Arctic Cooperation Neg
T – not its
A. The plan must be exclusively under US control
Possessive pronouns show ownership
Using Engish 13 , http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/possessive-pronoun.html)
Mine, yours, his,
hers, its, ours, theirs are the possessive pronouns used to substitute a noun and to show
possession or ownership. EG. This is your disk and that's mine. (Mine substitutes the word disk and shows that it belongs to me.)
Grammatically, this refers to the U.S. – that's the antecedent
Manderino 73 (Justice – Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, “Sigal, Appellant, v. Manufacturers Light and Heat Co”., No. 26, Jan. T., 1972,
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 450 Pa. 228; 299 A.2d 646; 1973 Pa. LEXIS 600; 44 Oil & Gas Rep. 214, Lexis)
On its face, the written instrument granting easement rights in this case is ambiguous. The same sentence which refers to the right to lay a 14 inch pipeline (singular) has a later reference to "said lines" (plural).
The writing is
ambiguous because other key
words which are "also may change the size of its pipes" are dangling in that the possessive pronoun "its" before the word "pipes" does not have any
subject preceding, to which the possessive pronoun refers. The dangling phrase is the beginning of a sentence, the first word of which does
The use of the plural "lines" makes no sense because the only previous reference has been to a "line" (singular).
additionally
not begin with a capital letter as is customary in normal English [***10] usage. Immediately preceding the "sentence" which does not begin with a capital letter, there appears a dangling [*236] semicolon which
The above deviations
from accepted grammatical usage make difficult, if not impossible, a clear understanding of
the words used or the intention of the parties. This is particularly true concerning the meaning of a disputed phrase in the instrument which states that
makes no sense at the beginning of a sentence and can hardly relate to the preceding sentence which is already properly punctuated by a closing period.
the grantee is to pay damages from ". . . the relaying, maintaining and operating said pipeline. . . ." The instrument is ambiguous as to what the words ". . . relaying . . . said pipeline . . ." were intended to mean.
B. The plan violates
Cooperation requires sharing ownership of the program
Carrillo 13 Susana Carrillo & Napoleão Dequech Neto, Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean
Boosting
Vocational Training and Skills Development January 2013
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=37888185
Cooperation succeeds
when the institutions involved share ownership and the same strategic interests, and
perceive mutual benefits as a result of the partnership. The positive institutional relationship among SENAI, SENATI, and GIZ has provided a
The Triangular Cooperation agreement among Brazil, Germany, and Peru to support vocational training and skills development shows that Triangular
strong base for the implementation of the Triangular Cooperation agreement and establishment of the CTA. The three parties worked in close collaboration to establish the Center with the goal of building a
trained skill base to serve the needs of industries on issues related to environmental protection and clean production. SENATI will assume full responsibility for the management of the Center at the end of the
triangular project, at which point the parties involved will be able to evaluate results and impact. This initiative is clearly grounded in a solid partnership in strategic areas of interest for all partners and with
benefits for the industrial sector. For these reasons, the CTA could become a center of excellence in its field and a knowledge hub in the region.
Multilateralism reduces national control
Weiss 5 Joseph Weiss Universidade de Brasilia 2005 Contradictions of International Cooperation in the
Amazon: Why is the nation-state left out?
http://www.ispn.org.br/arquivos/bb_.pdf
environmental capacity-building attracted multilateral organization
attention again in the late 1990s, it was defined, when applied, to transfer ineffective North models to th e South to make success more likely for programs defined by the North. By
allowing for NGO participation, national governments are often left with reduced control or
power.
Sajar and VanDeveer (2005) make clear that while
C. The affirmative interpretation is bad for debate
Limits are necessary for negative preparation and clash. The affirmative
unlimts by permitting other nations, alliances, and international organizations
to operate under the plan. We could never be ready for all the possibilities.
D. T is voter because it's necessary for good, well-prepared debating
Case
AT: Relations
Ukraine permanently tanked relations
Mankoff 3/14/14
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/14/who_lost_europe_ukraine_asia_pivot
Jeffrey Mankoff is deputy director and fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program.
The most direct impact of the current standoff will be on Washington's relationship with Moscow. Although the U.S.Russia "reset" was a signal achievement of Obama's first term, bilateral relations have cooled significantly in recent years. With tension
mounting over Russia's support for Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, crackdown on dissent and gay rights at
home, and decision to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the Obama administration made a
conscious decision to de-prioritize relations with Moscow, cancelling a September 2013 summit and refusing to send a high-level
government delegation to the Sochi Olympics. Nevertheless, Washington attempted to preserve limited cooperation in order to broker an
end to the Syrian civil war and roll back Iran's nuclear program. Even before the crisis in Ukraine, it was becoming clear that a second round of Syria talks in Geneva were going nowhere, and that the fate of an
Coupled with the drawdown of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan (a priority area for U.S.-Russian cooperation during the reset), these developments were already reducing
Washington's interest in partnership with Moscow. With its need for Russian cooperation significantly reduced, the invasion of
Ukraine sets the stage for the U.S. to further disengage, and to pursue a harder line toward
Moscow, likely for several years.
Iranian nuclear deal would depend on direct contacts between Washington and Tehran.
Arctic coop is high – The risk of war is low
Grätz 12 - Researcher @ Center for Security Studies [Jonas Grätz, “The Arctic: Thaw With Conflict Potential,” International
Relations and Security Network, July 2012, Pg. http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Articles/SpecialFeature/Detail/?lng=en&id=157901&contextid774=157901&contextid775=157922&tabid=1453469894
Prospects for cooperation Against the background of the changes in the Arctic, this region is occasionally identified as a potential area of future conflict. However, it is important first to point out that
there
is much scope for cooperation. This is particularly apparent when considering “soft” security concerns such as environmental pollution resulting from the extraction of raw
materials. The threats that arise for humans from the exceptional climatic situations are pushing actors towards
cooperative approaches, too. Many of these issues are taken on by the Arctic Council. Founded in 1996,
the Council is a forum to promote coordination among the eight Arctic countries. Representatives of indigenous peoples have a consultative role. One concrete result of the Arctic Council is a binding agreement
an agreement on standards for oil spill preparedness and response is
expected, which will reinforce the current non-binding offshore oil and gas guidelines. Cooperation among the littoral states is
also advancing in the sensitive area of national sovereign rights. The 2010 border treaty between Russia and
Norway indicates that bilateral agreements are possible – even though the power asymmetry between the two countries is reflected in a deal
advantageous to Russia. International maritime law and the pressure of non-Arctic countries are also fostering
multilateral cooperation, at least in areas where all parties can still gain further sovereign rights. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows for the extension of
on maritime search and rescue activities. For 2013,
the continental shelf towards the North Pole, which would extend the mining privileges of the coastal states at the expense of the interests of non-Arctic states. The water column and the animals living in it, by
the coastal states declared their intention to
settle any territorial conflicts within the framework of UNCLOS. By signing the declaration, the
US – which has not ratified UNCLO S – has signalled its willingness to observe it within the Arctic. What is more, the
coastal states have been collaborating for a long time in the exploration of the sea bed. Provided that
there are no major conflicts among these countries, non- Arctic players will hardly be able to assert themselves in this context. Potential
contrast, would continue to enjoy international status. In the Ilulissat Declaration adopted in 2008,
for conflict The scope of sovereign rights in the maritime area around the Svalbard archipelago, believed to be rich in oil and gas, is a question that is not easy to resolve. On the one hand, the archipelago and the
surrounding 200-mile zone are an undisputed part of Norwegian territory. On the other hand, Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago is substantially limited by the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. All 40 signatory
countries have the right to exploit natural resources and to conduct research. The treaty also states that the archipelago must not be used for offensive military purposes. Likewise, the right to levy taxes is limited
to the administrative requirements of Svalbard. It was only later under UNCLO S that the EEZ emerged as an institution. Hence, it remains unclear whether the Svalbard Treaty also applies to this zone. Countries
such as Russia, Iceland, and the UK assume this to be the case. Norway takes the opposite view. Nevertheless, Oslo has not declared a full EEZ in this area, but established a fisheries protection zone instead. It
concedes fishing privileges to Russia, Iceland, and other nations. This has never been explicitly acknowledged by these countries, but is usually accepted in practice.
The modus vivendi
has so far provided stability as it has served Russian interests too, with the fisheries protection zone granting privileges to Russian fishing
interests over other signatory states. Moreover, Russia has sufficient oil and gas reserves at its disposal on its own
territory. Norway, by contrast, has a strong interest in opening up the area for oil and gas exploration. Such an opening, however, would undermine the current fragile balance and encourage other
signatory states to question openly the scope of the Treaty. Even if Norway were to take no action, other nations could try to push for an opening of the area for exploration with reference to the Treaty. Due to
the variety of the players concerned and the absence of international rules, the issue can ultimately only be resolved at a political level. Interests and positions diverge concerning the issue of sovereignty over the
new sea routes as well. Again, even the Arctic coastal states do not agree on the legal status: Russia and Canada regard the routes as internal waterways in what is a very broad interpretation of UNCLO S. This
implies that ships flying foreign flags must request permission for transit. Other coastal nations, such as the US, and non-Arctic players like the EU and presumably China, however, consider these to be
international waterways for which no authorisation for transit is necessary. For the time being,
no escalation of this conflict is to be expected, since the
commercial navigation routes are competing with non-Arctic sea routes and the use of these routes will correlate with the extent of their opening and the stability of the agreed arrangements. In addition,
Russia and Canada depend on the cooperation of foreign non-state and state-owned players
in order to attract investments in their inadequate coastal infrastructures. Also, the International Maritime Organisation is working on a binding Polar Code, which will
establish clear rules for polar navigation. This will weaken the case for additional national regulations and approval procedures. Defensive and offensive military capabilities Following the disarmament of the
1990s, new military capabilities are again being deployed in the Arctic. In many instances, these capabilities are defensive in nature and linked to intensified activities concerning either the extraction of raw
materials or new “soft” security issues. Due to the weather conditions, only military or coast guard assets tend to be able to safely operate under Arctic conditions. In light of the new possibilities, there is also a
growing awareness of the lack of surveillance capabilities for the territory and the enforcement of sovereignty. Particularly for countries like Canada and Denmark, building up policing and military capabilities
serves to avoid the impression that the Arctic is of little national interest. However, offensive capabilities are also being built up in the Arctic, reflecting global ambitions rather than changing regional dynamics.
Since the Arctic Ocean provides Russia’s best access to the world’s main oceans, two thirds of its navy are already stationed in the Arctic. Instead of upgrading border protection capabilities, Moscow so far has
focused on modernising its offensive capabilities for the purpose of power projection. What is more, Russia has resumed patrol flights over the Arctic and submarine patrols previously carried out during the Cold
War, albeit at a lower frequency. This testifies to the persistence of a rather traditional Russian threat perception. Today, the Arctic is characterised by a mixture of cooperation, competition, and conflicts of
Open conflicts are unlikely to
break out in the foreseeable future: While existing mechanisms for cooperation may be too weak to resolve some conflicts of interest, the costs of
military conflict will likely be considered too high in light of uncertain gains. If conflicts were
to occur, they would probably be limited in both time and space, aiming at the enforcement of
interpretations of international law. Having said that, as the involvement of all key political players increases, the Arctic is also the scene of overarching geo-strategic
interest. There are indications that the growing presence of non-Arctic players prompts more cooperation among the coastal states.
competition and conflict. The extent to which the thawing of the Arctic means conflict or rapprochement and cooperation will therefore also depend on the shape of the future world order and the relationships
between the different power centres.
No Impact
No Arctic war- cooperation high now
Aruliah, 9-28 -- Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada Post-Graduate research fellow
(Charles, "The Cold Truth: Why the Arctic isn’t the same as Asia’s island disputes," iPolitics, 9-2812, www.ipolitics.ca/2012/09/28/charles-aruliah-the-cold-truth-why-the-arctic-isnt-the-sameas-asias-island-disputes/, accessed 10-7-12, mss)
But if
one looks past such public displays, it becomes increasingly clear that, unlike territorial disputes in
Asia, Arctic relations remains primarily characterized by cooperation rather than conflict. And here’s
why: First and foremost, despite the fact that in August, the Arctic melted at an unprecedented 91,700 km2 per day, it remains one of
the harshest environments on the planet. While it’s true that sailing through the Arctic could potentially cut the distance for
international shipping in half, it can only be achieved during the late summer melt – less than one quarter of the entire year. Even then, ships must be
wary of left-over multi-year ice, icebergs, and floating growlers, some of which can be as hard as concrete. Ships hoping to traverse the passage will still
require constant monitoring and icebreaker escorts, all of which incur significant additional costs. This
is why Arctic states are
closely cooperating in areas such as Search and Rescue. Contrast this with the significantly busier Malacca Straits located near the South
China Seas, which draws about 50 percent of the world’s oil tanker traffic, and saw some 70,000 transits in 2007 (compared with the Northwest
Passage’s 26 in 2010). The East China Sea too, remains a busy waterway and central hub located between some of the world’s busiest ports. In general,
the cost of controlling Arctic shipping just isn’t worth the risk of provoking conflict through the exercise
of such dominance. Secondly, unlike the Arctic, territorial disputes in East Asia remain intimately linked to historical grievances and nationalistic
passions from the region’s conflict-ridden past. South Korea attributes Japanese claims to the Dokdo/Takeshima islands to its imperial annexation of
the Korean peninsula in 1905. China too has argued that the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were historically administered by China, until the territories were
‘unfairly’ redistributed to Japan by the post-war powers following Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. Throw in other long-standing disputes like
China-Taiwan relations and it’s no wonder why mobs of zealous citizens have taken to the streets in anger over supposed incursions of national
territory. In
the Arctic, the main sources of territorial aggravation exists between long-standing
allies (United States and Canada in the Beaufort Sea), and peace-minded Middle Powers (Canada and Denmark over Hans
Island) whose idea of conflict involves marking territory with a bottle of Schnapps or Canadian Club.
Even the ‘Great Power’ of the region, Russia, has gone through great lengths with Norway to settle a 40 year territorial
dispute in the Barents Sea which has also laid the foundations for future joint economic ventures in the area. On
the contrary, nationalist rhetoric may actually be driving Arctic cooperation. The encroachment of
Arctic ‘outsiders’ such as the EU, China, Japan, South Korea and India, some of whom have argued that the Arctic be declared
as ‘a common heritage of mankind’ has led Arctic states, who fear losing territorial integrity, to adopt an ‘us vs.
them’ mindset. This has partly resulted in the denial of these countries’ applications for permanent observer status in the exclusive Arctic
council, the preeminent intergovernmental forum on the Arctic. Finally, the prominence of scientific/environmental issues and community
sustainability in Arctic discussions has mitigated potential nationalistic posturing. The Arctic Council remains
geared towards Arctic preservation and studying the effects of environmental change – issues where international scientific
collaboration is the norm. Furthermore, the Arctic Council’s endeavor to promote the well-being of indigenous communities, as evidenced by the
inclusion of six indigenous organizations as permanent participants in Council discussions, means that Arctic issues are dispersed amongst a variety of
actors, and are not the sole realm of national governments.
No Russian War
Weitz ‘11 (Richard, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor, “Global Insights: Putin not a Game-Changer
for U.S.-Russia Ties,” http://www.scribd.com/doc/66579517/Global-Insights-Putin-not-a-Game-Changer-for-U-S-Russia-Ties, September 27, 2011)
Fifth, there will inevitably be areas of conflict between Russia and the United States regardless of who is in the
Kremlin. Putin and his entourage can never be happy with having NATO be Europe's most powerful security institution, since Moscow is not a member
and cannot become one. Similarly, the Russians will always object to NATO's missile defense efforts since they
can neither match them nor join them in any meaningful way. In the case of Iran, Russian officials genuinely perceive less of a threat from Tehran than
do most Americans, and Russia has more to lose from a cessation of economic ties with Iran -- as well as from an Iranian-Western reconciliation. On the
other hand, these
conflicts can be managed, since they will likely remain limited and
compartmentalized . Russia and the West do not have fundamentally conflicting vital
interests of the kind countries would go to war over . And as the Cold War demonstrated, nuclear weapons
are a great pacifier under such conditions. Another novel development is that Russia is much more
integrated into the international economy and global society than the Soviet Union was, and
Putin's popularity depends heavily on his economic track record. Beyond that, there are objective criteria, such
as the smaller size of the Russian population and economy as well as the difficulty of
controlling modern means of social communication, that will constrain whoever is in charge of
Russia.
Russia- U.S. War Won’t Escalate – Empirics Prove
Baran et al, Senior Fellow and Director Center for Eurasian Studies and member of the Hudson Institute, ‘07
(Zeyno, Summer ’07, ‘U.S. – Russian Relations: Is conflict inevitable?’ Pg. 26. http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/Russiaversion%202.pdf, 7/12/13, ARH)
Is the Russian elite ready for confrontation with the
West? Definitely not. A significant part of the Russian elite is not ready for serious conflict
with the West. But at the same time it is ready to continue to use anti-Western rhetoric to
consolidate society. In fact, it is trying to have it both ways: integration with the West for
themselves, but not for the rest of society. There is a logic to this seemingly schizophrenic behavior. The Russian
elite can maintain their privileged status only in a society that is hostile to the West.
How far is Russia ready to go to pursue its assertive agenda?
Even a rapid US-Russia war would end in peace negotiations before nukes were
launched – Russian generals concede.
Ivashov ‘7 (Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems. July 2007 “WILL AMERICA FIGHT RUSSIA”. Defense and Security, No
78. LN
Everything may begin as a local conflict that will rapidly
deteriorate into a total confrontation. An ultimatum will be sent to Russia: say, change the domestic policy
because human rights are allegedly encroached on, or give Western businesses access to oil and gas fields. Russia will refuse and its objects (radars,
air defense components, command posts, infrastructure) will be wiped out by guided missiles with conventional warheads and by
aviation. Once this phase is over, an even stiffer ultimatum will be presented - demanding something up to the deployment of
NATO "peacekeepers" on the territory of Russia. Refusal to bow to the demands will be met with a mass aviation
and missile strike at Army and Navy assets, infrastructure, and objects of defense industry. NATO armies will invade Belarus and western
Russia. Two turns of events may follow that. Moscow may accept the ultimatum through the use of some device
that will help it save face. The acceptance will be followed by talks over the estrangement of the Kaliningrad enclave, parts of the Caucasus
and Caspian region, international control over the Russian gas and oil complex, and NATO control over Russian nuclear forces. The
second scenario involves a warning from the Kremlin to the United States that continuation of the
aggression will trigger retaliation with the use of all weapons in nuclear arsenals. It will stop
the war and put negotiations into motion
Ivashov: Numerous scenarios and options are possible.
US-Russia war doesn’t cause extinction
Bostrom 7
[Nick, Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy & James Martin 21st Century School, Oxford University, 2009 Gannon
Award Recipient, The Future of Humanity, 2007, www.nickbostrom.com/papers/future.pdf]
Extinction risks constitute an especially severe subset of what could go badly wrong for humanity. There are many possible global
catastrophes that would cause immense worldwide damage, maybe even the collapse of modern civilization, yet fall
short of terminating the human species. An all-out nuclear war between Russia and
the United States might be an example of a global catastrophe that would be unlikely to result in extinction. A terrible
pandemic with high virulence and 100% mortality rate among infected individuals might be another example: if some groups of humans could successfully quarantine themselves before being exposed,
human extinction could be avoided even if, say, 95% or more of the world’s population succumbed.
What distinguishes extinction and other
existential catastrophes is that a comeback is impossible. A non-existential disaster
causing the breakdown of global civilization is, from the perspective of humanity as a whole, a potentially
recoverable setback: a giant massacre for man, a small misstep for mankind.
AT: Hegemony
Russia and China have no plans to create an alliance
Ivanov,
07/10/14
Sergei
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=519827,
Creating a military alliance between Russia and China is impossible and Beijing agrees with this,
Russian presidential administration head Sergei Ivanov told reporters in Guiyang on Thursday.
"I do not see any sense, same as China, in creating a new military alliance, union or something
like that between us," Ivanov said. The relations between Russia and China in military sector "are of bilateral character, they are not directed against anyone and we are not
threatening anyone separately or jointly and do not want to do this," Ivanov said. The cooperation of the two states' armed forces, law enforcement authorities and special services "are of successful and close
character," Ivanov said. The tradition of holding joint drills will continue, he said. Russia and China cooperate actively in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in terms of regional security,
the Kremlin administration head said. "But the SCO is not a military organization and I want to assure you that no one has ever set and will set the goal to make a military organization of it," he said. Such coalitions
have proved their ineffectiveness and NATO shows this, the Kremlin administration head said. "We see certain military coalitions in the modern world. The example on the surface is NATO. Answer me - did NATO
manage to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan in 13 years? No, things are getting only worse there, NATO attempted to bring order in Iraq or Libya and the chaos there is growing," Ivanov said. "If anyone thinks
that chaos can be managed, they are mistaken. Real events confirm this time after time," Ivanov said. The Ukrainian events can serve as an example, he said. "Many political leaders of NATO countries openly
"While not being a participant of the conflict, Russia
experiences its significant negative consequences," the administration head said. "Be it not
paying for gas, be it one hundred thousand refugees, whom we are forced to, and will
accommodate on our territory," Ivanov said.
supported the anti-constitutional revolt in Kyiv and we all see where this has led," he said.
1NC Heg Not Solve War
Doesn’t lead to peace—statistics show it actually leads to war
Montiero 12--Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University
Nuno, Unrest Assured, International Security, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Winter 2011/12),
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Unrest_Assured.pdf
How well, then, does the argument that unipolar systems are peaceful account for the first two decades of unipolarity since the end of the Cold War? Table 1 presents a list of great powers divided into
three periods: 1816 to 1945, multipolarity; 1946 to 1989, bipolarity; and since 1990, unipolarity. 46 Table 2 presents summary data about the incidence of war during each of these periods.
Unipolarity is the most conflict prone of all the systems, according to at least two
important criteria: the percentage of years that great powers spend at war and the
incidence of war involving great powers. In multipolarity, 18 percent of great power years were spent at war. In bipolarity, the ratio is 16 percent. In
unipolarity, however, a remarkable 59 percent of great power years until now were spent at war. This is by far the highest percentage in all three systems. Furthermore, during periods of multipolarity and
the probability that war involving a great power would break out in any given year
was, respectively, 4.2 percent and 3.4 percent. Under unipolarity, it is 18.2 percent—or
more than four times higher. 47 These figures provide no evidence that unipolarity is
bipolarity,
peaceful .
Alt cause to lack of US leadership in the Arctic: no deepwater port
GAO 14 (United States Government Accountability Office, “MARITIME INFRASTRUCTURE: Key Issues Related to Commercial
Activity in the U.S. Arctic over the Next Decade”, Report to Congressional Requesters, March 2014)
Officials we spoke with from state and local government suggested that a U.S. Arctic deepwater port is needed to
support a potential increase in maritime activities in the Arctic. According to these government officials, an Arctic
deepwater port could potentially serve as a trans-shipment hub for companies using Arctic routes or
could host a permanent USCG presence in the Arctic, allowing the USCG to better meet its missions for
search and rescue, oil spill response, and maritime law enforcement. While there was some agreement about the usefulness of a deepwater port to
support USCG efforts, industry representatives we spoke with had varying views about such a port’s potential for commercial purposes. Shipping-industry representatives, for example, indicated that they would
not use a U.S. Arctic deepwater port for trans-Arctic shipping because of high fuel costs or the fact that such a port would not be connected with existing port networks or any port connectors.
Stability will survive without US hegemony
Fettweis ‘10 (Chris Fettweis, Professor of national security affairs @ U.S. Naval War College, Georgetown University Press,
“Dangerous times?: the international politics of great power peace” Google Books)
Simply stated, the hegemonic stability theory proposes that international peace is only possible when there is one country strong enough to make and enforce a set of rules. At the height of Pax Romana 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 a
generally in the interests of all countries to follow. Without a benevolent hegemony, some strategists fear, instability may break out around the globe. 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 “rebound to America’s detriment.” If the massive spending that the United States engages in actually produces stability in the international political and
There are good theoretical and empirical reasons, however, the
belief 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 powers is if self-policing occurs, ifs states have decided
that their interest 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 simple 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
economic systems, then perhaps internationalism is worthwhile.
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
Hegemonic stability can
only take credit for influence those decisions that would have ended in war without the
especially eager to engage in humanitarian interventions abroad. Even rather incontrovertible evidence of genocide has not been sufficient to inspire action.
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. 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
If the pacific trends were due not to 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
ofinternational 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.
the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet Americas responsibilities to itself and to world peace.""
2NC Multipolarity>Unipolarity
Multipolarity is more peaceful than unipolarity
Goldstein 11-- professor emeritus of international relations at American
University
Joshua, Sept/Oct 2011, Think Again: War, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/think_again_war?page=0,3
Nor do shifts in the global balance of power doom us to a future of perpetual war. While
some political scientists argue that an increasingly multipolar world is an increasingly
volatile one -- that peace is best assured by the predominance of a single hegemonic power, namely the United States -- recent geopolitical history
suggests otherwise. Relative U.S. power and worldwide conflict have waned in tandem
over the past decade. The exceptions to the trend, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been lopsided wars
waged by the hegemon, not challenges by up-and-coming new powers. The best precedent
for today's emerging world order may be the 19th-century Concert of Europe, a collaboration of great
powers that largely maintained the peace for a century until its breakdown and the bloodbath of World War I.
Numerous domestic factors make hegemony unsustainable—education,
infrastructure, health care, income inequality, poverty, and political gridlock are
the foundation of American power
Cohen 12—Michael A. Cohen is a regular columnist for Foreign Policy and a fellow at the Century Foundation. (“Rotting From
the Inside Out,” Published Online for Foreign Policy on February 24, 2012, Available Online at
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/rotting_from_the_inside_out)
Any discussion of American national security that focuses solely on
the issue of U.S. power vis-à-vis other countries -- and ignores domestic inputs -- is decidedly
incomplete. In Kagan's New Republic article, for example, he has little to say about the country's domestic challenges except to obliquely argue that to focus on "nation-building" at home while
There is, however, one serious problem with this analysis.
ignoring the importance of maintaining U.S. power abroad would be a mistake. In fact, in a recent FP debate with the Financial Times' Gideon Rachman on the issue of American decline, Kagan diagnoses what he,
and many other political analysts, appear to believe is the country's most serious problem: "enormous fiscal deficits driven by entitlements." Why is this bad? It makes it harder, says Kagan, for the United States to
a focus on U.S. global dominance or suasion
that doesn't factor in those elements that constitute American power at home ignores
substantial and worsening signs of decline. Indeed, by virtually any measure, a closer look at the
state of the United States today tells a sobering tale of rapid and unchecked decay and
deterioration in a host of areas. While not all of them are generally considered elements of national
security, perhaps they should be. Let's start with education , which almost any observer would agree is a key factor in
"continue playing its vital role in the world" and will lead to significant cutbacks in defense spending. However,
national competitiveness . The data is not good. According to the most recent OECD report on global education standards, the United
States is an average country in how it educates its children -- 12th in reading skills, 17th in science, and 26th in math. The
World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in the quality of its mathematics and science education, even though we spend more money per student than
almost any country in the world. America's high school graduation rate is lower today that it was in the late
1960s and "kids are now less likely to graduate from high school than their parents," according to an
analysis released last year by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. In fact, not only is the graduation rate worse than many Western
countries, the United States is now the only developed country where a higher percentage of
55 to 64-year-olds have a high school diploma than 25 to 34-year-olds. While the United States still maintains the world's
finest university system, college graduation rates are slipping . Among 25 to 34-year-olds, America trails Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Israel,
Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in its percentage of college graduates. This speaks, in some measure, to the disparities that are endemic in the U.S.
education system. If you are poor in America, chances are you attend a school that underperforms, are taught by teachers that are not as effective, and have test scores that lag far behind your more affluent
counterparts (the same is true if you are black or Hispanic -- you lag behind your white counterparts).
Can a country be a great global power if its
education system is fundamentally unequal and is getting steadily worse? What about
national infrastructure
-- another key element of national economic power and global competitiveness? First, the nation's broadband
penetration rates remain in the middle of the global pack and there is growing divide in the United States between digital haves and have
nots. Overall, its transportation networks are mediocre compared to similarly wealthy countries and according to the World Economic Forum, the
United States ranks 23rd in the OECD for infrastructure quality -- a ranking that has steadily declined over the past decade.
American commuters spend more time in traffic than Western Europeans, the country's train
system and high-speed rail lines in general pale next to that of other developed nations, and even the number of people killed on American
highways is 60 percent higher than the OECD average. Part of the problem is that the amount of money the U.S. government spends on infrastructure has steadily declined for decades and now trails far behind
such infrastructure disadvantages have the potential to undermine the U.S.
economy, hamstring productivity and competitiveness, and put the lives of more Americans at
risk -- and this appears to be happening already. Finally, a closer look at the U.S. health care system is enough to make one ill. Even after the passage
of Obama's 2010 health care reform bill (which every Republican presidential candidate wants to repeal) the United States is far from having a health
care system that meets the needs of its citizens. According to a July 2011 report by the Commonwealth Fund, "the U.S. has fewer
hospital beds and physicians, and sees fewer hospital and physician visits, than in most other
countries" even though it spends far more on health care per capita than any other country in the world. In addition, "prescription drug utilization, prices, and spending all appear to be highest in
the U.S., as does the supply, utilization, and price of diagnostic imaging." Long story short, the United States spends more for less on health care
than pretty much any other developed nation in the world. That might also explain why life expectancy in America trails far behind most
OECD countries. The United States also has the unique distinction of having one of the highest rates of
income inequality in the world, on par with such global powerhouses as Cameroon, Madagascar, Rwanda, Uganda, and
Ecuador. It has the fourth worst child poverty rate and trails only Mexico and Turkey in overall
poverty rate among OECD countries. And when it comes to infant mortality, the U.S. rate is one of the worst
in the developing world. But not to fear, the United States still maintains some advantages. For example, it
is one of the fattest countries in the world, with approximately one-third of the country
considered obese (including one out of every six children). In addition, the United States has, by far, the largest prison
population -- more than China, Iran, and Cuba -- one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and one of the highest
rates of death from child abuse and neglect. This steady stream of woe is certainly dispiriting, but the more optimistic might be inclined to respond that
America had has problems before and has always found a way to right the ship. Certainly, this is a legitimate counter-point. The problem is that anyone looking to
Washington today would have a hard time imagining that Congress and the White House will
lock arms anytime soon and fix these various national crises. And this political gridlock is the
other Western nations. In time,
biggest reason to be concerned about decline. Perhaps at no point in recent American history has
the country's politics been less capable of dealing with serious challenges . Certainly, when one party basically rejects
any role for the federal government in providing health care, improving educational opportunity, or strengthening the social safety net, the chances for compromise appear even slimmer. As Harold Pollack, a
professor at the University of Chicago, said to me, "What future president, witnessing Barack Obama's difficulties over health reform, will make an equivalent political investment regarding climate change or
we are headed for a kind of legislative Vietnam syndrome in which our
leaders will shy away from the large things that must be done." Obama argued in his recent State of the Union speech that
another great national concern? I fear that
"innovation is what America has always been about." Indeed, the recent report of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the United States is currently sixth in global innovation and
the country is dead last in "improvement in international
competitiveness and innovation capacity over the last decade." Bottom line: dysfunction reaps an ill
competitiveness. Good news, right? Not so fast. The report also found that
reward.
Kagan's retort to this argument is that "on many big issues throughout their history, Americans have found a way of achieving and implementing a national consensus." True, but the
philosophical divide between the two parties over the role of government offers little reason for optimism that such a new national consensus is in the offing. The fact is,
discussions of
U.S. power that only take into account America's global standing in relation to other
countries are not only misleading -- they're largely irrelevant. Sure, America has a bigger and
better military than practically every other nation combined. Sure, it has a better global image than Russia or China or
any other potential global rival. Sure, America's economy is bigger than any other nation's (though this is a debatable point). But if its students aren't being
well educated, if huge disparities exist in technological adoption, if social mobility remains
stagnant, if the country's health care system is poorly functioning, and if its government is
hopelessly gridlocked, what good is all the global power that transfixes Kagan and others ?
The even more urgent question is how the United States can hope to maintain that power if it's built on
a shaky foundation at home.
Rather than talking about how great America is on the campaign trail -- which surely both candidates will do throughout the 2012 election -- the
a recognition that education,
health care, infrastructure, and overall national economic competitiveness is as essential to
U.S. national security as, for example, the number of ships in the U.S. Navy. All this talk about the myth of American
decline might make Americans feel better about themselves for a while, but it is a distraction
from the real and declining elements of U.S. power.
country would likely be better off having an honest discussion on the immense challenges that it faces at home. Even more helpful would be
Alt causes overwhelm or hegemony is resilient
Copley ’12 (Gregory R., editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Policy, Strategic Policy in an Age of Global Realignment,
lexis, June 2012)
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
3. Strategic Recovery by the 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.
Failure to ratify LOST is the single greatest factor in US Arctic influence
Smith 2011 [Colonel Reginald R. Smith, USAF, is Professor of National Security Affairs and Senior Developmental Education
Student (Strategy and Policy) at the Naval War College, “The Arctic: A New Partnership Paradigm or the Next "Cold War"?”
http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/jfq-62/JFQ62_117-124_Smith.pdf]
The significance of the declaration is paramount to cooperation in that UNCLOS provides the
international rallying point for the Arctic states. 78 Similarly important, by virtue of the unanimous and
strong affirmation of UNCLOS, the declaration effectively delegitimized the notion to
administer the Arctic along the lines of an Antarctic-like treaty preserving the notions of
sovereignty and resource exploitation in the region. 79 With U.S. participation and declaration of support for UNCLOS in these venues,
failure to ratify the treaty suggests that U.S. credibility and legitimacy, and hence the ability to
build cohesive multilateral partnerships, are appreciably degraded. This conclusion is illustrated in Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s
refusal to join the Proliferation Security Initiative using the U.S. refusal to accede to UNCLOS as their main argument. 80 Accession to the treaty appears to be a
key first step to preserving U.S. vital interests in the Arctic and building necessary credibility
for regional and global partnerships in the political spectrum. Equally important to political
partnerships in the region are those available through military collaboration of the Arctic
nations.
Unilateral efforts can’t solve Arctic leadership
Smith 2011 [Colonel Reginald R. Smith, USAF, is Professor of National Security Affairs and Senior Developmental Education
Student (Strategy and Policy) at the Naval War College, “The Arctic: A New Partnership Paradigm or the Next "Cold War"?”
http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/jfq-62/JFQ62_117-124_Smith.pdf]
The United States must move outside the construct of unilateral action in order to preserve its
sovereign rights in the Arctic, capitalize on the opportunities available, and safeguard vital national interests in the region. In today's budgetconstrained environment and as a Nation at war with higher resource priorities in Iraq and
Afghanistan than in the Arctic, it is unrealistic to believe that any significant allocation will be
programmed for addressing this issue.3 Since the United States is too far behind in actions
necessary to preserve its critical interests as compared to the other Arctic countries, the
Nation must take the lead to cultivate a new multilateral partnership paradigm in the region.
2NC- Hegemony Impact Defense
History disproves effective deterrence
Kober ‘10 (Stanley Kober, Research Fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, “The Deterrence Illusion”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11898, June 13, 2010)
The world at the beginning of the 21st century bears an eerie — and disquieting — resemblance to Europe at the beginning of the last century. That was also an era of globalisation. New technologies for transportation and communication were transforming the world. Europeans had lived so long in peace that war seemed irrational. And they were right,
peace of Europe was based on security assurances.
prospect of escalation was supposed to prevent war, and it did — until, finally, it
didn't. The Russians, who should have been deterred — they had suffered a terrible defeat at
the hands of Japan just a few years before — decided they had to come to the support of their
fellow Slavs. As countries honoured their commitments, a system that was designed to prevent war instead
widened it. We have also been living in an age of globalisation, especially since the end of the cold war, but it too is increasingly being challenged. And just like the situation at the
beginning of the last century, deterrence is not working. Much is made, for example, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) invoking Article V — the
famous "three musketeers" pledge that an attack on one member is to be considered as an attack on all — following the terrorist attacks of September 11. But the United States is the
most powerful member of NATO by far. Indeed, in 2001, it was widely considered to be a hegemon, a hyperpower. Other countries wanted to be in NATO because they
felt an American guarantee would provide security. And yet it was the US that was attacked. This failure of deterrence has
not received the attention it deserves. It is, after all, not unique. The North Vietnamese were not deterred
by the American guarantee to South Vietnam. Similarly, Hezbollah was not deterred in
Lebanon in the 1980s, and American forces were assaulted in Somalia. What has been going
wrong? The successful deterrence of the superpowers during the cold war led to the belief that if such powerful
countries could be deterred, then lesser powers should fall into line when confronted with an overwhelmingly powerful
adversary. It is plausible, but it may be too rational. For all their ideological differences, the US and the Soviet Union
observed red lines during the cold war. There were crises — Berlin, Cuba, to name a couple — but these did not touch on emotional issues or vital interests, so
that compromise and retreat were possible. Indeed, what we may have missed in the west is the importance of retreat in Soviet
ideology. "Victory is impossible unless [the revolutionary parties] have learned both how to
attack and how to retreat properly," Lenin wrote in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile
Disorder. When the Soviets retreated, the US took the credit. Deterrence worked. But what if
retreat was part of the plan all along? What if, in other words, the Soviet Union was the exception rather
than the rule? That question is more urgent because, in the post-cold war world, the US has expanded its security guarantees, even as its enemies show they are not impressed. The Iraqi
insurgents were not intimidated by President Bush's challenge to "bring 'em on". The Taliban
have made an extraordinary comeback from oblivion and show no respect for American power. North Korea is
demonstrating increasing belligerence. And yet the US keeps emphasising security through
alliances. "We believe that there are certain commitments, as we saw in a bipartisan basis to NATO, that need to be embedded in the DNA of American foreign policy," secretary of state Hillary Clinton
up to a point. The first world war was the product of a mode of rational thinking that went badly off course. The
Germany was the protector of Austria-Hungary,
and Russia was the protector of Serbia. The
affirmed in introducing the new National Security Strategy. But that was the reason the US was in Vietnam. It had a bipartisan commitment to South Vietnam under the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation,
reaffirmed through the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed Congress with only two dissenting votes. It didn't work, and found its commitments were not embedded in its DNA. Americans turned against the war,
great powers could not guarantee peace in Europe a century ago, and the US
could not guarantee it in Asia a half-century ago.
Secretary Clinton among them. The
No potential conflicts for hotspots to escilate
Fettweis ‘11 (Christopher J. Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, Free
Riding or Restraint? Examining European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332,
EBSCO, September 26, 2011)
Assertions that without the combination of U.S. capabilities, presence and commitments
instability would return to Europe and the Pacific Rim are usually rendered in rather vague language. If the United States were to decrease
its commitments abroad, argued Robert Art, “the world will become a more dangerous place and, sooner or later, that will redound to America’s
detriment.”53 From where would this danger arise? Who precisely would do the fighting, and over
what issues? Without the United States, would Europe really descend into Hobbesian anarchy? Would the Japanese attack mainland China again, to see if they could fare better this time around?
Would the Germans and French have another go at it? In other words, where exactly is hegemony is keeping the peace? With one exception, these
questions are rarely addressed. That exception is in the Pacific Rim. Some analysts fear that a de facto surrender of U.S. hegemony would lead to a rise of Chinese influence. Bradley Thayer worries that Chinese
would become “the language of diplomacy, trade and commerce, transportation and navigation, the internet, world sport, and global culture,” and that Beijing would come to “dominate science and technology,
in all its forms” to the extent that soon the world would witness a Chinese astronaut who not only travels to the Moon, but “plants the communist flag on Mars, and perhaps other planets in the future.”54 Indeed
China is the only other major power that has increased its military spending since the end of the Cold War, even if it still is only about 2 percent of its GDP. Such levels of effort do not suggest a desire to compete
The much-ballyhooed, decade-long military buildup has brought Chinese
spending up to somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of the U.S. level. It is hardly clear that a restrained
United States would invite Chinese regional, must less global, political expansion. Fortunately one need not
ponder for too long the horrible specter of a red flag on Venus, since on the planet Earth, where war is no longer the dominant form of conflict resolution, the threats posed by
even a rising China would not be terribly dire. The dangers contained in the terrestrial security environment are less severe than ever before. Believers in
the pacifying power of hegemony ought to keep in mind a rather basic tenet: When it comes to policymaking, specific threats are more significant than
vague, unnamed dangers. Without specific risks, it is just as plausible to interpret U.S.
presence as redundant, as overseeing a peace that has already arrived. Strategy should not be
based upon vague images emerging from the dark reaches of the neoconservative
imagination. Overestimating Our Importance One of the most basic insights of cognitive psychology provides the final reason to
doubt the power of hegemonic stability: Rarely are our actions as consequential upon their behavior as we
perceive them to be. A great deal of experimental evidence exists to support the notion that people (and therefore states) tend to overrate the degree
to which their behavior is responsible for the actions of others. Robert Jervis has argued that two processes account for this
with, much less supplant, the United States.
overestimation, both of which would seem to be especially relevant in the U.S. case.55 First, believing that we are responsible for their actions gratifies our national ego (which is not small to begin with; the
United States is exceptional in its exceptionalism). The hubris of the United States, long appreciated and noted, has only grown with the collapse of the Soviet Union.56 U.S. policymakers famously have
If there is any state vulnerable to the
overestimation of its importance due to the fundamental misunderstanding of the motivation
of others, it would have to be the United States. Second, policymakers in the United States are far more familiar with
our actions than they are with the decision-making processes of our allies. Try as we might, it is not possible to fully understand the
threats, challenges, and opportunities that our allies see from their perspective. The European great powers
comparatively little knowledge of—or interest in—events that occur outside of their own borders.
have domestic politics as complex as ours, and they also have competent, capable strategists to chart their way forward. They react to many international forces, of which U.S. behavior is only one.
Therefore, for any actor trying to make sense of the action of others, Jervis notes, “in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, the most obvious and
parsimonious explanation is that he was responsible.”57 It is natural, therefore, for U.S.
policymakers and strategists to believe that the behavior of our allies (and rivals) is shaped by what
Washington does. Presumably Americans are at least as susceptible to the overestimation of their ability as any other people, and perhaps more so. At the very least, political psychologists tell us,
we are probably not as important to them as we think. The importance of U.S. hegemony in
contributing to international stability is therefore almost certainly overrated. In the end, one can never be sure why our major allies have not gone
to, and do not even plan for, war. Like deterrence, the hegemonic stability theory rests on faith; it can only be falsified,
never proven. It does not seem likely, however, that hegemony could fully account for twenty years of strategic decisions made in allied capitals if the international system were not already a
largely
remarkably peaceful place. Perhaps these states have no intention of fighting one another to begin with, and our commitments are redundant. European great powers may well have chosen strategic restraint
because they feel that their security is all but assured, with or without the United States.
No US lashout
MacDonald ’11 (Paul K. MacDonald, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College, and Joseph M. Parent,
Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, “Graceful Decline?: The Surprising Success of Great Power
Retrenchment,” International Security, Vol. 35, No. 4, p. 7-44, Spring 2011)
With regard to militarized disputes, declining great powers demonstrate more caution
and restraint in the use of force: they were involved in an average of 1.7 fewer militarized disputes
in the five years following ordinal change compared with other great powers over similar periods.67
Declining great powers also initiated fewer militarized disputes, and their disputes tended to
escalate to lower levels of hostility than the baseline category (see figure 2).68 These findings
suggest the need for a fundamental revision to the pessimist's argument regarding the war
proneness of declining powers.69 Far from being more likely to lash out aggressively, declining
states refrain from initiating and escalating military disputes . Nor do declining great
powers appear more vulnerable to external predation than other great powers. This may be because external
predators have great difficulty assessing the vulnerability of potential victims, or because
retrenchment allows vulnerable powers to effectively recover from decline and still deter
potential challengers.
AT: Oil
1NC No Russian Drilling Now
Sanctions take out Russian drilling- they rely on US-based companies
Gvosdev 14 Gvosdev, Nikolas. "Russia's Energy Ambitions Explain Putin's Zigzags on Ukraine." Russia's Energy Ambitions
Explain Putin's Zigzags on Ukraine. World Politics Review, 27 June 2014. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13886/russia-s-energy-ambitions-explain-putin-s-zigzags-on-ukraine>.
Russian plans to develop the energy reserves of the Arctic depend on the ability of Western firms to
transfer technology. Proposed sanctions being discussed in Washington would not necessarily require companies
to exit existing projects but would prohibit any future endeavors. At present, Russian firms lack the technical
skills to successfully drill on their own in offshore Arctic conditions.
Similarly,
operate in Russia and
2NC AT: Drilling Inevitable
Drilling not inevitable- companies giving up and court decisions recall leases
Peresh 14
Peresh, Dave. "Judge Suspends Arctic Drilling, Orders New Environmental Report." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 24 Apr. 14.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-arctic-drilling-new-environmental-report-20140424-story.html
decision by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline stopped short of scrapping the $2.6 billion in leases,
an appeals court decision in January that federal officials had arbitrarily decided
drilling companies could extract 1 billion barrels of oil from the shallow waters off the northwest coast of Alaska. That figure led to
a misguided environmental study, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said.¶ Now, the U.S. Department of the Interior
must redo the supplemental analysis using what’s expected to be a much higher estimate for the amount of oil extractable. In the meantime,
no drilling for oil or natural gas can take place.¶ U.S. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) called the order “good news," saying it “should lead to resumption of oil
The
however. His ruling followed
and gas development in our state’s promising offshore” by next summer.¶ Earth Justice attorney Erik Grafe, who opposes drilling and who helped bring the lawsuit, also hailed the decision. The opposing sides had
worked for the past two months to negotiate a deal, which the judge adopted almost completely.¶ Grafe told the Los Angeles Times the redo was a “good outcome,” considering that the erroneous figure of 1
billion barrels “infected every part of the original analysis.”¶ He said the new report would likely show that oil companies would bring far more boats, planes, drill rigs and pipelines. As a result, he expects the
Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management will have to decide whether to move forward with or cancel the agreed-upon leases with Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips
and other companies.¶ “We’re hopeful the government will come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to sell the leases,” Grafe said. “I’m not sure how long it will take for the new study, but the
government has a lot of work ahead of itself. It’s a big opportunity for the government to choose a better path in the Arctic.”¶ The Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management declined to comment. The agency has maintained that the 1-billion-barrel estimate made economic sense because the oil companies have said drilling in
analysis to show a much greater disturbance to the habitat of whales, walruses, polar bears and other animals. ¶ In light of the new analysis, the
the area is a major technical challenge.¶ A week after the January ruling, Shell abandoned
exploration efforts in the Arctic for the rest of this year.
Drilling in the Arctic isn’t inevitable
GAO 14 (United States Government Accountability Office, “MARITIME INFRASTRUCTURE: Key Issues Related to Commercial
Activity in the U.S. Arctic over the Next Decade”, Report to Congressional Requesters, March 2014)
Diminishing sea ice has contributed to promising prospects for oil and gas in the U.S. Arctic17 and created growth potential for commercial shipping on trans-Arctic routes that are geographically shorter than
, industry representatives we spoke with from five key industries— commercial shipping, cruises,
oil, and mining—stated that their level of commercial activity in the U.S. Arctic is
expected to remain limited over the next 10 years due to a variety of contributing factors. Factors included general challenges related to
operating in the Arctic such as geography, extreme weather, and hard-to-predict sea ice movement,18 and other industryspecific factors. Table 2 provides some examples of contributing factors cited by industry representatives. Recently, oil companies have made some
investments to develop offshore oil resources in the U.S. Arctic. These development efforts, however, are generally on
hold and increases in oil exploration activity are expected to be limited. The impact of oil exploration activity on the levels
current shipping routes through the Panama or Suez Canals. However
commercial fishing,
of maritime traffic appears uncertain.
1NC No Russian Econ Impact
Claims of Russian economic decline and disintegration are all conspiratorial and
hype
Clover ‘9
Charles Clover, “Conspiracy theorists thrive on Russia anxiety”, 3/8/2009 Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a9596ed40c14-11de-b87d-0000779fd2ac.html?ftcamp=rss&nclick_check=1
“The transition of the [economic] crisis into the political arena has already begun happening,” Gleb Pavlovsky wrote in the popular Moskovski Komsomolets tabloid.
He warned of a “remake” of the 1991 street protests that helped bring down the Soviet
Union, and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. “The sources of social protest should be sought in the corridors of power,” Mr Pavlovsky wrote. His and other
gloomy predictions have left some analysts scratching their heads. Alexei Levinson, at the
Levada Centre, a research company, said: “Do I see the potential for serious unrest? It is
very dangerous to say no, because so many people are saying publicly that this is
happening . . . But I simply don’t see it.” However, it was “just as true that the number of
people saying they see this potential has shot up”, he added. “So that must be significant.
It shows that the relationship to the authorities is changing.” Speculation has surrounded the relationship between president
and prime minister since Mr Putin, head of state since 2000, stepped aside for Mr Medvedev last year. It is widely believed that Mr Putin, who was barred from a third consecutive presidential term by the
It is very
conspiratorial,” said Vladimir Milov, former deputy energy minister and a leader of the
opposition group Solidarnost.
constitution, plans to return to the Kremlin. That the prime minister’s political future is openly speculated on is, for some politicians, a watershed in Russia’s political life. “
The Russian economy is resilient – even dips caused by oil prices will not cause
collapse.
Guriev ’10 - Professor of Economics @ the New Economic School in Moscow
Sergei Guriev, Morgan Stanley Professor of Economics and Rector of the New Economic School in Moscow, “How to reform the
Russian economy”. Centre For European Reform Policy Brief. July 2010. www.cer.org.uk/pdf/pb_russian_economy_jul10.pdf
Today’s leadership in Russia has more economic expertise and more experience with crisis
management than the Soviet leaders had in the 1980s. The Russian economy is much more
liberalised, and hence more flexible and adjustable in times of strain. So it is unlikely that
Russia’s economy could implode like the Soviet one did. A more plausible scenario is slow growth over
the medium term, interrupted by bouts of macro-economic volatility caused by oil price
swings. Russia’s outlook is therefore similar to the experience of Latin America’s resource-dependent economies in the 20th century.
Aff hurts bioD- not enough tech to solve spills
WWF 13
World Wildlife Foundation, 3/14/2014, “Arctic Drilling Assessment Released”, https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/arctic-drillingassessment-released, 6/23/2014, #BD
A new government assessment of offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic in 2012 falls
short of acknowledging that offshore drilling cannot currently be conducted safely in the
Arctic and should not be allowed.¶ The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) assessment comes less than three months after Royal Dutch Shell –
the only company that was permitted to do exploratory offshore drilling in the U.S. Arctic in
2012 – experienced back to back accidents and challenges that prevented the company from
drilling in the Arctic. The company announced in February that it will forgo its plans to drill for oil and gas in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas (located in the Arctic) in 2013 so it can
repair its equipment and get more prepared to drill in the future.¶ “If one of the largest multi-national companies, with one of the
biggest investments ($4.5 billion) in Arctic drilling, and self-proclaimed highest industry
standards was unable to have a safe and trouble-free drilling season in the Arctic, nobody will
be able to have one,” said Margaret Williams, managing director of the WWF-US Arctic Program.¶ The assessment points out these and
other flaws in Shell’s 2012 drilling season, such as failing to keep a close watch over its
contractors and not doing enough advance planning and preparation. However, at a press conference today to release the
report, DOI Secretary Ken Salazar said the Obama Administration is still willing to give a green light to future drilling.¶ “Our oceans are already stressed,”
Williams said. “Polar bears, walrus, whales, seabirds and other wildlife that thrive in the
Arctic’s waters don’t need to be confronted with another major threat.”¶ The Challenges of Drilling¶ A key
problem related to Arctic drilling that concerns WWF is the “response gap,” which is the
inability to quickly respond to a spill, given the region’s extreme weather, gale-force winds
and extended periods of darkness.¶ Other challenges are the release of harmful pollutants into
the air; the discharge of dangerous chemicals into the water; and the impact of oil-related
noises on marine mammals that depend on sound to survive.¶ “A thorough, comprehensive, science-based assessment of these
challenges is needed, not a quick 60-day review like the one just completed by the Department of Interior,” Williams said. “Anything shy of a comprehensive review is disrespectful to Arctic communities and
wildlife,” Williams said.¶ WWF in the Arctic¶ Despite Shell’s announcement to slow down its plans for the Arctic, Conoco Phillips is continuing with its plan to drill one or two exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea in
WWF opposes this move by Conoco Phillips – or any company – because we believe it is
not yet safe to allow offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic, as the right technology
for preventing or responding to an oil spill in such an icy, remote and dark area is not in place
and vulnerable areas have not yet been identified. The Obama Administration, therefore,
should jettison the idea of Arctic drilling. If the time ever comes when such technology exists and is proven to be effective, WWF supports drilling but only under
2014.¶
certain conditions that adequately address when, where and how to drill, as well as how to respond to an oil spill.¶ WWF also advocates for our nation to move toward a clean, renewable energy future, rather
than relying on offshore oil and gas, if it wants to address climate change. U.S. oil production is higher than it has ever been in the last 20 years.
More studies are needed before energy development to prevent spills
Dlouhy 4-23 Jennifer A Dlouhy, covers energy policy, politics and other issues for The Houston Chronicle in Washington,
“Report: US ill prepared to tackle Arctic oil spills”, Fuel Fix, daily source for news and analysis on oil and gas, April 23 2014,
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/04/23/report-us-ill-prepared-to-tackle-arctic-oil-spills/ JDI14 LabBKG
The report offers a road map and 13 recommendations for what federal agencies, oil industry and other stakeholders need to do to boost their ability to tackle a fuel or oil spill at the top of the globe,
as
retreating sea ice spurs new energy development and ship traffic in the remote region. A chief
recommendation: More research across the board, from meteorological studies to investigations of how
oil spill cleanup methods would work in the Arctic. The NRC insisted the United States needs “a
comprehensive, collaborative, long-term Arctic oil spill research and development program .”
The council encouraged controlled releases of oil in the Arctic — a practice generally barred under U.S. environmental
laws – to evaluate new response strategies. Although the federal government and oil industry are conducting lab studies that attempt to replicate Arctic
conditions, the NRC suggests there is no substitute for the real thing and said the studies could be done without measurable environmental harm.
Current tech can’t clean spills – environmental conditions
Dlouhy 4-23 Jennifer A Dlouhy, covers energy policy, politics and other issues for The Houston Chronicle in Washington,
“Report: US ill prepared to tackle Arctic oil spills”, Fuel Fix, daily source for news and analysis on oil and gas, April 23 2014,
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/04/23/report-us-ill-prepared-to-tackle-arctic-oil-spills/ JDI14 LabBKG
Most information on responding to oil spills has been developed in temperate conditions, such as
the Gulf of Mexico, so it may not translate to the Arctic, where cold water and sea ice may limit the
amount of oil that naturallydisperses and evaporates. Because no response methods are completely effective or risk free, the
industry and government need a broad “oil spill response toolbox”, the NRC said. Pre-tested
and pre-positioned equipment — as well as plans for using it — would be critical to making sure they can be
swiftly applied in an oil spill, the group said. Spill drills: Shell recruits train for Arctic oil emergency Options include chemical dispersants that can break down
oil, either applied at the surface or near a wellhead, but the researchers said more work is needed to understand their effectiveness and long-term effects in the Arctic. And while burning thick patches of floating
oil is a viable spill response countermeasure in the Arctic — potentially aided by ice that helps pool and collect the crude — even that is not perfect.
When ice is openly drifting,
the NRC warns, “oil spills can rapidly spread too thinly to ignite.” Using booms, vessels and skimmers to concentrate thin, rapidly
spreading oil slicks also may be difficult in the region, where there are few if any approved disposal sites for the contaminated equipment, sparse port facilities for the vessels and limited airlift capabilities. The
this kind of mechanical recovery is probably best for small, contained spills in pack ice, but it would probably be too inefficient
for a large offshore spill in the U.S. Arctic.
NRC says
We’re woefully unprepared for a spill – changes required before drilling can
take place
Dlouhy 4-23 Jennifer A Dlouhy, covers energy policy, politics and other issues for The Houston Chronicle in Washington,
“Report: US ill prepared to tackle Arctic oil spills”, Fuel Fix, daily source for news and analysis on oil and gas, April 23 2014,
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/04/23/report-us-ill-prepared-to-tackle-arctic-oil-spills/ JDI14 LabBKG
the report offers “a sobering look at our lack of
preparedness.” “Today’s report confirms that we are woefully unprepared for a disaster like the Exxon Valdez or
the Deepwater Horizon in the U.S. Arctic,” Krenz said, suggesting that the United States should reconsider
Chris Krenz, a Juneau-based senior scientist with the conservation group Oceana, said
offshore drilling in the region. But oil industry representatives said the report rightly calls for more research and
resources to combat spills in the region. American Petroleum Institute spokesman Carlton Carroll said the group was “encouraged by the report’s
emphasis on the need for a full toolbox of spill response technologies.” The report was the product of a 14-member
committee of the National Research Council, organized by the National Academy of Sciences, with representatives drawn from academia, the oil industry and Alaska.
No Arctic infrastructure for the plan- multiple reasons
DoD 2011 [US Department of Defense, “Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage” May 2011; <
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Tab_A_Arctic_Report_Public.pdf]
Construction in the Arctic is seasonal and skilled labor is usually in short supply; therefore,
costs for both construction and maintenance are high. The need to provide room and board at remote locations, decreased
efficiency of workers and machinery in extreme environmental conditions, and the difficulties,
costs, and risks in shipping materials and equipment add to the challenge. Because of the short
construction season, outside work must be accomplished quickly, dictating a high degree of expensive prefabricated construction.
During ice-free periods, the most economical means of transportation is by barge. During the winter, transportation over frozen rivers and lakes may be more economical than air transportation. But
delays in shipping equipment due to weather can result in prolonged construction times and
expensive emergency air freight costs. Construction in the Arctic costs, as a rule of thumb,
three to five times more than comparable infrastructure in lower latitudes. Another challenge to bear in mind is the
risk to existing infrastructure posed by thawing permafrost. As the permafrost thaws, it loses strength and volume, leading to failure of
foundations and piling. The warming climate will also accelerate the erosion of shorelines and riverbanks, threatening infrastructure located on eroding shorelines.
No Arctic conflict
Perry and Andersen 2012 [Charles M. Perry and Bobby Andersen. Dr. Perry is vice president and director of studies at the
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc., and vice president of National Security Planning Associates, Inc. Dr. Perry also directs
and/or contributes to a number of Institute studies that focus on specific aspects of U.S. defense reform and military transformation
to meet post-9/11 security challenges. Dr. Perry holds an M.A. in international affairs, an M.A. in law and diplomacy, and a Ph.D. in
international politics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has served as an officer in the United
States Army Reserve, and is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). Bobby Anderson is a research
associate at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. She focuses on Nordic affairs, NATO and European security issues, U.S. defense
strategy, regional security developments in the Asia-Pacific, changing security dynamics in the Arctic region, “New Strategic
Dynamics in the Arctic Region: Implications for National Security and International Collaboration,” February,
http://www.ifpa.org/pdf/StrategicDynamicsArcticRegion.pdf]
The Arctic Five have quickened their efforts to extend their sovereignty over extended
continental shelves (ECS’s)2 where some of the most promising deposits are believed to be located, while other countries with a strong interest (but no
,
territorial claim) in the Arctic and its resource riches – including distant, but energy-hungry economic powerhouses like China, Japan, and South Korea – do their best to retain
time, cost, and technology constraints
appear to be working against any competitive “rush to the Arctic” fueled in part by the lure of an oil and gas bonanza
beyond compare along the lines suggested by a number of the more popular studies on Arctic dynamics published in recent years.3 Far more likely is a slow
and methodical push into the High North, not the least because there is so much yet to learn
(or, in some cases, to relearn) about operating safely in the harsh Arctic landscape, so little infrastructure
already (or soon to be) in place to support such operations, and such limited capacity even among the Arctic Five to
undertake and sustain Arctic operations of any kind, be they commercial or military in nature. Moreover, while access to – if not
control over – offshore Arctic resources remains a strategic goal shared by quite a few influential countries located both within and beyond the Arctic region, the
access to the Arctic and to avoid being marginalized in policy debates over its future. That said,
probability of serious interstate rivalry or, in the worst case, open conflict in pursuit of this objective
seems quite low, at least in the near- to mid-term future. In the first place, the vast majority of hydrocarbon deposits locked in the
Arctic seabed are concentrated within the sovereign territory of one or another of the Arctic Five,
where ownership is clear and undisputed. Secondly, while there are disagreements over who
owns various resourcerich areas where two or more exclusive economic zones (EEZs)4 and potential ECS’s appear to overlap, the 2010 3 See, for
example, Alun Anderson, After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic (New York: Smithsonian Books, 2009); David Fairhall, Cold Front: Conflict Ahead in Arctic
Waters (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2010); Roger Howard, The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow’s Natural Resources (London and New York: Continuum,
The
exclusive economic zone is the offshore zone where coastal states have jurisdiction over
economic and resource management, including sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing natural
2009); and Richard Sale and Eugene Potapov, The Scramble for the Arctic: Ownership, Exploitation and Conflict in the Far North (London: Frances Lincoln, 2010). 4
resources, whether living or nonliving, of the seabed, subsoil, and the superjacent waters. Typically, the EEZ includes waters three to two hundred nautical miles offshore. See
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, “What is the EEZ?” http:// agreement between Norway and Russia over how best to divide a
sector they both claimed in the Barents Sea, together with a commitment by the Arctic Five in 2008 to abide by procedures set forth in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
Third, and finally,
the sheer expense and technical challenges involved in extracting oil, gas, and other strategic
resources from the Arctic ocean floor argue for a joint, collaborative effort among interested
parties, Arctic and non-Arctic alike, as opposed to a “go it alone,” unilateralist approach.
These and similar considerations are likely to preserve the Arctic as a “High North, low
tension” arena, , and no more than eight hours’ flight time from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, all of which significantly enhances America’s crisis response
(UNCLOS) for determining the dimensions of each country’s ECS, suggests that a peaceful settlement of any territorial dispute is more likely than not.
and power projection capabilities. Moreover, given that the Arctic would be an optimal vector for ballistic missile attacks against the United States originating from Russia,
China, North Korea, or even Iran, it is also an ideal location for missile defense and early warning systems designed to handle current and emerging threats, perhaps to include
someday – in view of the Arctic’s largely maritime character – sea-based platforms, such as the U.S. Navy’s Aegis-equipped cruisers. The ways in which these and other strategic
advantages associated with the Arctic have influenced (and continue to influence) the national security perspectives of the United States, the other Arctic Five countries, and
rising global powers (such as China) are discussed in detail in later chapters of this report, but the key point to be made here is that such advantages are real and growing, and
that this will remain the case, whether or not the Arctic’s oil and gas deposits are effectively tapped, or its utility as a passageway for seaborne trade is fully exploited. Finally,
developments in the Arctic may hold useful lessons for other resource-rich regions where territorial claims remain unsettled and freedom of the seas could be challenged. More
specifically, if the Arctic states and other key stakeholders are able to develop a framework for regional collaboration that also respects and protects the national interests of the
Arctic Five, a similar approach may also be tried (and eventually prove successful) in, for example, disputed maritime zones like the South China Sea. The geopolitical dynamics of
the Arctic and South China Sea regions, of course, are not entirely similar, but there is enough overlap with regard to such issues as ensuring unimpeded maritime passage
through international waters, agreeing on procedures for defining the ECS’s of neighboring states, and developing cooperative plans for drilling offshore oil and gas deposits, to
warrant some degree of investigation into how well Arctic models of cooperation might apply, and the same may be true with regard to other areas of the globe of rising
strategic importance where multiple national, regional, and international interests intersect. While the jury is still out on the best system of governance for the Arctic region as a
current trends suggest that a patchwork of relevant private, public, intergovernmental,
and nongovernmental organizations, rather than one overarching structure, is the best
approach, centered perhaps around a core group of interested parties, which, in the case of the Arctic, would be the Arctic Council.5 As
whole,
this approach matures, moreover, the Arctic could serve as a valuable laboratory for testing how best to establish and maintain a safe, stable, and secure environment in regions
where a diversity of interests, ambitions, and expectations could easily clash, possibly in a violent manner, absent an effective mechanism for multinational and multilateral
governance. With these observations in mind, the analysis that follows aims to paint a comprehensive picture of the new strategic map just now emerging in the Arctic, to
examine what that portends with regard to the potential for conflict or cooperation within the region, and, on that basis, to determine as clearly as possible the likely policies
and priorities of the Arctic Five and other key regional stakeholders, and the skills and capabilities to operate in the Arctic that they will require as a result. Chapter 2 sets the
overall stage insofar as major region-wide dynamics are concerned, focusing in particular on the emergence of more navigable Arctic sea lanes, the scale and accessibility of the
5 Formally established in 1996, the Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum whose aim is to promote cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic
states (which includes the Arctic Five plus Iceland, Sweden, and Finland), with involvement of Arctic indigenous communities and other key stakeholders that may be granted
permanent observer status. Traditionally, the council has focused on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic, but, as the Arctic becomes
more accessible, the council has branched out to address search and rescue, oil spill response at sea, and other civil emergency requirements. Now that the council has set up a
permanent secretariat in Tromsø, Norway (following the 2011 ministerial in Nuuk, Greenland), it is poised to play a more catalytic role in future debates over how best to
manage the Arctic region. See the Arctic Council website, http://www. arctic-council.org/index.php/en/about-us. Arctic’s strategic resources, and ongoing challenges with regard
to Arctic governance. Chapter 3 explores in depth the strategic interests of the Arctic Five countries and the steps they are taking to safeguard those interests, while chapter 4
analyzes the priorities and programs of the other national and institutional stakeholders in the future of the Arctic, including the non-coastal Arctic states (Iceland, Sweden, and
Finland) and the major Asian powers noted above (China, Japan, and South Korea), as well as NATO and the EU. Finally, chapter 5 offers some summary conclusions and policy
recommendations, with an emphasis on what the United States needs to do to assert its leadership as this “new Arctic” described at the outset continues to take shape.
Sub dominance US would decisively win an Arctic war- no escalation
Axe 2011 [David, Military correspondent and contributor or editor to the Washington Times, C-SPAN, Wired, World Politics
Review, and more, “How the U.S. Wins the Coming Arctic War”, Wired, 1/11/11,
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/how-the-u-s-wins-the-coming-arctic-war/]
But these tales, my versions included, usually omit two vital points: that Arctic
conflict is unlikely to occur at all;
and even if it does, the U.S. will have an overwhelming advantage over any rival. The
Washington Post was the latest to repeat the Arctic-war theme, in a story published yesterday. “The Arctic is believed to hold
nearly a quarter of the world’s untapped natural resources and a new passage could shave as much as 40 percent of the time it takes
for commercial shippers to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” Jacquelyn Ryan wrote. But, she added, “government and military
officials are concerned the United States is not moving quickly enough to protect American interests in this vulnerable and fastchanging region.” Specifically, the U.S. does not have enough icebreakers or permanent bases on the Alaskan north slope. Canada
andRussia, by contrast, are buying ice-hardened Arctic ships and building new facilities to enforce their Arctic claims, Ryan pointed
out. The thing is, it’s
not icebreakers and patches of wind-blasted tarmac that would really matter
in some future North Pole showdown. In the Arctic, as in any sea battle, American nuclear
attack submarines — quiet, versatile and lethal — would make all the difference. U.S. subs have been sneaking
around under the Arctic ice, and occasionally surfacing, for decades. Today, they even carry geologists and other
scientists in order to help map Arctic mineral deposits. “In addition to being more heavily
armed than most foreign boats, U.S. submarines generally have superior quieting and combat
systems, better-trained crewmen, and much more rigorous maintenance standards,” Bob Work
wrote in 2008, before becoming Navy undersecretary. “As a result, the U.S. submarine force has generally been confident that it
could defeat any potential undersea opponent, even if significantly outnumbered.” But in
the Arctic, facing only the
Canadians, Russians, Danes and Norwegians — none of whom have large or healthy sub fleets
— the U.S. Navy’s 50 Los Angeles-, Seawolf- and Virginia-class subs would be more numerous
as well as more powerful. And besides, an Arctic war is highly unlikely, at best. “Militarized
conflict over the Arctic is unlikely, and regional disputes are unlikely to cause an overall
deterioration in relations between or among polar nations,” the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace concluded in a 2009 conference. “Security issues should not be
sensationalized in order to attract attention towards the Arctic.” But it’s rare anyone writes stories about
how we’ve got enough weapons — and don’t really need them, besides. After all, it’s the sensational stories about shortages and
looming disaster that sell newspapers.
Solvency
Russia Says No – Can’t Trust the US
Rebecca Bluitt, Production assistant at CNN, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cold-cold-war-putin-talks-tough-usartic/story?id=21110178, 2013
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that U.S. military capabilities in the Arctic
Circle leave his government little choice but to maintain a strong foothold in the frigid north,
where tensions between the former Cold War adversaries in recent years have heated up as the polar ice thawed. During a meeting with students in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin was asked whether Russia and other countries might loosen their grip on Arctic territory for military exercises and exploitation of natural resources in favor of environmental
The Russian leader replied that the United States hasn't slipped off the ice shelf and
implied that his country's national defense priorities will continue to outweigh conservation
efforts. "Experts know quite well that it takes U.S. missiles 15 to 16 minutes to reach Moscow from the Barents Sea," Putin said, according to the Associated Press. His comments came on the heels of a
preservation.
recent renewal of U.S. attention to the Arctic. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel laid out the Pentagon's revised Arctic Strategy at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia last month. The U.S. policy
blueprint calls for "building trust through transparency about the intent of our military activities and participation in bilateral and multilateral exercises and other engagements that facilitate information-sharing."
But the Russian president's statement suggested suspicion of American intentions in the
region, and possible wariness that the U.S. is not being as forthcoming as it has pledged to be.
A Hagel aide said that Russia should adopt a cooperative policy. "The Department of Defense Arctic Strategy recognizes that changes in the Arctic landscape create an opportunity for nations to work together
through coalitions of common interest," said Pentagon spokesman Carl Woog. "We will work together with Arctic nations to ensure that the region remains peaceful and free of conflict." Over the last several
Putin's recent comments indicate
uneasiness with U.S. military activity so close to Russian borders. Putin's mistrust of U.S.
nuclear-powered submarines' proximity to Russian borders is fueling Russia's professed need
for a strong military presence in the Arctic, Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear
Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told ABC News. But Kristensen discounted the
years both nations have increased their respective military presence in the Arctic, including U.S. naval and Russian air force operations.
likelihood that Navy subs operating outside of the Barents Sea would have any real impact on any hypothetical use of U.S. nuclear power. "Such a launch is technically possible but U.S. missile subs are thought to
operate further back in the Atlantic," Kristensen said. "Putin's use of such a scenario to keep Arctic territories is flawed because they would not prevent such a launch, which would most likely take place in
international waters." With many experts saying that global warming is expediting the melting of the Arctic icecaps, newly created water routes have opened up a possible treasure trove of commercial wealth to
northern nations in the form of oil, mineral, and natural gases. There has been competition among countries for Arctic usage rights since the 1950s, but the accelerated melting of Arctic glaciers in recent years has
Both the United States and Russia have
insisted that there will be no direct conflict between the two nations regarding the Arctic
region. But Putin's worst-case missile scenario suggests indirect conflict over Arctic occupation reminiscent of a bygone competition. Kristensen called it "an unfortunate example of [Putin] thinking about
resulted in the resurgence of a Cold War-like scramble reminiscent of the United States-Russia moon landing rivalry.
geopolitical affairs in outdated Cold War terms."
Arctic drilling is too unpredictable for companies- long history of empirics
proves the plan fails
Beinecke 2013 [Frances, President, Natural Resources Defense Council, “A Pattern of Failure,”
http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2013/01/are-arctic-oildrillingchallen.php?comments=expandall#comments]
Shell’s repeated failures in the Arctic Ocean prove that neither the company nor offshore
drilling belong in these wild, remote, and rugged waters. The company’s drilling rig, for instance,
ran aground when four tug engines failed in a storm. Yet the North is region of mishaps –
mechanical, human, and natural. It is home to churning seas, punishing winds, frigid
temperatures, unpredictable ice, and months of prolonged darkness. Shell’s inability to
prepare for and cope with these punishing conditions makes it vividly clear: we have no
business letting the oil industry drill in the Arctic Ocean.¶ The grounding of Shell’s drilling rig is
not an isolated incident. It is part of a larger pattern in which Shell has proven no match for
the elements.¶ Last July, another of the company’s drill rigs nearly ran aground in the Aleutian Islands. Through August, Shell
couldn’t move its spill response barge—a linchpin in its emergency plan—out of Bellingham, WA because the Coast Guard wouldn’t
certify it as seaworthy until the company dealt with more than 400 issues, including wiring and other safety shortcomings. Then,
when Shell started preliminary drilling without the spill response barge in place, within 24 hours its rig had
to turn tail and flee from a 30-mile long iceberg that bore down on the drill site. And in September, Shell’s containment
dome—used to capture oil in the event of spill—was “crushed like a beer can” during pre-deployment testing.¶ Shell has
poured billions of dollars into offshore Arctic drilling, but no matter how much it spends, it cannot
make the effort anything but a terrifying gamble. And if Shell, the most profitable company on Earth, can’t
buy its way to safety in Alaska , nobody can .¶ That is why the administration should halt all
drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Neither the oil industry nor our government is prepared to respond
to a spill in a region where the closest Coast Guard base is 1,000 miles away from the leasing
sites, no proven technology exists to collect oil, and winter ice makes spill response
impossible. Nor do we even know all the damage a spill and clean-up efforts would do to Arctic ecosystems. Very little research
has been done yet in these waters and we have only a narrow body of research focusing on just a few species. Until these gaps in
emergency response and research are filled, federal agencies cannot responsibly even weigh whether drilling in the Arctic Ocean
could ever be safe.¶
Drilling is impossible- no proven tech, resources, or safety measures
Clark 2013 [Jamie Rappaport Clark, President and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, “What Shell Has
Proven,” http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2013/01/are-arctic-oildrillingchallen.php?comments=expandall#comments]
The series of failures in both judgment and technology that resulted in Shell’s Kulluk drill rig
crashing into Alaska’s Sitkalidak Island on New Years Eve has put wildlife and human life at increasing and unacceptable risk.
Alarmingly only the latest in a series of problems with Shell’s drilling season, it should also put an end to drilling in the
Arctic.¶ The list of problems that Shell’s drilling program has had is well documented and very
disturbing—from losing control of the Noble Discovery drill ship, to the oil containment dome
that was “crushed like a can” by arctic ice, to violoations of air safety permits, and now the grounding
of the Kulluk. But, in this most recent incident alone, there are three things that stand out as indicative of Shell’s problems and as
reasons why the fate of the Arctic drilling program should be sealed once and for all. ¶ First, the Kulluk was hauled out to sea in
dangerously unpredictable weather putting human lives and wildlife at risk so Shell could avoid paying tax on the vessel to the state
of Alaska. Shell’s willingness to put profit above human safety and the environment is consistent with the safety commission’s
warnings that the poor safety culture at BP was really an industry–wide problem, and not the outlier that Shell and others tried to
suggest.¶ Second, it took
700 people and a fleet of Coast Guard vessels to respond to the grounding
of the Kulluk. But if this incident, let alone a major oil spill or other catastrophe, had happened in the deep
Arctic there would not be anywhere near 700 people to respond. It is clear that Shell was simply not
equipped to respond when the Kulluk ran aground. How can we expect them to be prepared if something happened in an even more
remote area?¶ Third, the grounding of the Kulluk demonstrated that despite
all the promises to the contrary, the
industry just does not have the technology to function safely in the Arctic environment. The Aiviq tug is a
multimillion dollar ice crusher designed specifically to handle high seas and bad weather. It’s been presented as a symbol of why we
should feel safe about Shell’s drilling in the rugged and remote Arctic. But in
its first major storm, the Aiviq not only
lost control of the Kulluk, it also lost power in all four of its engines and was itself at the whim of the
rough seas. According to reports, after the Aiviq restored its connection to the Kulluk the Coast Guard had it drop its line and cut the
Kulluk loose again, in order to protect the lives of Aiviq crew because of the harsh weather conditions.¶ If the Obama administration
wants to be credible when it speaks about pursuing safe offshore drilling, then the grounding of the Kulluk must be the last straw.
The lack of a demonstrated culture of safety, the obvious lack of response resources, and the
lack of proven technology capable of avoiding or addressing a crisis should be a loud and clear
signal that the administration needs to end drilling in the Arctic.
Neoliberalism K
Arctic cooperation reproduces neoliberal IR – aff frames US-Russia coordination
in terms of national self-interest and utility maximization
Burchill 5 (“Scott Burchill”, “Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Deakin
University, Australia.”, “Theories of international relations.”, “http://psi505.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Theories%20of%20IR.pdf)
The formation of state interests is of no interest to neo-realists. Beyond maintaining that
international anarchy gives states a survival motive, and that over time the incentives and constraints of the international system socialize states
into certain forms of behaviour, they have no theory of interest formation, nor do they think they should have (Waltz 1979: 91–2, 127–8). Furthermore, international relations are
considered so thoroughly strategic that neo-realists deny the existence of a society of states
altogether, speaking of an ‘international system’ not an international society. How does neo-liberalism compare?
The assumption of self-interest is expressed in the neo-liberal idea of states as rational 192 Constructivism egoists:
actors who are concerned primarily with their own narrowly defined interests, and who pursue
those interests in the most efficacious manner possible. Like neo-realists, neo-liberals treat state
interests as exogenous to inter-state interaction, and see no need for a theory of interest
formation. In fact, explaining the origins of state interests is explicitly excluded from the province
of neo-liberal theory. Finally, neoliberals move beyond the stark systemic imagery of neo-realism to acknowledge the existence of an international society, but their
conception of that society remains strategic. States certainly come together in the cooperative
construction and maintenance of functional institutions, but their identities and interests are not shaped or
constituted in any way by their social interactions.
The impact is extinction – neoliberalism drives collapse of ocean ecosystems –
only alternative framings of social relations can solve
Clark and Clausen 8
(teaches sociology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh; teaches sociology at Fort Lewis College)
(Brett and Rebecca, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, 2008, Volume 60, Issue 03 (JulyAugust)
Ecological degradation under global capitalism extends to the
entire biosphere. Oceans that were teeming with abundance are being decimated by the continual intrusion of
exploitive economic operations. At the same time that scientists are documenting the complexity and interdependency of marine species, we are witnessing an oceanic
crisis as natural conditions, ecological processes, and nutrient cycles are being undermined
through overfishing and transformed due to global warming. The expansion of the
accumulation system, along with technological advances in fishing, have intensified the
exploitation of the world ocean; facilitated the enormous capture of fishes (both target and bycatch); extended the spatial reach of fishing operations;
broadened the species deemed valuable on the market; and disrupted metabolic and
reproductive processes of the ocean. The quick-fix solution of aquaculture enhances capital’s control over production without resolving ecological contradictions. It is
wise to recognize, as Paul Burkett has stated, that “short of human extinction, there is no sense in which capitalism can be
relied upon to permanently ‘break down’ under the weight of its depletion and degradation of natural wealth.”44 Capital is driven by the competition for the
The world is at a crossroads in regard to the ecological crisis.
accumulation of wealth, and short-term profits provide the immediate pulse of capitalism. It cannot operate under conditions that require reinvestment in the reproduction of nature, which may entail time scales
of a hundred or more years. Such requirements stand opposed to the immediate interests of profit. The qualitative relation between humans and nature is subsumed under the drive to accumulate capital on an
ever-larger scale. Marx lamented that to capital, “Time is everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, time’s carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything.”45 Productive relations are
concerned with production time, labor costs, and the circulation of capital—not the diminishing conditions of existence. Capital subjects natural cycles and processes (via controlled feeding and the use of growth
the system is
inherently caught in a fundamental crisis arising from the transformation and destruction of
nature. István Mészáros elaborates this point, stating: For today it is impossible to think of anything at all concerning the elementary conditions of social metabolic reproduction which is not lethally
threatened by the way in which capital relates to them—the only way in which it can. This is true not only of humanity’s energy requirements,
or of the management of the planet’s mineral resources and chemical potentials, but of every
hormones) to its economic cycle. The maintenance of natural conditions is not a concern. The bounty of nature is taken for granted and appropriated as a free gift. As a result,
facet of the global agriculture, including the devastation caused by large scale de-forestation, and even the most irresponsible way of
dealing with the element without which no human being can survive: water itself….In the absence of miraculous solutions, capital’s arbitrarily self-asserting attitude to the objective
determinations of causality and time in the end inevitably brings a bitter harvest, at the expense of humanity [and
nature itself].46 An analysis of the oceanic crisis confirms the destructive qualities of private for-profit operations. Dire conditions are being generated as the resiliency of marine ecosystems in
general is being undermined. To make matters worse, sewage from feedlots and fertilizer runoff from farms are transported
by rivers to gulfs and bays, overloading marine ecosystems with excess nutrients, which contribute to an expansion of algal production.
This leads to oxygen-poor water and the formation of hypoxic zones—otherwise known as “dead zones” because crabs and fishes suffocate within these areas. It also compromises natural processes that remove
A dead zone is the end result of unsustainable
practices of food production on land. At the same time, it contributes to the loss of marine life in the seas, furthering the ecological crisis of the world ocean. Coupled
nutrients from the waterways. Around 150 dead zones have been identified around the world.
with industrialized capitalist fisheries and aquaculture, the oceans are experiencing ecological degradation and constant pressures of extraction that are severely depleting the populations of fishes and other
To advert
turning the seas into a watery grave, what is needed is nothing less than a worldwide
revolution in our relation to nature, and thus of global society itself.
marine life. The severity of the situation is that if current practices and rates of fish capture continue marine ecosystems and fisheries around the world could collapse by the year 2050.47
Alternative text: the judge should vote negative to endorse an ethic of social
flesh
An ethic of social flesh foregrounds embodied interdependence, substituting an
ecological view of relationships for the aff’s commodity thinking – only the
alternative can produce ethical institutional decisionmaking
Beasley & Bacchi 7
(Chris, Prof. of Politics @ University of Adelaide, Carol, Prof. Emeritus @ University of Adelaide, “Envisaging a new politics for an
ethical future: Beyond trust, care and generosity -- towards an ethic of `social flesh'”, Feminist Theory, 2007 8: 279)
The political vocabulary of social flesh has significant implications for democratic visions. Because it conceptualizes citizens as
socially embodied – as interconnected mutually reliant flesh – in a more thoroughgoing sense than the languages of trust, care, responsibility and generosity, it resists
accounts of political change as making transactions between the ‘less fortunate’ and ‘more
privileged’, more trusting, more caring, more responsible or more generous. Social flesh is political metaphor in which fleshly
sociality is profoundly levelling. As a result, it challenges meliorist reforms that aim to protect
the ‘vulnerable’ from the worst effects of social inequality, including the current distribution of wealth. A political
ethic of embodied intersubjectivity requires us to consider fleshly interconnection as the basis
of a democratic sociality, demanding a rather more far-reaching reassessment of national and international
institutional arrangements than political vocabularies that rest upon extending altruism. Relatedly,
it provides a new basis for thinking about the sorts of institutional arrangements necessary to acknowledge social fleshly existence, opening up ‘the scope of what counts as relevant’ (Shildrick, 2001: 238). For
example, it allows a challenge to current conceptualizations that construct attention to the ‘private sphere’ as compensatory rather than as necessary (Beasley and Bacchi, 2000: 350). We intend to pursue the
relationship between social flesh and democratic governance in future papers. Conclusion In this paper we focus on various vocabularies of social interconnection intended to offer a challenge to the ethos of
atomistic individualism associated with neo-liberalism and develop a new ethical ideal called ‘social flesh’. Despite significant differences in the several vocabularies canvassed in this paper, we note that most of
trust and care writers conceive the social reform of atomistic individualism they claim to address in terms
of a presumed moral or ethical deficiency within the disposition of individuals. Hence, they reinstate
the conception of the independent active self in certain ways. Moreover, there is a disturbing commonality
within all these accounts: an ongoing conception of asymmetrical power relations between
‘strong’ and ‘weak’, ‘carers’ and ‘cared for’, ‘altruistic’ and ‘needy’. While widely used terms like trust and care clearly remain vocabularies around which social
the
debate may be mobilized, and hence are not to be dismissed (see Pocock, 2006), we suggest that there are important reasons for questioning their limits and their claims to offer progressive alternative
understandings of social life. In this setting, we offer the concept of social flesh as a way forward in rethinking the complex nature of the interaction between subjectivity, embodiment, intimacy, social institutions
and social interconnection. Social flesh generalizes the insight that trusting/caring/ altruistic practices already take place on an ongoing basis to insist that the broad, complex sustenance of life that characterizes
As an ethico-political starting point, ‘social flesh’ highlights
human embodied interdependence . By drawing attention to shared embodied reliance, mutual
reliance, of people across the globe on social space, infrastructure and resources, it offers a
decided challenge to neo-liberal conceptions of the autonomous self and removes the social
embodied subjectivity and intersubjective existence be acknowledged.
distance and always already given distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’. There is no sense
here of ‘givers’ and ‘receivers’; rather we are all recognized as receivers of socially generated
goods and services. Social flesh also marks our diversity, challenging the privileging of
normative over ‘other’ bodies. Finally, because social flesh necessarily inhabits a specific geographical
space, environmentalist efforts to preserve that space take on increased salience (Macken, 2004: 25). By these
means, the grounds are created for defending a politics beyond assisting the ‘less fortunate’. Social flesh, therefore, refuses the residues of
‘noblesse oblige’ that still appear to linger in emphasis upon vulnerability and altruism within the
apparently reformist ethical ideals of trust/respect, care, responsibility and even generosity. In
so doing it puts into question the social privilege that produces inequitable vulnerability and the
associated need for ‘altruism’ . Vital debates about appropriate distribution of social goods,
environmental politics, professional and institutional power and democratic processes are
reopened.
Security K
US-Russia war is not likely
Weber 2014 (Peter, senior editor, “What would a U.S.-Russia war look like?” The Week, March 5, online:
http://theweek.com/article/index/257406/what-would-a-us-russia-war-look-like)
The chances that the U.S. and Russia will clash militarily over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine are very,
very slim. Ukraine isn't a member of NATO, and President Obama isn't likely to volunteer for another
war. But many of Ukraine's neighbors are NATO members, including Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. And so are the the Baltic
¶
If any of those countries come to Ukraine's aid and find
themselves in a war with Russia, NATO is obliged to intervene. That's also true if Russia comes up with some pretext to invade any of
states — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — further north and right on Russia's border.¶
those countries, unlikely as that seems. If we learned anything from World War I, it's that huge, bloody conflicts can start with tiny skirmishes, especially in Eastern Europe.¶ Again,
the U.S. and
Russia almost certainly won't come to blows over Ukraine.
Security politics cause global destruction
Der Derian 98 (James, Professor of Political Science – University of Massachusetts, On Security, Ed. Lipschutz, p. 24-25)
No other concept in international relations packs the metaphysical punch, nor commands the
disciplinary power of "security." In its name, peoples have alienated their fears, rights and powers to gods, emperors, and most
recently, sovereign states, all to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of nature--as well as from other gods, emperors,
and sovereign states. In its name, w eapons of m ass d estruction have been developed which have transfigured
national interest into a security dilemma based on a suicide pact . And, less often noted in international
relations, in its name billions have been made and millions killed while scientific knowledge has been furthered and
intellectual dissent muted. We have inherited an ontotheology of security, that is, an a
priori argument that proves the existence and necessity of only one form of security because
there currently happens to be a widespread, metaphysical belief in it. Indeed, within the concept of
security lurks the entire history of western metaphysics, which was best described by Derrida "as a series of substitutions of center for center"
in a perpetual search for the "transcendental signified." Continues... 7 In this case, Walt cites IR scholar Robert Keohane on the hazards of "reflectivism," to warn off anyone who by inclination or error might
wander into the foreign camp: "As Robert Keohane has noted, until these writers `have delineated . . . a research program and shown . . . that it can illuminate important issues in world politics, they will remain on
the margins of the field.' " 8 By the end of the essay, one is left with the suspicion that the rapid changes in world politics have triggered a "security crisis" in security studies that requires extensive theoretical
What if we leave the desire for mastery to the insecure and instead imagine a new
dialogue of security, not in the pursuit of a utopian end but in recognition of the world as it is, other than us ?
damage control.
What might such a dialogue sound like? Any attempt at an answer requires a genealogy: to understand the discursive power of the
concept, to remember its forgotten meanings, to assess its economy of use in the present, to reinterpret--and possibly construct
through the reinterpretation--a late modern security comfortable with a plurality of centers, multiple meanings, and fluid identities.
The steps I take here in this direction are tentative and preliminary. I first undertake a brief history of the concept itself. Second, I
present the "originary" form of security that has so dominated our conception of international relations, the Hobbesian episteme of
realism. Third, I consider the impact of two major challenges to the Hobbesian episteme, that of Marx and Nietzsche. And finally, I
suggest that Baudrillard provides the best, if most nullifying, analysis of security in late modernity. In short, I retell the story of
realism as an historic encounter of fear and danger with power and order that produced four realist forms of security: epistemic,
social, interpretive, and hyperreal. To preempt a predictable criticism, I wish to make it clear that I
am not in search of an
"alternative security." An easy defense is to invoke Heidegger, who declared that "questioning is the piety of thought."
Foucault, however, gives the more powerful reason for a genealogy of security: I am not looking for an alternative; you can't find the
solution of a problem in the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other people. You see, what I want to do is
not the history of solutions, and that's the reason why I don't accept the word alternative. My point is not that everything is bad, but
that everything
is dangerous , then we always have something to do. The hope is that in the interpretation of the
most pressing dangers of late modernity we might be able to construct a form of security based on the
appreciation and articulation rather than the normalization or extirpation of difference . Nietzsche transvalues
both Hobbes's and Marx's interpretations of security through a genealogy of modes of being. His method is not to uncover some
deep meaning or value for security, but to destabilize the intolerable fictional identities of the past which have been
created out of fear, and to affirm the creative differences which might yield new values for the future. Originating in
the paradoxical relationship of a contingent life and a certain death, the history of security reads for Nietzsche as an abnegation, a
resentment and, finally, a transcendence of this paradox. In brief, the history is one of individuals seeking an impossible security
from the most radical "other" of life, the
terror of death which, once generalized and nationalized, triggers a futile
cycle of collective identities seeking security from alien others--who are seeking similarly
impossible guarantees. It is a story of differences taking on the otherness of death, and identities
calcifying into a fearful sameness.
The alternative is to reject dominant security discourse – no one policy solves
every problem – good theory now drives better policies later
Bruce 96 (Robert, Associate Professor in Social Science – Curtin University and Graeme
Cheeseman, Senior Lecturer – University of New South Wales, Discourses of Danger and Dread
Frontiers, p. 5-9)
This goal is pursued in ways which are still unconventional in the intellectual milieu of international relations in Australia, even though they are gaining
influence worldwide as traditional modes of theory and practice are rendered inadequate by global trends that defy comprehension, let alone policy.
The inability to give meaning to global changes reflects partly the enclosed, elitist world of professional
security analysts and bureaucratic experts, where entry is gained by learning and accepting to speak a
particular, exclusionary language. The contributors to this book are familiar with the discourse, but accord no privileged place to its
‘knowledge form as reality’ in debates on defence and security. Indeed, they believe that debate will be furthered only through
a long overdue critical re-evaluation of elite perspectives. Pluralistic, democratically-oriented perspectives on Australia’s
identity are both required and essential if Australia’s thinking on defence and security is to be invigorated. This is not a conventional policy
book; nor should it be, in the sense of offering policy-makers and their academic counterparts sets of neat alternative
solutions, in familiar language and format, to problems they pose. This expectation is in itself a considerable part
of the problem to be analysed. It is, however, a book about policy, one that questions how problems are framed by policymakers. It challenges the proposition that irreducible bodies of real knowledge on defence and security exist independently of their
‘context in the world’, and it demonstrates how security policy is articulated authoritatively by the elite keepers of that knowledge,
experts trained to recognize enduring, universal wisdom. All others, from this perspective, must accept such wisdom or remain outside the expert
domain, tainted by their inability to comply with the ‘rightness’ of the official line. But it is precisely the official line, or at least its image of the world,
that needs to be problematised. If the critic responds directly to the demand for policy alternatives, without addressing this image, he or she is tacitly
endorsing it. Before engaging in the policy debate the critics need to reframe the basic terms of reference.
This book, then, reflects and underlines the importance of Antonio Gramsci and Edward Said’s ‘critical intellectuals’.15 The demand, tacit or otherwise,
that the policy-maker’s frame of reference be accepted as the only basis for discussion and analysis ignores a three thousand year old tradition
commonly associated with Socrates and purportedly integral to the Western tradition of democratic dialogue. More immediately, it ignores postseventeenth century democratic traditions which insist that a good society must have within it some way of critically assessing its knowledge and the
decisions based upon that knowledge which impact upon citizens of such a society. This is a tradition with a slightly different connotation in
contemporary liberal democracies which, during the Cold War, were proclaimed different and superior to the totalitarian enemy precisely because
there were institutional checks and balances upon power. In short, one of the major differences between ‘open societies’ and their (closed)
counterparts behind the Iron Curtain was that the former encouraged the critical testing of the knowledge and decisions of the powerful and assessing
them against liberal democratic principles. The latter tolerated criticism only on rare and limited occasions. For some, this represented the triumph of
rational-scientific methods of inquiry and techniques of falsification. For others, especially since positivism
and rationalism have
lost much of their allure, it meant that for society to become open and liberal, sectors of the population must be independent of the state and
free to question its knowledge and power. Though we do not expect this position to be accepted by every reader, contributors to this book believe that
critical dialogue is long overdue in Australia and needs to be listened to. For all its liberal democratic trappings, Australia’s security
community continues to invoke closed monological narratives on defence and security. This book also
questions the distinctions between policy practice and academic theory that inform conventional accounts of
Australian security. One of its major concerns, particularly in chapters 1 and 2, is to illustrate how theory is integral to the practice
of security analysis and policy prescription. The book also calls on policy-makers, academics and students of defence and
security to think critically about what they are reading, writing and saying; to begin to ask, of their work and study, difficult and searching
questions raised in other disciplines; to recognise, no matter how uncomfortable it feels, that what is involved in theory and practice
is not the ability to identify a replacement for failed models, but a realisation that terms and concepts – state sovereignty,
balance of power, security, and so on – are contested and problematic, and that the world is indeterminate,
always becoming what is written about it. Critical analysis which shows how particular kinds of theoretical presumptions
can effectively exclude vital areas of political life from analysis has direct practical implications
for policy-makers, academics and citizens who face the daunting task of steering Australia through some potentially choppy international
waters over the next few years. There is also much of interest in the chapters for those struggling to give meaning to a world where so much that has
long been taken for granted now demands imaginative, incisive reappraisal. The contributors, too, have struggled to find meaning, often despairing at
the terrible human costs of international violence. This is why readers
will find no single, fully formed panacea for the
world’s ills in general, or Australia’s security in particular. There are none. Every chapter, however, in its own way, offers something
more than is found in orthodox literature, often by exposing ritualistic Cold War defence and security mind-sets that are dressed
up as new thinking. Chapters 7 and 9, for example, present alternative ways of engaging in security and defence practice. Others (chapters 3,
4, 5, 6 and 8) seek to alert policy-makers, academics and students to alternative theoretical possibilities which might better serve an Australian
community pursuing security and prosperity in an uncertain world. All chapters confront the policy community and its counterparts in the academy
with a deep awareness of the intellectual and material constraints imposed by dominant traditions of realism, but they avoid dismissive and
exclusionary terms which often in the past characterized exchanges between policy-makers and their critics. This is because, as noted earlier,
attention needs to be paid to the words and the thought processes of those being criticized. A close
reading of this kind draws attention to underlying assumptions, showing they need to be recognized and
questioned. A sense of doubt (in place of confident certainty) is a necessary prelude to a genuine
search for alternative policies. First comes an awareness of the need for new perspectives, then
specific policies may follow. As Jim George argues in the following chapter, we need to look not so much at
contending policies as they are made for us but at challenging ‘the discursive process which gives [favoured
interpretations of “reality”] their meaning and which direct [Australia’s] policy/analytical/military responses’. This process is not
restricted to the small, official defence and security establishment huddled around the US-Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It also encompasses
much of Australia’s academic defence and security community located primarily though not exclusively within the Australian National University and
the University College of the University of New South Wales. These discursive processes are examined in detail in subsequent chapters as authors
attempt to make sense of a politics of exclusion and closure which exercises disciplinary power over Australia’s security community. They also question
the discourse of ‘regional security’, ‘security cooperation’, ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘alliance politics’ that are central to Australia’s official and academic
security agenda in the 1990s. This is seen as an important task especially when, as is revealed, the disciplines of International Relations and Strategic
Studies are under challenge from critical and theoretical debates ranging across the social sciences and humanities; debates that are nowhere to be
found in Australian defence and security studies. The chapters graphically illustrate how Australia’s public policies on defence and security are
informed, underpinned and legitimised by a narrowly-based intellectual enterprise which draws strength from contested concepts of realism and
liberalism, which in turn seek legitimacy through policy-making processes. Contributors ask whether Australia’s policy-makers and their academic
advisors are unaware of broader intellectual debates, or resistant to them, or choose not to understand them, and why?
Military DA
1NC
Despite budget cuts, naval readiness is still high
Fabrizio ’14 (Elliot Fabrizio, Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class, “CNP Testifies on Sailor and Family Readiness” 25
March 2014. (http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=79887)LP)
CNP reminded the subcommittee that the capabilities of the men and women
serving in the U.S. Navy are in high demand around the world, citing the Navy's recent contributions to the search for Malaysian
Airlines Flight 370, two forward-deployed strike groups, and ongoing partnership operations in the Black Sea. "Every day our Sailors are involved in essential
missions around the globe involving power projection, deterrence, warfighting, antipiracy,
humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) and peacekeeping," said Moran. "As our presence in the Asia-Pacific Theater expands, we will fill
In his opening statement provided for the record,
an increasingly vital role in this important region of the world." He cautioned that if sequestration continued, the Navy would face long-term consequences to combat readiness. The Navy's budget submission
prioritizes funding for forward presence and continues to make critical investments in people and future capabilities. "As we took on this budget, certainly we understood the imperative of reducing national debt
in order to increase national security," said Moran in his opening statement. "But, many of the levers we pulled last year to mitigate operational impacts were simply no longer available." The proposed $148 billion
budget is a $15 billion decrease from the level forecast in last year's budget submission and is a $38 billion reduction over the Future Year Defense Plan from the FY14 Presidential Budget. The tough choices made
the focus is improving manning at sea, retaining the
Navy's best and brightest and increasing the readiness of Sailors and their families. "All of
what American sea power means today, and what it might become, lies squarely upon the
shoulders of the people who make it so," said Moran. "And those people stand directly at the
center of the budget now before you."
in the FY 15 budget maintain quality of service for Sailors, Moran said, adding that
Ocean training space is key to military readiness – plan creates trade off
Medina et. al. 14 (Medina, Monica, Joel Smith, and Linda Sturgis. "National Coastal Mapping Advancing National Defense
and Ocean Conservation." National Coastal Ocean Mapping (2014): n. pag. Center for a New American Security. Jan. 2014. Web. 15
July 2014. <http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/OceanMapping_MedinaSmithSturgis.pdf>. XM)
The ocean functions as a geographic barrier for the United States, as well as a highway for
U.S. military forces to deploy around the world. In order to be prepared for national
defense, the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps require large areas of the coastal ocean
for training and long-range weapons testing. To maximize situational awareness and
ensure safety and operational effectiveness, the military places significant value on the
collection and analysis of data.8 To operate in the coastal ocean, federal agencies – including the military – must undergo
an expansive permitting process to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act. The law requires federal agencies to “make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and
Military users must also comply with
a host of other marine-based environmental protection laws, such as the Endangered
Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act and
the Clean Water Act, as well as state environmental protection laws.
addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health of its programs, policies, and activities.”
9
Naval readiness deters South China sea war.
The China Post 14 (The China Post. "US Must Back up the Words in Its South China Sea
Remark."Www.ChinaPost.com.tw. N.p., 15 July 2014. Web. 16 July 2014. <http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/worldissues/2014/07/15/412330/p2/US-must.htm>. XM)
On Saturday, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Michael Fuchs called on the parties in South China Sea territorial disputes to agree to a 'voluntary freeze' on provocative
behavior. Fuchs appealed for a concrete development of principles laid out in the 2002 Declaration of Conduct (DoC) signed between China and ASEAN. Couched in diplomatic pleasantries, the DoC affirms
universal principles of non-interference, peaceful resolution to conflicts and “promotion of economic prosperity.” The beautiful-sounding points require parties to operate on the basis of existing international laws
governing operations on the seas and diplomacy, and also affirm the right to free navigation as well as overflight. It is evident to all, though, that those principles have been violated repeatedly since then. In the
area that China claims 90 percent of, we have seen in the past three years the country blockading Second Thomas Shoal, setting up a municipal government on the island of Sansha, and recently constructing oil
rigs in areas disputed by Vietnam. The Philippines released evidence of what it calls China reclaiming the Johnson Reef. While Fuchs says that no single party is wholly responsible for tensions, he explicitly points
out that the U.S. considers China to be provocative. And he is right. In the context of geopolitical strategic balance, China is clearly acting to take advantage of its resources, from population to economic wealth to
Words that look pretty on paper have no meaning unless they can be translated into
genuine improvement for the region at stake. For now, the lofty Holy Grail of “harmony” is
clearly out of reach. Defining the more immediate goal in terms of establishing an
environment where the propensity for military exchanges is lower may be more realistic for
defusing conflicts. The U.S. needs to back up its most recent call to the region with concrete
steps that would help enforce the peace. It is counterproductive to throw out admonitions or
appeals without making one's presence felt, and Washington does have to meet a degree of
military might.
participation in the Asia-Pacific if it wants to promote the regional peace that is conducive to
the overall interest. Over the past few years the U.S. has increased its military presence in the
region. U.S. President Obama established a small garrison in Darwin, Australia and in April the
U.S. signed a 10-year agreement with the Philippines over the expanded usage of bases in the
country. As China beefs up the scale and pace of its forward deployments, as a result coming
into conflict or near-conflict with its neighbors, Washington should step up its presence in the
region. In demonstrating its stake in the region, a restrained but conscious deployment of
vessels passing nearby hotspots could be a powerful gesture. The Diplomat periodical, in an article titled 'The Limits of Pacific Maritime
Law,' noted the fact that many of the agreements that have been established regarding conventions of the sea are redundant. For example, the signs that were agreed upon in April between China and two dozen
nations, in a non-binding agreement called the Code For Unplanned Encounters at Sea, have been established parts of the maritime lexicon for generations. The principles of mutual respect, non-violence and noninterference are present in China's own Five Principles for Peaceful Co-existence. The problem lies in the actions of current players not living up to those standards and hence the need for constant reaffirmations.
Taking a more conciliatory and forward-looking perspective, the U.S. can serve as a lubricating partner between China and the various parties involved by sending diplomatic staff at all levels to monitor and
actively join in defusing bilateral disputes. On Saturday, the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry in charging into Kabul to negotiate a way out of the election dispute there resulted in an agreement between
That case illustrates that U.S. attention and efforts do count. In the South
China Sea and East China Sea, Washington can also help reduce the propensity toward
devastating conflict.
parties for a full audit of the presidential vote.
US-China war goes nuclear
Johnson 1
Chalmers, The Nation, May 14, Wilson OmniFile: Full Text Select
all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule
nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power
arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil
war, remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the
Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted, a misstep in Taiwan by
any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a
war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese
victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate
into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic challenge to China's sovereignty of any Taiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed
China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and
US forces on China's borders have virtually no deterrent effect.
2NC
Naval training exercises now – key to readiness
Williams 14 (Rear Adm. Rick Williams,¶ Commander, Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, “Koa Kai
Trains Sea Warriors, Enhances Readiness”, January 27, 2014, US. Pacific Command,
http://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/NewsArticleView/tabid/7464/Article/7737/koa-kai-trains-sea-warriors-enhancesreadiness.aspx)//MW
KOA KAI 14-1, Hawaiian Islands (Navy Blog), January 27, 2014 — Now
getting underway near the Hawaiian
Islands (now through January 2014), is an opportunity for our Sailors and their ships to participate in
individual and integrated training to make them better sea warriors.¶ Koa Kai offers skill
development and assessment in key domains – surface, air and undersea – that build the
capabilities of our team. Our Sailors and other service members train in Koa Kai to be ready
for any crisis, ranging from armed conflict to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. ¶ Next
week we will show, test and assess our capabilities in coordination with the Navy’s premier testing and training range – Pacific
Missile Range Facility.¶ Seven of our Middle Pacific ships are part of this first Koa Kai exercise for 2014. All services have
representatives participating in some capacity, and we welcome our Canadian allies, who are an important part of our team.¶ We’re
fortunate to have a strike group staff and destroyer squadron integrated for this exercise, which further
strengthens
command and control and provides realistic training in an operational environment. The result
is more coordination with our joint partners when it’s time to work together.¶ The positive
opportunities for our individual warfighters participating in Koa Kai cannot be overstated. ¶
Navy leaders are focusing increasingly on the importance and value of realistic and relevant
training that builds capability to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations at sea.¶ New
techniques and platforms are coming on line, so we need ongoing, adaptive training.¶ Our leaders are also committed to rewarding
our Sailors – individuals and their unit commands – who demonstrate capability and adaptability. The rewards can translate to
retention, promotion and more leadership career opportunities for those who demonstrate new skills and abilities.¶ Chief of Naval
Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert is challenging all of us to improve quality of service. We can achieve that goal by focusing on
improvements in quality of life, work and training. Koa Kai does that for sea warriors here in the middle of the Pacific.¶ This training
is close to home for our Hawaii-based ships, so there is less time away from home and more predictability for service members and
their families. Preventing
weeks away from home – whenever possible – directly supports quality
of life for us, and when mainland-based Sailors visit Hawaii it improves quality of life for them!¶ Koa Kai provides the
type of disciplined, relevant training we need not only to support the fleet but also to assist
type commands now and over time in what is becoming a progressively more complicated
warfighting environment. That links directly to improved quality of work/service for our shipmates and our ability to
defend America at all times.¶ The bottom line: Koa Kai gives Sailors tools to help them become better sea
warriors now and build their skills over time. Our ultimate goal is to be warfighting-ready to
operate forward where, history shows us, presence matters
China War Impacts
US-China war goes global – interdependence doesn’t check
Feffer 9
John. Co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus. 3/24/9. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/the-next-cold-war_b_178589.html.
But the naval confrontation in the South China Sea could be the most dangerous indication
of them all. For all their senseless violence, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan remain
regional wars. A confrontation between China and the United States, however unlikely it
might seem given the economic interdependence of the two countries, would necessarily
be global. Let's hope that these two imperial boats passing in the night manage to negotiate
an equitable distribution of global power with more aplomb than they showed earlier this
month.
US China tensions on the brink leads to World War 3
Auken 14
Bill Van, “Washington Boasts Of Military Buildup Against China,” http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930314000174
The speech left no doubt as to which country this arsenal is directed against. China, Hagel charged, "has undertaken
destabilizing, unilateral actions asserting its claims in the South China Sea". He accused it
of using "intimidation, coercion, or the threat of force to assert those claims". And, he vowed,
Washington "will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international
order are being challenged". Hagel delivered an ultimatum to Beijing, declaring that China had "a
choice: to unite and recommit to a stable regional order, or to walk away from that commitment and risk the
peace and security that have benefited millions of people throughout the Asia-Pacific, and
billions around the world". The meaning is clear enough. Either China submits to the post-World
War II arrangements establishing US hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region, or it will face
the direct threat of war with the United States.
U.S. China conflict escalates to nuclear war
Kulacki, 12
Kulacki, Gregory. Senior Analyst & China Project Manager for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists "The
Risk of Nuclear War with China." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 June 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregory-kulacki/the-risk-of-nuclear-war-w_b_1903336.html>.
Last week two
separate studies warned that China and the United States are pursuing military
strategies and implementing defense policies that could lead to a nuclear war. John Lewis and
Xue Litai of Stanford University concluded a detailed exposition of China's nuclear war plans with a very sober warning. "Both
sides, clinging to incongruous assessments, run the risk of provoking unanticipated escalation to nuclear
war by seeking a quick victory or tactical advantages in a conventional conflict. This dilemma is
not only real, but perilous." Thomas Christensen of Princeton expressed concern about the same problem; the possibility that a
conventional military conflict between the United States and China could end in a nuclear exchange. "For
example, if
strikes by the United States on China's conventional coercive capabilities or their critical command and control nodes
and supporting infrastructure were to appear in Beijing as a conventional attack on its nuclear retaliatory
capability or as a precursor to a nuclear first strike, even a China that generally adheres to a No-First-Use posture
might escalate to the nuclear level."
AT: No China War
Miscalculation makes US-China war highly likely – crushes the global economy
Farley ‘14
[robert, June 14, Assistant Professor He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington
Department of Political Science in 2004.¶ Asia's Greatest Fear: A U.S.-China War,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/asia-flames-us-china-war-10621]
This has changed. The
expansion of Chinese interests and capabilities means that we can envision
several different scenarios in which direct military conflict between China and the United
States might begin. These still include a Taiwan scenario and North Korea scenario, but now
also involve disputes in the East and South China Seas, as well as potential conflict with India
along the Tibetan border.¶ The underlying factors are the growth of Chinese power, Chinese
dissatisfaction with the US-led regional security system, and US alliance commitments to a
variety of regional states. As long as these factors hold, the possibility for war will endure .¶
Whatever the trigger, the war does not begin with a US pre-emptive attack against Chinese fleet, air, and land-based installations. Although the US
military would prefer to engage and destroy Chinese anti-access assets before they can target US planes, bases, and ships, it is extremely difficult to
envisage a scenario in which the United States decides to pay the political costs associated with climbing the ladder of escalation.¶ Instead, the United
States needs to prepare to absorb the first blow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) have to wait for
Chinese missiles to rain down upon them, but the United States will almost certainly require some clear, public signal of Chinese intent to escalate to
high-intensity, conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Chinese forces. ¶ If the history of World War I gives any indication, the PLA will
not allow the United States to fully mobilize in order to either launch a first strike, or properly prepare to receive a first blow. At the same time, a
“bolt from the blue” strike is unlikely. Instead, a brewing crisis will steadily escalate over a few
incidents, finally triggering a set of steps on the part of the US military that indicate to Beijing
that Washington is genuinely prepared for war. These steps will include surging carrier groups, shifting deployment to Asia
from Europe and the Middle East, and moving fighter squadrons towards the Pacific. At this moment, China will need to decide whether to push
forward or back down.¶ On the economic side, Beijing
and Washington will both press for sanctions (the US effort will
likely involve a multilateral effort), and will freeze each others assets, as well as those of any cobelligerents. This will begin the economic pain for capital and consumers across the Pacific
Rim, and the rest of the world. The threat of high intensity combat will also disrupt global
shipping patterns, causing potentially severe bottlenecks in industrial production.
U.S. and China are on the brink of war
White, 6/4
White, Harry. "What Would Push America towards War with China?" The National Interest. 4 June 2014. Web. 26 June 2014.
<http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-would-push-america-towards-war-china-10592>.
The “rebalance” isn’t working. Washington
wants to ensure the survival of an order in Asia where it
sits at the head of the table, and China pursues her interests in a way her neighbors can
live with. But that hope is slipping away. To give us the best chance of the United States maintaining a
strong and sustainable position in Asia, President Obama needs to decide what he really wants, and what he can live without. In
his West Point speech last week, we saw a glimmer of that realization from the president. So far, Obama has
tried to
manage Beijing by taking a middle road between reassurance and deterrence. Too soft an approach would invite
revisionism, goes the line, and being too assertive would accelerate the trend towards a deeply adversarial relationship. He took
a conciliatory line at the Sunnylands Summit, resisted Japanese calls to take a harder line on China in the Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands through most of last year, and the administration, in the form of the vice president, was notably cordial in visits to
Beijing, including right after the ADIZ declaration at the end of 2013. On the other hand, in April, he made his own statement
that the United States would fight to defend the Senkakus, is building up its military presence in the Philippines and has worked
to strengthen its partnerships in the region. He also added that the Pacific hosts the bulk of U.S. military assets. America’s target
is to have 60 percent of Air and Naval forces in the Pacific by 2020—those services are necessary for a presence in Asia and have
been partially shielded from budgetary pressure. Just last week at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel, in harmony with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, took a firm line on China. But
it’s not working.
China has accelerated its efforts to assert control in contested areas of the South China
Sea, including in waters where claims overlap with Vietnam and the Philippines. Beijing has strengthened its position in the
East China Sea, successfully establishing an ADIZ over much of the area, including the disputed islands. The news is replete with
specifics. In recent weeks, China has sent an oil rig to the waters south of Hainan, apparently begunbuilding
Johnson South Reef in the Spratly islands, and scrambled
an airstrip in
SU-27s to intercept Japanese military aircraft in the East China
Obama’s approach has failed to convince Beijing of the benefits of abiding
by the status quo, or that seeking to alter it will incur unacceptable costs. If Asia continues on its present strategic
trajectory, China will become more adventurous in seeking to cement its claims to disputed territory, and tension
between Beijing and Washington will continue to deepen. That would be a disaster for both Asian and
American interests. There is a danger that this thinking at cross-purposes could precipitate a
crisis, and that crisis could turn into a war. China might cross an actual American redline, which ironically, the
Sea ADIZ. President
White House won’t have articulated clearly enough to avoid antagonizing Beijing.
CP
1NC
The United States Department of Defense should establish a scientific
hydrocarbon development mission in the Arctic
Navy can explore and develop the Arctic
Hansen 12 (April 2012, Kathryn was an Associate Editor at EARTH, where she reported on polar science, geotechnology,
weather, natural hazards, geopolitics, and space. “U.S. Navy navigates a sea change in the Arctic”
http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/us-navy-navigates-sea-change-arctic)
Last September, at the international Arctic Forum in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin compared new Arctic shipping routes to the Suez Canal. The Northern Sea Route, he said, which
follows the country’s northern coastline, would dramatically shorten trade routes between Europe and China.¶ The new shipping routes are possible due to the declining extent and thickness of summer Arctic sea
For two consecutive
years, the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route have been passable for ship traffic during
summer months. In addition to opening new shipping passages, an increasingly accessible Arctic is attracting increased resource
exploration, scientific research and even tourism. Shipping companies, entrepreneurs, scientists and tourists, however, are not the only ones looking north; militaries around
the world, including the U.S. Navy, also have an interest.¶ “As sea ice decreases, accessibility of the region increases and therefore human activity
in the region is increasing and will continue to increase,” says Cmdr. Blake McBride, Arctic Affairs Officer for the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change. “The Navy, by virtue of our global mission,
provides stability to international commerce and global order, which allows for a common prosperity. This means we need
to ensure we are able to operate and have a presence wherever and whenever human activity is occurring in the
maritime environment.Ӧ Toward that mission, the Navy has created a task force, developed a roadmap,
and employed a corps of geoscientists to synthesize scientific information. About halfway through the roadmap’s fiveyear timeline, planning continues and scientific challenges remain.¶ “With a greener and warmer Arctic, more development is
likely,” said Monica Medina, NOAA principal deputy under-secretary of commerce for oceans and the atmosphere, in a NOAA statement about the Report Card. At a press briefing in December to roll out
the report, she noted that the changes would affect decisions about oil and gas exploration activities and plans being made for the next five years. The Navy, however, is looking
even further into the future and trying to ascertain what the Arctic might look like as much as 30 years out —
about the time it takes to design and build new ships. “To justify expenditures, we need information about the expected
environment,” McBride says. “If we don’t have plans, it’s hard to argue for what we’ll need in order to operate in that environment. What kind of ships will we need? What roles, missions,
ice. Although completely ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean are not expected for at least another three decades, impacts of the decline are already evident:
responsibilities, and organizational structures might need to change?”¶ Establishing a Plan¶ Even before the so-called “new normal” was described this year, scientists and the Navy had a good idea that sea ice
was thinning.
The Navy’s exploration of the Arctic started almost a century ago with flights by Rear Adm. Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr.
starting in 1926. It continued during World War II, and then, in 1958, the Navy made the first submarine transit of the North Pole in the USS Nautilus. Since then, submarines have maintained a presence in the
The Navy has also worked closely with academic institutions to collaborate on
collected geological, physical, chemical and biological
Arctic for training and research, some of which has contributed to volumetric estimates of the ice from below.
ice camps and expeditions, such as Science Ice Exercise (SCICEX), which from 1995 to 1999
data from the Arctic Ocean, and ICEX, a submarine exercise during which the Navy practices working in Arctic conditions.¶ For a continued presence in the Arctic, however, the
Navy faces challenges from the changing Arctic landscape, so the Navy set out in April 2001 to establish a plan. That year, the Office of Naval Research,
the Arctic Research Commission, and the Naval Ice Center hosted the first symposium on Naval Operations in an Ice-Free Arctic, at which participants discussed naval operations and national strategic issues. A
follow-up symposium in 2007 took the discussion further to explore impacts on commercial
transportation, oil and gas exploration, fisheries, and scientific research.¶ In 2009, former President George W. Bush
signed a national security presidential directive establishing a national Arctic policy. The policy calls on the departments of State, Homeland Security and Defense to implement the policy through specific actions,
such as: “Develop greater capabilities and capacity, as necessary, to protect United States air, land and sea borders in the Arctic region,” and “Consider, as appropriate, new or enhanced international arrangement
for the Arctic to address issues likely to arise from expected increases in human activity in that region …” It also details several directives to promote international scientific cooperation, including the accurate
the Navy is nonetheless considering the
directive goals in strategic planning.¶ “Our primary objective is to ensure naval readiness and capability and promote maritime security in the Arctic region,” McBride
prediction of the future Arctic climate and environment. Although the policy does not call for specific new naval missions,
says. “This readiness will ensure that the Navy is prepared to operate in the Arctic if or when called upon to do so.”¶ Also in 2009, the chief of naval operations established Task Force Climate Change, headed by
the Navy’s senior oceanographer Rear Adm. David Titley. Navy geoscientists “ensure an understanding of the physical environment, allowing the Navy to operate safely on the world’s oceans,” McBride says. “Task
Force Climate Change is an extension of that, and our role is to characterize the environmental changes of the future and the challenges that these changes will present to the Navy.”¶ Deliverables¶
Toward that effort, one of the first deliverables of the task force was a strategic roadmap, a five-year plan of actions and
milestones designed to guide Navy policy, investment, action, and public discussion on the Navy’s
role and actions concerning the Arctic.¶ In accordance with the roadmap, the task force issued its first Arctic Environmental Assessment and Outlook Report in
August 2011. The document is designed to inform Navy policy by providing an environmental assessment of the Arctic, updated every two years to align with Navy budget and decision-making cycles. The report
synthesizes existing scientific information for climate, ocean and land mass trends, and then provides an outlook for resource exploration. It then describes tactical, operational and strategic implications for naval
activities, which often relate back to the difficulty of operating in the harsh northern latitudes. For example, ice and even the northern lights can impede communication. Freshening ocean water can change
acoustical propagation. And Arctic weather is not easy to accurately forecast. In a separate task force-sponsored activity, the U.S. Naval War College conducted an exercise called Fleet Arctic Operations Game
2011. In September, 88 participants from the military, academia and industry participated in the four-day tabletop game that sought to explore gaps in maritime operations and to find solutions to those gaps.¶
“The key finding of the game is that
the U.S. Navy is inadequately prepared to conduct sustained maritime
operations in the Arctic,” says Walter Berbrick, a professor in the U.S. Naval War College’s War Gaming Department. “This was primarily due to the poor reliability of
current capabilities as well as the need to develop new partnerships, ice-capable platforms, logistics infrastructure, satellite communications and educational and training initiatives.Ӧ
Also, the game found that as weather and climate conditions intensify — particularly the presence of ice, strong winds and fog — and as the total time and distance traveled during an operation increase, the
greater the risk of mission failure and loss of or harm to friendly forces, Berbrick says. “To reduce risk, players relied on additional information and capabilities through partnerships with the U.S. Coast Guard, Joint
Task Force Alaska, tribal leaders, industry and multinational partners.”¶ Pushing Boundaries¶ Geographically, there are just five nations in the Arctic Council — an intergovernmental forum to promote
cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic countries — that have Arctic coastlines: Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States. Of those nations, only the United States lacks a
national Arctic strategy. Unlike a clear national strategy, the U.S. Arctic policy does not provide guidance on how to invest and prioritize, McBride says. “But that’s more of a near-term problem for the Coast Guard
than the Navy,” he says: The Coast Guard has needs now, such as to develop its icebreaking fleet, but the Navy, he says, “has time to prepare.”¶ Still, it’s unclear exactly how much time the Navy has to prepare.
Estimates of when the Arctic will have fully ice-free summers range anywhere from 2040 to 2060. And the U.S. National Petroleum Council, an advisory committee that relays the views of the oil and gas industry
the Secretary of Energy, reported in the Navy’s Arctic Environmental Assessment and Outlook
Report that some technology necessary to exploit oil from the Arctic might not be ready until 2050. “If you act too soon, you’re wasting taxpayer dollars because you’re ahead of need, but if you
wait too long you’ll have a crisis and spend too much too quickly,” McBride says.¶ As such, Task Force Climate Change is trying to plan ahead to make the best use of dollars
to
at the right time. But that can be easier said than done, as many scientific questions remain about the Arctic’s future. To obtain answers, the Office of Naval Research is pushing scientific boundaries with two
Department Research Initiatives (DRI). The first, “Predictability of Seasonal and Intra-seasonal Oscillations DRI,” looks to support improvements in climate modeling. This research would lay the foundation for the
Navy’s interest in long-range predictions. The second, “Marginal Ice Zone DRI,” looks to improve the knowledge and understanding of the physics of the retreating summer ice edge and marginal ice zone in the
Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Little is known about the point where sea ice gives way to open water, such as how (or if) waves or the sun impact its retreat and thickness.¶ Also during the last fiscal year, the Office of
Naval Research started an Arctic research program, designed to improve the basic understanding of the Arctic environment, as well as to monitor and predict environmental change. The program will require that
new platforms, sensors and communications be developed and operable in extreme conditions.¶ “Overall we see the greatest challenge in climate understanding to be the state of climate computer modeling,”
McBride says.” A new proposal called Earth System Prediction Capability is meant to address the issue, touted as the next step in numerical weather prediction.¶ The proposal grew out of discussions between the
Department of Commerce and Department of Defense about how the next environmental analysis and prediction system could meet requirements of a zero-hour to three-decade prediction system, to support
everything from short-term weather forecasts to seasonal agriculture and energy needs to decadal-scale infrastructure development. The proposal is not without technical challenges, however, and depends on
advances in computational capability and the reformulation of existing earth system models.¶
The disad is the net benefit to the counterplan.
2NC
Military [USCG] key for ensuring commercial and military solvency
O’Rourke 14 Ronald O’Rourke specialist in naval affairs, Congressional Research Service, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker
Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress 6/5/2014 http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf
Advocates of a Coast Guard fleet that includes Healy plus three heavy polar icebreakers might argue that the High Latitude
Study found that the Coast Guard requires three heavy (and three medium) icebreakers to fulfill its
statutory missions, that a force with three heavy polar icebreakers would provide additional
capability for responding to potentially increased commercial and military activities in the
Arctic, that it would more strongly signal U.S. commitment to defending its sovereignty and
other interests in the region, and that while such a force would be more expensive than a smaller polar icebreaker fleet, the added investment would be justified in light of the
growing focus on U.S. polar interests.
The Navy can explore the Artic with a scientific focus
Smally 14 (April 23, 2014, David is an author at the Department of Naval Research.
http://science.dodlive.mil/2014/04/23/ice-breaker-onr-researchers-explore-a-changing-arctic/)
As sea ice continues to recede at a record pace in the Arctic, officials at the
Office of Naval Research (ONR) on April 14
announced new efforts to determine the pace of change in what some are calling Earth’s final frontier.¶
Scientists sponsored by ONR have traveled to the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean, placing new sensors in the ice
and in the frigid waters below, to better understand the processes contributing to a dramatic decline in sea ice thickness and extentand provide new tools to
help the U.S. Navy predict conditions and operate in once-inaccessible waters.¶
changing Arctic means significant new responsibilities and opportunities for the scientific and
research communities, the nation and our allies,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, the chief of naval
research.¶ “ONR researchers, working in one of the world’s most challenging environments, will give U.S. naval planners the
“A
essential data we need.Ӧ The effort, which includes partnership with the government of South Korea, involves aircraft and
icebreakers to deploy sensors to compile and coordinate new data on rapidly changing conditions, particularly as it applies to the
Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ), where ice and open ocean meet.¶ ONR scientists aim to assist Navy planners not only in short-range (zerofive days) but long-range (six or more months) timeframe predictions in these areas where the ice is located between solid pack ice
and the sea.¶ “Where we have had ocean models and weather models, we clearly need new ice models as well,” said Scott Harper,
MIZ project manager for ONR. “We need better operational predictions-sailors and ships are at risk without higher resolutions and
shorter forecasts.Ӧ The effort to gain knowledge about new waterways in once-inaccessible regions supports a directive from Chief
of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who has made understanding changes in the Arctic a priority.¶ “The
U.S. Navy
recognizes that the opening of the Arctic Ocean has important national security implications as
well as significant impacts on the U.S. Navy’s required future capabilities,” he noted in the U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap 2014-2030.¶
“Today, the observed changes in the Arctic Region climate and the reduced extent of summer sea ice reveal the potential for the
Arctic Ocean to become a more viable route for international shipping over the coming decades.Ӧ The director of the Task Force
Climate Change and Oceanographer of the Navy, Rear Adm. Jon White, emphasized the importance of the research.¶ “ONR’s
research focus is aligned with the Navy’s Arctic Roadmap Implementation Plan, and will help us better understand and
predict an environment that will still continue to present significant challenges for surface and air
operations,” said White. “While there is much preparation the Navy needs to do before it starts conducting routine operations in the
Arctic, understanding
the dynamic environment and the rate of change is a critical foundation for these
research into Arctic environmental conditions will focus on three major
areas: sustained observation of the Arctic Ocean environment; better understanding frozen ocean
processes; and developing computer models and prediction methods that look at how air, ice, ocean and waves will
respond to climate change.
future operations.”¶ ONR’s
Congress has authorized the Navy to build 4 Icebreakers and give them over to
the U.S. Coast Guard—the only service that has authority over icebreakers.
Rosen 13 (Yereth—one of the few Alaska news reporters for Reuters since 1987. Senate amendment aims to build new Arctic
icebreakers. Nov 25, 2013. http://www.adn.com/article/20131125/alaska-washington-senators-introduce-amendment-build-4icebreakers) AP
The U.S. Navy would be authorized to build up to four heavy-duty polar icebreakers for U.S.
Coast Guard use under a bipartisan amendment inserted last week into a military
authorization bill [3] that was sponsored by senators from Alaska and Washington state.¶ The amendment would
give the U.S. Navy authority to contract for the vessels and have them built, then transfer
ownership to the Coast Guard, the only service with responsibility for icebreaker missions ,
according to the amendment language.¶ The amendment sponsors -- Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich of Alaska and Maria
Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington -- issued a joint statement Monday describing what they say is a pressing need for
expanded icebreaker capacity to keep pace with other nations’ Arctic initiatives, to support the region’s maritime industry and to
boost national security while serving Alaskans’ emergency needs.¶ They also referenced the new Department of Defense Arctic
strategy [4], unveiled Friday by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.¶ “With Defense Secretary Hagel announcing last Friday that the
nation’s military will be very involved in the Arctic region, moving forward towards an Arctic future means icebreakers; this bill
would help deliver on that,” Murkowski said in the statement.¶ Begich cited the
mission two winters ago to deliver
fuel to Nome, a goal that required help from a Russian icebreaking vessel. That incident
“demonstrated the need for enhanced icebreaking capability to meet the needs of residents
of America’s Arctic as well as our nation’s security needs,” he said in the statement.¶ “ Icebreakers
protect America’s Arctic interests and support Washington state shipbuilding jobs ,” Cantwell said
United States has only two icebreakers useable in the Arctic, the Healy and
the Polar Star, compared to 33 in Russia, the senators said in their statement.¶ The underlying bill, the National
in the statement.¶ The
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, is annual legislation that authorizes military pay and benefits as well as certain policy
initiatives, Murkowski spokesman Matthew Felling said Monday.
The Coast Guard needs to control the acquisition of icebreakers in order for the
Icebreakers to be maximally sustainable.
Fitzpatrick et al. 14 (Brian—a LT in the U.S. Coast Guard, Dr. Syed Ahmed—Editor of Universal Journal of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering, Dr. Paul Herrington--Ph.D., Louisiana State University. Designing a Maintainable and Sustainable Coast Guard
Icebreaker for Arctic and Antarctic Operations. Mar 21, 2014) AP
The U.S. Coast Guard is at the start of the process of acquiring a new class of heavy icebreaker.
This class will replace the aging Polar Class ice breaker and supplement the medium
icebreaker USCGC ¶ HEALY, WAGB 20. The Coast Guard must be able to control acquisition and
lifecycle cost in acquiring ¶ this new class of ship as well as provide for a sustainable ship with
minimal environmental impact. The ¶ focus of this paper is on the ability to maintain an independent steaming vessel in
the remote arctic ¶ regions of the globe and how the design of the vessel will dictate much of the logistics support of the ¶
operations. It is assumed that the new class will be a direct replacement with the same capabilities of the ¶ current Polar Class with
similar anticipated mission requirements namely; escorting merchant shipping ¶ traffic through ice fields, search and rescue, and
scientific research operations. With
the White House’s ¶ release of its arctic strategy and the increased
shipping traffic in arctic waters because of the open ¶ seaways, a long-term presence is
required to meet the demands of the current international trends. The ¶ first objective of the
Presidents arctic strategy to ensure the freedom of the seas and air for United States ¶ national
interests and ensure that international treaties are enforced, the objective states the need to ¶ “intelligently evolve our
Arctic infrastructure and capabilities, including ice-capable platforms as ¶ needed”.
Responsible stewardship with in the region requires United States entities , government and ¶
commercial, operating in the area to prevent environmental damage to the area. The third point in
the ¶ President’s plan is to work with the international community in the preservation and exploration of the ¶ arctic region. In
the national Arctic Policy the need for securing safe passage of United States ships and ¶
interests in the Arctic Region is required
[10]. A second national level policy has been introduced called, ¶ the
National Fleet Policy signed by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and the Commandant of the ¶ Coast Guard, outlining plans to
build a fleet that compliments each other and does not duplicate ¶ capabilities. The national fleet policy is in concert with continuing
with the interoperability of the Navy ¶ and Coast Guard as well as continuing the standing practice of not duplicating capabilities
where possible, ¶ especially with icebreakers.
The duplication of capabilities would mean the Coast Guard
would maintain ¶ the lead in icebreaking operations and spearhead the polar operations
[4].
The two national policies place ¶ the Coast Guard as the lead maritime component of the
United States Arctic strategy to ensure the rights ¶ of the United States on the international
state. The design considerations of a new icebreaker to ¶ implement this policy and the need to integrate early in the design
process to positively affect the total ¶ lifecycle cost of the new class must be taken into consideration as equal to the operational
requirements of ¶ the vessel, not as an afterthought.
The Coast Guard key to ice breaking – new ice breaker proves
O’Rourke 14 (Ronald O'Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs, June 5, 2014, Congressional Research Service, “Coast Guard Polar
Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress”, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf, LM)
Coast Guard polar icebreakers perform a variety of missions supporting U.S. interests in polar
regions. The Coast Guard’s two existing heavy polar icebreakers—Polar Star and Polar Sea— have
exceeded their originally intended 30-year service lives. Polar Star was placed in caretaker status on July 1, 2006.
Congress in FY2009 and FY2010 provided funding to repair it and return it to service for an additional 7 to 10 years of service; the
repair work was completed and the ship was reactivated on December 14, 2012. On June 25, 2010, the Coast Guard announced that
Polar Sea had suffered an unexpected engine casualty; the ship was unavailable for operation after that. The Coast Guard placed
Polar Sea in commissioned, inactive status on October 14, 2011. The Coast Guard’s third polar icebreaker—Healy—entered service
in 2000. Compared
to Polar Star and Polar Sea, Healy has less icebreaking capability (it is
considered a medium polar icebreaker), but more capability for supporting scientific research.
The ship is used primarily for supporting scientific research in the Arctic. With the reactivation of Polar
Star, the operational U.S. polar icebreaking fleet consists of one heavy polar icebreaker (Polar
Star) and one medium polar icebreaker (Healy). The new polar icebreaker for which initial
acquisition funding is requested in the FY2013 budget would replace Polar Star at about the time
Polar Star’s 7- to 10-year reactivation period ends. The Coast Guard’s strategy document for
the Arctic region, released on May 21, 2013, states that “The United States must have
adequate icebreaking capability to support research that advances fundamental
understanding of the region and its evolution,” and that “The Nation must also make a
strategic investment in icebreaking capability to enable access to the high latitudes over the
long-term.”
Oil Spill Solvency
Military funding and equipment allows scientists to monitor the impacts of oil
spills
Schleifstein, 14 (3/14/14, Mark, Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, “Researchers to Use Alvin Sub To Study Mile-Deep
Seafloor Near BP Well Blowout,” http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/researchers-use-alvin-sub-to-study-mile-deep-seafloor-near-bpwell-blowout/)
A team of scientists led by University of Georgia marine biologist Samantha Joye will spend most of April using the deepsea
submarine Alvin to study the mile-deep seafloor near the site of BP's ill-fated Macondo well for the lingering effects of the 87-day flow of oil and gas following
the blowout that sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April 2010.¶ Alvin carries three scientists and has made more than 4,300 dives
since its launch in 1964, with some dives traveling nearly three miles deep. It was used to find a lost hydrogen bomb in the Mediterranean Sea in 1966, discovered deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the late 1970s
The team will use the U.S. Navy's research submarine in a series of
dives near the Macondo wellhead, allowing them to record observations with the use of high-definition cameras and to collect water, sediment and biological samples
and explored the sunken ocean liner Titanic in 1986.¶
from the seafloor.¶ "No one has visited these sites in a human-occupied submersible since 2010, so we are very eager to evaluate the health of these locations firsthand," Joye said in a news release announcing
the trip. "Populations of many organisms living in the water and on the ocean floor were seriously damaged by the blowout, so we want to know how things have changed since December 2010."¶ The scientists
will study areas where the seafloor was covered with oil in 2010, staying outside a 2 nautical mile circle around the wellhead.¶ "We particularly want to know if the oil-contaminated sediment layers are still
there," she said. "It may be buried beneath a layer of sedimentation, but its effects could still be profound and we will be able to assess this."¶ Joye was the leader of several independent research cruises using
submersible vehicles to track the effects of the oil spill in the months immediately following the spill. She was part of a team that quickly published a peer-reviewed paper that explained that a significant
another study that
found oil droplets or microbes that ate the droplets rained down on a large area of the
seafloor around the well, including on deepwater coral reefs about 10 miles north of the well.¶ In April, the
percentage of the hydrocarbons released by the wells were traveling as methane gas in a miles-long plume between 3,200 feet and 4,800 feet beneath the surface, and
researchers also will visit a series of natural seeps of oil that are between 75 and 300 nautical miles away from the wellhead, part of a long-term microbial observatory research project that is examining the role of
hydrocarbon-rich, salty brine fluids that are expelled naturally from the seafloor on fluid and sediment geochemistry and microbiology.¶ "Brine-influenced habitats are analogs to ancient habitats on the Earth,"
Joye said. Their study helps in understanding how similar biogeochemical cycling occurred on the ancient Earth, and could result in the discovery of new microorganisms, she said.¶ Other researchers aboard the
The
research is being funded with a grant from the National Science Foundation and from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's
Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf program.¶ The National Science Foundation is funded by the federal government. The Gulf of Mexico Research
R/V Atlantis, which acts as the mothership for the Alvin, are from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida State University, University of North Carolina and Coastal Carolina University.¶
Initiative is funded by a $500 million grant made by BP soon after the spill. It has an independent board of directors that determine how grants are awarded, with no input from BP beyond that the research be
aimed at issues involving the blowout accident and its aftermath.¶ The Alvin is operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the National Deep Submergence Facility. This will be the first major
research operation for the underwater research platform following a two-year renovation that increased its seating capacity.¶
AT: Perm
Perm links to the Navy DA - It’s a question of priority sequencing – the navy
must take the lead on marine energy development to ensure access to proper
training.
Quinn 11 (John P. Quinn leads three diverse programs essential to Navy sustainability initiatives, a B.A. in political science and
economic, from Duke University; a J.D. from Georgetown Law Center; and a LL.M (environmental), with highest honors, from The
George Washington University, “The U.S. Navy’s Sustainability Imperative”, November 26, 2011,
http://livebettermagazine.com/article/the-u-s-navys-sustainability-imperative/)//MW
While supporting the
nation’s need to develop new energy sources as a means of improving its energy and
economic security, in some instances these priorities have created tension between renewable energy
development and robust military testing and training. Offshore oil and gas development, and future
wind energy projects, could potentially obstruct existing military training areas and/or create
interference with radar systems used for testing and training as well as homeland defense.
Ashore, solar towers constructed in proximity to air corridors could create obstructions and/or reflection issues, which could
degrade air navigation. Additionally, new wind turbines – some reaching 600 or more feet into the air – could create obstruction and
interference challenges for military training and testing at existing bases and range areas.¶ The
challenge is to find
solutions that will enable the nation’s development of needed energy and other infrastructure
while enabling the Navy to carry out its national defense mission through continuous training
and testing at sea, ashore and in the air. Towards these objectives, as discussed below, a number of initiatives are
underway at the national level within the Department of Defense (DoD) and within the Department of the Navy (DON). The
Navy’s active participation in these initiatives, and forward-leaning approach to its own
energy requirements, will help ensure a sustainable future for the Navy and the nation.