States to be seen to be engaged in Southeast Asia as a
flexible regional balancer. The United States shares the widespread perception within Southeast Asia that
China's moves in the South China Sea indicate that it might have expansionist intentions. Thus, the United
States has maintained its strategy of forward deployment. However, China is a power of second rank compared with the
United States, and as such, is no immediate threat to the latter. Therefore, Washington prefers that the regional states settle their
disputes without its involvement as long as these do not pose a threat to U.S. interests. Although the United States looks at China's
Spratly policy as an indication of its possible bid for regional hegemony, it is not prepared to play an active part in the Spratly dispute
unless freedom of navigation through Southeast Asian waters is threatened. At the same time, the United States maintains its support
for the ASEAN position on the non-use of force concerning dispute settlement in the South China Sea. Thus, the U.S. policy on the
Spratlys may be characterized as guarded non-involvement. American reservations about direct involvement in the Spratly dispute do
not imply that cordial relations between the United States and China are on the agenda. On the contrary, since 1999, the relationship
between the two powers has suffered a downturn because of Chinese opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air
strikes in Yugoslavia, the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and accusations of Chinese military espionage in the
United States. The Administration of George W. Bush is unlikely to call for a revival of the idea of a strategic partnership with China.
Bush describes China as a strategic competitor. [4] In line with this hardening of U.S. policy towards China, Bush has voiced strong
support for a theatre missile defence (TMD) system covering Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Technological constraints are likely to
force Bush to moderate his position on such defence plans. However, U.S. reassurances that research and development on the TMD will
continue only leaves China with the option of proceeding with military modernization to build up its deterrence capabilities. This
geostrategic picture suggests that co-operation on managing the regional balance of power is not on the cards.
Instead, a structure of deterrence appears to be in the making. Deterrence is directed at the intentions of
opponents: if the existence of deterrent forces are seen to prevent the opponent from achieving gains through aggression, the
opponent will refrain from attack. Thus, the power-projection capabilities of the various states are constrained by a
mutual display of force between the United States and the Southeast Asian states on the one hand, and China
on the other. A structure of deterrence does not operate on the basis of cooperation between opposing powers.
Nor can deterrence be equated with violence and volatility. On the contrary, the consolidation of a structure of
deterrence in the South China Sea may provide Southeast Asia with the level of military security and
reassurance necessary to allow for the development of stronger co-operative ties with China.
Leadership Good: Democracy
Heg is key to democracy promotion\
Thayer 7 – Associate Professor in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University
(Bradley A., American Empire, Routledge, pages 42-3)
The American Empire gives the United States the ability to spread its form of government, democracy, and other
elements of its ideology of liberalism. Using American power to spread democracy can be a source of much
good for the countries concerned as well as for the United States. This is because democracies are more likely
to align themselves with the United States and be sympathetic to its worldview. In addition, there is a chance—small as
it may be—that once states are governed democratically, the likelihood of conflict will be reduced further. Natan Sharansky makes the
argument that once Arabs are governed democratically, they will not wish to continue the conflict against Israel.58 This idea has had a
big effect on President George W. Bush. He has said that Sharansky’s worldview “is part of my presidential DNA.”59
US hegemony is essential to support democracies
Diamond 96. (Larry, Senior researcher fellow at Hoover Institution, Orbis, “Beyond the Unipolar Moment: Why the
United States Must Remain Engaged”, p. 405-413)
In the past, global power has been an important reason why certain countries have become models for
emulation by others. The global power of the United States, and of its Western democratic allies, has been a
factor in the diffusion of democracy around the world, and certainly is crucial to our ability to help popular,
legitimate democratic forces deter armed threats to their overthrow, or to return to power (as in Haiti) when they
have been overthrown. Given the linkages among democracy, peace, and human rights-as well as the recent
finding of Professor Adam Przeworski (New York University) that democracy is more likely to survive in a country
when it is more widely present in the region-we should not surrender our capacity to diffuse and defend
democracy. It is not only intrinsic to our ideals but important to our national security that we remain globally
powerful and engaged-and that a dictatorship does not rise to hegemonic power within any major region.
Leadership Good: Economy
Heg is key to the economy
Thayer 6 – Associate Professor in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University
(Bradley A., “In Defense of Primacy,” National Interest, November/December, Lexis)
Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been the growth of the
global economy. With its allies, the United States has labored to create an economically liberal worldwide network characterized by
free trade and commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and labor markets. The economic stability
and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit ,
particularly the poorest states in the Third World. The United States created this network not out of altruism but for the benefit and the
economic well-being of America. This economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes
efficiencies and growth, and benefits defense as well because the size of the economy makes the defense
burden manageable. Economic spin-offs foster the development of military technology, helping to ensure military prowess.
Collapse of hegemony leads to massive economic collapse that has a high probability of nuclear
escalation
Mandelbaum, Johns Hopkins American Foreign Policy Program director and professor, 5
[Michael, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century, p. 224]
At best, an American withdrawal would bring with it some of the political anxiety typical during the Cold War and a measure of the
economic uncertainty that characterized the years before World War II. At worst, the retreat of American power could lead to a
repetition of the great global economic failure and the bloody international conflicts the world experienced in the
1930s and 194os. Indeed, the potential for economic calamity and wartime destruction is greater at the outset of the
new century than it was in the first half of the preceding one because of the greater extent of international
economic interdependence and the higher levels of prosperity—there is more to lose now than there was then—and because of
the presence, in large numbers, of nuclear weapons.
US hegemony is crucial to the global economy
Thayer, University of Minnesota political science professor, 7
[Bradley A. American Empire: A Debate. Routledge Press: Taylor and Francis Group, NY. Page 43]
Economic prosperity is also a product of the American Empire. It has created a Liberal International Economic Order
(LIED)—a network of worldwide free trade and commerce, respect for intellectual property rights, mobility of
capital and labor markets—to promote economic growth. The stability and prosperity that stems from this
economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly states in the Third World. The American
Empire has created this network not out of altruism but because it benefits the economic well-being of the United States. In 1998, the
Secretary of Defense William Cohen put this well when he acknowledged that "economists and soldiers share the same
interest in stability"; soldiers create the conditions in which the American economy may thrive, and "we are able
to shape the environment [of international politics] in ways that are advantageous to us and that are stabilizing
to the areas where we are forward deployed, thereby helping to promote investment and prosperity...business
follows the flag.
Leadership Good: Europe Stability
Heg key to European stability - the impact is World War 3
Kagan, 07 – Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic Fellow at
the German Marshall Fund (Robert, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” Hoover Institution, No. 144,
August/September, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136)
Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power.
Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the
European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans
recoil at the thought, but even today Europe ’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes
unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a
genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war.
Goes nuclear
Charles L Glaser (Professor of Public Policy at University of Chicago) 93 International Security, Summer, p. 8-9
However, although the lack of an imminent Soviet threat eliminates the most obvious danger, U.S. security has not been entirely
separated from the future of Western Europe. The ending of the Cold War has brought many benefits, but has not eliminated the
possibility of major power war, especially since such a war could grow out of a smaller conflict in the East. And, although
nuclear weapons have greatly reduced the threat that a European hegemon would pose to U.S. security, a sound case nevertheless
remains that a European war could threaten U.S. security. The United States could be drawn into such a war, even if
strict security considerations suggested it should stay out. A major power war could escalate to a nuclear war that,
especially if the United States joins, could include attacks against the American homeland. Thus, the United States
should not be unconcerned about Europe’s future.
Leadership Good: Great Power Wars
Hegemony is key to prevent great power war
Zhang* and Shi** 11. (Both MA candidates at Columbia University. *Yuhan, researcher @ Carnegie Endowment for international peace and **Lin, consultant for the World Bank.
“America’s decline: A harbinger of conflict and rivalry.” January 22nd, 2011) http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/
September 2001 terrorist
attacks, prolonged wars in the Middle East and the financial crisis — have delivered the world a message: US
primacy is in decline. This does not necessarily mean that the US is in systemic decline, but it encompasses a trend that appears to be negative and
Paul Kennedy was probably right: the US will go the way of all great powers — down. The individual dramas of the past decade — the
perhaps alarming. Although the US still possesses incomparable military prowess and its economy remains the world’s largest, the once seemingly indomitable chasm that separated
America from anyone else is narrowing. Thus, the global distribution of power is shifting, and the inevitable
result will be a world that is less peaceful, liberal and prosperous, burdened by a dearth of effective conflict
regulation. Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the US military.
Under these circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned with US
hegemony and accepted a subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, Singapore and the Philippines have all joined the US, creating a status quo that has tended to mute great power conflicts. However, as the hegemony that
drew these powers together withers, so will the pulling power behind the US alliance. The result will be an international order where power is more diffuse, American interests and
attests, power decline and redistribution result in
military confrontation. For example, in the late 19th century America’s emergence as a regional power saw it
launch its first overseas war of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century, accompanying the increase in US power and waning of British power, the American Navy
influence can be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder to avoid. As history
had begun to challenge the notion that Britain ‘rules the waves.’ Such a notion would eventually see the US attain the status of sole guardians of the Western Hemisphere’s security
shaping the international system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this UScentred system are three key characteristics: enforcement of property rights , constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and
to become the order-creating Leviathan
groups and some degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As a result of such political stability, free markets, liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have
what will happen to
these advances as America’s influence declines? Given that America’s authority, although sullied at times, has
benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as well as parts of Africa and, quite extensively,
appeared. And, with this, many countries have sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating stable and cooperative relations. However ,
Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way. Public imagination and academia have anticipated that a post-hegemonic world would
return to the problems of the 1930s: regional blocs, trade conflicts and strategic rivalry. Furthermore,
multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO might give way to regional organisations.
For example, Europe and East Asia would each step forward to fill the vacuum left by Washington’s withering
leadership to pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders. Free markets would become more politicised — and, well,
less free — and major powers would compete for supremacy. Additionally, such power plays have historically possessed a zero-sum element. In the late 1960s and 1970s, US
economic power declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western European economies, with the US
dollar also becoming less attractive. And, as American power eroded, so did international regimes (such as the
Bretton Woods System in 1973). A world without American hegemony is one where great power wars re-emerge, the liberal
international system is supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, anti-globalisation barriers. This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast
in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy.
U.S. withdrawal would leave behind a power vacuum, spurring terrorism, economic turmoil and
multiple nuclear wars.
Niall Ferguson, July/August 2004 “A World Without Power,” FOREIGN POLICY Issue 143
So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the
Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving . The trouble is, of course,
that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more
populous-roughly 20 times more--so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has
transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite . Technology
has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization--the integration of world
markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or
civil war. The
reversal of globalization--which a new Dark Age would produce--would certainly lead to economic
stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would
inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew,
Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the
Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into
crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and
conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The
wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--would become the targets of
plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise
liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could
devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically
in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S.
religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of aids and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent
airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the
prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of
Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global hegemony--its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the
imperial frontier--its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar
harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to
unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity--a global vacuum of power. And far more
dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.
Leadership Good: Korea Stability
US military presence deters North Korean action
Saxby 11 (Josh “After the Chenoan: Engagement or Containment? What is the most effective approach for the United States Foreign Policy when considering North
Korea’s nuclear ambitions?” http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ug-winter-11/josh-saxby.pdf)
The very fact that the US maintains a military presence on the Korean Peninsulais enough for Kang to be convinced
that with a continued US effort to force international sanctions through the UN, containmentwill maintain the status quo
and deter the DPRK from any military action. Indeed, there is some support for Kang from other academics. Baldwin advocates a similar
approach to Kang and argues in his article ‗The Power of Positive Sanctions‘ (1971)that constructive sanctions will achieve the desired
result and maintain the balance of power. In Baldwin‘s work he frames the idea that Nation A (for the sake of argument the US) needs to
promise Nation B (the DPRK) rewards in order to achieve its policy goals (Baldwin 1971: 23), ‗A nation using promises need not expect compliance, but it
has an incentive to do so. The point is that A‘s responsibilities and planning processes are different when he uses promises rather than threats.‘(Baldwin
1971: 28). This makes for an interesting analysis of the North Korean situation. However, many would baulk at the idea of offering promises to the regime of
the DPRK, not least the US. Indeed, acknowledges this fact but he supports his hypothesis with the fact that threats and negative sanctions only serve to
alienate the aggressor state and preserve the tough stance of the Nation A (the US). Kang argues that ‗clearly America has reason to mistrust the North.
But North Korea also mistrusts the U.S.‘ (2003: 320), Baldwin would explain this by saying that the threatening way in which the US conducts its foreign
policy towards the DPRK particularly during the Bush Jnr Administration (Rozman 2007), which has yielded few results, is enough evidence to try positive
sanctions
Korean war goes nuclear
STRATFOR 10(5/26/10, “North Korea, South Korea: The Military Balance on the Peninsula,”
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100526_north_korea_south_korea_military_balance_peninsula)
Managing Escalation But no one, of course, is interested in another war on the Korean Peninsula . Both sides will posture,
but at the end of the day, neither benefits from a major outbreak of hostilities. And despite the specter of North Korean
troops streaming under the DMZ through tunnels and wreaking havoc behind the lines in the south (a scenario for which there has
undoubtedly been significant preparation), neither side has any intention of invading the other. So the real issue is the potential
for escalation — or an accident that could precipitate escalation — that would be beyond the control of
Pyongyang or Seoul. With both sides on high alert, both adhering to their own national (and contradictory)
definitions of where disputed boundaries lie and with rules of engagement loosened, the potential for sudden
and rapid escalation is quite real. Indeed, North Korea’s navy, though sizable on paper, is largely a hollow shell of old, laid-up
vessels. What remains are small fast attack craft and submarines — mostly Sang-O “Shark” class boats and midget submersibles.
These vessels are best employed in the cluttered littoral environment to bring asymmetric tactics to bear — not unlike those Iran has
prepared for use in the Strait of Hormuz. These kinds of vessels and tactics — including, especially, the deployment of naval mines —
are poorly controlled when dispersed in a crisis and are often impossible to recall. For nearly 40 years, tensions on the Korean
Peninsula were managed within the context of the wider Cold War.During that time it was feared that a second
Korean War could all too easily escalate into and a thermonuclear World War III, so both Pyongyang and Seoul were
being heavily managed from their respective corners. In fact, USFK was long designed to ensure that South Korea could not
independently provoke that war and drag the Americans into it, which for much of the Cold War period was of far greater concern to
Washington than North Korea attacking southward. Today, those constraints no longer exist. There are certainly still constraints —
neither the United States nor China wants war on the peninsula. But current tensions arTe quickly escalating to a level
unprecedented in the post-Cold War period, and the constraints that do exist have never been tested in the way
they might be if the situation escalates much further.
Leadership Good: Mideast
Solves middle east war
Brzezinski 12 (Zbigniew, US National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies, scholar at CSIS, Jan/Feb 2012, "8 Geopolitically Endangered Species,"
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/8_geopolitically_endangered_species?page=0,7 SL)
8. ISRAEL and the GREATER MIDDLE EAST America's decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political
stability of the entire Middle East. All states in the region remain vulnerable to varying degrees of internal populist
pressures, social unrest, and religious fundamentalism, as seen by the events of early 2011. If America's decline
were to occur with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still unresolved, the failure to implement a mutually acceptable two-state
solution would further inflame the region's political atmosphere. Regional hostility to Israel would then intensify.
Perceived American weakness would at some point tempt the more powerful states in the region, notably Iran or Israel,
to preempt anticipated dangers. And jockeying for tactical advantage could precipitate eruptions by Hamas or
Hezbollah, which could then escalate into wider and bloodier military encounters. Weak entities such as Lebanon and
Palestine would pay an especially high price in civilian deaths. Even worse, such conflicts could rise to truly horrific
levels through strikes and counterstrikes between Iran and Israel. At stake: Direct Israeli or U.S. confrontation
with Iran; a rising tide of Islamic radicalism and extremism; a worldwide energy crisis; vulnerability of America's
Persian Gulf allies.
Middle Eastern war goes nuclear and draws in great powers
Herbert I. London 10, President Emeritus of Hudson Institute, “The Coming Crisis in the Middle East”, June 23,
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=7101&pubType=HI_Opeds
The gathering storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum . War clouds are on the horizon and like conditions
prior to World War I all it takes for explosive action to commence is a trigger . Turkey’s provocative flotilla - often
described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission - has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort
vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli. It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game
with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long, medium
and short range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon
War. Should Syria move its own scuds to Lebanon or deploy its troops as reinforcement for Hezbollah, a wider regional war with
Israel could not be contained. In the backdrop is an Iran with sufficient fissionable material to produce a couple
of nuclear weapons. It will take some time to weaponize missiles, but the road to that goal is synchronized in
green lights since neither diplomacy nor diluted sanctions can convince Iran to change course . Iran is poised to
be the hegemon in the Middle East. It is increasingly considered the “strong horse” as American forces
incrementally retreat from the region. Even Iraq, ironically, may depend on Iranian ties in order to maintain internal
stability. From Qatar to Afghanistan all political eyes are on Iran. For Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia
regional strategic vision is a combination of deal making to offset the Iranian Shia advantage and attempting to
buy or develop nuclear weapons as a counter weight to Iranian ambition . However, both of these governments are
in a precarious state. Should either fall, all bets are off in the Middle East neighborhood. It has long been said that the Sunni
“tent” must stand on two legs, if one, falls, the tent collapses. Should that tent collapse and should Iran take advantage of
that calamity, it could incite a Sunni-Shia war. Or feeling its oats and no longer dissuaded by an escalation scenario with
nuclear weapons in tow, war against Israel is a distinct possibility. However, implausible it may seem at the moment, the
possible annihilation of Israel and the prospect of a second holocaust could lead to a nuclear exchange. The
only wild card that can change this slide into warfare is an active U nited States’ policy. Yet curiously, the U.S. is
engaged in both an emotional and physical retreat from the region. Despite rhetoric which suggests an Iran with nuclear
weapons is intolerable, it has done nothing to forestall that eventual outcome. Despite the investment in blood and treasure to allow a
stable government to emerge in Iraq, the anticipated withdrawal of U.S. forces has prompted President Maliki to travel to Tehran on a
regular basis. And despite historic links to Israel that gave the U.S. leverage in the region and a democratic ally, the Obama
administration treats Israel as a national security albatross that must be disposed of as soon as possible. As a consequence, the U.S.
is perceived in the region as the “weak horse,” the one that is dangerous to ride . In every Middle East capital the
words “unreliable and United States” are linked. Those seeking a moderate course of action are now in a distinct minority. A
political vacuum is emerging, one that is not sustainable and one the Iranian leadership looks to with imperial
exhilaration. It is no longer a question of whether war will occur, but rather when it will occur and where it will break out. There are
many triggers to ignite the explosion, but not many scenarios for containment. Could it be a regional war in which
Egypt and Saudi Arabia watch from the sidelines, but secretly wish for Israeli victory? Or is this a war in which there aren’t victors, only
devastation? Moreover, should war break out, what does the U.S. do? This is a description far more dire than any in the last
century and, even if some believe my view is overly pessimistic, Arab and Jew, Persian and Egyptian, Muslim
and Maronite tend to believe in its veracity. That is a truly bad sign.
Leadership Good: Prolif
Hard power prevents nuclear acquisition
Mandelbaum, Johns Hopkins American Foreign Policy ProgramProfessor and Director, 5
[Michael, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century, p. 46]
By contributing in this way to the global public good of nuclear nonproliferation, the United States functions as
governments do within sovereign states. American nuclear guarantees help to secure something that all
countries want but would probably not get without the United States. The military deployments and political
commitments of the United States have reduced the demand for nuclear weapons, and the number of nucleararmed countries, to levels considerably below what they would otherwise have reached. But American policies have
not entirely eliminated the demand for these armaments, and so the ongoing effort to restrict their spread must address the supply of
them as well.
Heg solves proliferation – liberalism and security umbrella
Deudney et. al 2011 (Daniel is associate professor of Political Science at John’s Hopkins University.
Edited by Michael Mastanduno,
Professor of Government and Dean of Faculty at Dartmouth College, and G. John Ikenberry, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at
Princeton University, William Wolforth, the Daniel Webster Professor at Dartmouth College, where he teaches in the Department of Government,
“Unipolarity and nuclear weapons” International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity pg. 305) BW
The diffusion of nuclear weapons in the international system is significantly entangled with the role of the unipolar hegemonic state.
The existence of a unipolar state playing the role of a liberal hegemon has arguably been a major constraint on
the rate and extent of proliferation. The extended military alliance system of the United States has been a major
reason why many potentially nuclear states have forgone acquisition. Starting with Germany and Japan, and
extending to a long list of European and East Asian states, the American alliances are widely understood to
provide a “nuclear umbrella.” Overall, without such a state playing this role, proliferation would likely have been much more
extensive.
The liberal features of the American hegemonic sate also have contributed to constrain the rate and extent of
proliferation. American leadership, and the general liberal internationalist vision of law-governed cooperative
international politics, both enabled and infuses the non-proliferation regime. Similarly, the robust and inclusive liberal
world trading system that has been a distinctive and salient feature of the American liberal hegemonic system
offers integrating states paths to secure themselves that make nuclear acquisition less attractive.
Hegemony solves prolif
Rosen, 3 [Stephen Peter Rosen, Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University, Spring
2003, “An Empire, If you can keep it”, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_2003_Spring/ai_99377575]
Rather than wrestle with such difficult and unpleasant problems , the United States could give up the imperial mission, or
pretensions to it, now. This would essentially mean the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the Middle East,
Europe and mainland Asia. It may be that all other peoples, without significant exception, will then turn to their own affairs and
leave the United States alone. But those who are hostile to us might remain hostile, and be much less afraid of the
United States after such a withdrawal. Current friends would feel less secure and, in the most probable postimperial world, would revert to the logic of self-help in which all states do what they must to protect themselves.
This would imply the relatively rapid acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan, Iran, Iraq and perhaps Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. Constraints on the
acquisition of biological weapons would be even weaker than they are today. Major regional arms races would
also be very likely throughout Asia and the Middle East. This would not be a pleasant world for Americans, or anyone else. It
is difficult to guess what the costs of such a world would be to the United States. They would probably not put the end of the United
States in prospect, but they would not be small. If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives
are that much more attractive.
Leadership Good: Russia
US contains Russian aggression- Other countries want US protection
Kagan 12 – senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution (Robert “The world America Made”)
What role the United States played in hastening the collapse of the Soviet system will always be a subject of
contention. Undoubtedly, it played some role, both in containing the Soviet empire militarily and in out
performing it economically and technologically. Nor was the turn to democracy throughout eastern Europe
primarily America’s doing. The peoples of the former Warsaw Pact nations had long yearned for liberation from the Soviet Union, which also
meant liberation from communism. They wanted to join the rest of Europe, which offered an economic and social model that was even more attractive than
that of the United States. That they uniformly chose democratic forms of government, however, was not simply the aspiration for freedom or comfort. It also
reflected the desires of eastern and central European peoples to place themselves under the American security
umbrella. The strategic, the economic, the political, and the ideological were thus inseparable. Those nations that wanted to be part of
NATO, and later the European Union, knew they stood no chance if they did not present democratic credentials .
These democratic transitions, which turned the third wave into a democratic tsunami, need not have occurred had the world been configured differently.
The fact that a democratic, united, and prosperous western Europe was even there as a powerful magnet to its
eastern neighbors was due to American actions after World War I .
Russian expansionism causes nuclear war
Cohen 96( Ariel, PhD, Heritage founation, BACKGROUNDER n. 1065, January 25, 1996,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/BG1065.cfm)
Much is at stake in Eurasia for the U.S. and its allies. Attempts to restore its empire will doom Russia's transition to a
democracy and free-market economy. The ongoing war in Chechnya alone has cost Russia $6 billion to date (equal to Russia's IMF and
World Bank loans for 1995). Moreover, it has extracted a tremendous price from Russian society. The wars which would be
required to restore the Russian empire would prove much more costly not just for Russia and the region, but for peace,
world stability, and security.As the former Soviet arsenals are spread throughout the NIS , these conflicts may escalate to
include the use of weapons of mass destruction. Scenarios including unauthorized missile launches are especially
threatening. Moreover, if successful, a reconstituted Russian empire would become a major destabilizing influence both in Eurasia and
throughout the world. It would endanger not only Russia's neighbors, but also the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Middle East. And,
of course, a neo-imperialist Russia could imperil the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf.15
Leadership Good: Terrorism
Hegemony is crucial to preventing WMD terrorism that guarantees immediate extinction
Korb, Council on Foreign Relations Council Policy Initiative Project Director, 3
[Lawrence, “A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction”,
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/National_Security_CPI.pdf]
U.S. Dominance and Preventive Action. The most serious threats to American security come from the
combination of terrorism, rogue states, and WMD.The temptation to try using these weapons against Americans is high for several reasons, including
the fact that clearly identifying and punishing an attacker isinherently difficult. We are not going to be able to talk others out of developing these weapons, nor are we likely to be able
to build an international coalition to help us get rid of these weapons. Therefore we must have both the capability and the will to use force against those states and the groups within
them that represent the most serious threats to our security and way of life. And we should be prepared to do this essentially with U.S. military power alone, unbound by the need for
allies or UN approval. In the longer term, we must undercut our potential adversaries by ensuring the spread of free market democracy throughout the world. Larger trends have
conspired to make the threat posed by radicalism much greater in recent times. Given the rapid dissemination of destructive technologies, sensitive information, and capital flows in
today’s globalized world, threats from terrorist networks and rogue states can and will materializemorerapidlythan in the past. Moreover, any attacks promise to be much more
devastating if and when these actors get their hands on WMD. As the world’s leading military and economic power, the United States is the most likely target of these terrorists and
tyrants. In the face of, and in response to, these imminent dangers, it has not only the duty but also the legal and moral right to launch preemptive attacks, unilaterally if necessary.
The United States has
the unrivaled military and economic capability to repel these challenges to our security, but it must display the will to do
Common sense dictates that the government not stand idly by and wait to act until catastrophic attacks are visited upon the American people.
so. To be able to carry out a strategy of preventive action, taking preemptive military action when necessary, this country must be a
hegemonic power. The United States can protect its security and that of the world in the long run only by maintaining military
dominance. Only America can effectively respond to the perils posed by terrorists, regional thugs, weapons
proliferators, and drug traffickers.It can do the most to resolve problems created by “failed” states before they fester into major crises. And it alone can ensure
that the world’s sea lanes and skies are kept safe and open for free trade. But the array of challenges in its path requires military dominance and cannot be met on the cheap. The
ultimate goal of American foreign policy will be to use this power, alone if necessary, to extend free-market democracy around the globe. This is the only way in which the United
States can deal with the long-term causes of terrorism. These terrorists come from countries that suffer from political repression, economic incompetence, and a broad lack of respect
for the rule of law. And,contrary
to what some believe, democracy and capitalism do not spread inexorably on their own.
The United States therefore needs to assume a leadership role in spreading and accelerating the growth of free-market
democracies that have been taking hold in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Heg solves nuclear terrorism, which would lead to US retaliation and extinction
Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior associate, 7
(Robert, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, 7-17-07, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” Hoover
Institution, No. 144, August/September, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136, Accessed 6/27/12, THW)
Throughout all these efforts, whose success is by no means guaranteed and certainly not any time soon, the United States and
others will have to persist in fighting what is, in fact, quite accurately called “the war on terrorism.” Now and probably for
the coming decades, organized terrorist groups will seek to strike at the United States, and at modernity itself, when
and where they can. This war will not and cannot be the totality of America ’s worldwide strategy. It can be only a piece of it. But
given the high stakes, it must be prosecuted ruthlessly, effectively, and for as long as the threat persists. This will sometimes require
military interventions when, as in Afghanistan, states either cannot or will not deny the terrorists a base. That aspect of the “war on
terror” is certainly not going away. One need only contemplate the American popular response should a terrorist group
explode a nuclear weapon on American soil. No president of any party or ideological coloration will be able to
resist the demands of the American people for retaliation and revenge, and not only against the terrorists but
against any nation that aided or harbored them. Nor, one suspects, will the American people disapprove when a
president takes preemptive action to forestall such a possibility — assuming the action is not bungled.
Hegemony deters terror
Thayer, 07 [Bradley A. Thayer, Associate Professor in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri
State University, “America Empire”, pg. 16]
Another critical question is not simply how much the United States spends on defense but what benefits it receives from its spending: “Is
the money spent worth it?” the benefits of American military power are considerable, and I will elaborate on five of them.
First, and most importantly, the American people are protected from invasion and attack. The horrific attacks of 9/11
are—mercifully—an aberration. The men and women of the U.S. military and intelligence community do an
outstanding job deterring aggression against the United States. Second, American interests abroad are
protected. U.S. military power allows Washington to defeat its enemies overseas. For example, the United States
has made the decision to attack terrorists far from America’s shores, and not to wait while they use bases in
other countries to plan and train for attacks against the United States itself. Its military power also gives
Washington the power to protect its interests abroad by deterring attacks against America’s interests or
coercing potential or actual opponents. In international politics, coercion means dissuading an opponent from actions America
does not want it to do or to do something that it wants done. For example, the United States wanted Libya to give up the weapons of
mass destruction capabilities it pos-sessed or was developing. As Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, “I think the reason
Mu’ammar Qadhai agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction was because he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein.”21
Leadership Good: Transition Wars
America will cling to a false unipolar reality post-transition, risks war
Calleo 9 – David P. Calleo (University Professor at The Johns Hopkins University and Dean Acheson Professor at its Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)) 2009 “Follies of
Power: America’s Unipolar Fantasy” p. 4-5
It is tempting to believe that America’s recent misadventures will discredit and suppress our hegemonic longings and that, following the
presidential election of 2008, a new administration will abandon them. But so long as our identity as a nation is intimately
bound up with seeing ourselves as the world’s most powerful country, at the heart of a global system,
hegemony is likely to remain the recurring obsession of our official imagination, the id´ee fixe of our foreign policy.
America’s hegemonic ambitions have, after all, suffered severe setbacks before. Less than half a century has passed
since the “lesson of Vietnam.” But that lesson faded without forcing us to abandon the old fantasies of omnipotence.
The fantasies merely went into remission, until the fall of the Soviet Union provided an irresistible occasion for
their return. Arguably, in its collapse, the Soviet Union proved to be a greater danger to America’s own
equilibrium than in its heyday. Dysfunctional imaginations are scarcely a rarity – among individuals or among
nations. “Reality” is never a clear picture that imposes itself from without. Imaginations need to collaborate.
They synthesize old and new images, concepts, and ideas and fuse language with emotions – all according to
the inner grammar of our minds. These synthetic constructions become our reality, our way of depicting the
world in which we live. Inevitably, our imaginations present us with only a partial picture. As Walter Lippmann once put it, our
imaginations create a “pseudo-environment between ourselves and the world.”2 Every individual, therefore, has his own particular vision of reality, and every nation tends to arrive at
a favored collective view that differs from the favored view of other nations. When powerful and interdependent nations hold visions of the world severely at odds with one another,
the world grows dangerous.
Any transition away from hegemony causes multiple scenarios for nuclear war in the short term
Posen and Ross 97 [Barry Posen, Professor of Political Science, MIT, Andrew Ross, Professor of International
Security, US naval War College, Winter 2007, International Security]
The United States can, more easily than most, go it alone. Yet we do not find the arguments of the neoisolationists compelling. Their strategy serves U.S. interests only if they are
narrowly construed. First, though the neo-isolationists have a strong case in their argument that the Untied States is currently quite secure, disengagement is unlikely to make the
The disappearance of the United States from the world stage would
likely precipitate a good deal of competition abroad for security. Without a U.S. presence, aspiring regional
hegemons would see more opportunities. States formerly defended by the United States would have to look to
their own military power; local arms competitions are to be expected. Proliferation of nuclear weapons would
intensify if the U.S. nuclear guarantee were withdrawn. Some states would seek weapons of mass destruction
because they were simply unable to compete conventionally with their neighbors. This new flurry of competitive
behavior would probably energize many hypothesized immediate causes of war, including preemptive motives,
preventive motives, economic motives, and the propensity for miscalculation. There would likely be more war.
Weapons of mass destruction might be used in some of these wars, with unpleasant effects even for those not directly
United States more secure, and would probably make it less secure.
involved.
The transition will be violent
Khanna 09 [Parag Khanna, BA in International Relations from Georgetown, PhD from the London School of
Economics, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Senior Fellow at the European Council on
Foreign Relations, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, 2009, “The Second
World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century”, pg. 337-338]
superpowers are by definition willing to encroach on the turf of others —changing the world map in the
The
sole exception was the twentieth century Anglo-American transition in which Great Britain and the United States
were allies and shared a common culture—and even that took two world wars to complete.57 As the relative
levels of power of the three superpowers draw closer, the temptation of the number-two to preemptively knock
out the king on the hill grows, as does the lead power’s incentive to preventatively attack and weaken its
ascending rival before being eclipsed.58 David Hume wrote, “It is not a great disproportion between ourselves and others which produces envy, but on the
Even this scenario is optimistic, for
process. Much as in geology, such tectonic shifts always result in earthquakes, particularly as rising powers tread on the entrenched position of the reigning hegemon.56
contrary, a proximity.”59 While the density of contacts among the three superpowers makes the creation of a society of states more possible than ever—all the foreign ministers have
one anothers’ mobile phone numbers—the deep differences in interests among the three make forging a “culture of peace” more challenging than ever.60 China seas,
The uncertain alignments of lesser but still
substantial powers such as Russia, Japan, and India could also cause escalation . Furthermore, America’s foreign
lenders could pull the plug to undermine its grand strategy, sparking economic turmoil, political acrimony, and
military tension. War brings profit to the military-industrial complex and is always supported by the large
patriotic camps on all sides. Yet the notion of a Sino-U.S. rivalry to lead the world is also premature and simplistic, for in the event of their conflict, Europe would be
hyperterrorism with nuclear weapons, an attack in the Gulf of Aden or the Straits of Malacca.
the winner, as capital would flee to its sanctuaries. These great tensions are being played out in the world today, as each superpower strives to attain the most advantageous
position for itself, while none are powerful enough to dictate the system by itself.
Global stability thus hangs between the bookends Raymond Aron
identified as “peace by law” and “peace by empire,”
the former toothless and the latter prone to excess.61 Historically, successive iterations of balance of
power and collective security doctrines have evolved from justifying war for strategic advantage into building systems to avoid it, with the post-Napoleonic “Concert of Europe” as the
first of the modern era.62 Because it followed rules, it was itself something of a societal system.* Even where these attempts at creating a stable world order have failed—including
the League of Nations after World War I—systemic learning takes place in which states (particularly democracies) internalize the lessons of the past into their institutions to prevent
history from repeating itself.63 Toynbee too viewed history as progressive rather than purely cyclical, a wheel that not only turns around and around but also moves forward such
Empires and
superpowers usually promise peace but bring wars.66 The time to recognize the current revolutionary situation
is now—before the next world war.67
that Civilization (with a big C) could become civilized.64 But did he “give too much credit to time’s arrows and not enough to time’s cycle”?65
Leadership Good: A2 "Offshore Balancing" (1/2)
Offshore balancing fails – kills hegemony, leads to re-intervention, and causes conflict
Kagan 11 [Robert Kagan, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute,
B.A., Yale University, M.P.P., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Ph.D., American University
January 24, 2011, “The Price of Power”, http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/price-power_533696.html?page=1,
DMintz]
Others have. For decades “realist” analysts have called for a strategy of “offshore balancing.” Instead of the United States
providing security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle
East and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then
intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher Layne has long proposed “passing the mantle of regional stabilizer” to a
consortium of “Russia, China, Iran, and India.” In East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others manage their own problems,
without U.S. involvement—again, until the balance broke down and war erupted, at which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if
necessary, intervene with its own forces to restore peace and stability. Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the only
genuine alternative to the one the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit, Layne and others who support the concept of offshore balancing have eschewed
halfway measures and airy assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either the United States is actively involved in
providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are frank in
calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II, perpetuated through the Cold War, and continued by four successive post-Cold War
administrations. At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy. The
idea of relying on Russia,
China, and Iran to jointly “stabilize” the Middle East and Persian Gulf will not strike many as an attractive
proposition. Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to have a stabilizing effect on that
region. The prospects of a war on the Korean Peninsula would increase. Japan and other nations in the region
would face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking unilateral steps for self-defense, which in
Japan’s case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable nuclear arsenal. Layne and other offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John
Mearsheimer, point to two notable occasions when the United States allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years
against Iran in the hope that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in the 1920s and 1930s, when the United States allowed the great
European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out.
Whether this was really American strategy in that era is open for debate—most would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered
Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first decades of
the 20th century, however, would we really call that strategy a success? The United States wound up intervening
with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful
wars in human history. It was with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar
strategic judgment but as an end in itself.
years had been mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy that the United
States has pursued ever since. Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson,
American leaders determined that the safest course was to build “situations of strength ” (Acheson’s phrase) in
strategic locations around the world, to build a “preponderance of power,” and to create an international system with American
power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air
bases to enable the rapid projection of force to strategically important parts of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a
yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the offshore balancing strategy, and they did so because they
believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again . They believed their new
global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and less expensive in the
long run. Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the proper course in many areas of
foreign policy, have all agreed on this core strategic approach. From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious
and too expensive. At the dawn of the Cold War, Walter Lippmann railed against Truman’s containment strategy as suffering from an unsustainable gap between ends
and means that would bankrupt the United States and exhaust its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of “imperial overstretch,” arguing
that American decline was inevitable “if the trends in national indebtedness, low productivity increases, [etc.]” were allowed to continue at the same time as “massive American
Today, we are once again being told that this global
strategy needs to give way to a more restrained and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face
commitments of men, money and materials are made in different parts of the globe.”
in coming years is not caused by the present, largely successful global strategy. Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy
that is taken for granted. The enormous benefits that this strategy has provided, including the financial benefits,
somehow never appear on the ledger. They should. We might begin by asking about the global security order that
the United States has sustained since Word War II—the prevention of major war, the support of an open trading
system, and promotion of the liberal principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order
worth? What would be the cost of its collapse or transformation into another type of order? Whatever the nature
of the current economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global prosperity than
any time in human history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-backward nations have become
economic dynamos. And the American economy, though suffering ups and downs throughout this period, has on the whole
benefited immensely from this international order. One price of this success has been maintaining a sufficient
military capacity to provide the essential security underpinnings of this order . But has the price not been worth it? In
the first half of the 20th century, the United States found itself engaged in two world wars. In the second half, this global American
strategy helped produce a peaceful end to the great-power struggle of the Cold War and then 20 more years of great-power peace.
Looked at coldly, simply in terms of dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs. The danger, as always, is that
we don’t even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided. Many assume that the world has simply become more peaceful,
that great-power conflict has become impossible, that nations have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is
what counts. This belief in progress and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions of international order is always alluring to
Americans and Europeans and other children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the
first years after World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people spoke of the “end of history .” It is always
tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained with its power can exist in
the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden assumption of those who call for a change in
American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its role and yet all the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in.
This is a great if recurring illusion, the idea that you can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not
fall over.
Leadership Good: A2 "Offshore Balancing" (2/2)
Offshore balancing causes global instability
Finel ’12 – adjunct fellow at the American Security Project (Bernard, The Dark Reality of Off-Shore Balancing, April 13th,
http://www.bernardfinel.com/?p=2020)
Now, I am actually quite sympathetic to many of these position. But I do think that there is a certain level of disengenuousness in the way many proponents of this view make their arguments. The short version is that
The problem is that the
offshore balancers tend to focus on the “offshore” part. That is the popular part, of course. It looks cheaper. It
promises to avoid future Iraqs and Afghanistans. It suggests an tough-minded approach to the problem of free-riding. But what it
does not do is acknowledge the implication of a strategy posited on the importance of “balancing.” In an offshore balancing world, a nation secures its interests not by contributing to the provision of public goods, but
rather by ensuring that no rival becomes dominant in its sphere. It is a designed to prevent the emergences of
threats, by ensuring that those threats are locally-focused and locally balanced. Think about China. How does an offshore balancer plan to deal with China. Well, an off-shore balancer sees rising Chinese power as a potential threat, but
believes that this threat will most immediately be felt by its neighbors. As long as the United States does not
take the primary role in containing China, it is assumed that this role will be taken up by its threatened
neighbors, either individually or collectively. So, the off-shore balancers believe that if we limit our role in Asia,
for example, some combination of India, Japan, Korea, and ASEAN will emerge to check Chinese power. Our role
then becomes to ensure that neither side becomes dominant, and to intercede if major imbalances to occur. Now, most critics of offshore balance focus on the issue of whether local actors will respond as assumed. They fear this will not occur,
and that rather without the United States in the forefront, those local actors will allow themselves to be,
essentially, Finlandized. Or, if not that, that at the very least coordination problems will hamper balancing . I
the argument is usually pitched as a cheaper and less provocative way of securing world order instead of the primacists’ preference for an active “policing” function.
disagree with this criticism. I accept the off-shore balancers’ assumptions about state behavior. States will seek to balance rivals in the
absense of an outside security guarantor. The question we really need to pose is whether that is the kind of world we want to live in? Do
we want to live in a world that is riven by a large number conflicts as states maneuver to balance each other internally (i.e. arms racing)
and externally (i.e. alliances)? The problem with the off-shore balancer position is that it is a strategy for exploiting
global disorder rather than promoting global order. Now, the reason this approach is so appealing to Realists is
that they see global disorder as the natural condition. So promoting a policy that will both encourage this
“reality” and take advantage of it strikes them as eminently sound. But look, most of the realist predictions from the end of the Cold War have fallen flat.
Revisit, if you will, John Mearsheimer’s “Back to the Future” piece from 1990, in which he suggests, inter alia, an explosion of hyper-nationalism in Europe and proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly to a securityconscious Germany. Now, yes, we’ve have various hiccups in the Balkans, and economic conditions are causing major stresses in Europe, but Mearsheimer’s vision of increasing security competition in Europe was
simply wrong. It was not a natural, inevitable condition. The U.S. role — and indeed NATO expansion which I, like Mearsheimer, opposed — probably played a role in preventing the emergence of this sort of Europe,
but also, perhaps, did other institutions and norms. The point is, it is easy to understand why the Realists support off-shore balancing, but it is also important to note that there is good reason to believe that the Realists
are overly pessimistic about the inevitability of disorder. Now, joining the Realists are folks who argue for restraint on principle. In some cases this is economic principle, in other cases a genuine commitment to
Washingtonian dictums about “entanglements.” They have a skeptical view about the ability of the U.S. to promote global order. These folks are often called isolationists, which is a wholly unfair label, but I’m just trying
to situate these people in the popular debate. Think of the folks over at CATO, for instance, Chris Preble as an example. Their view, in general, is that American involvement in both costly and often counter-productive.
Looking over the past decade and a half of American foreign policy, it is hard to deny that they have a point. Their take, on the whole, is not that we should adopt a Machiavellian strategy of exploiting global disorder, but
rather that American policy responses are ineffective and/or inefficient. Their view is pessimistic, at least about American power. Not gleefully pessimistic like the Realists who see opportunity in the pessimism, but
rather resigned to a certain degree. Now, there is a flip-side here, namely that many of these proponents of restraint see less need for U.S. involvement, in some cases because they trust balancing to work without
much U.S. intervention, in other cases because they believe norms and institutions are globally well-enough established to mute the return of full-blown power politics. Many people might consider this view naive. But,
well, I think it is essentially true. I think that if you look at the emerging world powers, there is a commonality of interests in an open, liberal economic order, in which interstate aggression remains pathologized, and
where states can concentrate on domestic economic development with minimal attention to security competitions. I think even the Chinese fall in this category, despite their military buildup. Why? Well, even the Chinese
in the bigger
picture, these are defensive capabilities, and, on the whole, probably stabilizing rather than destabilizing.
Anyway, this is a long way of saying that while I agree with the “off-shore” part, I want to distinguish myself
from the “balancer” part of the equation. And furthermore, my argument suggests the importance of continuing
to work actively — through local allies ideally — to continue to build institutions and norms that will preempt
security competitions. I think this is doable, but it requires active engagement. It does not require large
deployments, but it does require something more than just faith in the effective functioning of balancing
dynamics. A world in which arms races and security competitions are common is not, I believe, in the United
States interests. I don’t want us to be a “balancer.” The real issue, it seems to me is whether we can do more to avoid
that consequence off-shore or on-shore. I don’t know the answer for sure, of course. I think greater restraint and greater
are largely focused on defensive measures. We tend to see anti-access, area-denial capabilities as a threat because they may limit our ability to defend Taiwan. And indeed, they may. But,
cooperation will allies is the best course of action, but what I do know is that the “off-shore balancer” scheme to exploit security rivalries
is fundamentally flawed. We need to continue to focus on strategies to promote global order rather than exploiting global disorder.
Hence, I think of myself as a proponent of restraint rather than “off-shore balancing.”
Leadership Good: A2 "Peaceful Retrenchment"
Causes re-intervention- turns the impact
Lieber 05 [Robert J. Lieber, PhD from Harvard, Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown, former consultant to the State Department and for National Intelligence
Estimates , “The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century”, pg. 54]
Withdrawal from foreign commitments might seem to be a means of evading hostility toward the United States,
but the consequences wouldalmost certainly be harmful both to regional stability and to U.S. national interests.
Although Europe would almost certainly not see the return to competitive balancing among regional powers (i.e., competition and even military rivalry between France and Germany)
the dangers could increase. In Asia, Japan, South Korea,
and Taiwan would have strong motivation to acquire nuclear weapons – which they have the technological
capacity to do quite quickly. Instability and regional competition could also escalate, not only between India and
Pakistan, but also in Southeast Asia involving Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and possibly the Philippines. Risks
in the Middle East would be likely to increase, with regional competition among the major countries of the Gulf
region (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq) as well as Egypt, Syria, and Israel. Major regional wars, eventually involving the
use of weapons of mass destruction plus human suffering on a vast scale, floods of refugees, economic
disruption, and risks to oil supplies are all readily conceivable. Based on past experience, the United States would
almost certainly be drawn back into these areas, whether to defend friendly states, to cope with a humanitarian catastrophe, or to prevent a hostile
power from dominating an entire region. Steven Peter Rosen has thus fit-tingly observed, "If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not
at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive."2z Similarly, NiallFerguson has added that those who dislike
American predominance ought to bear in mind that the alternative may not be a world of competing great powers, but one with no
hegemon at all. Ferguson's warning may be hyperbolic, but it hints at the perils that the absence of a dominant power, "apolarity," could bring "an
anarchic new Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions; of
of the kind that some realist scholars of international relations have predicted," elsewhere
economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves."2
Rapid decline of US power causes global instability and conflict – slowed transition with leadership
is key
Brzezinski ’12 - CSIS counselor and trustee and cochairs the CSIS Advisory Board. He is also the Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced
International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, D.C. (Zbigniew, “After America,” Foreign Policy Magazine, Jan/Feb, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/after_america)
Not so long ago, a high-ranking Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America's decline and China's rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candor to a senior U.S.
official: "But, please, let America not decline too quickly." Although the inevitability of the Chinese leader's expectation is still far from certain, he was right to be cautious when looking
forward to America's demise. For if America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor -- not even China. International uncertainty, increased
While a sudden, massive crisis of the American
system -- for instance, another financial crisis -- would produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global
political and economic disorder, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay or endlessly
widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, an effective global successor. No
single power will be ready by then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991,
expected the United States to play: the leader of a new, globally cooperative world order. More probable would
be a protracted phase of rather inconclusive realignments of both global and regional power, with no grand
winners and many more losers, in a setting of international uncertainty and even of potentially fatal risks to
global well-being. Rather than a world where dreams of democracy flourish, a Hobbesian world of enhanced national security based on varying fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion
tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be far more likely outcomes.
could ensue. The leaders of the world's second-rank powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries, are already assessing the potential impact of U.S. decline on their respective national
interests. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the Asian mainland, may be thinking of closer links with Europe. Leaders in India and Japan may be considering closer political and even military
cooperation in case America falters and China rises. Russia, while perhaps engaging in wishful thinking (even schadenfreude) about America's uncertain prospects, will almost certainly have its eye on the independent
states of the former Soviet Union. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be pulled in several directions: Germany and Italy toward Russia because of commercial interests, France and insecure Central Europe in favor
of a politically tighter European Union, and Britain toward manipulating a balance within the EU while preserving its special relationship with a declining United States. Others may move more rapidly to carve out their
own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old Ottoman Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth. None of these countries, however, will have the requisite combination of economic, financial,
technological, and military power even to consider inheriting America's leading role. China, invariably mentioned as America's prospective successor, has an impressive imperial lineage and a strategic tradition of
carefully calibrated patience, both of which have been critical to its overwhelmingly successful, several-thousand-year-long history. China thus prudently accepts the existing international system, even if it does not view
the prevailing hierarchy as permanent. It recognizes that success depends not on the system's dramatic collapse but on its evolution toward a gradual redistribution of power. Moreover, the basic reality is that China is
not yet ready to assume in full America's role in the world. Beijing's leaders themselves have repeatedly emphasized that on every important measure of development, wealth, and power, China will still be a modernizing
and developing state several decades from now, significantly behind not only the United States but also Europe and Japan in the major per capita indices of modernity and national power. Accordingly, Chinese leaders
have been restrained in laying any overt claims to global leadership. At some stage, however, a more assertive Chinese nationalism could arise and damage China's international interests. A swaggering, nationalistic
Beijing would unintentionally mobilize a powerful regional coalition against itself. None of China's key neighbors -- India, Japan, and Russia -- is ready to acknowledge China's entitlement to America's place on the
global totem pole. They might even seek support from a waning America to offset an overly assertive China. The resulting regional scramble could become intense, especially given the similar nationalistic tendencies
among China's neighbors. A phase of acute international tension in Asia could ensue. Asia of the 21st century could then begin to resemble Europe of the 20th century -- violent and bloodthirsty. At the same time, the
security of a number of weaker states located geographically next to major regional powers also depends on the international status quo reinforced by America's global preeminence -- and would be made significantly
more vulnerable in proportion to America's decline. The states in that exposed position -- including Georgia, Taiwan, South Korea, Belarus, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, and the greater Middle East -- are
today's geopolitical equivalents of nature's most endangered species. Their fates are closely tied to the nature of the international environment left behind by a waning America, be it ordered and restrained or, much
more likely, self-serving and expansionist. A faltering United States could also find its strategic partnership with Mexico in jeopardy. America's economic resilience and political stability have so far mitigated many of the
A decline in American power, however, would
likely undermine the health and good judgment of the U.S. economic and political systems. A waning United
States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about its national identity, more paranoid about its
homeland security, and less willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others' development. The worsening of relations
challenges posed by such sensitive neighborhood issues as economic dependence, immigration, and the narcotics trade.
between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically
Another consequence of American decline could
be a corrosion of the generally cooperative management of the global commons -- shared interests such as sea
lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment, whose protection is imperative to the long-term growth of the
global economy and the continuation of basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the potential absence of a constructive and
aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents.
influential U.S. role would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the superiority and ubiquity of American power creates order where there
None of this will necessarily come to pass. Nor is the concern that America's decline would
generate global insecurity, endanger some vulnerable states, and produce a more troubled North American
neighborhood an argument for U.S. global supremacy. In fact, the strategic complexities of the world in the 21st
century make such supremacy unattainable. But those dreaming today of America's collapse would probably
come to regret it. And as the world after America would be increasingly complicated and chaotic, it is imperative
that the United States pursue a new, timely strategic vision for its foreign policy -- or start bracing itself for a
dangerous slide into global turmoil.
would normally be conflict.
**Leadership Bad**
Leadership Unsustainable: F/L
Decline is inevitable – multipolarity and economic pressures
Layne 1/27/12 – professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M’s George H. W. Bush
School of Government and Public Service (Christopher, “The (Almost) Triumph of Offshore Balancing”,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing-6405, )
the Obama administration’s new Defense Strategic
Guidance (DSG) is the first step in the United States’ adjustment to the end of the Pax Americana —the sixty-year period of
dominance that began in 1945. As the Pentagon document says—without spelling out the long-term grand-strategic implications—the United States is facing “an inflection point.” In plain English, a profound
power shift in international politics is taking place, which compels a rethinking of the U.S. world role . The DSG is a
response to two drivers. First, the United States is in economic decline and will face a serious fiscal crisis by the end of this
decade. As President Obama said, the DSG reflects the need to “put our fiscal house in order here at home and renew our long-term economic strength.” The best indicators of U.S.
decline are its GDP relative to potential competitors and its share of world manufacturing output . China’s manufacturing output
Although cloaked in the reassuring boilerplate about American military preeminence and global leadership, in reality
has now edged past that of the United States and accounts for just over 18 or 19 percent of world manufacturing output. With respect to GDP, virtually all leading economic forecasters agree that, measured by marketexchange rates, China’s aggregate GDP will exceed that of the United States by the end of the current decade. Measured by purchasing-power parity, some leading economists believe China already is the world’s
number-one economy. Clearly, China is on the verge of overtaking the United States economically. At the end of this decade, when the ratio of U.S. government debt to GDP is likely to exceed the danger zone of 100
percent, the United States will face a severe fiscal crisis. In a June 2011 report, the Congressional Budget Office warned that unless Washington drastically slashes expenditures—including on entitlements and
concerns about future inflation and America’s ability to repay its debts
could imperil the U.S. dollar’s reserve-currency status. That currency status allows the United States to avoid
difficult “guns-or-butter” trade-offs and live well beyond its means while enjoying entitlements at home and
geopolitical preponderance abroad. But that works only so long as foreigners are willing to lend the United
States money. Speculation is now commonplace about the dollar’s long-term hold on reserve-currency status. It would have been unheard of just a few years ago. The second driver behind the new
Pentagon strategy is the shift in global wealth and power from the Euro-Atlantic world to Asia. As new great powers such as
China and, eventually, India emerge, important regional powers such as Russia, Japan, Turkey, Korea, South Africa and Brazil will assume more prominent
roles in international politics. Thus, the post-Cold War “unipolar moment,” when the United States commanded the global stage as the “sole remaining superpower,” will be replaced by a
multipolar international system. The Economist recently projected that China’s defense spending will equal that of the United States by 2025. By the middle or end of the next decade, China will be
positioned to shape a new international order based on the rules and norms that it prefers—and, perhaps, to
provide the international economy with a new reserve currency. Two terms not found in the DSG are “decline” and “imperial overstretch” (the latter coined by
defense—and raises taxes, it is headed for a fiscal train wreck. Moreover,
the historian Paul Kennedy to describe the consequences when a great power’s economic resources can’t support its external ambitions). But, although President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may not
the DSG is the first move in what figures to be a dramatic strategic retrenchment by the United States over
the next two decades. This retrenchment will push to the fore a new U.S. grand strategy—offshore balancing. In a 1997 article in
International Security, I argued that offshore balancing would displace America’s primacy strategy because it would prove
difficult to sustain U.S. primacy in the face of emerging new powers and the erosion of U.S. economic
dominance. Even in 1997, it was foreseeable that as U.S. advantages eroded, there would be strong pressures for the United States to bring its commitments into line with its shrinking economic base. This
admit it,
would require scaling back the U.S. military presence abroad; setting clear strategic priorities; devolving the primary responsibility for maintaining security in Europe and East Asia to regional actors; and significantly
reducing the size of the U.S. military. Subsequent to that article, offshore balancing has been embraced by other leading American thinkers, including John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Barry Posen, Christopher Preble
and Robert Pape. To be sure, the proponents of offshore balancing have differing ideas about its specifics. But they all agree that offshore balancing is based on a common set of core strategic principles. ● Fiscal and
economic constraints require that the United States set strategic priorities. Accordingly, the country should withdraw or downsize its forces in Europe and the Middle East and concentrate is military power in East Asia. ●
America’s comparative strategic advantages rest on naval and air power, not on sending land armies to fight
ground wars in Eurasia. Thus the United States should opt for the strategic precepts of Alfred Thayer Mahan (the primacy of air and sea power) over those of Sir Halford Mackinder (the primacy of land
power). ● Offshore balancing is a strategy of burden shifting, not burden sharing. It is based on getting other states
to do more for their security so the United States can do less . ● By reducing its geopolitical and military footprint on the ground in the Middle East, the United
States can reduce the incidence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism directed against it. Islamic terrorism is a push back against U.S. dominance and
policies in the region and against on-the-ground forces in the region. The one vital U.S. interest there—safeguarding the free flow of Persian Gult oil—can
be ensured largely by naval and air power. ● The United States must avoid future large-scale nation-building exercises like those in Iraq and Afghanistan and refrain from fighting wars for the purpose of attaining regime
change. Several of these points are incorporated in the new DSG. For example, the new strategy document declares that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” The document
also states the United States will “rebalance [its] military investment in Europe” and that the American military posture on the Continent must “evolve.” (The Pentagon’s recent decision to cut U.S. ground forces in
Europe from four brigades to two is an example of this “evolution.”) Finally, implicitly rejecting the post-9/11 American focus on counterinsurgency, the strategy document says that with the end of the Iraq war and the
The DSG reflects the reality that offshore
balancing has jumped from the cloistered walls of academe to the real world of Washington policy making . In recent
winding down of the conflict in Afghanistan, “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.”
years the U.S. Navy, the Joint Staff and the National Intelligence Council all have shown interest in offshore balancing as an alternative to primacy. Indeed, in his February 2011 West Point speech, then defense
the most plausible, high-end scenarios for
the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements—whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or elsewhere.” Second—with an eye on the brewing debate about
secretary Robert Gates made two key points that expressed a clear strategic preference for Mahan over Mackinder. First, he said that “
intervention in Libya—he declared that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as
General MacArthur so delicately put it.” In plain English, no more Eurasian land wars. The subsequent Libyan intervention bore the hallmarks of offshore balancing: The United States refused to commit ground forces
there is an uneasy tension between the recognition that
economic constraints increasingly will impinge on the U.S. strategic posture and the assertion that America’s
global interests and military role must remain undiminished. This reflects a deeper intellectual dissonance within the foreign-policy
establishment, which is reluctant to accept the reality of American decline . In August 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed a “New American
and shifted the burden of military heavy lifting to the Europeans. Still, within the DSG document
Moment;” reaffirmed the U.S. responsibility to lead the world; and laid out an ambitious U.S. global agenda. More recently, Mitt Romney, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, declared that the
These views are echoed by foreignpolicy scholars who refuse to acknowledge the reality of decline or embrace a theory of “painless decline”
whereby Pax Americana’s norms and institutions will survive any American retrenchment. But, American “exceptionalism”
notwithstanding, the United States is not exempt from the historical pattern of great-power decline. The country needs to
adjust to the world of 2025 when China will be the number-one economy and spending more on defense than any other nation. Effective
strategic retrenchment is about more than just cutting the defense budget; it also means redefining America’s
interests and external ambitions. Hegemonic decline is never painless . As the twenty-first century’s second decade begins, history and
multipolarity are staging a comeback. The central strategic preoccupation of the United States during the next
two decades will be its own decline and China’s rise.
twenty-first century “must be an American century” and that “America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers.”
Leadership Unsustainable: General
American led era is over – can’t overcome structural deficiencies
Layne 11 (Christopher Layne is Professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M University's
Bush School of Government and Public Service. “Bye bye, Miss American Pie” The European Magazine Online – 328-2011 http://theeuropean-magazine.com/223-layne-christopher/231-pax-americana)
American primacy’s end is result of history’s big, impersonal forces compounded by the United States’ own
self-defeating policies. Externally, the impact of these big historical forces is reflected in the emergence of new
great powers like China and India which is being driven by the unprecedented shift in the center of global
economic power from the Euro-Atlantic area to Asia. China’s economy has been growing much more rapidly than the
United States’ over the last two decades and continues to do so. The US decline reflects its own economic troubles.
Optimists contend that current worries about decline will fade once the U.S. recovers from the recession . After
all, they say, the U.S. faced a larger debt/GDP ratio after World War II, and yet embarked on a sustained era of growth. But the postwar era was a golden age of U.S. industrial and financial dominance, trade surpluses, and sustained high growth
rates. Those days are gone forever. The United States of 2011 are different from 1945. Even in the best case, the
United States will emerge from the current crisis facing a grave fiscal crisis. The looming fiscal results from the
$1 trillion plus budget deficits that the U.S. will incur for at least a decade. When these are bundled with the
entitlements overhang (the unfunded future liabilities of Medicare and Social Security) and the cost of the ongoing wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, there is reason to worry about United States’ long-term fiscal stability – and the role of the
dollar. The dollar’s vulnerability is the United States’ real geopolitical Achilles’ heel because the dollar’s role as
the international economy’s reserve currency role underpins U.S. primacy. If the dollar loses that status
America’s hegemony literally will be unaffordable. In coming years the U.S. will be pressured to defend the
dollar by preventing runaway inflation. This will require fiscal self-discipline through a combination of tax increases and big
spending cuts. Meaningful cuts in federal spending mean deep reductions in defense expenditures because discretionary non-defense
– domestic – spending accounts for only about 20% of annual federal outlays. Faced with these hard choices, Americans may
contract hegemony fatigue. If so, the U.S. will be compelled to retrench strategically and the Pax Americana will
end. The Pax Americana is already crumbling in slow motion The current international order is based on the economic
and security structures that the U.S. created after World War II. The entire fabric of world order that the United
States established after 1945 – the Pax Americana – rested on the foundation of U.S. military and economic
preponderance. The decline of American power means the end of U.S. dominance in world politics and the
beginning of the transition to a new constellation of world power. Indeed, the Pax Americana is already is
crumbling in slow motion.
Decline now – inevitable
Layne 10 (Christopher Layne, Professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M's George H.W.
Bush School of Government & Public Service. "Graceful decline: the end of Pax Americana". The American Conservative. May
2010. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7060/is_5_9/ai_n54223596/)
The United States emerged from World War II in a position of global dominance. From this unparalleled military and economic power
came a Pax Americana that has endured for more than six decades. I t seemed the sun would never set on the U.S. empire.
But America is increasingly unable to play the hegemon's assigned role. Militarily, a hegemon is responsible for
stabilizing key regions and guarding the global commons. Economically, it offers public goods by opening its domestic market to other
states, supplying liquidity for the world economy, and providing the reserve currency. A hegemon is supposed to solve
international crises, not cause them. It is supposed to be the lender of last resort, not the biggest borrower.
Faced with wars it cannot win or quit and an economy begging rescue, the United States no longer fits the part.
Still, many in the mainstream foreign-policy community see these as temporary setbacks and believe that U.S. primacy will endure for
years to come. The American people are awakening to a new reality more quickly than the academy. According to a December 2009
Pew survey, 41 percent of the public believes that the U.S. plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader than it did a
decade ago. The epoch of American dominance is drawing to a close, and international politics is entering a
period of transition: no longer unipolar but not yet fully multipolar. President Barack Obama's November 2009 trip to China
provided both substantive and emblematic evidence of the shift. As the Financial Times observed, "Coming at a
moment when Chinese prestige is growing and the U.S. is facing enormous difficulties, Mr. Obama's trip has
symbolized the advent of a more multi-polar world where U.S. leadership has to co-exist with several rising
powers, most notably China." In the same Pew study, 44 percent of Americans polled said that China was the leading economic
power; just 27 percent chose the United States. Much of America's decline can be attributed to its own self-defeating
policies, but as the U.S. stumbles, others--notably China, India, and Russia--are rising. This shift in the global balance
of power will dramatically affect international politics: the likelihood of intense great-power security competitions--and even war--will
increase; the current era of globalization will end; and the post-1945 Pax Americana will be replaced by an international
order that reflects the interests, values, and norms of emerging powers.
Leadership Unsustainable: A2 "China"
China’s already challenging U.S military strength
Buxbaum, 10 Analyst @ ISN Security Watch, (Peter A., “Chinese Plans to End US Hegemony in the Pacific”,
http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/International/Chinese-Plans-to-End-US-Hegemony-in-the-Pacific.html)
The US is developing an air-sea battle concept to counter China's military buildup. But political problems
and budgetary woes could kill the program before it ever gets started. China's People's Liberation Army is
building up anti-access and area-denial capabilities with the apparent goal of extending their power to the
western half of the Pacific Ocean. Chinese military and political doctrine holds that China should rule the
waves out to the second island chain of the western Pacific, which extends as far as Guam and New Guinea, essentially
dividing the Pacific between the US and China and ending US hegemony on that ocean. Among the antiaccess/area-denial (A2AD) capabilities being fielded by China include anti-satellite weapons; spaced-based reconnaissance,
surveillance and target acquisition; electromagnetic weapons; advanced fighter aircraft; unmanned aerial vehicles; advanced radar
systems; and ballistic and cruise missiles. The Chinese also have an emerging and muscular deep-water navy. "The
PLA navy is increasing its numbers of submarines and other ships," said Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of
US naval operations, at a recent speech hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. "Navies
tend to grow with economies and as trade becomes more important." All of this has US military planners
and thinkers worried. The A2AD buildup threatens the US forward presence and power projection in the
region. "Unless Beijing diverts from its current course of action, or Washington undertakes actions to offset or counterbalance the
effects of the PLA’s military buildup," said a report recently released by the Washington-based Center for Budgetary and Strategic
Assessments, "the cost incurred by the US military to operate in the [w]estern Pacific will likely rise sharply,
perhaps to prohibitive levels, and much sooner than many expect[...].This situation creates a strategic choice for the
United States, its allies and partners: acquiesce in a dramatic shift in the military balance or take steps to preserve it."
China will soon surpass the U.S. economically—multiple indicators prove, will expand its influence
Gideon Rachman, “American Decline: This Time It’s for Real,” FOREIGN POICY, January/February 20 11,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/think_again_american_decline, accessed 6-9-12.
In the end, of course, the Soviet and Japanese threats to American supremacy proved chimerical. So Americans can be forgiven if they
greet talk of a new challenge from China as just another case of the boy who cried wolf. But a frequently overlooked fact about that fable
is that the boy was eventually proved right. The wolf did arrive -- and China is the wolf. The Chinese challenge to the United States is
more serious for both economic and demographic reasons. The Soviet Union collapsed because its economic system was highly
inefficient, a fatal flaw that was disguised for a long time because the USSR never attempted to compete on world markets. China, by
contrast, has proved its economic prowess on the global stage. Its economy has been growing at 9 to 10 percent a year, on average, for
roughly three decades. It is now the world's leading exporter and its biggest manufacturer, and it is sitting on more than $2.5 trillion of
foreign reserves. Chinese goods compete all over the world. This is no Soviet-style economic basket case. Japan, of course, also
experienced many years of rapid economic growth and is still an export powerhouse. But it was never a plausible candidate to be No. 1.
The Japanese population is less than half that of the United States, which means that the average Japanese person would have to be
more than twice as rich as the average American before Japan's economy surpassed America's. That was never going to happen. By
contrast, China's population is more than four times that of the United States. The famous projection by Goldman Sachs that China's
economy will be bigger than that of the United States by 2027 was made before the 2008 economic crash. At the current pace, China
could be No. 1 well before then. China's economic prowess is already allowing Beijing to challenge American influence all over the
world. The Chinese are the preferred partners of many African governments and the biggest trading partner of other emerging powers,
such as Brazil and South Africa. China is also stepping in to buy the bonds of financially strapped members of the eurozone, such as
Greece and Portugal. And China is only the largest part of a bigger story about the rise of new economic and political players. America's
traditional allies in Europe -- Britain, France, Italy, even Germany -- are slipping down the economic ranks. New powers are on the rise:
India, Brazil, Turkey. They each have their own foreign-policy preferences, which collectively constrain America's ability to shape the
world. Think of how India and Brazil sided with China at the global climate-change talks. Or the votes by Turkey and Brazil against
America at the United Nations on sanctions against Iran. That is just a taste of things to come.
Leadership Unsustainable: Economy
Economic factors deck US hegemony
Layne 12 – professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M’s George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service (Christopher, “This Time It’s Real: The
End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana”, International Studies Quarterly (2012), 1–11, )
China’s rise is one powerful indicator of America’s relative decline. The United States’ mounting economic and
fiscal problems—evidenced in summer 2011 by the debt ceiling debacle and Standard & Poors’ downgrading of US Treasury bonds—are another. There are two closely interconnected aspects
of the United States’ domestic difficulties that merit special attention: the spiraling US national debt and deepening doubts about the dollar’s future role as the international economy’s reserve currency. Between now and
the looming debt and dollar crises almost certainly will compel the United States to retrench strategically,
and to begin scaling back its overseas military commitments. The causes of the looming US fiscal crisis are complex. For understanding, a good starting point is
the late political scientist Arnold Wolfers’ observation that modern great powers must be both national security states and welfare states (Wolfers 1952). States must provide both guns—the
military capabilities needed to defend and advance their external interests—and butter, ensuring prosperity and supplying needed public goods (education, health care, pensions). Since World War II, the
United States has pretty much been able to avoid making difficult ‘‘guns or butter’’ decisions precisely because
of its hegemonic role in the international economy. The dollar’s role as the international system’s reserve currency allows the United
States to live beyond its means in ways that other nations cannot. As long as others believe that the United States will repay its
debts, and that uncontrollable inflation will not dilute the dollar’s value, the United States can finance its
external ambitions (‘‘guns’’) and domestic social and economic programs (‘‘butter’’) by borrowing money from foreigners. As Figure 4 shows, this is what the
2025,
United States has had to do since the early 1980s when it started running a chronic current account deficit. As Figure 5 illustrates, the majority of US government debt is owed to foreign, not domestic, investors, and
unless dramatic measures to reign-in federal
spending are implemented, by the end of this decade there will be serious questions about the United States’
ability to repay its debts and control inflation. 8 The causes of mounting US indebtedness are many. One is the
Great Recession, which caused the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve to inject a massive amount
of dollars into the economy, in the form of stimulus spending, bail-outs, and ‘‘quantitative easing,’’ to avert a replay of the Great Depression of the 1930s. A longer-term
cause is the mounting costs of entitlement programs like Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid —costs which will escalate
because of the aging of the ‘‘Baby Boomer’’ generation. Another factor is the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been
financed by borrowing from abroad rather than raising taxes to pay for them. These wars have been expensive .
China is the United States government’s largest creditor. Following the Great Recession, it has become increasingly apparent that
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate in economics, and his coauthor Linda Bilmess have calculated that the ultimate direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war will amount to $3 trillion (Stiglitz and Bilmiss 2008). No similar
study has as yet been done of the Afghanistan war’s costs. However, the United States currently is expending about $110–120 billion annually to fight there, and fiscal considerations played a major role in the Obama
Because of the combined costs of federal government
expenditures—on stimulus, defense, Iraq and Afghanistan, and entitlements—in 2009 the Congressional Budget Office forecast that the United
States will run unsustainable annual budget deficits of $1 trillion or more until at least the end of this decade , and
observed that, ‘‘Even if the recovery occurs as projected and the stimulus bill is allowed to expire, the country will face the highest debt/GDP ratio in 50 years
and an increasingly urgent and unsustainable fiscal problem’ ’ (CBO 2009:13). In a subsequent 2010 report, the CBO noted that if the United
States stays on its current fiscal trajectory, the ratio of US government debt to GDP will be 100% by 2020 (CBO 2010). Economists regard a 100% debt-to-GDP ratio as critical indicator that a state will
default on its financial obligations. In an even less sanguine 2011 analysis, the International Monetary Fund forecast that the United States will hit the 100% debt-to-GDP ratio in
2016 (IMF 2011). If these estimates are correct, over the next decade the growing US national debt—and the budget deficits that fuel it—could imperil
the dollar by undermining foreign investors’ confidence in the United States’ ability to repay its debts and keep
inflation in check. This is important because, for the foreseeable future, the United States will depend on capital inflows from abroad both to finance its deficit spending and private consumption and to
maintain the dollar’s position as the international economic system’s reserve currency. America’s geopolitical preeminence hinges on the dollar’s reserve currency role. If the dollar loses that
status, US hegemony will literally be unaffordable . The dollar’s reserve currency status has, in effect, been a very special kind of ‘‘credit card.’’ It is special
because the United States does not have to earn the money to pay its bills . Rather, when the bills come due, the United States borrows funds from
administration’s decision to begin drawing down US forces in Afghanistan (Woodward 2010; Cooper 2011).
abroad and⁄ or prints money to pay them. The United States can get away with this and live beyond its means, spending with little restraint on maintaining its military dominance, preserving costly domestic entitlements,
Without the use of the ‘‘credit card”
provided by the dollar’s reserve currency status, the United States would have to pay for its extravagant external
and internal ambitions by raising taxes and interest rates, and by consuming less and saving more; or, tightening its belt and dramatically reducing its military and
domestic expenditures. In other words, the United States would have to learn to live within its means. 9 As a leading expert on international economic affairs
and indulging in conspicuous private consumption, as long as foreigners are willing to lend it money (primarily by purchasing Treasury bonds).
observed just before the Great Recession kicked in, the dollar’s vulnerability ‘‘presents potentially significant and underappreciated restraints upon contemporary American political and military predominance’’ (Kirshner
2008).
Economy, diplomacy will remain in shambles
Copley June 2012(Gregory R., editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Policy, Strategic Policy in an Age of Global Realignment, lexis)
3. Strategic Recovery by the US. The US will not, in 2012 or 2013, show signs of any recovery of its global strategic
credibility or real strength. Its manufacturing and science and technology sectors will continue to suffer from low
(even declining) productivity and difficulty in capital formation (for political reasons, primarily). A significant US recovery is
not feasible in the timeframe given the present political and economic policies and impasse evident. US allies will
increasingly look to their own needs while attempting to sustain their alliance relationship with the US to the extent feasible.
Those outside the US alliance network, or peripheral to it, will increasingly disregard US political/diplomatic
pressures , and will seek to accommodate the PRC or regional actors. The continued economic malaise of the US during
2012, even if disguised by modest nominal GDP growth, will make economic (and therefore strategic) recovery more difficult and ensure
that it will take longer.¶ In any event, the fact that the US national debt exceeds the GDP hollows the dollar and thus
makes meaningful recovery impossible in the short-term. The attractiveness of a low dollar value in comparison to other
currencies in making US manufacturing investment more feasible than in recent years is offset by declining US workforce productivity
and political constraints which penalize investment in manufacturing, or even in achieving appealing conditions for capital formation.
Banks are as afraid of such investment as are manufacturing investors themselves.
Leadership Unsustainable: Hard Power
US will cut defense spending to contain inflation- takes out your military might arguments
Layne, 12(Christopher Layne is a professor, and Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M
University. Professor Layne has written two books and he has contributed extensively to the debates about international relations theory and American foreign policy in such scholarly and policy
journals as International Security, International History Review, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies,The National Interest, Foreign Policy, The Washington Quarterly, World Policy Journal,
and Orbis. Professor Layne has been a frequent contributor to The Atlantic,The New Republic, The Nation, Financial Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times,Washington Post, and
the Australian. He also is a contributing editor for The American Conservative. He has a PhD in political science from Berkeley, “This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,
International Studies Quarterly 1-11, ak)
In the coming years, the
United States will have todefend the dollar by reassuring foreign lenders (read: China) both that there
will be no runawayinflation and that it can pay its debts. This willrequiresome combination of budget cuts, entitlements reductions,
tax increases, and interest-ratehikes. Because exclusive reliance on the last twooptions could choke off growth, there will be
strongpressure to slash the federal budget in order to holddown taxes and interest rates . It will be
almostimpossible to make meaningful cuts in federal spending without deep reductionsin defense expenditures
(and entitlements), because, as Figure 6 shows, that is where the money is. With US defense spending currently at such highlevels,
domestic political pressures to make steepcuts in defense spending are bound to increase . As the Cornell international
political economist Jonathan Kirshner puts it, the absolute size of USdefense expenditures is ‘‘more likely to be decisivein the
future when the U.S. is under pressure tomake real choices about taxes and spending . When borrowing becomes more
difficult, and adjustmentmore difficult to postpone, choices must be madebetween raising taxes, cutting nondefense spending,and cutting defense spending’’ (Kirshner 2008:431). In the spring of 2011, the Obamaadministration proposed
to cut US defense spending by $400 millionover eleven years. But that is a drop in the bucket, and cuts of a much larger
magnitude almost certainly will be needed. Big defense cuts mean that during the next ten to fifteen years, the
United States will be compelled to scale back its overseas military commitments. This will have two
consequences. First, as the United States spends less on defense, China (and other new great powers) will be
able to close the military power gap with the United States. Second, the United States’ ability to act as a
regional stabilizer and a guardian of the global commons will diminish. In this respect, America’s fiscal crisis
and the dollar’s uncertain future are important drivers of American decline.
Heg unsustainable – US defense spending
Eland 08(Ivan Eland, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, “Back to the Future: Rediscovering America’s Foreign Policy Traditions,”
Mediterranean Quarterly, http://mq.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/19/3/88.pdf)
To support the informal US worldwide empire of alliances, overseas bases, and personnel, which are used to
justify and conduct frequent military interventions, the United States spends huge sums on defense compared
to other nations. The United States spends on defense more than the combined security expenditures of the
next sixteen highest-spending countries.8 In all, the United States accounts for 44.0 percent of the world’s
defense spending,9 but only 27.5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).10 This comparison, along
with the strain that the two small wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have imposed on US forces, indicate that the
informal US empire might be overstretched. Many prior empires have declined because their security spending,
overseas defense commitments, and military interventions exceeded their ability to pay for them. Even the British
and French empires, on the winning side of both world wars, became financially exhausted — because of fighting those wars and
maintaining their vast territories — and went into decline. More recently, the Soviet Union’s empire, and even the country
itself, collapsed because its giant military, Eastern European alliances, and military interventions in the developing world
became too much for its dysfunctional economy to bear. Many in the United States say that the US economy is much
bigger than these failed empires and that decline cannot happen here. But that is what the elites of past empires
believed, too. Furthermore, over time, small differences in economic growth rates between competing countries
can lead to a reordering of great powers on the world scene. Most of the United States’ economic competitors
have less defense spending as a portion of GDP to be a drag on their economies. Thus, even “national greatness”
conservatives should be wary of too much defense spending, excessive military commitments overseas, and unnecessary wars, such
as Iraq, that sap national resources. All other forms of national power — military, technological, and cultural — derive
from maintaining a healthy economy.
Leadership Bad: China
Holding on to hegemony only functions to spur war with China
Layne 12 – professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M’s George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service (Christopher, “This Time It’s Real: The
End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana”, International Studies Quarterly (2012), 1–11, )
What effect will China’s rise—and unipolarity’s concomitant end—and the United States’ internal economic and fiscal troubles have on the Pax Americana? Not much, according to
prominent scholars such as Ikenberry (2001, 2011), Zakaria (2008), and Brooks and Wohlforth (2008). They have argued that the
United States can cushion
itself against any future loss of hegemony by acting now to ‘‘lock in’’ the Pax Americana’s essential features—its
institutions, rules, and norms—so that they outlive unipolarity. 11 As Ikenberry puts it, the United States should act today to
put in place an institutional framework ‘‘that will safeguard our interests in future decades when we will not be a unipolar power’’
(Ikenberry 2011:348). This is not a persuasive argument. First, there is a critical linkage between a great power’s military and
economic standing, on the one hand, and its prestige and soft power, on the other. The ebbing of the United States’
hegemony raises the question of whether it has the authority to take the lead in reforming the post-1945
international order. The Pax Americana projected the United States’ liberal ideology abroad, and asserted its universality as the only model for political, economic, and
social development. Today, however, the American model of free market, liberal democracy—which came to be known in the 1990s as the Washington consensus—is
being challenged by an alternative model, the Beijing consensus (Halper 2010). Moreover, the Great Recession discredited America’s
liberal model. Consequently, it is questionable whether the United States retains the credibility and legitimacy to
spearhead the revamping of the international order. As Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf says, ‘‘The collapse of the western
financial system, while China’s flourishes, marks a humiliating end to the ‘unipolar moment. ’ As western policy makers
struggle, their credibility lies broken. Who still trusts the teachers?’’ (Wolf 2009). The second reason a US lock-in strategy is unlikely to succeed is because the United
States does not have the necessary economic clout to revitalize the international order . Ikenberry defines the task of securing
lock-in as ‘‘renewing and rebuilding the architecture of global governance and cooperation to allow the United States to marshal resources and tackle problems along a wide an
the United States will need to take the lead in providing public goods:
security, economic leadership, and a nation building program of virtually global dimension to combat the ‘‘socioeconomic
backwardness and failure that generate regional and international instability and conflict’’ (Ikenberry 2011:354, 359). At the zenith of its military
shifting spectrum of possibilities’’ (Ikenberry 2011:353) To do this,
and economic power after World War II, the United States had the material capacity to furnish the international system with public goods. In the Great Recession’s aftermath,
a financially strapped United States increasingly will be unable to be a big time provider of public goods to the
the rise of China (and other emerging great and regional powers).
The lock-in argument is marred by a glaring weakness: if they perceive that the United States is declining, the incentive for China and
other emerging powers is to wait a decade or two and reshape the international system themselves in a way that
reflects their own interests, norms, and values (Jacques 2009 ). China and the United States have fundamental differences on what the
rules of international order should be on such key issues as sovereignty, non-interference in states’ internal affairs, and the ‘‘responsibility to protect.’’ While
China has integrated itself in the liberal order to propel its economic growth, it is converting wealth into hard power to challenge American
geopolitical dominance. And although China is working ‘‘within the system’’ to transform the post-1945 international order, it also is laying the
foundations—through embryonic institutions like the BRICs and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—for constructing an alternative world
order that, over the next twenty years or so, could displace the Pax Americana. As Martin Jacques has observed, China is
operating ‘‘both within and outside the existing international system while at the same time, in effect, sponsoring a
new China-centric international system which will exist alongside the present system and probably slowly begin
to usurp it’’ (Jacques 2009:362). Great power politics is about power. Rules and institutions do not exist in vacuum.
Rather, they reflect the distribution of power in the international system . In international politics, who rules makes the rules. The post-World
War II international order is an American order that privileges the United States’ interests. Even the discourse of ‘‘liberal order’’ cannot conceal this fact. This is why the notion
that China can be constrained by integrating into the post-1945 international order lacks credulity. For US scholars
and policymakers alike, China’s successful integration hinges on Beijing’s willingness to accept the Pax
Americana’s institutions, rules, and norms. In other words, China must accept playing second fiddle to the United States. Revealingly, Ikenberry
makes clear this expectation when he says that the deal the United States should propose to China is for Washington ‘‘to
accommodate a rising China by offering it status and position within the regional order in return for Beijing’s acceptance and
however,
international order. 12 The third reason the post-World War II international order cannot be locked in is
accommodation of Washington’s core interests, which include remaining a dominant security provider within East Asia’’ (Ikenberry 2011:356). It is easy to see why the United States
it is hard to see what’s in it for China. American hegemony is waning and China is
ascending, and there is zero reason for China to accept this bargain because it aims to be the hegemon in its
own region. The unfolding SinoAmerican rivalry in East Asia can be seen as an example of Dodge City
syndrome (in American Western movies, one gunslinger says to the other: ‘‘This town ain’t big enough for both of us’’) or as a geopolitical example of
Newtonian physics (two hegemons cannot occupy the same region at the same time). From either perspective, the dangers should
be obvious: unless the United States is willing to accept China’s ascendancy in East (and Southeast) Asia, Washington and
Beijing are on a collision course.
would want to cut such a deal but
Global nuclear war
Hunkovic 9 (Lee J, American Military University, 2009, “The Chinese-Taiwanese Conflict Possible Futures of a Confrontation between China, Taiwan and the United
States of America”, http://www.lamp-method.org/eCommons/Hunkovic.pdf)
A war between China, Taiwan and the United States has the potential to escalate into a nuclear conflict and a third
world war, therefore, many countries other than the primary actors could be affected by such a conflict, including
Japan, both Koreas, Russia, Australia, India and Great Britain, if they were drawn into the war, as well as all
other countries in the world that participate in the global economy, in which the U nited States and China are the
two most dominant members. If China were able to successfully annex Taiwan, the possibility exists that they
could then plan to attack Japan and begin a policy of aggressive expansionism in East and Southeast Asia, as
well as the Pacific and even into India, which could in turn create an international standoff and deployment of
military forces to contain the threat. In any case, if China and the United States engage in a full-scale conflict, there are few
countries in the world that will not be economically and/or militarily affected by it. However, China, Taiwan and United States are
the primary actors in this scenario, whose actions will determine its eventual outcome, therefore, other countries will not be considered in this study.
Leadership Bad: Economy (1/2)
Hegemony is the biggest internal link into economic decline- the US can no longer afford to be an
empire
Bandow 10(Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former special assistant to President Reagan, J.D. from Stanford University, April 19, 2010,
“Bankrupt Empire”, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/bankrupt-empire) //ZA
The United States government is effectively bankrupt. Washington no longer can afford to micromanage the world.
International social engineering is a dubious venture under the best of circumstances. It is folly to attempt while drowning in red ink.
Traditional military threats against America have largely disappeared. There's no more Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact,
Maoist China is distant history and Washington is allied with virtually every industrialized state. As Colin Powell famously put it
while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: "I'm running out of enemies. . . . I'm down to Kim Il-Sung and Castro." However, the
United States continues to act as the globe's 911 number. Unfortunately, a hyperactive foreign policy requires a big
military. America accounts for roughly half of global military outlays. In real terms Washington spends more on
"defense" today than it during the Cold War, Korean War and Vietnam War. If Uncle Sam was a real person, he
would declare bankruptcy. U.S. military expenditures are extraordinary by any measure. My Cato Institute colleagues
Chris Preble and Charles Zakaib recently compared American and European military outlays. U.S. expenditures have been
trending upward and now approach five percent of GDP. In contrast, European outlays have consistently fallen as a
percentage of GDP, to an average of less than two percent. The difference is even starker when comparing per capita GDP
military expenditures. The U.S. is around $2,200. Most European states fall well below $1,000. Adding in nonPentagon defense spending— Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Department of Energy (nuclear
weapons) — yields American military outlays of $835.1 billion in 2008, which represented 5.9 percent of GDP and
$2,700 per capita. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations worries that the increased financial obligations
(forget unrealistic estimates about cutting the deficit) resulting from health-care legislation will preclude maintaining such
oversize expenditures in the future, thereby threatening America's "global standing." He asks: Who will "police
the sea lanes, stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combat terrorism, respond to genocide
and other unconscionable human rights violations, and deter rogue states from aggression?"Of course, nobody
is threatening to close the sea lanes these days. Washington has found it hard to stop nuclear proliferation
without initiating war, yet promiscuous U.S. military intervention creates a powerful incentive for nations to seek
nuclear weapons. Armored divisions and carrier groups aren't useful in confronting terrorists. Iraq demonstrates
how the brutality of war often is more inhumane than the depredations of dictators. And there are lots of other nations capable of
deterring rogue states. The United States should not attempt to do everything even if it could afford to do so. But it can't. When it comes
to the federal Treasury, there's nothing there. If Uncle Sam was a real person, he would declare bankruptcy. The current national
debt is $12.7 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office figures that current policy — unrealistically assuming no
new spending increases — will run up $10 trillion in deficits over the coming decade. But more spending — a lot more
spending — is on the way. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain as active as ever, underwriting $5.4 trillion worth of mortgages while
running up additional losses. The Federal Housing Administration's portfolio of insured mortgages continues to rise along with defaults.
Exposure for Ginnie Mae, which issues guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, also is jumping skyward. The FDIC shut down a record
140 banks last year and is running low on cash. Last year the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation figured its fund was
running a $34 billion deficit. Federal pensions are underfunded by $1 trillion. State and local retirement funds
are short about $3 trillion. Outlays for the Iraq war will persist decades after the troops return as the government
cares for seriously injured military personnel; total expenditures will hit $2 trillion or more. Extending and
expanding the war in Afghanistan will further bloat federal outlays. Worst of all, last year the combined Social
Security/Medicare unfunded liability was estimated to be $107 trillion. Social Security, originally expected to go negative
in 2016, will spend more than it collects this year, and the "trust fund" is an accounting fiction. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program,
also is breaking budgets. At their current growth rate, CBO says that by 2050 these three programs alone will consume virtually the
entire federal budget. Uncle Sam's current net liabilities exceed Americans' net worth. Yet the debt-to-GDP ratio will continue
rising and could eventually hit World War II levels. Net interest is expected to more than quadruple to $840 billion
annually by 2020. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says: "It's not something that is ten years away. It affects the markets
currently." In March, Treasury notes commanded a yield of 3.5 basis points higher than those for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
Moody's recently threatened to downgrade federal debt: "Although AAA governments benefit from an unusual degree of balance sheet
flexibility, that flexibility is not infinite." In 2008, Tom Lemmon of Moody's warned: "The underlying credit rating of the U.S. government
faces the risk of downgrading in the next ten years if solutions are not found to our growing Medicare and Social Security unfunded
obligations." This is all without counting a dollar of increased federal spending due to federalizing American medicine. The United
States faces a fiscal crisis. If America's survival was at stake, extraordinary military expenditures would still be
justified. But not to protect other nations, especially prosperous and populous states well able to defend
themselves. Boot warns: "it will be increasingly hard to be globocop and nanny state at the same time." America
should be neither. The issue is not just money. The Constitution envisions a limited government focused on defending
Americans, not transforming the rest of the world. Moreover, if Washington continues to act as globocop, America's friends
and allies will never have an incentive to do more. The United States will be a world power for decades. But it can no afford
to act as if it is the only power. America must begin the process of becoming a normal nation with a normal
foreign policy.
Leadership Bad: Economy (2/2)
Unipolarity prioritizes the economic concerns of the dominant power over all else- that destabilizes
the international economy and order
Ikenberry 9(G. John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, January 2009, “Unipolarity, State Behavior, and Systemic
Consequences”, http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/world_politics/v061/61.1.ikenberry.html) //ZA
How might the shift from a bipolar to a unipolar system affect the inclination of the now singularly dominant
state to provide international public goods? Two hypotheses arise, with contradictory behavioral expectations.
First, we might expect a unipole to take on an even greater responsibility for the provision of international public goods. The capabilities of a
unipole relative to other major states are greater than those of either dominant power in a bipolar structure. The
unipole’s incentive should be stronger as well, since it now has the opportunity to influence international
outcomes globally, not just in its [End Page 14] particular subsystem. We should expect the unipole to try to
“lock in” a durable international order that reflects its interests and values.27 A second hypothesis, however,
suggests the opposite. We should expect a unipolar power to underproduce public goods despite its
preponderant capabilities. The fact that it is unthreatened by peer competitors and relatively unconstrained by
other states creates incentives for the unipole to pursue more parochial interests even at the expense of a stable
international order. The fact that it is extraordinarily powerful means that the unipole will be more inclined to
force adjustment costs on others, rather than bear disproportionate burdens itself. Two of the contributions
below address these issues. Michael Mastanduno’s analysis of the global political economy shows that the
dominant state will be both system maker and privilege taker—it will seek simultaneously to provide public
goods and to exploit its advantageous structural position for parochial gain.It enlists the cooperation of other
states and seeks, with varying degrees of success, to force adjustment burdens upon them. Jervis suggests
that because the unipole has wide discretion in determining the nature and the extent of the goods provided, its
efforts are likely to be perceived by less powerful states as hypocritical attempts to mask the actual pursuit of
private goods.
Hegemony causes economic collapse – current economic crisis proves
Eland, 9 – Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute, Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, B.A. Iowa State University,
M.B.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University,(Ivan, The Independent Institute, “How the U.S. Empire Contributed to the Economic Crisis”, May 11th,
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2498)
A few—and only a few—prescient commentators have questioned whether the U.S. can sustain its informal global
empire in the wake of the most severe economic crisis since World War II . And the simultaneous quagmires in Iraq and
Afghanistan are leading more and more opinion leaders and taxpayers to this question. But the U.S. Empire helped cause the
meltdown in the first place. War has a history of causing financial and economic calamities . It does so directly
by almost always causing inflation—that is, too much money chasing too few goods. During wartime, governments
usually commandeer resources from the private sector into the government realm to fund the fighting. This
action leaves shortages of resources to make consumer goods and their components, therefore pushing prices
up. Making things worse, governments often times print money to fund the war, thus adding to the amount of money
chasing the smaller number of consumer goods. Such “make-believe” wealth has funded many U.S. wars. For
example, the War of 1812 had two negative effects on the U.S. financial system. First, in 1814, the federal government allowed state-chartered banks to suspend payment in gold
and silver to their depositors. In other words, according Tom J. DiLorenzo in Hamilton’s Curse, the banks did not have to hold sufficient gold and silver reserves to cover their loans.
This policy allowed the banks to loan the federal government more money to fight the war. The result was an annual inflation rate of 55 percent in some U.S. cities. The government
took this route of expanding credit during wartime because no U.S. central bank existed at the time. Congress, correctly questioning The Bank of the United States’ constitutionality,
had not renewed its charter upon expiration in 1811. But the financial turmoil caused by the war led to a second pernicious effect on the financial system—the resurrection of the bank
in 1817 in the form of the Second Bank of the United States. Like the first bank and all other government central banks in the future, the second bank flooded the market with new
credit. In 1818, this led to excessive real estate speculation and a consequent bubble. The bubble burst during the Panic of 1819, which was the first recession in the nation’s history.
Sound familiar? Although President Andrew Jackson got rid of the second bank in the 1830s and the U.S. economy generally flourished with a freer banking system until 1913, at that
We have seen that war ultimately causes the creation
of both economic problems and nefarious government financial institutions that cause those difficulties. And of
course, the modern day U.S. Empire also creates such economic maladies and wars that allow those institutions
to wreak havoc on the economy. The Fed caused the current collapse in the real estate credit market, which has
led to a more general global financial and economic meltdown, by earlier flooding the market with excess credit.
That money went into real estate, thus creating an artificial bubble that eventually came crashing down in 2008.
But what caused the Fed to vastly expand credit? To prevent a potential economic calamity after 9/11 and
soothe jitters surrounding the risky and unneeded U.S. invasion of Iraq, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan began a
series of interest rate cuts that vastly increased the money supply. According to Thomas E. Woods, Jr. in Meltdown, the
interest rate cuts culminated in the extraordinary policy of lowering the federal funds rate (the rate at which banks
time yet another central bank—this time the Federal Reserve System—rose from the ashes.
lend to one another overnight, which usually determines other interest rates) to only one percent for an entire year (from June 2003 to
June 2004). Woods notes that more money was created between 2000 and 2007 than in the rest of U.S. history. Much of this
excess money ended up creating the real estate bubble that eventually caused the meltdown. Ben Bernanke, then a
Fed governor, was an ardent advocate of this easy money policy, which as Fed Chairman he has continued as his solution to an
economic crisis he helped create using the same measures. Of course, according to Osama bin Laden, the primary reasons for the 9/11
attacks were U.S. occupation of Muslim lands and U.S. propping up of corrupt dictators there. And the invasion of Iraq was totally
unnecessary because there was never any connection between al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein, and even if
Saddam had had biological, chemical, or even nuclear weapons, the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal would have likely deterred him from
using them on the United States. So the causal arrow goes from these imperial behaviors—and blowback there from—
to increases in the money supply to prevent related economic slowdown, which in turn caused even worse
eventual financial and economic calamities. These may be indirect effects of empire, but they cannot be ignored.
Get rid of the overseas empire because we can no longer afford it, especially when it is partly responsible for the
economic distress that is making us poorer
Leadership Bad: Faster Better/Transition Key (1/2)
Prolonging transition risks global stability
Farley, University of Kentucky assistant professor of Diplomacy and International Commerce, 3-7-12
(Dr. Robert, World Politics Review, "Over the Horizon: The Future of American Hegemony,"
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/11696/over-the-horizon-the-future-of-american-hegemony, accessed 7-612, CNM)
What are the dangers? Hegemony has never meant the ability to achieve any outcome the United States wants ,
whenever it wants. Indeed, hegemony may mean the luxury to make dreadful mistakes without suffering dreadful
consequences. However, as the gap between the United States and other great powers declines, the margin for
error narrows. The most dangerous steps for the United States to take would involve projects that threaten
fiscal capacity while also undercutting the U.S.-sponsored system of global management. The invasion of Iraq,
for example, is not an undertaking that the United States would want to repeat in the future. It undermined global
confidence in both the international system of governance and the decision-making capacity of the United
States government, while damaging the fiscal health of the United States. Ironically, advocates of the war believed that it
would demonstrate not only American power, but also reinforce confidence in American leadership.
For better or worse, the U.S. has imparted the character of the major formal and informal institutions that have managed international
life for the past 70 years. The shift from U.S. hegemony to multipolarity -- or to unipolarity around another nation --
will change the nature of those institutions, likely leading to a significant degree of upheaval and uncertainty.
The great danger is that the United States will, in an effort to prolong and maintain its hegemony,
undertake policies that undermine the foundations of American’s place in the world. It is not comforting
that those who talk loudest of U.S. exceptionalism and a new American Century consistently recommend
policies that misunderstand the relationship between U.S. power and the modern international system. Nothing
about the future is guaranteed; wise policies can revise and extend a globally acceptable “American Century,” while foolish policies can
cut it short.
Leaving heg to die is key to solving war from inevitably rising power
John Feffer (co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies)February 2009 “A Multipolar
Moment” http://www.fpif.org/articles/a_multipolar_moment
But times have changed, argues FPIF contributor Hannes Artens. "These aren't the golden 1990s, when U.S. power was at
its zenith. In this first decade of the 21st century, the capitalist West is facing defeat in Afghanistan and is on the verge of
'the worst recession in a hundred years,' as British minister Ed Balls put it in perhaps only slight exaggeration," he writes in
Multilateralism in Munich. "This combination will force the Obama administration to stop cherry-picking issues on which it wants to
cooperate and forging ahead on those issues it believes it can still handle alone. Necessity will dictate a more pragmatic
multilateralism, in which all sides humbly accept what is realistically possible." Are we thus witnessing the final end of the unipolar
moment? China is coming up fast. The European Union's expansion has been accompanied by relatively few
growing pains. Several powerful countries in the South (particularly India, Brazil, and South Africa) are quietly acquiring
more geopolitical heft. Global problems like climate change and financial collapse require global solutions, so we either evolve
multilateral responses or we do a dinosaur dive into extinction . Over here, meanwhile, the Pentagon is still maintaining the
world's largest military force — but we have failed to defeat al-Qaeda, we are quagmired in Afghanistan, and all of our
nuclear weapons have done little to prevent North Korea from entering the nuclear club. The global recession is
hammering the U.S. economy, and we might finally see the end of the dollar's reign as global currency. With the
bank bailout, the stimulus package, the bill for two wars plus the Pentagon's already gargantuan budget, the red ink is mounting.
Debt has been the gravedigger of many an empire. I can hear the adding machine totting up the numbers. Or is
that the sound of dirt hitting a coffin lid?
Leadership Bad: Faster Better/Transition Key (2/2)
Accepting decline is key – hegemony ensures conflicts that will inevitably cause America’s own
demise – a transition to multipolarity is key
Layne 6(Christopher Layne, Professor, and Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security, at Texas A&M University’s George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public
Service, “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited”, The Coming of the United States' Unipolar Moment, p 40-41, 2006, http://dl2af5jf3e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.882004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The+Unipolar+Illusion+Revisited&rft.jtitle=International+Security&rft.au=Christopher
+Layne&rft.date=2006-01-01&rft.pub=MIT+Press+Journals&rft.issn=0162-2889&rft.volume=31&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=7&rft.externalDocID=1174852781) //ZA
At bottom, multilateral offshore balancing does not address the United States' "hegemony problem," which is
not caused by U.S. unilateralism. The real problem is that too often the United States acts unwisely (or, as in the
case of Iraq, foolishly)—something it just as easily can do multilaterally as unilaterally. Although some analysts
blame the George W. Bush administration for the United States' hegemony problem, the facts suggest
otherwise. Concerns about unchecked U.S. power in a unipolar world first were voiced almost simultaneously
with the Soviet Union's collapse. And it was during the Clinton administration that U.S. officials first
acknowledged in so many words that America had a hegemony problem. The United States has a hegemony
problem because it wields hegemonic power. To reduce the fear of U.S. power, the United States must accept some
reduction in its relative hard power by adopting a multipolar—and essentially unilateral—offshore balancing strategy that
accommodates the rise of new great powers. 130 It also must rein in the scope of its extravagant ambitions to
shape the international system in accordance with its Wilsonian ideology. The United States does not need to be
an extraregional hegemon to be secure. Its quest for hegemony is driven instead by an ideational,
deterritorialized conception of security divorced from the traditional metrics of great power grand strategy: the
distribution of power in the international system and geography. 131 Thus, to reduce others' concerns about its
power, the United States must practice self-restraint (which is different from choosing to be constrained by
others by adopting a multilateral approach to grand strategy). An America [End Page 40] that has the wisdom
and prudence to contain itself is less likely to be feared than one that begs the rest of the world to stop it before
it expands hegemonically again. If the United States fails to adopt an offshore balancing strategy based on
multipolarityand military and ideological self-restraint, it probably will, at some point, have to fight to uphold its
primacy, which is a potentially dangerous strategy. Maintaining U.S. hegemony is a game that no longer is worth
the candle, especially given that U.S. primacy may already be in the early stages of erosion. Paradoxically,
attempting to sustain U.S. primacy may well hasten its end by stimulating more intensive efforts to balance
against the United States, thus causing the United States to become imperially overstretched and involving it in
unnecessary wars that will reduce its power. Rather than risking these outcomes, the United States should
begin to retrench strategically and capitalize on the advantages accruing to insular great powers in multipolar
systems. Unilateral offshore balancing, indeed, is America's next grand strategy.
Attempts to uphold hegemony only erode primacy faster – only acceptance of multipolarity
guarantees a peaceful transition
Layne, 2006 (Christopher, Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and
Liberty at The Independent Institute, "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment," International Security, Volume 31, Number 2, Fall, Project Muse)
The United States has a hegemony problem because it wields hegemonic power. To reduce the fear of U.S.
power, the United States must accept some reduction in its relative hard power by adopting a multipolar—and
essentially unilateral—offshore balancing strategy that accommodates the rise of new great powers. 130 It also
must rein in the scope of its extravagant ambitions to shape the international system in accordance with its
Wilsonian ideology. The United States does not need to be an extraregional hegemon to be secure. Its quest for
hegemony is driven instead by an ideational, deterritorialized conception of security divorced from the
traditional metrics of great power grand strategy: the distribution of power in the international system and
geography. 131 Thus, to reduce others' concerns about its power, the United States must practice self-restraint
(which is different from choosing to be constrained by others by adopting a multilateral approach to grand strategy). An America [End
Page 40] that has the wisdom and prudence to contain itself is less likely to be feared than one that begs the rest
of the world to stop it before it expands hegemonically again. If the United States fails to adopt an offshore
balancing strategy based on multipolarity and military and ideological self-restraint, it probably will, at some
point, have to fight to uphold its primacy, which is a potentially dangerous strategy. Maintaining U.S. hegemony
is a game that no longer is worth the candle, especially given that U.S. primacy may already be in the early
stages of erosion. Paradoxically, attempting to sustain U.S. primacy may well hasten its end by stimulating more
intensive efforts to balance against the United States, thus causing the United States to become imperially
overstretched and involving it in unnecessary wars that will reduce its power. Rather than risking these
outcomes, the United States should begin to retrench strategically and capitalize on the advantages accruing to
insular great powers in multipolar systems. Unilateral offshore balancing, indeed, is America's next grand
strategy.
Leadership Bad: Korea
American hegemony in Asia ensures involvement in possibly nuclear war with North Korea.
Christopher Layne (Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M
University) 2006 “The Peace of Illusions” p 164-5
America's East Asian strategy is most immediately challenged by North Korea. Although Pyongyang claims it has nuclear
weapons, it is uncertain whether it actually does. If it does not presently have them, however, it certainly is close to
having some weapons in hand, and—unless something happens either diplomatically or militarily to interrupt its weapons development
program—its arsenal could grow considerably during the next few years. Moreover, Pyongyang currently has ballistic
missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads against targets in South Korea and Japan, and it could
havesome intercontinental missile capability in a decade or so. The North Korean regime's unpredictability, its nuclear
ambitions, and the military standoff along the 38th parallel between North Korean forces and U.S. and South Korean troops make the
peninsula a volatile place. Conflict is not inevitable, but neither is it unimaginable. If diplomacy fails to bring about a North Korean
agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons, the United States may decide to strike preemptively in an attempt to destroy
Pyongyang's nuclear facilities .0 It is impossible to know whether this would spark an all-out war on the peninsula. On the
other hand, fearing it might be the target of such strikes or a U.S. campaign to bring about regime change,
North Korea might lash out irrationally in ways that confound the predictions of deterrence theory. Given that the American
homeland currently is not vulnerable to North Korean retaliation, the U.S.deterrent umbrella should dissuade Pyongyang from using
nuclear weaponsto attack civilian or military targets in South Korea or Japan. Whether North Korean actually would be deterred, though,
is a huge unknown. Three things are known, however. First, if North Korea has nuclear weapons, U.S. troops in South
Korea, and possibly in Japan, are hostages." Second, even a non-nuclear conflict on the peninsula would be costly to the United
States (notwithstanding the fact that the United States ultimately would prevail on the battlefield). Third, U.S. troops in South Korea
act as a tripwire, which ensures that, if war does occur, the United States automatically will be involved.
Lash-out and nuclear extinction
Africa News 1999 (10-25, Lexis)
Lusaka - If there is one place today where the much-dreaded Third World War could easily erupt and probably reduce
earth to a huge smouldering cinder it is the Korean Peninsula in Far East Asia. Ever since the end of the savage threeyear Korean war in the early 1950s, military tension between the hard-line communist north and the American backed South Korea
has remained dangerously high. In fact the Koreas are technically still at war. A foreign visitor to either Pyongyong in the North
or Seoul in South Korea will quickly notice that the divided country is always on maximum alert for any eventuality. North Korea or the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has never forgiven the US for coming to the aid of South Korea during the Korean war.
She still regards the US as an occupation force in South Korea and wholly to blame for the non-reunification of the country. North
Korean media constantly churns out a tirade of attacks on "imperialist" America and its "running dog" South Korea. The DPRK is one of
the most secretive countries in the world where a visitor is given the impression that the people's hatred for the US is absolute while the
love for their government is total. Whether this is really so, it is extremely difficult to conclude. In the DPRK, a visitor is never given a
chance to speak to ordinary Koreans about the politics of their country. No visitor moves around alone without government escort. The
American government argues that its presence in South Korea was because of the constant danger of an invasion from the north.
America has vast economic interests in South Korea. She points out that the north has dug numerous tunnels along the demilitarised
zone as part of the invasion plans. She also accuses the north of violating South Korean territorial waters. Early this year, a small North
Korean submarine was caught in South Korean waters after getting entangled in fishing nets. Both the Americans and South Koreans
claim the submarine was on a military spying mission. However, the intension of the alleged intrusion will probably never be known
because the craft's crew were all found with fatal gunshot wounds to their heads in what has been described as suicide pact to hide the
truth of the mission. The US mistrust of the north's intentions is so deep that it is no secret that today Washington has the largest
concentration of soldiers and weaponry of all descriptions in south Korea than anywhere else in the World, apart from America itself.
Some of the armada that was deployed in the recent bombing of Iraq and in Operation Desert Storm against the same country following
its invasion of Kuwait was from the fleet permanently stationed on the Korean Peninsula. It is true too that at the moment the
North/South Korean border is the most fortified in the world. The border line is littered with anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines,
surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles and is constantly patrolled by warplanes from both sides. It is common knowledge that
America also keeps an eye on any military movement or build-up in the north through spy satellites. The DPRK is said to have an
estimated one million soldiers and a huge arsenal of various weapons. Although the DPRK regards herself as a developing country, she
can however be classified as a super-power in terms of military might. The DPRK is capable of producing medium and long-range
missiles. Last year, for example, she test-fired a medium range missile over Japan, an action that greatly shook and alarmed the US,
Japan and South Korea. The DPRK says the projectile was a satellite. There have also been fears that she was planning to test another
ballistic missile capable of reaching North America. Naturally, the world is anxious that military tension on the Korean Peninsula
must be defused to avoid an apocalypse on earth. It is therefore significant that the American government announced a
few days ago that it was moving towards normalising relations with North Korea.
Leadership Bad: Prolif
American Hegemony created nuclear weapons and prolif – further heg will lead to nuclear war
Bacevich, Boston University professor of history and international relations, 09
(Andrew, April 30, 2009, Salon, “Fairwell to the American Century” http://www.salon.com/writer/andrew_bacevich/. Accessed: 6/29/12, LPS)
What flag-wavers tend to leave out of their account of the American Century is not only the contributions of
others, but the various missteps perpetrated by the United States — missteps, it should be noted, that spawned
many of the problems bedeviling us today.The instances of folly and criminality bearing the label “made in Washington” may not rank up there with the Armenian genocide, the
Bolshevik Revolution, the appeasement of Adolf Hitler, or the Holocaust, but they sure don’t qualify as small change. To give them their due is necessarily to render the standard account of the American Century
untenable. Here are several examples, each one familiar, even if its implications for the problems we face today are studiously ignored:Cuba. In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain for the proclaimed purpose
of liberating the so-called Pearl of the Antilles. When that brief war ended, Washington reneged on its promise. If there actually has been an American Century, it begins here, with the U.S. government breaking a
solemn commitment, while baldly insisting otherwise. By converting Cuba into a protectorate, the United States set in motion a long train of events leading eventually to the rise of Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs, Operation
Mongoose, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and even today’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp. The line connecting these various developments may not be a straight one, given the many twists and turns along the way, but the
Nuclear weapons imperil our existence. Used on a large scale, they could destroy civilization
itself. Even now, the prospect of a lesser power like North Korea or Iran acquiring nukes sends jitters around the world. American presidents — Barack Obama is only the latest in
a long line — declare the abolition of these weapons to be an imperative. What they are less inclined to acknowledge is the role the United
States played in afflicting humankind with this scourge.The United States invented the bomb. The United States
— alone among members of the nuclear club — actually employed it as a weapon of war. The U.S. led the way in defining nuclear-strike capacity
as the benchmark of power in the postwar world, leaving other powers like the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China scrambling to catch up.
Today, the U.S. still maintains an enormous nuclear arsenal at the ready and adamantly refuses to commit itself to
a no-first-use policy, even as it professes its horror at the prospect of some other nation doing as the United
States itself has done. Iran. Extending his hand to Tehran, President Obama has invited those who govern the Islamic republic to “unclench their fists.” Yet to a
dots do connect.The Bomb.
considerable degree, those clenched fists are of our own making. For most Americans, the discovery of Iran dates from the time of the notorious hostage crisis of 1979-1981 when
Iranian students occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran, detained several dozen U.S. diplomats and military officers and subjected the administration of Jimmy Carter to a 444-daylong lesson in abject humiliation.
Unipolarity causes nuclear balancing –multipolarity is the only way to ensure security
Monteiro 12“Nuno P. Monteiro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches International Relations theory, security studies, and the philosophical foundations of the study of politics. He
earned a Licentiate’s degree in International Relations from the University of Minho (1997), an M.A. degree in Political Theory and Science from the Catholic University of Portugal (2003), and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science
from the University of Chicago (2004/09). Dr. Monteiro’s research focuses on great-power politics, power transitions, nuclear proliferation, preventive war, deterrence, and the role of philosophy-of-science arguments in the production of
scientific knowledge in IR. His commentary on these topics has appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Project Syndicate, and the USA Today and been featured in the media, including radio (e.g., BBC) and print
(e.g., the Boston Globe). Dr. Monteiro is a research fellow at Yale’s Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and a member of the Scientific Council of thePortuguese International Relations Institute (IPRI).
His research has appeared in International Security and International Theory.” Winter 2011/2012“Unrest Assured – why unipolarity is not peaceful” http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_00064
In
an international system with more than one great power, recalcitrant minor powers would, in principle, be able
to balance externally by finding a great power sponsor. 70 In unipolarity, however, no such sponsors exist . 71
Only major powers are available, but because their survival is already guaranteed, they are likely to accommodate the unipole. And even if some do not,
they are unlikely to meet a recalcitrant minor power’s security needs given that they possess only limited power-projection capabilities. 72 As
such,recalcitrant minor powers must defend themselves, which puts them in a position of extreme self-help.
There are four characteristics common to states in this position: (1) anarchy, (2) uncertainty about other states’
intentions, (3) insufficient capabilities to deter a great power, and (4) no potential great power sponsor with
whom to form a balancing coalition. The first two characteristics are common to all states in all types of polarity.
The third is part of the rough-and-tumble of minor powers in any system. The fourth, however, is unique to
recalcitrant minor powers in unipolarity. This dire situation places recalcitrant minor powers at risk for as long as they lack the capability to
defend themselves. They depend on the goodwill of the unipole and must worry that the unipole will shift to a strategy
of offensive dominance or disengagement. Recalcitrant minor powers will therefore attempt to bolster their
capabilities through internal balancing. To deter an eventual attack by the unipole and bolster their chances of
survival in the event deterrence fails, recalcitrant minor powers will attempt to reinforce their conventional
defenses, develop the most effective asymmetric strategies possible, and, most likely in the nuclear age, try to
acquire the ultimate deterrent—survivable nuclear weapons. 73 In so doing, they seek to become major powers.
U.S. primacy causes nuclear prolif
Weber et. al 7, (Steven, Professor of Political Science at UC-Berkeley and Director of the Institute of International Studies, Naazneen Barma, Matthew Kroenig, Ely Ratner, “How
Globalization Went Bad”, January-February 2007, Foreign Policy)
The world is paying a heavy price for the instability created by the combination of globalization and unipolarity,
and the United States is bearing most of the burden. Consider the case of nuclear proliferation. There’s effectively a market out
there for proliferation, with its own supply (states willing to share nuclear technology) and demand (states that badly want a nuclear weapon).
The overlap of unipolarity with globalization ratchets up both the supply and demand, to the detriment of U.S.
national security. It has become fashionable, in the wake of the Iraq war, to comment on the limits of conventional military force. But much of this analysis is overblown.
The United States may not be able to stabilize and rebuild Iraq. But that doesn’t matter much from the perspective of a government that thinks the Pentagon has it in its sights. In
Tehran, Pyongyang, and many other capitals, including Beijing, the bottom line is simple: The U.S. military could, with conventional force, end those regimes tomorrow if it chose to
No country in the world can dream of challenging U.S. conventional military power. But they can certainly
hope to deter America from using it. And the best deterrent yet invented is the threat of nuclear retaliation.
Before 1989, states that felt threatened by the United States could turn to the Soviet Union’s nuclear umbrella for
protection. Now, they turn to people like A.Q. Khan. Having your own nuclear weapon used to be a luxury. Today, it is fast becoming a necessity.
North Korea is the clearest example. Few countries had it worse during the Cold War. North Korea was surrounded by feuding, nuclear-armed communist
neighbors, it was officially at war with its southern neighbor, and it stared continuously at tens of thousands of U.S. troops on its border. But, for 40 years, North Korea
didn’t seek nuclear weapons. It didn’t need to, because it had the Soviet nuclear umbrella. Within five years of
the Soviet collapse, however, Pyongyang was pushing ahead full steam on plutonium reprocessing facilities . North
do so.
Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, barely flinched when former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration readied war plans to strike his nuclear installations preemptively. That
brinkmanship paid off. Today North Korea is likely a nuclear power, and Kim’s son rules the country with an iron fist. America’s conventional military strength means a lot less to a
nuclear North Korea. Saddam Hussein’s great strategic blunder was that he took too long to get to the same place.
Leadership Bad: Russia
American power makes conflict with Russia more likely – any new confrontation would escalate
Cohen 06 Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, Contributing Editor of The Nation
[Stephen F. “The New American Cold War” The Nation, July 10th (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/cohen)]
If American policy and Russia's predictable countermeasures continue to develop into a full-scale cold war, severalnew
factors could make it even more dangerous than was its predecessor. Above all, the growing presence of Western
bases and US-backed governments in the former Soviet republics has moved the "front lines" of the conflict, in
the alarmed words of a Moscow newspaper, from Germany to Russia's "near abroad." As a "hostile ring tightens around
the Motherland," in the view of former Prime Minister EvgenyPrimakov, many different Russians see a mortal threat. Putin's
chief political deputy, VladislavSurkov, for example, sees the "enemy...at the gates," and the novelist and Soviet-era dissident Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn sees the "complete encirclement of Russia and then the loss of its sovereignty." The risks of direct military conflict
could therefore be greater than ever. Protesting overflights by NATO aircraft, a Russian general has already warned, "If they
violate our borders, they should be shot down." Worsening the geopolitical factor are radically different American and
Russian self-perceptions. By the mid-1960s the US-Soviet cold war relationship had acquired a significant degree of stability
because the two superpowers, perceiving a stalemate, began to settle for political and military "parity." Today, however, the
UnitedStates, the self-proclaimed "only superpower," has a far more expansive view of its international
entitlements and possibilities. Moscow, on the other hand, feels weaker and more vulnerable than it did before 1991.
And in that asymmetry lies the potential for a less predictable cold war relationship between the two still fully
armed nuclear states.There is also a new psychological factor. Because the unfolding cold war is undeclared, it is
already laden with feelings of betrayal and mistrust on both sides.Having welcomed Putin as Yeltsin's chosen successor
and offered him its conception of "partnership and friendship," Washington now feels deceived by Putin's policies. According
to two characteristic commentaries in the Washington Post, Bush had a "well-intentioned Russian policy," but "a Russian
autocrat...betrayed the American's faith." Putin's Kremlin, however, has been reacting largely to a decade of broken US promises and
Yeltsin's boozy compliance. Thus Putin's declaration four years ago, paraphrased on Russian radio: "The era of Russian
geopolitical concessions [is] coming to an end." (Looking back, he remarked bitterly that Russia has been "constantly
deceived.")
US-Russia war is the only existential risk- causes extinction
Bostrom 2(Nick, PhD Philosophy – Oxford University, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios”, Journal of Evolution and
Technology, Vol. 9, March, http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html)
The unique challenge of existential risksRisks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it
is useful to distinguish them from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms, either biologically or culturally, for managing
such risks. Our intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous animals, hostile
individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts,
World War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred
many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such
events are to the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even
the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life.They haven’t significantly
affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined thelong-term fate of our species. With the
exception of a species-destroying comet or asteroid impact (an extremely rare occurrence), there were probably no significant existential
risks in human history until the mid-twentieth century, and certainly none that it was within our power to do something about. The first
manmade existential risk was the inaugural detonation of an atomic bomb. At the time, there was some concern that the explosion might
start a runaway chain-reaction by “igniting” the atmosphere. Although we now know that such an outcome was physically impossible, it
qualifies as an existential risk that was present at the time. For there to be a risk, given the knowledge and understanding available, it
suffices that there is some subjective probability of an adverse outcome, even if it later turns out that objectively there was no chance of
something bad happening. If we don’t know whether something is objectively risky or not, then it is risky in the subjective sense. The
subjective sense is of course what we must base our decisions on.[2] At any given time we must use our best current subjective
estimate of what the objective risk factors are.[3]A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear
arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear warwas a possibility with both a substantial probability and
with consequencesthat might have been persistent enough to qualifyas global and terminal. There was a real worry among
those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might
annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that
could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day
build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not
an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’spotential permanently. Such a war might however
be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or
asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.
Leadership Bad: Russia-China
Predominance spurs a Russia-China military alliance that ends in nuclear extinction
Roberts 07, Senior Research Fellow @ the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chairin Political Economy, Center for
Strategic and International Studies (Paul Craig“US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military
Alliance,”http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts218.html)
his week the Russian and Chinese militaries are conducting a joint military exercise involving large numbers of troops
and combat vehicles. The former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgkyzstan, and Kazakstan are participating. Other countries appear
ready to join the military alliance. This new potent military alliance is a real world response to neoconservative
delusions about US hegemony. Neocons believe that the US is supreme in the world and can dictate its course.
The neoconservative idiots have actually written papers, read by Russians and Chinese, about why the US must
use its military superiority to assert hegemony over Russia and China . Cynics believe that the neocons are just shills,
like Bush and Cheney, for the military-security complex and are paid to restart the cold war for the sake of the profits of the armaments
industry. But the fact is that the neocons actually believe their delusions about American hegemony. Russia and
China have now witnessed enough of the Bush administration’s unprovoked aggression in the world to take
neocon intentions seriously. As the US has proven that it cannot occupy the Iraqi city of Baghdad despite 5
years of efforts, it most certainly cannot occupy Russia or China. That means the conflict toward which the
neocons are driving will be a nuclear conflict. In an attempt to gain the advantage in a nuclear conflict, the
neocons are positioning US anti-ballistic missiles on Soviet borders in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is
an idiotic provocation as the Russians can eliminate anti-ballistic missiles with cruise missiles. Neocons are
people who desire war, but know nothing about it. Thus, the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reagan and
Gorbachev ended the cold war. However, US administrations after Reagan’s have broken the agreements and understandings. The US
gratuitously brought NATO and anti-ballistic missiles to Russia’s borders. The Bush regime has initiated a propaganda war against the
Russian government of V. Putin. These are gratuitous acts of aggression. Both the Russian and Chinese governments are
trying to devote resources to their economic development, not to their militaries. Yet, both are being forced by
America’s aggressive posture to revamp their militaries. Americans need to understand what the neocon Bush
regime cannot: a nuclear exchange between the US, Russia, and China would establish the hegemony of the cockroach. In a
mere 6.5 years the Bush regime has destroyed the world’s good will toward the US. Today, America’s influence in the world is limited to
its payments of tens of millions of dollars to bribed heads of foreign governments, such as Egypt’s and Pakistan’s. The Bush regime
even thinks that as it has bought and paid for Musharraf, he will stand aside and permit Bush to make air strikes inside Pakistan. Is Bush
blind to the danger that he will cause an Islamic revolution within Pakistan that will depose the US puppet and present the Middle East
with an Islamic state armed with nuclear weapons? Considering the instabilities and dangers that abound, the
aggressive posture of the Bush regime goes far beyond recklessness. The Bush regime is the most
irresponsibly aggressive regime the world has seen since Hitler’s.
Leadership Bad: Terrorism
Heg causes terror and nuclear proliferation
Layne, Texas A&M University Bush School of Government and Public Services international affairs prof, 7
(Christopher Layne is Professor, and Holder of the Mary Julia and George R. Jordan Professorship of International Affairs at Texas A & M University’s George H. W. Bush School of Government and
Public Service. He is the author of The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Cornell University Press, 2006), and (with Bradley A. Thayer) American Empire: A
Debate (Routledge, 2006), 8/2/7, “America's Middle East Grand Strategy after Iraq: The Moment for Offshore Balancing has Arrived,”
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/1/0/9/7/pages210973/p210973-1.php, Accessed 6/27/12, THW)
In addition to soft balancing, asymmetric strategies are another type of non- traditional balancing that is being
employed to contest US primacy. When employed by states, asymmetric strategies mean the acquisition of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) capabilities. Regional powers – especially those on the US hit list like Iran and Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq – cannot slug it out toe-to-toe against the US’ dominant high-tech conventional forces. Because they are threatened
by the US, however, these states seek other methods of offsetting American power, and dissuading Washington from using its
military muscle against them. WMD – especially the possession of nuclear weapons – is one way these states can level
the strategic playing field and deter the US from attacking them. Terrorism is another asymmetric strategy – one
employed by non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and similar jihadist groups – to resist US dominance. The use of
asymmetric strategies to oppose American power – especially in the Middle East where US policy has an
imperial dimension – illustrates the dictum that empires inevitably provoke resistance.
Heg causes terror – empirics and polls prove
Eland, Independent Institute Center on Peace and Liberty director and senior fellow, 8
(Ivan. Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University and Director of Defense Policy Studies at
the Cato Institute. “Reverend Wright Is Not Totally Wrong”, May 5 2008, The Independent Institute, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2182, accessed 6/27/12, THW)
But what about Wright’s implication that U.S. foreign policy causes blowback terrorism against the United
States? Again, the facts are on his side. Poll after poll in the Arab/Islamic world indicates that U.S. political and
economic freedoms, technology, and even culture are popular in these countries, but U.S. interventionist foreign policy
toward the Middle East is not.Bin Laden has repeatedly said that he attacks the United States because of its
occupation of Muslim lands and its support for corrupt Middle Eastern governments . Finally, empirical studies
have linked U.S. foreign occupation and military interventions with blowback terrorism against the U.S. targets.
Heg causes terror – offshore balancing is key to solve
Mearsheimer 11 John J. Mearsheimer, the “R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago” Jan/Feb 2011
“Imperial By Design” http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0059.pdf
Specifically, offshore
balancing is the best grand strategy for ameliorating our terrorism problem. Placing American
troops in the Arab and Muslim world is a major cause of terrorist attacks against the United States, as University of Chicago
professor Robert Pape’s research shows. Remember what happened after President Ronald Reagan sent marines into
Beirut in 1982? A suicide bomber blew up their barracks the following year, killing 241 service members. Reagan had the
good sense to quickly pull the remaining marines out of Lebanon and keep them offshore . And it is worth noting that the
perpetrators of this act did not pursue us after we withdrew . Reagan’s decision was neither surprising nor controversial, because the
United States had an offshore-balancing strategy in the Middle East during this period. Washington relied on Iraq to contain Iran during
the 1980s, and kept the rapid-deployment force—which was built to intervene in the Gulf if the local balance of power collapsed—at the
ready should it be needed. This was smart policy. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the United States,
once again acting as an offshore balancer, moved large numbers of troops into Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait.
After the war was won and victory was consolidated, those troops should have been pulled out of the region.
But that did not happen. Rather, Bill Clinton adopted a policy of dual containment—checking both Iran and Iraq instead of letting them check one
another. And lest we forget, the resulting presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia was one of the main reasons that
Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States. The Bush administration simply made a bad situation even
worse. Sending the U.S. military into countries in the Arab and Muslim world is helping to cause our terrorism
problem, not solve it. The best way to fix this situation is to follow Ronald Reagan’s example and pull all American troops
out of Afghanistan and Iraq, then deploy them over the horizon as part of an offshore-balancing strategy. To be
sure, the terrorist challenge would not completely disappear if the United States went back to offshore balancing, but it would be an important step forward.
Leadership Bad: A2 "Multipolarity Bad"
Multipolarity makes war unthinkable- deters great power aggression
Schweller, 10 (Randall Schweller is a professor of political science at Ohio State University and received his PhD from Columbia University in international relations, “Entropy and the
trajectory of world politics: why polarity has become less meaningful” Cambridge Review of International Affairs,Volume 23, Number 1, March 2010/ak)
Though rarely mentioned, system equilibrium can emerge without balancing or power-seeking behaviour. This should
not come as a surprise; for we know that a Concert system existed during a multipolar phase, roughly between 1815 and1853. That
system, however, arose from the ashes of war, the purpose of which was to defeat an aspiring hegemon before it rolled up the system.
The current system, however, has already been ‘rolled up’ for all intents and purposes. So how could a balance of
power be restored without deliberate balancing against the US? The answer is that uneven rates of growth among states
seeking merely to get rich(wealth, not military power, security, or political influence over others) can produce a rough
equivalence in capabilities among several states, none of which feel particularly threatened by each other or seek
relative gains at the expense of one another. In other words, the major actors in the system are strictly egoistic, and
they interact cooperatively, not competitively or strategically in a military sense, with each other. It is essentially an orthodox
liberal world, in which international politics becomes a positive-sum game and the concept of equilibrium is, by
definition, a Pareto optimal condition that no actor has an interest in changing (see Callinicos 2007, 546). Here, global
equilibrium means maximum entropy. What has changed? Simply put, there is no longer an expectation of violent expansion among the
great powers. Balance of power is built on the assumption not only that war is a legitimate instrument of statecraft (Jervis 1986, 60) but
that states will settle their differences by fighting. This expectation exercises a profound influence on the types of behaviours exhibited
by states and the system as a whole (Lasswell 1965 [1935], chapter 3). It was not just the prospect of war that triggered the
basic dynamics of past multipolar and bipolar systems . It was the anticipation that powerful states sought to and would, if
given the right odds, carry out territorial conquests at each others’ expense that shaped and shoved actors in ways consistent with the
predictions of Waltzian balance of power theory. Without the very real fear of Soviet expansion, why would bipolarity
have compelled the US to adopt a grand strategy of containment and deterrence ? Without the traditional
expectationsof great power war and conquest, why would the added complexity and uncertainty of multipolar
systems make themunstable? Why would states form alliances in the first place, much less worry about who aligns with whom?
When war is unthinkable among the great powers,it is hard to see how polarity exerts the constraints predicted
by structural balanceof power theory. To the extent that this driving force of history is no longer in play, the system will
experience increasing entropy. The current system’s ideational or social structures also seem to be pushing in the
direction of greater entropy, suggesting that the world may be reaching an endpoint of sorts. This view of history is
consistent with Kant’s (2005 [1795])‘perpetual peace’, Richard Rosecrance’s (1987) ‘rise of the trading state’, Francis
Fukuyama’s (1992) ‘end of history’ and, for slightly different reasons, John Ikenberry’s (2001) vision of a ‘constitutional
order’ rooted in liberalism. Regarding the latter, a ‘multipolar’ constitutional order would not be all that different
from the current world because: (1) constitutional orders place limits on the returns to power, so presumably a
switch from unipolarity to multipolarity would not be terribly significant ; (2) the system, though multipolar, would
retain the basic foundations of the American liberal order, its underlying social values would remain intact, and
(3) there wouldbe, just as today, no balancing behavior among the major powers against each other , and major power
war would be virtually unthinkable. That noted,Ikenberry’s view of order is more centralized, structured and deliberate than the one I
have in mind. An entropy version of Ikenberry’s order would be a watered-down, more decentralized and
spontaneously generated liberal order—but one that still devalues power. Liberals are not the only ones making such
claims. Several prominent realists have also acknowledged that the world has fundamentally changed to the point
that, if and when unipolarity ends, we will not likely see a return to traditional great power politics among the core
states. Robert Jervis (2005), for instance, stresses the unprecedented development of a Security Community among all the leading
powers as the defining feature of today’s world politics. The existence of this security community means not only that
major power war has become unthinkable but also that bandwagoning and balancing ‘will not map on the
classical form of the balance of power’ (Jervis 2005, 31). Similarly, Jonathan Kirshner (2008, 335) sees fewer prospects for
great power war as a consequence of globalization. Along these lines, FareedZakaria (2008, 243) predicts a post-American world
governed by a messy ad hoc order composed of a` la carte multilateralism and networked interactions among state and nonstate actors.
The provision of international order in this future world will no longer be a matter decided solely by the political
and military power held by a single hegemon oreven a group of leading states.
U.S. withdrawal and a concurrent shift to multipolarity would prevent American involvement in
major power wars.
Christopher Layne (Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M
University) 2006 “The Peace of Illusions” p 170
By devolving full responsibility for their defense to U.S. allies , offshore balancing would take advantage of the
unique geostrategic advantages that allow the United States to benefit from multipolarity, exercise a free hand
strategically, and avoid being automatically engulfed in Eurasian conflicts because of its alliance commitments .
As an offshore balancer, the United States would reap security advantages from a reversion to multipolarity. The
United States is far removed from powerful rivals and shielded from them both by geography and its own hard
power. Consequently, as an insular great power, the United States is far less vulnerable to the effects of
"instability" than are the major powers of Eurasia, and it could—and should—insulate itself from possible future Eurasian
great power wars. For the United States, the risk of conflict and the possible exposure of the American homeland to attack,
rather than arising from any direct threat to the United States itself; derive directly from the overseas commitments
mandated by hegemony's all-encompassing definition of U.S. interests.
Leadership Bad: A2 "Offshore Balancing Bad/Fails" (1/2)
The status quo is transitioning to offshore balancing which solves terrorism and smoothes the
transition
Layne 12 (Christopher Layne, PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, JD from the University of Southern California Law Center, LLM
in international law from the University of Virginia Law School, Mary Julia and George R Jordan professor of international affairs at the George Bush School of
Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, research fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute, former associate professor
of international studies at the University of Miami, former fellow in the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at the University of California Los Angeles,
former fellow at the CATO Institute, former fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, former MacArthur Foundation fellow in
global security, former visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, former research fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy
School at Harvard University, former member of the professional staff at the Arroyo Center at the California Institute of Technology, former foreign policy analyst for
NATO, 1-27-12, “The (Almost) Triumph of Offshore Balancing,” http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing-6405) GZ
Although cloaked in the reassuring boilerplate about American military preeminence and global leadership, in reality the
Obama administration’s
new Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG) is the first step in the United States’ adjustment to the end of thePax
Americana—the sixty-year period of dominance that began in 1945. As the Pentagon document says—without spelling out the long-term grand-strategic
a profound power shift in international politics is taking
place, which compels a rethinking of the U.S. world role. The DSG is a response to two drivers. First, the United
States is in economic decline and will face a serious fiscal crisis by the end of this decade. As President Obama said,
the DSG reflects the need to “put our fiscal house in order here at home and renew our long-term economic strength.” The best indicators of U.S.
decline are its GDP relative to potential competitors and its share of world manufacturing output. China’s
implications—the United States is facing “an inflection point.” In plain English,
manufacturing output has now edged past that of the United States and accounts for just over 18 or 19 percent of world manufacturing output. With respect
to GDP, virtually all leading economic forecasters agree that, measured by market-exchange rates, China’s
aggregate GDP will exceed that of the United States by the end of the current decade. Measured by purchasing-power
parity, some leading economists believe China already is the world’s number-one economy. Clearly, China is on the verge of overtaking the
United States economically. At the end of this decade, when the ratio of U.S. government debt to GDP is likely to exceed the danger zone of 100 percent, the United States will face a severe
fiscal crisis. In a June 2011 report, the Congressional Budget Office warned that unless Washington drastically slashes expenditures—including on entitlements and defense—and raises taxes, it is headed for a fiscal
train wreck. Moreover, concerns about future inflation and America’s ability to repay its debts could imperil the U.S. dollar’s reserve-currency status. That currency status allows the United States to avoid difficult “gunsor-butter” trade-offs and live well beyond its means while enjoying entitlements at home and geopolitical preponderance abroad. But that works only so long as foreigners are willing to lend the United States money.
The second driver behind the new
Pentagon strategy is the shift in global wealth and power from the Euro-Atlantic world to Asia. As new great
powers such as China and, eventually, India emerge, important regional powers such as Russia, Japan, Turkey,
Korea, South Africa and Brazil will assume more prominent roles in international politics. Thus, the post-Cold War
“unipolar moment,” when the United States commanded the global stage as the “sole remaining superpower,”
will be replaced by a multipolar international system. TheEconomistrecently projected that China’s defense spending will equal that of the United States by 2025. By the
Speculation is now commonplace about the dollar’s long-term hold on reserve-currency status. It would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
middle or end of the next decade, China will be positioned to shape a new international order based on the rules and norms that it prefers—and, perhaps, to provide the international economy with a new reserve
currency. Two terms not found in the DSG are “decline” and “imperial overstretch” (the latter coined by the historian Paul Kennedy to describe the consequences when a great power’s economic resources can’t support
the DSG is the first move in what figures to be a
dramatic strategic retrenchment by the United States over the next two decades. This retrenchment will push to
the fore a new U.S. grand strategy—offshore balancing. In a 1997 article inInternational Security, I argued that offshore balancing would displace America’s primacy
its external ambitions). But, although President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may not admit it,
strategy because it would prove difficult to sustain U.S. primacy in the face of emerging new powers and the erosion of U.S. economic dominance. Even in 1997, it was foreseeable that as U.S. advantages eroded,
there would be strong pressures for the United States to bring its commitments into line with its shrinking economic base. This would require scaling back the U.S. military presence abroad; setting clear strategic
priorities; devolving the primary responsibility for maintaining security in Europe and East Asia to regional actors; and significantly reducing the size of the U.S. military. Subsequent to that article, offshore balancing has
been embraced by other leading American thinkers, including John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Barry Posen, Christopher Preble and Robert Pape. To be sure, the proponents of offshore balancing have differing ideas
about its specifics. But they all agree that offshore balancing is based on a common set of core strategic principles. ● Fiscal and economic constraints require that the United States set strategic priorities. Accordingly,
the country should withdraw or downsize its forces in Europe and the Middle East and concentrate is military
power in East Asia. ● America’s comparative strategic advantages rest on naval and air power, not on sending land armies to fight ground wars in
Eurasia. Thus the United States should opt for the strategic precepts of Alfred Thayer Mahan (the primacy of air and
sea power) over those of Sir Halford Mackinder (the primacy of land power ). Offshore balancing is a strategy of
burden shifting, not burden sharing. It is based on getting other states to do more for their security so the
United States can do less. ● By reducing its geopolitical and military footprint on the ground in the Middle East,
the United States can reduce the incidence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism directed against it. Islamic
terrorism is a push back against U.S. dominance and policies in the region and against on-the-ground forces in
the region. The one vital U.S. interest there—safeguarding the free flow of Persian Gult oil—can be ensured largely by naval and air power. ● The
United States must avoid future large-scale nation-building exercises like those in Iraq and Afghanistan and
refrain from fighting wars for the purpose of attaining regime change. Several of these points are incorporated in
the new DSG. For example, the new strategy document declares that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” The
document also states the United States will “rebalance [its] military investment in Europe” and that the American military posture on the Continent must
“evolve.” (The Pentagon’s recent decision to cut U.S. ground forces in Europe from four brigades to two is an example of this “evolution.”) Finally,
implicitly rejecting the post-9/11 American focus on counterinsurgency, the strategy document says that with
the end of the Iraq war and the winding down of the conflict in Afghanistan, “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct
large-scale, prolonged stability operations.” The DSG reflects the reality that offshore balancing has jumped from the
cloistered walls of academe to the real world of Washington policy making. In recent years the U.S. Navy, the Joint Staff and the National
Intelligence Council all have shown interest in offshore balancing as an alternative to primacy. Indeed, in his February 2011 West Point speech, then defense secretary Robert Gates made two key points that expressed
a clear strategic preference for Mahan over Mackinder. First, he said that “the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements—whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or
elsewhere.” Second—with an eye on the brewing debate about intervention in Libya—he declared that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into
the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” In plain English, no more Eurasian land wars. The subsequent Libyan intervention bore the hallmarks of offshore
balancing: The United States refused to commit ground forces and shifted the burden of military heavy lifting to the Europeans. Still, within the DSG document there is an uneasy tension between the recognition that
economic constraints increasingly will impinge on the U.S. strategic posture and the assertion that America’s global interests and military role must remain undiminished. This reflects a deeper intellectual dissonance
within the foreign-policy establishment, which is reluctant to accept the reality of American decline. In August 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed a “New American Moment;” reaffirmed the U.S.
responsibility to lead the world; and laid out an ambitious U.S. global agenda. More recently, Mitt Romney, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, declared that the twenty-first century “must be
an American century” and that “America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers.” These views are echoed by foreign-policy scholars who refuse to acknowledge the reality of decline or
the United States is
not exempt from the historical pattern of great-power decline. The country needs to adjust to the world of 2025
when China will be the number-one economy and spending more on defense than any other nation. Effective
strategic retrenchment is about more than just cutting the defense budget; it also means redefining America’s
interests and external ambitions. Hegemonic decline is never painless. As the twenty-first century’s second decade begins, history and multipolarity are staging a comeback. The central
embrace a theory of “painless decline” wherebyPax Americana’snorms and institutions will survive any American retrenchment. But, American “exceptionalism” notwithstanding,
strategic preoccupation of the United States during the next two decades will be its own decline and China’s rise.
Leadership Bad: A2 "Offshore Balancing Bad/Fails" (2/2)
Decline forces a transition to offshore balancing and multilateralism
He 10 (Kai He, assistant professor of political science at Utah State University, postdoctoral fellow in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World program at Princeton
University, Bradley fellow of the Lynda and Harry Bradley Foundation, 5-21-10, “The Hegemon’s Choice between Power and Security: Explaining US Policy Toward Asia
after the Cold War,” published in Review of International Studies, volume 36) GZ
When US policymakers perceive a declining hegemony in that the power gap between the hegemon and others
is narrowed rather than widened, US policymakers begin to change their hierarchic view of the international system. The rapid decline
of relative power causes US policymakers to worry about security imposed by anarchy even though the US may
remain the most powerful state in the system during the process of decline. Offshore balancing and
multilateralism, therefore, become two possible policy options for the US to maximise its security under
anarchy. The possible budget constraints during US decline may lead to military withdrawals from overseas bases . In
addition, the US becomes more willing to pay the initial ‘lock-in’ price of multilateral institutions in order to
constrain other states’ behaviour for its own security. US foreign policy towards Asia preliminarily supports the power-perception
hegemonic model. When President George H. W. Bush came to power, the US faced ‘dual deficits’ even though the US won the Cold
War and became the hegemon by default in the early 1990s. The domestic economic difficulty imposed a declining, or at least
uncertain, hegemony to the Bush administration. Consequently, Bush had to withdraw troops from Asia and
conducted a reluctant offshore balancing strategy in the early 1990s. Although the US still claimed to keep its commitments to Asian
allies, the US words with the sword became unreliable at best. During President Clinton’s first tenure, how to revive US economy became
the first priority of the administration. The perception of a declining hegemon did not totally fade until the middle of the
1990s when the US economy gradually came out of the recession. Multilateral institutions, especially APEC,
became Clinton’s diplomatic weapon to open Asia’s market and boost US economy. In addition, the US also endorsed the
ARF initiated by the ASEAN states in order to retain its eroding political and military influence after the strategic retreats in the early 1990s.
A transition to offshore balancing solves
Layne 12 (Christopher Layne, PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, JD from the University of Southern California Law Center, LLM in international law from the University of Virginia Law School,
Mary Julia and George R Jordan professor of international affairs at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, research fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute,
former associate professor of international studies at the University of Miami, former fellow in the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at the University of California Los Angeles, former fellow at the CATO Institute, former
fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, former MacArthur Foundation fellow in global security, former visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, former research fellow at the Center
for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School at Harvard University, former member of the professional staff at the Arroyo Center at the California Institute of Technology, former foreign policy analyst for NATO, 4-26-12, “The
End of Pax Americana: How Western Decline became Inevitable,” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-end-of-pax-americana-how-western-decline-became-inevitable/256388/2/) GZ
The United States has a legacy commitment to global stability, and that poses a particular challenge to the
waning hegemon as it seeks to fulfill its commitment with dwindling resources . The fundamental challenge for the United
States as it faces the future is closing the "Lippmann gap," named for journalist Walter Lippmann. This means bringing America's commitments into balance
with the resources available to support them while creating a surplus of power in reserve. To do this, the country will need to establish new
strategic priorities and accept the inevitability that some commitments will need to be reduced because it no
longer can afford them. These national imperatives will force the United States to craft some kind of foreignpolicy approach that falls under the rubric of "offshore balancing "--directing American power and influence toward maintaining a balance of power in key
strategic regions of the world. This concept--first articulated by this writer in a 1997 article in the journal International Security--has gained increasing attention over the past decade or so as other prominent geopolitical
scholars, including John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Robert Pape, Barry Posen and Andrew Bacevich, have embraced this approach. Although there are shades of difference among proponents of offshore balancing
First, it assumes the United States will have to reduce its
presence in some regions and develop commitment priorities. Europe and the Middle East are viewed as less
important than they once were, with East Asia rising in strategic concern. Second, as the United States scales
back its military presence abroad, other states need to step up to the challenge of maintaining stability in key
regions. Offshore balancing, thus, is a strategy of devolving security responsibilities to others. Its goal is
burden shifting, not burden sharing. Only when the United States makes clear that it will do less--in Europe, for
example--will others do more to foster stability in their own regions. Third, the concept relies on naval and air
power while eschewing land power as much as possible. This is designed to maximize America's comparative
strategic advantages--standoff, precision-strike weapons; command-and-control capabilities; and superiority in
intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance. After all, fighting land wars in Eurasia is not what the United
States does best. Fourth, the concept avoids Wilsonian crusades in foreign policy, "nation-building" initiatives
and imperial impulses. Not only does Washington have a long record of failure in such adventures, but they are
also expensive. In an age of domestic austerity, the United States cannot afford the luxury of participating in
overseas engagements that contribute little to its security and can actually pose added security problems.
Finally, offshore balancing would reduce the heavy American geopolitical footprint caused by U.S. boots on the
ground in the Middle East--the backlash effect of which is to fuel Islamic extremism. An over-the-horizon U.S.
military posture in the region thus would reduce the terrorist threat while still safeguarding the flow of Persian
Gulf oil. During the next two decades, the United States will face some difficult choices between bad outcomes and worse ones. But such decisions could determine whether America will manage a graceful
in terms of how they define the strategy, all of their formulations share core concepts in common.
decline that conserves as much power and global stability as possible. A more ominous possibility is a precipitous power collapse that reduces U.S. global influence dramatically. In any event, Americans will have to
adjust to the new order, accepting the loss of some elements of national life they had taken for granted. In an age of austerity, national resources will be limited, and competition for them will be intense. If the country
wants to do more at home, it will have to do less abroad. It may have to choose between attempting to preserve American hegemony or repairing the U.S. economy and maintaining the country's social safety net.
The Constellation of world power is changing, and U.S. grand strategy will have to change with it. American
elites must come to grips with the fact that the West does not enjoy a predestined supremacy in international
politics that is locked into the future for an indeterminate period of time. The Euro-Atlantic world had a long run
of global dominance, but it is coming to an end. The future is more likely to be shaped by the East. At the same time, Pax Americana
also is winding down. The United States can manage this relative decline effectively over the next couple of decades
only if it first acknowledges the fundamental reality of decline. The problem is that many Americans, particularly among the elites,
have embraced the notion of American exceptionalism with such fervor that they can't discern the world transformation occurring before their eyes.
Leadership Bad: A2 "Retrenchment Bad/Fails" (1/2)
Retrenchment now is key to stable transition to multipolarity- only way to ensure cooperation which
solves climate change, prolif, and the economy
Patrick 10(November/December, Stewart, Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Irresponsible
Stakeholders? Subtitle: The Difficulty of Integrating Rising Powers, Foreign Affairs, lexis)
And yet Obama's engagement strategy pragmatically recognizes that addressing global problems such as climate change,
nuclear proliferation, and financial instability calls for meaningful cooperation, not only with democracies but also with
nondemocracies. Global governance requires collaboration among the unlike-minded. But partnership among the like-minded
cannot be assumed, either. Democracy is an unreliable predictor of allegiance to U.S. interests. Some of the United States' recent diplomatic tussles have been with big emerging democracies. Brazil,
under its flamboyant president, LuizInácio Lula da Silva, has assumed a prominent global profile thanks to its criticism of the United States' international role, ranging from the U.S. military presence in Colombia to
Washington's alleged pro-Israel bias. Turkey, for decades a reliable U.S. ally, has staked out an independent posture on Middle East policy under Prime Minister RecepTayyipErdogan, abandoning its historical neutrality
and making its relations with Israel contingent on the latter's policy toward Gaza CHANGE FROM WITHIN The world today is not a blank slate, as it was after World War II, when, as the Obama administration
frequently notes, a farsighted generation of U.S. leaders laid the foundations of a Western liberal international order. They left many institutional products -- international and regional, formal and informal, general
purpose and issue specific. Absent a cataclysm such as a world war, reallocating influence within existing bodies will be an uphill struggle. The more important the institution, the more its powerful members will resist
diluting their authority within it. China and Russia, for example, oppose allowing any new permanent members to join the UN Security Council. None of the council's permanent five nations will countenance either
limiting its veto power or extending that power to others. And consider the International Energy Agency. It excludes major energy consumers such as China and India, as well as major energy suppliers such as Russia.
Ostensibly, the reasoning behind this is that IEA members must belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But there is another, more self-interested explanation: voting at the IEA is
weighted based on each country's share of global oil consumption in 1974, and its current members want to retain this arrangement even though oil consumption has remained essentially static in North America and
Europe while increasing eight- and sixfold in China and India, respectively. Vested interests also plague ongoing debates about governance of the World Bank, the IMF, and other international financial institutions. To
be sure, the shock of the recent global economic downturn has driven some degree of change. The G-20 has become the principal forum for international economic coordination, the first major adaptation in multilateral
cooperation to reflect dramatic shifts in global power. The G-20 created the Financial Stability Board in April 2009 to strengthen international standards for global finance. The resources of the IMF have expanded. And
the members of both the IMF and the World Bank have agreed to adjust those organizations' voting weights and quotas by several percentage points in favor of emerging-market economies. But the overall impact of
these reforms is modest. This is not a global constitutional moment akin to the one 65 years ago. In any event, even more ambitious efforts to bring rising powers into existing institutions will be limited by the prospect of
tradeoffs between effectiveness and legitimacy. This concern is at the core of the debates over UN Security Council expansion. As Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, explained to the UN General Assembly in
February 2009, "The United States believes that the long-term legitimacy and viability of the United Nations Security Council depends on its reflecting the world of the twenty-first century." At the same time, she
continued, any expansion must "not diminish its effectiveness or efficiency." A larger, more inclusive Security Council could complicate U.S. efforts to garner sufficient votes for critical resolutions. Expanding existing
forums can also harm consensus. This is most obvious in the shift from the G-8 -- still a cozy Western-dominated forum despite Russia's presence -- to the G-20, a much more diverse body. Given its heterogeneity, the
The United
States has no choice but to rely on rising powers to help address today's global challenges. But it must engage
these countries in a way that preserves the core of the postwar order. The political scientist G. John Ikenberry has argued that the time
is ripe for an "institutional bargain": by ceding influence within multilateral frameworks while it remains
dominant, the United States might lock in support from the rising powers for an international order based on the Western model. But how should the
G-20 is unlikely in the short term to become a venue for addressing sensitive security and political issues, such as Iran's nuclear program or the violence in Sudan A GRAND BARGAIN
United States go about doing this? Should the rising powers be integrated quickly on the assumption that giving them a stake soon will make them responsible faster? Or would it be wiser to adopt an incremental
approach, one that conditioned the rising powers' entry into the club on their demonstrated willingness to play by global rules and shoulder new burdens? Both approaches could entail frustrations. There is no
guarantee that the world's rising powers will become the United States' strategic partners. Washington may want them to do more on the world stage, but it cannot control their choices and it will not always like the
results of their participation. There is, of course, no common worldview among today's emerging countries. But as U.S. power declines, the rising powers will seek to test, dilute, or revise existing institutions to suit their
purposes. The United States will need to decide when to stand firm, when to engage, and when simply to agree to disagree. This will likely produce ongoing debates about the appropriate boundaries of national
sovereignty, the desirable balance between the state and the market, and the proper foundations of political legitimacy. During the Cold War, the United States could count on solidarity among the capitalist
democracies. In the twenty-first century, the normative foundations for multilateral cooperation will be weaker. An imperfect historical parallel might be the Concert of Europe of the early 1800s. That arrangement
leavened the traditional balance of power with a balance of rights, which helped bridge differences between the Western powers (France and the United Kingdom) and the authoritarian monarchies (Austria, Prussia, and
Russia) of the Holy Alliance. Global cooperation today may follow a similar logic. The United States may need to pay less attention to regime type and tolerate nations in which democracy is lacking or absent. It must be
attuned to nationalist sensitivities in the rising powers -- including those linked to the United States' perceived interventionism, unilateralism, or militarism -- and to the temptation of all governments to harness these
grievances for their own political purposes. Accommodating new powers while retaining as much of the old order as possible will be a constant balancing act, much like the Concert of Europe was two centuries ago. Yet
as Thomas Wright of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has observed, the Obama administration has done little serious thinking about how to foster cooperation when the United States' interests diverge from those
of other countries. The brief discussion of potentially clashing interests with rising powers in the National Security Strategy document of May 2010 seems too limited: "And when national interests do collide -- or
countries prioritize their interests in different ways -- those nations that defy international norms or fail to meet their sovereign responsibilities will be denied the incentives that come with greater integration and
collaboration with the international community." The warning clearly applies to Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela but may or may not also apply to those emerging countries that fall short of being "rogue." What if Brazil,
China, or Turkey simply prioritizes its interests differently from the United States on critical issues? In this complex international reality, fixed alliances and formal organizations may count for less than shifting coalitions
of interest. Fortunately, the United States is well positioned to exploit these dynamics, since it will remain for the foreseeable future the hub for most agreements that will be discussed in the G-20 and other major
forums. But to make the most of this advantage, U.S. officials will need to be unsentimental about forming partnerships of convenience. They will need to convene different clubs for different purposes, balancing
encompassing arrangements such as the G-20 with smaller affinity groupings such as the G-8, which permit the United States to collaborate with longtime partners that broadly share its fundamental political and
economic values. Meanwhile, the United States must not allow the emerging powers to avoid contributing to global public goods. At times, these contributions might follow the notion of "common but differentiated
responsibility." Adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and incorporated into the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, this principle establishes different obligations for developed and developing countries, based on their internal
capacities. But the United States should resist the promiscuous invocation by fast-growing economies of internal development constraints and insist on clear benchmarks for balancing the responsibilities of the
established and the emerging powers over time. More generally, the United States must link any extension of international status, voice, and weight to the emerging powers to their concrete contributions to world
stability. Reform of the increasingly outdated UN Security Council is an area in which the United States must insist on ground rules for inclusion. Any new permanent seats should be granted only to those states that
make tangible efforts to foster international peace and security. Reasonable criteria for measuring such efforts could include whether a state has military (as well as civilian) capabilities that could be deployed globally or
regionally on behalf of the UN; significantly supports the UN's regular and peacekeeping budgets; is willing to use enforcement tools under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, authorizing sanctions and the use of military
force; is able to help broker political solutions; and has a record of conforming to and enforcing security regimes. The United States can provide incentives for aspiring states to meet Western expectations by proposing
concrete benchmarks for eligibility. Any adjustment to the UN Security Council will take time. In the meantime, the United States should use the G-20 framework to anchor emerging powers such as Brazil, China, India,
Indonesia, and South Africa in the current world order and forge understandings with them on issues such as currency imbalances, climate change, peacekeeping, development cooperation, and nonproliferation. By
investing the G-20 with real influence and gradually expanding its agenda, the established nations may encourage the rising powers to jettison outmoded positions held by the G-77 regarding sovereignty,
nonintervention, and economic development in favor of more pragmatic policies. A dynamic G-20 would also provide a valuable testing ground for the emerging powers to demonstrate their credentials for Security
Council membership. U.S. officials must make peace with incrementalism. They need to be flexible in accommodating the institutional aspirations of the emerging powers. Cooperation will arise through the gradual
updating of existing multilateral architecture, ad hoc arrangements, and bargaining. Where possible, the United States should use flexible approaches not simply to sidestep international organizations but also to drive
reform efforts within them. Multilateral cooperation within large groups will increasingly rest on "minilateral" agreements, that is, agreements among a subset of key states, beforehand. This is the lesson of the
Copenhagen accord of December 2009, which was reached in the waning days of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The United States brokered a
last-minute deal with the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) that, even though it was nonbinding, set the stage for tangible global action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Additional
progress on climate change will depend heavily on the 17-nation Major Economies Forum -- an informal body comprised of the world's major emitters of greenhouse gases. This forum will not replace the UNFCCC, but
In the end, the biggest obstacle to integrating rising powers into the
world order may come from within the United States. Making room for emerging players will require
psychological adjustments on the part of U.S.
it can galvanize progress within it. PRESERVATION THROUGH COOPERATION
Leadership Bad: A2 "Retrenchment Bad/Fails" (2/2)
Retrenchment’s key to solve warming and the economy- decline is key to reorient strategy away
from military solutions
Zenko and Cohen April 2012(MICAH ZENKO is a Fellow in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. MICHAEL A. COHEN is a Fellow at the
Century Foundation, Clear and Present Safety: The United States Is More Secure Than Washington Thinks, Foreign Affairs, lexis)
None of this is to suggest that the United States should stop playing a global role; rather, it should play a different role, one that
emphasizes soft power over hard power and inexpensive diplomacy and development assistance over expensive military buildups.
Indeed, the most lamentable cost of unceasing threat exaggeration and a focus on military force is that the main
global challenges facing the United States today are poorly resourced and given far less attention than "sexier" problems,
such as war and terrorism. These include climate change, pandemic diseases, global economic instability, and
transnational criminal networks -- all of which could serve as catalysts to severe and direct challenges to U.S.
security interests. But these concerns are less visceral than alleged threats from terrorism and rogue nuclear states. They require
long-term planning and occasionally painful solutions, and they are not constantly hyped by well-financed interest groups. As a result,
they are given short shrift in national security discourse and policymaking. To avoid further distorting U.S. foreign policy and to take
advantage of today's relative security and stability, policymakers need to not only respond to a 99 percent world but also solidify it.
They shouldstart by strengthening the global architecture of international institutions and norms that can
promote U.S. interests and ensure that other countries share the burden of maintaining global peace and
security. International institutions such as the UN (and its affiliated agencies, such as the International Atomic Energy
Agency), regional organizations (the African Union, the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations), and international financial institutions can formalize and reinforce norms and rules that
regulate state behavior and strengthen global cooperation, provide legitimacy for U.S. diplomatic efforts, and
offer access to areas of the world that the United States cannot obtain unilaterally. American leadership must be
commensurate with U.S. interests and the nature of the challenges facing the country. The United States should not take the
lead on every issue or assume that every problem in the world demands a U.S. response . In the majority of cases, the
United States should "lead from behind" -- or from the side, or slightly in the front -- but rarely, if ever, by itself. That approach would
win broad public support. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs' most recent survey of U.S. public
opinion on international affairs, less than ten percent of Americans want the country to "continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems." The American people have long embraced the idea that their country should not be the
world's policeman; for just as long, politicians from both parties have expressed that sentiment as a platitude. The time has come to act on that idea. If the main challenges in a 99
percent world are transnational in nature and require more development, improved public health, and enhanced law enforcement, then it is crucial that the United States maintain a
sharp set of nonmilitary national security tools. American foreign policy needs fewer people who can jump out of airplanes and more who can convene roundtable discussions and
lead negotiations. But owing to cuts that began in the 1970s and accelerated significantly during its reorganization in the 1990s, the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) has been reduced to a hollow shell of its former self. In 1990, the agency had 3,500 permanent employees. Today, it has just over 2,000 staffers, and the vast majority of its
budget is distributed via contractors and nongovernmental organizations. Meanwhile, with 30,000 employees and a $50 billion budget, the State Department's resources pale in
comparison to those of the Pentagon, which has more than 1.6 million employees and a budget of more than $600 billion. More resources and attention must be devoted to all
elements of nonmilitary state power -- not only USAID and the State Department but also the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the National Endowment for Democracy, and a host
of multilateral institutions that deal with the underlying causes of localized instability and ameliorate their effects at a relatively low cost. As U.S. General John Allen recently noted, "In
many respects, USAID's efforts can do as much -- over the long term -- to prevent conflict as the deterrent effect of a carrier strike group or a marine expeditionary force." Allen ought
to know: he commands the 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan .
Upgrading the United States' national security toolbox will require
reducing the size of its armed forces. In an era of relative peace and security, the U.S. military should not be the
primary prism through which the country sees the world. As a fungible tool that can back up coercive threats, the U.S.
military is certainly an important element of national power. However, it contributes very little to lasting solutions for 99 percent
problems. And the Pentagon's enormous budget not only wastes precious resources; it also warps national security
thinking and policymaking. Since the military controls the overwhelming share of the resources within the national security system, policymakers tend to perceive all
challenges through the distorting lens of the armed forces and respond accordingly. This tendency is one reason the U.S. military is so big. But it is also a case of the tail wagging the
dog: the vast size of the military is a major reason every challenge is seen as a threat. More than 60 years of U.S. diplomatic and military efforts have helped create a world that is
freer and more secure. In the process, the United States has fostered a global environment that bolsters U.S. interests and generally accepts U.S. power and influence. The result is
a world far less dangerous than ever before. The United States, in other words, has won. Now, it needs a national security strategy and an approach to foreign policy that reflect that
reality.
officials. They will have to reevaluate the touchstones that have defined U.S. foreign policy since 1945 . For more
than half a century, the United States has served as the chief architect and ultimate guarantor of an open, liberal international political
and economic order. This role has become embedded in U.S. political culture and national identity. But as global power becomes
diffuse, the United States' long-standing habits of mind may be more limiting than helpful . By the 1960s, as former
U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson cruelly noted, the United Kingdom had lost an empire but not yet found a new role. The
erosion of U.S. hegemony, although less stark, poses its own challenges. As the United States sheds its
primacy, it will need to adopt a more inclusive form of leadership. Compromise will be the order of the day. The
U.S. public may be prepared to make this shift: a comprehensive digest of recentpolling data compiled by the Council on
Foreign Relations and World Public Opinion suggests that Americans are willing to share the world's burdens . Yet at a
minimum, multipolarity will test the assumptions of American exceptionalism. The United States has long taken an à la carte approach to its international commitments: picking and
choosing among multilateral treaties, institutions, and initiatives and occasionally acting alone or opting out to preserve its sovereignty or freedom of action. But as the U.S. National
Intelligence Council's report Global Trends 2025 suggests, "Such a selective approach is . . . running into trouble because those powerful enough to afford picking and choosing are
exceptionalism may fray the fabric of the
international system. To hold the postwar order together, the United States will have to become a more
consistent exemplar of multilateral cooperation.
growing more numerous." As today's rising powers avail themselves of the same privilege, such
Leadership Bad: A2 "Transition Wars" (1/2)
Transition to multipolarity will be stable- international institutions ensure
Ikenberry 11(G. John, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, The Future of the Liberal World
Order Subtitle: Internationalism After America, Foreign Affairs, May/June, lexis)
There is no longer any question: wealth and power are moving from the North and the West to the East and the South, and the old
order dominated by the United States and Europe is giving way to one increasingly shared with non-Western rising states.
But if the great wheel of power is turning, what kind of global political order will emerge in the aftermath?Some anxious
observers argue that the world will not just look less American -- it will also look less liberal. Not onlyis the United States'
preeminence passing away, they say, but so, too, is the open and rule-based international order that the country has championed
since the 1940s. In this view, newly powerful states are beginning to advance their own ideas and agendas for global order, and a weakened United States will find it harder to defend
the old system. The hallmarks of liberal internationalism -- openness and rule-based relations enshrined in institutions such as the United Nations and norms such as multilateralism - could give way to a more contested and fragmented system of blocs, spheres of influence, mercantilist networks, and regional rivalries. The fact that today's rising states are mostly
large non-Western developing countries gives force to this narrative. The old liberal international order was designed and built in the West. Brazil, China, India, and other fastemerging states have a different set of cultural, political, and economic experiences, and they see the world through their anti-imperial and anticolonial pasts. Still grappling with basic
problems of development, they do not share the concerns of the advanced capitalist societies. The recent global economic slowdown has also bolstered this narrative of liberal
international decline. Beginning in the United States, the crisis has tarnished the American model of liberal capitalism and raised new doubts about the ability of the United States to
act as the global economic leader. For all these reasons, many observers have concluded that world politics is experiencing not just a changing of the guard but also a transition in
the ideas and principles that underlie the global order. The journalist Gideon Rachman, for example, says that a cluster of liberal internationalist ideas -- such as faith in
democratization, confidence in free markets, and the acceptability of U.S. military power -- are all being called into question. According to this worldview, the future of international
order will be shaped above all by China, which will use its growing power and wealth to push world politics in an illiberal direction. Pointing out that China and other non-Western
states have weathered the recent financial crisis better than their Western counterparts, pessimists argue that an authoritarian capitalist alternative to Western neoliberal ideas has
already emerged. According to the scholar Stefan Halper, emerging-market states "are learning to combine market economics with traditional autocratic or semiautocratic politics in a
this panicked narrative misses a deeper reality: although the
United States' position in the global system is changing, the liberal international order is alive and well . The
struggle over international order today is not about fundamental principles. China and other emerging great
powersdo not want to contest the basic rules and principles of the liberal international order; they wish to gain more
authority and leadership within it. Indeed, today's power transition represents not the defeat of the liberal order but its ultimate
ascendance. Brazil, China, and India have all become more prosperous and capable by operating inside the
existing international order -- benefiting from its rules, practices, and institutions, including the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and the newly organized G-20. Their economic successand growing influenceare tied to the liberal
internationalist organization of world politics, and they have deep interests in preserving that system . In the
meantime, alternatives to an open and rule-based order have yet to crystallize. Even though the last decade has
brought remarkable upheavals in the global system -- the emergence of new powers, bitter disputes among Western allies over
the United States' unipolar ambitions, and a global financial crisis and recession -- the liberal international order has no
competitors. On the contrary, the rise of non-Western powers and the growth of economic and security
interdependence are creating new constituencies for it. To be sure, as wealth and power become less concentrated in the United States' hands,
process that signals an intellectual rejection of the Western economic model." But
the country will be less able to shape world politics. But the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive. Indeed, now may be the best time for the
United States and its democratic partners to update the liberal order for a new era, ensuring that it continues to provide the benefits of security and prosperity that it has provided
since the middle of the twentieth century.
Transition to multipolarity will be peaceful
Schweller, 10 (Randall Schweller is a professor of political science at Ohio State University and received his PhD from Columbia University in international relations, “Entropy and the
trajectory of world politics: why polarity has become less meaningful” Cambridge Review of International Affairs,Volume 23, Number 1, March 2010/vs,ak)
Though rarely mentioned, system equilibrium can emerge without balancing or power-seeking behaviour. This should
not come as a surprise; for we know that a Concert system existed during a multipolar phase, roughly between 1815 and1853. That
system, however, arose from the ashes of war, the purpose of which was to defeat an aspiring hegemon before it rolled up the system.
The current system, however, has already been ‘rolled up’ for all intents and purposes. So how could a balance of
power be restored without deliberate balancing against the US? The answer is that uneven rates of growth among states
seeking merely to get rich(wealth, not military power, security, or political influence over others) can produce a rough
equivalence in capabilities among several states, none of which feel particularly threatened by each other or seek
relative gains at the expense of one another. In other words, the major actors in the system are strictly egoistic, and
they interact cooperatively, not competitively or strategically in a military sense, with each other. It is essentially an orthodox
liberal world, in which international politics becomes a positive-sum game and the concept of equilibrium is, by
definition, a Pareto optimal condition that no actor has an interest in changing (see Callinicos 2007, 546). Here, global
equilibrium means maximum entropy. What has changed? Simply put, there is no longer an expectation of violent expansion among the
great powers. Balance of power is built on the assumption not only that war is a legitimate instrument of statecraft (Jervis 1986, 60) but
that states will settle their differences by fighting. This expectation exercises a profound influence on the types of behaviours exhibited
by states and the system as a whole (Lasswell 1965 [1935], chapter 3). It was not just the prospect of war that triggered the
basic dynamics of past multipolar and bipolar systems . It was the anticipation that powerful states sought to and would, if
given the right odds, carry out territorial conquests at each others’ expense that shaped and shoved actors in ways consistent with the
predictions of Waltzian balance of power theory. Without the very real fear of Soviet expansion, why would bipolarity
have compelled the US to adopt a grand strategy of containment and deterrence ? Without the traditional
expectationsof great power war and conquest, why would the added complexity and uncertainty of multipolar
systems make themunstable? Why would states form alliances in the first place, much less worry about who aligns with whom?
When war is unthinkable among the great powers,it is hard to see how polarity exerts the constraints predicted
by structural balanceof power theory. To the extent that this driving force of history is no longer in play, the system will
experience increasing entropy.
Leadership Bad: A2 "Transition Wars" (2/2)
Hegemony is not key to stability and no transition wars – empirics prove the theory false
Fettweis, Naval War College, Professor of Security Studies, 10
(Christopher J., Tulane University’s Assistant Professor of Political Science, October 27, 2010, “Dangerous Times?: The International Politics of Great Power Peace”, p.173-4, accessed 7/5/12, YGS)
Simply stated, the hegemonic stability theory proposes that international peace in only possible when there is one country strong
enough to make and enforce a set of rules. At the height of PaxRomana between 27 BC and 180 AD, for example, Rome was able to
bring unprecedented peace and security to the Mediterranean. The Pax Britannica of the nineteenth century brought a level of stability
to the high seas. Perhaps the current era is peaceful because the United States has established a de facto Pax Americana where no
power is strong enough to challenge its dominance, and because it has established a set of rules that are generally in the interests of all
countries to follow. Without a benevolent hegemon, some strategists fear, instability may break our around the globe.70 Unchecked
conflicts could cause humanitarian disaster and, in today’s interconnected world, economic turmoil that would ripple throughout global
financial markets. If the United States were to abandon its commitments abroad, argued Art, the world would “become a more
dangerous place” and, sooner or later, that would “redound to America’s detriment.”71 If the massive spending that the United States
engages in actually provides stability in the international political and economic systems, then perhaps internationalism is worthwhile.
There are good theoretical and empirical reasons, however, to believe that U.S hegemony is not the primary cause
of the current era of stability. First of all, the hegemonic-stability argument overstates the role that the United
States plays in the system. No country is strong enough to police the world on its own. The only way there can be
stability in the community of great power is if self-policing occurs, if states have decided that their interests are served by peace. If no
pacific normative shift had occurred among the great powers that was filtering down through the system, then no amount of international
constabulary work by the United States could maintain stability. Likewise, if it is true that such a shift has occurred, then most of what
the hegemon spends to bring stability would be wasted. The 5 percent of the world’s population that live in the United States simply
could not force peace upon an unwilling 95. At the risk of beating the metaphor to death, the United States may be patrolling a
neighborhood that has already rid itself of crime. Stability and unipolarity may be simply coincidental. In order for U.S. hegemony to be
the reason for global stability, the rest of the world would have to expect reward for good behavior and fear punishment for bad. Since
the end of the Cold War, the United States has not always proven to be especially eager to engage in humanitarian interventions
abroad. Even rather incontrovertible evidence of genocide has not been sufficient to inspire action. Hegemonic stability can only take
credit for influencing those decisions that would have ended in war without the presence, whether physical or psychological, of the
United States. Ethiopia and Eritrea are hardly the only states that could go to war without the slightest threat of U.S. intervention. Since
most of the world today is free to fight without U.S. involvement, something else must be at work. Stability exists in many places
where no hegemony is present. Second, the limited empirical evidence we have suggests that there is little
connection between the relative level of U.S. activism and international stability. During the 1990s the United States cut
back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998 the United States was spending $100 billion less on defense in real terms
than it had in 1990.72 To internationalists, defense hawks, and other believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend”
endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan, “doubts
that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”73 If the pacific trend
were due not the U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, however, one would not have expected an increase in
global instability and violence. The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The world grew more peaceful
while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its security was endangered by a less-capable Pentagon,
or at least none took any action that would suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums;
no security dilemmas drove mistrust and arms races; no regional balancing occurred once the stabilizing
presence of the U.S. military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was
not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities. The incidence and magnitude of global
conflict declined while the United States cut its military spending under President Clinton, and it kept declining
as the Bush Administration ramped spending back up. No complex statistical analysis should be necessary to
reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated. It is also worth noting for our purposes that the United States
was no less safe.
Leadership Bad: A2 "U.S. Lashout"
No, we won’t- intuitive assertions shouldn’t cut it- best studies of IR prove the US can and will
successfully retrench- all their transition args are wrong
MacDonald and Parent 11(Paul K. and Joseph M., Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of
Miami, International Security, Graceful Decline?; The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment, Spring, lexis)
In this article, we question the logic and evidence of the retrenchment pessimists. To date there has been neither a
comprehensive study of great power retrenchment nor a study that lays out the case for retrenchment as a
practical or probable policy. This article fills these gaps by systematically examining the relationship between
acute relative decline and the responses of great powers. We examine eighteen cases of acute relative decline since 1870
and advance three main arguments. First, we challenge the retrenchment pessimists' claim that domestic or
international constraints inhibit the ability of declining great powers to retrench. In fact, when states fall in the
hierarchy of great powers, peaceful retrenchment is the most common response , even over short time
spans. Based on the empirical record, we find that great powers retrenched in no less than eleven and no more than fifteen of
the eighteen cases, a range of 61-83 percent. When international conditions demand it, states renounce risky ties,
increase reliance on allies or adversaries, draw down their military obligations, and impose adjustments on
domestic populations. Second, we find that the magnitude of relative decline helps explain the extent of great power retrenchment.
Following the dictates of neorealist theory, great powers retrench for the same reason they expand: the rigors of great
power politics compel them to do so. 12 Retrenchment is by no means easy, but necessity is the mother of
invention, and declining great powers face powerful incentives to contract their interests in a prompt and
proportionate manner. Knowing only a state's rate of relative economic decline explains its corresponding degree of retrenchment
in as much as 61 percent of the cases we examined. Third, we argue that the rate of decline helps explain what forms great power
retrenchment will take. How fast great powers fall contributes to whether these retrenching states will internally reform, seek new allies
or rely more heavily on old ones, and make diplomatic overtures to enemies. Further, our analysis suggests that great powers
facing acute decline are less likely to initiate or escalate militarized interstate disputes . Faced with
diminishing resources, great powers moderate their foreign policy ambitions and offer concessions in areas of
lesser strategic value. Contrary to the pessimistic conclusions of critics, retrenchment neither requires aggression nor
invites predation. Great powers are able to rebalance their commitments through compromise, rather than conflict. In these ways,
states respond to penury the same way they do to plenty: they seek to adopt policies that maximize security given available means. Far
from being a hazardous policy, retrenchment can be successful. States that retrench often regain their position in the hierarchy of great
powers. Of the fifteen great powers that adopted retrenchment in response to acute relative decline, 40 percent managed to recover
their ordinal rank. In contrast, none of the declining powers that failed to retrench recovered their relative position.
Yes, applicable to US; and “lashout” thesis is wrong- prefer studies over assertion
MacDonald and Parent 11(Paul K. and Joseph M., Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of
Miami, International Security, Graceful Decline?; The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment, Spring, lexis)
Implications for Sino-U.S. Relations Our findings are directly relevant to what appears to be an impending great power
transition between China and the United States. Estimates of economic performance vary, but most observers expect Chinese
GDP to surpass U.S. GDP sometime in the next decade or two. 91 This prospect has generated considerable concern. Many
scholars foresee major conflict during a Sino-U.S. ordinal transition. Echoing Gilpin and Copeland, John Mearsheimer sees the
crux of the issue as irreconcilable goals: China wants to be America's superior and the United States wants no peer competitors. In his
words, "[N]o amount of goodwill can ameliorate the intense security competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in
Eurasia." 92 Contrary to these predictions, our analysis suggests some grounds for optimism. Based on the historical
track record of great powers facing acute relative decline, the United States should be able to retrench in the
coming decades. In the next few years, the United States is ripe to overhaul its military, shift burdens to its allies,
and work to decrease costly international commitments. It is likely to initiate and become embroiled in fewer
militarized disputes than the average great power and to settle these disputes more amicably. Some might view this
prospect with apprehension, fearing the steady erosion of U.S. credibility. Yet our analysis suggests that retrenchment need not
signal weakness. Holding on to exposed and expensive commitments simply for the sake of one's reputation is
a greater geopolitical gamble than withdrawing to cheaper, more defensible frontiers. Some observers might dispute
our conclusions, arguing that hegemonic transitions are more conflict prone than other moments of acute relative decline. We counter
that there are deductive and empirical reasons to doubt this argument. Theoretically, hegemonic powers should actually find it
easier to manage acute relative decline. Fallen hegemons still have formidable capability, which threatens grave
harm to any state that tries to cross them. Further, they are no longer the top target for balancing coalitions, and
recovering hegemons may be influential because they can play a pivotal role in alliance formation . In addition,
hegemonic powers, almost by definition, possess more extensive overseas commitments; they should be able to more readily
identify and eliminate extraneous burdens without exposing vulnerabilities or exciting domestic populations .