Arizona Debate Institute 2015
Opening Topic Lecture
“Dr. Dave” Hingstman
Resolved: The United States
should significantly reduce its
military presence in one or
more of the following: the
Arab states of the Persian Gulf,
the Greater Horn of Africa,
Northeast Asia.
Affirmative cases and Topicality
• An affirmative case on US military presence should contain initial
arguments (reasons and support) that somehow relate to that topic.
• Topicality is an issue that relates all affirmative arguments to the
topic being debated, even if only by metaphor to or by suppressing
whatever problems the affirmative is interested in talking about.
• When preparing an affirmative case, think about how your
arguments and key topic words will relate to each other.
Common metaphors used
in debate: battles, control,
narratives
To what things might US military presence refer?
• “the visible employment of US military personnel and/or military
materiel as a deterrent outside of the continental United States at
any point along the operational continuum short of involving major
US conventional forces in combat” (Greer 1991)
Types of military basing:
Main operating base | Forward operating base | Cooperative security location
Military term equivalents to “US military presence”:
forward presence; forward deployment; basing
Military presence as a symbolic or functional idea
• “forward presence — Maintaining forward-deployed or stationed
forces overseas to demonstrate national resolve, strengthen
alliances, dissuade potential adversaries, and enhance the ability to
respond quickly to contingencies (JP 3-32).” (US Dept of Defense
Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, June 15, 2015)
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf
“Trust cannot
be surged.”
(Forster 2011)
“To deter
adversaries, US
military must. . . ”
(Metz 2015)
“US pledges
resolve against
terrorism”
(VOA 2014)
“Premier crisis
response force”
(Amos 2013)
Military presence and the US armed forces
“Presence” may have different connotations for various branches of
the US Armed Forces
“naval presence includes a wide range of forward-deployed Navy and Marine
Corps units afloat and ashore in friendly nations” (Mack 1998)
“The U.S. Army presence in Europe involves dozens of bases, many of which
are being downsized and closed” (O’Hanlon 2009).
“The key to Fifth Air Force’s presence is the frontline air bases spanning Japan
from north to south” (5th Air Force, no date)
“The global network [of Special Operations Forces] enables small, persistent
presence in critical locations, and facilitates engagement where necessary or
appropriate.” (McRaven 2013).
US Military Presence in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf
Bahrain
Iraq
Kuwait
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
UAE (United
Arab Emirates)
Territorial waters of the Arab States of
the Persian Gulf
All except
Iraq are part
of the Gulf
Cooperation
Council
US Military Presence in the Greater Horn of Africa
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Kenya
Seychelles Islands?
Somalia
South Sudan
Sudan
Tanzania?
Uganda
Gulf of Aden
Western Indian Ocean
US Military Presence in Northeast Asia
China, Japan, North Korea, Okinawa, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan?
Sea of Japan [or East Sea], Yellow Sea, East China Sea, Sea of
Okhotsk, North Pacific Ocean, 7 Straits
Strategic Choices for Affirmative Cases
critical and policy approaches
Critical approaches question
the uses of state power and
politics of exclusion and
control and seek strategies of
resistance
Policy approaches emphasize
alternative governmental
actions and what their costs
and benefits, both direct and
indirect, might be
What makes an affirmative case work—anticipating
negative strategic choices and finding offense against them
Critical negative arguments—
Policy negative arguments—
1. You legitimize US imperialism
2. You ignore other forms of state
exclusion or control over people
3. You encourage a shift to secret US
military presence, which is worse
4. You legitimize a security-oriented
mindset, which needs to be displaced
by a new forms of understanding or
performative engagement with others
5. You exaggerate threats and create
enemies
1. You scare US allies and cause
them to militarize or switch sides
2. You encourage US enemies to
attack or threaten
3. You create political problems
that affect other policy decisions
4. You free up military resources to
do worse things
5. Alternative policy—don’t do
dangerous military tactics
6. Alternative policy—increase US
military presence to make it work
better
A strong affirmative case gets leverage (has “offense,” not
just “defense”) against the usual negative arguments
Critical affirmative arguments—
Policy affirmative arguments—
1. We resist US imperialism by
opposing US military presence
2. We act in solidarity with excluded or
dominated people in other places
3. We oppose the paranoid mindsets
that lead to dangerous overt or covert
military presence
4. We move toward peaceful
engagement with other countries
5. We can both reconsider our threat
constructions and call for the US to
reduce its military presence
1. Current US military engagement is
counterproductive for allied cohesion
(not credible)
2. US enemies are not deterred by its
military presence and potential
supporters are alienated
3. Excessive US military engagement
is politically unpopular
4. We are a symbolic step in the
direction of a less-threatening foreign
policy
5. Military presence causes more
problems than the risk of war
6. More military presence will
blowback and kill more people
Persian Gulf Affirmative
Inherency: Expanding US military presence in the Arab
States of the Persian Gulf condones royal oppression
• “In 2013, the Navy announced that it was adding five more coastal
patrol ships to American forces in Bahrain. Last year, the Obama
administration went forward with a more than half-billion-dollar
expansion of the U.S. presence in Bahrain, which will cement the U.S.
presence in the country for decades to come. Now, what signal does
that send the royals?” (Abrams, 2/27/15).”
Persian Gulf Affirmative
Harms: Persian Gulf misrule denies human rights and risks
civil unrest and regional war
• “’With each passing day, the Bahrain government’s self-fulfilling prophecy
of a sectarian war is becoming more and more the reality,’ Reza Aslan
wrote in 2013. ‘If that happens — if the Bahrain uprising descends into the
kind of regional holy war between Sunni and [Shiite] — the United States
will not be able to avoid the consequences.’ That message holds true for
the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which makes one wonder why it is smart to
assume that the facilities the United States has in Bahrain will in fact be
available — or safe to use — in the coming decades. Meanwhile, the
announcement of the expansion can only be read one way by the Bahraini
authorities: The American protests about human rights conditions are not
serious” (Abrams, 2/27/15).
Persian Gulf Affirmative
Solvency: Reducing US military presence will send a
message that opposes repression of Gulf minorities
• “Such a message — and if necessary, a public statement a few months later
— would have had a huge impact. It would have shown the Bahraini
government and its supporters the risks they face; it would have made the
business community nervous, and perhaps more supportive of reform; and
above all, it might have given additional ammunition to those in the royal
family who favor reconciliation over repression. Instead, the Obama
administration is sending the clear message that its loud protests are over,
the president won’t speak about Bahrain, and the monarchy can relax.”
(Abrams, 2/27/15).”
Maryam
Al-Khawaja,
activist
Greater Horn of Africa Affirmative
Inherency 1: US military presence in the Horn promotes
counterterrorism under the guise of humanitarianism
•“US military presence.” In 2002, the US established the Combined Joint Task
Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF- HoA). It is based upon the assumption that transnational
terrorist cells would flee the 2001 US-led campaign in Afghanistan, establish a safe
haven in the Horn of Africa and proceed to coordinate future attacks from there. It is a
multi-service formation operating under the auspices of the US African Command
(AFRICOM), which since March 2010 has been led by Rear Admiral Brian Losey. Since
2003, the task force has been housed in Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign
Legion camp adjacent to the Djibouti-Ambouli international airport, which is managed
by Dubai Ports World and has suitable runways and lighting conditions. The US pays
around US$30 million annually for Camp Lemonier, which is its only official military
base located in Africa.” (Meslin 2011).
Greater Horn of Africa Affirmative
Inherency 2: US military presence in the Horn enables
targeted killing with drone strikes
• “1) First up is Camp Lemmonier, which houses thousands of U.S. personnel and has —
according to satellite imagery — also hosted everything from F-15E Strike Eagle bombers and C-130
cargo planes, to PC-12 special ops planes and MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9 Reaper UAVS. 2) Next
is the U.S. Indian Ocean drone base in the Seychelles that’s used to hunt Somali
pirates and other seaborne ne’er do wells. You can clearly see a tan-colored "clamshell" tent on the
northwest end of the runway — a common indicator of a U.S. military presence at an
airstrip. 3) Speaking of clamshell tents, this Bing map shows several at what appears to be a fairly
large and newly constructed facility near the old terminal at Entebbe Airport on the
shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The old terminal at Entebbe is famous as the site of the Israeli
commando raid that freed hundreds of passengers from a hijacked Air France flight in 1976. 4) Here’s
the reported U.S. drone base at Arba Minch, Ethiopia, as shown in Bing Maps. The image
shows construction of a new ramp and hangars that are separate from existing facilities at the remote
airport. 5) Then there’s the new drone base in tucked away at a remote airstrip in
Lamu on the Kenyan coast. 6) Next, we’ll go to the middle of nowhere, South Sudan, where
available satellite photos simply show a dirt strip outside the village of Nizara, that’s reportedly
a possible U.S. drone site” (Reed, 2013).
Greater Horn of Africa Affirmative
Harm: Drone strikes are counterproductive. They fuel
terrorist recruitment and violence. Yemen proves this.
• “Killing such leaders does little in the long-run to halt terrorism, say critics
of US drone policy. In fact, they argue, these leaders are easily replaced,
while the drone attacks counterproductively drive locals, hungry for
revenge, into the arms of groups like al-Qaeda, and destabilise the
countries where they take. ‘Living Under Drones,” a report published in
September 2012 by researchers from Stanford and New York University law
schools, found that ‘publicly available evidence that the strikes have made
the US safer overall is ambiguous at best.’ Earlier this year, activist Farea alMuslimi testified before the US Senate that the strikes are ‘fuelling antiAmericanism" in his home country of Yemen, going so far as to say that the
US "has become al-Qaeda's public relations officer’” (Bollier 2013).
Greater Horn of Africa Affirmative
Solvency: Reducing US military presence prevents further
radicalization and chaos
• “Africom has a carefully cultivated image designed to convince Africans
(and Americans) that the US military has a very light footprint on the
continent and is primarily engaged in humanitarian missions. Anything that
upsets this fiction, upsets the US military, so they have consistently acted to
obscure, cover-up and keep secret the size, scale and scope of operations
on the continent. In less guarded moments, commanders have admitted
that the specter of neocolonialism is a major reason why the appearance
of a light footprint is key to the US mission. Blowback will continue
because Washington has repeatedly set the stage for it through illconceived interventions that have imploded spectacularly only to lead to
further meddling, which, in turn, is bound to lead to further chaos” (Turse
2015).
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
75 percent of the
U.S. military facilities
in Japan are located
in Okinawa, although
Okinawa is only 0.6%
of the land area of
Japan. There are 37
U.S. bases and
military installations
in Okinawa, 23,842
troops and 21,512
family members
(Women for Genuine
Security 2006).
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Inherency: US military presence in Okinawa will be
maintained
• “Central to Mr. Abe’s vision of a more proactive
Japan is fulfilling a nearly two-decade-old
agreement between Tokyo and Washington to
relocate the busy Futenma air base, one of more
than a dozen American military facilities on
Okinawa, from its current site in the middle of
the crowded city of Ginowan in the island’s
south to Henoko Bay in its less-populated north.
In recent months, Mr. Abe has signaled his resolve to move ahead with
construction where his predecessors stalled, by proceeding with tests of
the seabed and by marking off the area with the orange buoys. That has
put him on a collision course with tens of thousands of angry and
increasingly radicalized Okinawans” (Fackler, New York Times, 7/5/15).
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Harm: Gendered violence
“The rape of this girl was reported worldwide, but most crimes by U.S. troops
(including rape, assault, and murder) are not. Official reports estimate more
than 5,394 military crimes against Okinawan people from 1972 to 2005, with
533 of them heinous crimes (1972-2004). Arrested military personnel
suspected of committing these crimes numbered 678.10 These crime figures
are a conservative estimate as many crimes are not reported, perhaps
especially violence against women. The bases are also associated with drug
use and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Mixed-race Amerasian children fathered by
U.S. troops have often been abandoned by their fathers and experience
discrimination from local people” (Women for Genuine Security 2006)
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Harm: Health disasters
• “Environmental Contamination Highly carcinogenic materials (fuels,
oils, solvents and heavy metals) are regularly released during military
operations, affecting the land, water, air, and ocean, as well as
people’s health. Okinawan people suffer deafening noise from lowflying military aircraft. In other parts of Japan, U.S. planes cannot
leave or land after 7pm. At Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, they
can leave or land any time, and generate severe noise. Students in
schools near the bases often have classes disrupted due to noise, and
suffer from poor concentrations”(Women for Genuine Security 2006)
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Harm: Ecosystem destruction and species loss
• “In fact, the protesters at Henoko have been ardently but peaceably
protesting U.S.-Japanese plans to destroy the last coral reef ecosystem in
Japan! It is a place of great beauty, as well as ecological and cultural
importance. As coral reefs are perishing elsewhere, from the Caribbean to
the Great Barrier Reef, this glorious Oura Bay ecosystem at Henoko has
become especially valuable. I suggest that Capt. Eames visit Oura Bay to see
for himself the thousands of species of fish, the hundreds of species of
corals, shellfish, seagrasses, marine algae, etc., that construction of the U.S.
Marine base will tragically destroy! New species, undescribed species,
endangered species, ‘useful’ species — all will be irreversibly lost if the
destruction is allowed to proceed. Perhaps he will retract his shameful
remarks upon seeing its beauty and importance, and be able to sympathise
with the protesters, who are so justifiably angered by the destructive
activities of the military-industrial complex in Okinawa, now and during
many previous decades” (Muzik 2015).
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Harm: Neocolonial States of Exception
• “In the twentieth century alone, the Chamorros of the Marianas and the
Okinawans of Okinawa, as well as their respective settler populations, have
separately and sometimes uniformly suffered issues of cultural, linguistic
and political loss as a result of wars waged by and between Japan and the
US.[8] Issues of colonial education, labour exploitation, land displacement,
military enlistment, nuclearism and sexual violence likewise comprise these
histories.[9] Given these colonial contexts, Chamorro and Okinawan bodies
can be theorised as subject formations that are differentially produced
outside the 'normatively human,' or the white, rights-bearing subject of
modernity.[10] In fact, Chamorros and Okinawans historically figure in
American and Japanese juridical and political thought as ambivalent, semicitizen bodies, neither fully legally recognised nor widely grieved by Japan
and the US” (Bascara et al 2015).
Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative
Underview: We must demand reduced US military presence
• “In conclusion, if the United States had to deal with any of the problems
faced by Japanese civilians, in the wake of these military bases, we would
not hesitate, we would immediately close any base if it were one of our
children being raped, assaulted and murdered. With more than 5,584
reported crimes have been committed by the U.S. military stationed in
Japan, it tarnishes our nation’s image to the international community and
especially to our number one ally, Japan. It is a waste of money to house
the military personnel across seas, and these bases are a burden on
taxpayers as well. It would be more economically feasible to redistribute
the troops among our bases in Hawaii, California, and Guam. The bases no
longer serve any military strategy or function, beyond training, and many
professionals with knowledge of the situation agree. I am asking everyone
that took the time to read my report on these atrocities to not only sign the
petition but also to contact your congressman and demand that the U.S.
military be immediately withdrawn from Japan” (Lopez 2012).
Other potentially popular case areas
• Anti-imperialism affirmatives that advocate
other forms of “grand strategy,” such as
offshore balancing. Big Korea, Japan and
Persian Gulf affirmatives in particular.
• New agreements to constrain air, surface
ship or submarine deployments to prevent
accidental escalation with Chinese or
Iranian military forces.
Other potentially popular case areas
• Change Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA
treaties) to make it easier to hold military
personnel responsible for bad behavior.
• Restrict the activities of private military
contractors in the Persian Gulf. Advantage
areas similar to the Horn of Africa
affirmative.
• Drawdown US forces in Iraq. Alienates
Sunnis, helps ISIS, and antagonizes Iran.
Maybe it’s time for “Johnny” to come
marching home again
• Good luck and thanks for reading!