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MILITARY NEG – INDEX
***This file is the masterpiece of Poonam, Matt Harkins, Rahul, Azhar, & Jennifer
1nc at: military recruitment adv ...................................................................................................................................................................2-5
xt 1: recruitment quality high now ................................................................................................................................................................. 5
xt 2: recruitment high now – economy ......................................................................................................................................................6-8
xt 3: recruitment high now – decreased violence......................................................................................................................................... 8
xt 4a: alt caus – fear of dying........................................................................................................................................................................... 9
xt 4b: alt caus – iraq .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10-12
xt 4c: alt caus – parents .................................................................................................................................................................................. 12
xt 5: recruitment incentives strong now ................................................................................................................................................ 13-15
1nc at: hegemony adv ............................................................................................................................................................................... 15-18
xt 1-2: hegemony unsustainable .............................................................................................................................................................. 18-20
xt 3: alt caus...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
at: linguists adv – status quo solves.............................................................................................................................................................. 21
at: immigrants adv – status quo solves ........................................................................................................................................................ 22
1nc rma da .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 23-25
rma uniqueness .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 25-27
rma – 2nc link wall .................................................................................................................................................................................... 27-29
rma solves china war ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 29
rma good – hegemony ! ................................................................................................................................................................................. 30
xt: rma key to hege .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 31
rma good – terrorism ! ................................................................................................................................................................................... 32
xt: rma solves terrorism.................................................................................................................................................................................. 33
rma – at: kills military effectiveness ............................................................................................................................................................. 34
1nc politics link – plan unpopular ................................................................................................................................................................ 35
politics link wall – plan unpopular ......................................................................................................................................................... 36-38
xt: plan unpopular ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 38
1nc politics link – plan popular .............................................................................................................................................................. 39-43
xt: plan popular.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 43-45
politics links – immigrants in the military unpopular ................................................................................................................................ 45
1nc short-term enlistment cp ........................................................................................................................................................................ 46
1nc politics net benefit (obama good) ......................................................................................................................................................... 47
xt: cp politically popular ........................................................................................................................................................................... 48-50
1nc politics net benefit (obama bad)............................................................................................................................................................ 50
xt: cp unpopular .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 51
2nc cp solves – quality of recruits ................................................................................................................................................................ 52
2nc cp solves – recruitment shortfall ........................................................................................................................................................... 53
xt: cp solves recruitment .......................................................................................................................................................................... 54-56
2nc – cp solves better ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 56
cp solves – terrorism ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 57
cp solves – hegemony .................................................................................................................................................................................... 58
cp solves – military benefits .......................................................................................................................................................................... 59
cp solves – military diversity ......................................................................................................................................................................... 60
cp solves – college graduate recruitment..................................................................................................................................................... 61
cp solves – decreases military spending/costs ........................................................................................................................................... 62
cp solves – at: logistically difficult ................................................................................................................................................................ 63
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1NC AT: MILITARY RECRUITMENT ADV
1. Military recruitment is up – and the enlistees are high quality
Barnard. 2-23-09. Reporter for Fox News.
[Bob Barnard, “Military Recruiting Up in Down Economy” http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/022309_Economy_Military_Recruiting]
What profession is bucking the trend of many US industries right now and still stocking up at the rate of 180,000 new hires
each year? If you guessed the US military, you are correct. The Defense Department says it's recruiting another 180,000 people
for its active duty forces this year and another 140,000 reservists. Pentagon officials say the number of Americans
expressing an interest in joining the military is growing larger by the day. They say our nation's unemployment rate is partly
responsible and that each branch of the armed services is meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals. At a Navy recruiting
office in Fairfax Monday, 19-year-old Loudoun County High School senior Jeremy Parker was finalizing some paperwork. He's joining the Navy after
graduation. "I love my country a lot and I just want to serve my country," Parker told us. Recruiter Andrew Nemeth says the Navy is still
attracting patriotic young people, but also many older Americans looking for a stable job. "Just the benefits itself: free
medical, free dental, that's something that's just phenomenal right now with what's going on with people losing their jobs and
their benefits getting cut back," Petty Office First Class Nemeth said. Armed Forces recruiters say their job is less challenging with the Iraq war not as
deadly, but still difficult because of the high standards they set. Military analyst and Brookings Institution scholar Michael O'Hanlon says the
Pentagon is "having a much easier time getting good people and fulfilling their numbers and even exceeding their targets as
the Army and Marine Corps particularly try to get large in these times." The age limit for enlisting in the US military is 42. The
pentagon says last year 92% of all recruits had high school diplomas. The average first-year salary is $35,000 dollars. The average Army
bonus is $12,000. In the Navy, a 6-year commitment to its nuclear power program gets you a $20,000 bonus. Navy seals get $40,000 extra right off the
bat. "And then just the security of knowing that the Navy's not firing people right now," recruiter Nemeth says. "We're not laying anybody off." That
is, if you're in good health and don't have a lengthy criminal history. O'Hanlon says "signing up" is not a bad option. "For most people the military
is a pretty well-paid profession. And so, unless you are acutely worried about being deployed or being hurt, and of course those are real worries
in this day and age, financially it looks like a halfway decent bargain and that's something we've got to understand as we see these numbers go up and
wonder why." Despite a growing number of applicants for military jobs, the Pentagon Monday launched a new program. For the first time
it's allowing immigrants here legally but without green cards to apply for jobs as doctors, nurses and translators.
2. Unemployment solves recruitment problems
McGraw, 6-14-09. Writer for CBS.
[Jennifer McGraw, “Recruiting during a recession” http://www.kidk.com/news/48031482.html]
Almost every day another company announces worker layoffs. With
the economic downturn The Idaho Falls Navy Recruiters are seeing
more walkins. "More activity of people looking at this as an option then would normally look at it," says Kelly. With the
number of unemployed workers reaching 11 million this year, the job competition is stronger than ever. "A lot of kids have
joined recently especially in the Navy and the Marine Corp. They're filled to capacity," says Sheldon Stetz. Sheldon Stetz joined the
military the day after his 18th birthday and for him it's not just a job. "Trying to make the dream come true," says Stetz. But for some, it's just
another job application as a result of a battered economy. "I know a lot of kids who did join because hey it's a guaranteed
job," says Stetz. And they're seeing older walkins looking for help to support their families. "The stability that the military
provides is an incentive for people to look at it in our current situation," says Kelly. Each year, the military brings in more
than 300-thousand new recruits. With more applications this year, changes in recruitment rules have expanded to allow
more people to enlist.
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3. Recruitment high—decreased violence and promise to withdraw from Iraq
Joyner, 11-30-08. publisher of Outside the Beltway, former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and professor of political science at Troy State
University, Bainbridge College, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
[James Joyner, “Military Recruiting Up as Economy Turns Down” http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/military_recruiting_up_s_economy_turns_d own/]
It was inevitable: As it becomes harder to find work in the civilian sector, more people are turning to their local military
recruiter. The economic downturn and rising unemployment rate are making the military a more attractive option,
Pentagon officials say. In some cases, the peace of mind that comes with good benefits and a regular paycheck is overcoming
concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which any new enlistee is likely to join. [...] Since the military became an allvolunteer force in 1973, recruiters have generally struggled in times of private-sector job growth and done well during
recessions. But in addition to the recent downturn, they say they are benefiting from better news out of Iraq, where U.S.
casualities are down, and from the election of Barack Obama (D), who has pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq. The activeduty Army, which like other branches has increased benefits and added recruiters, said last month that it had recruited more than 80,000
soldiers during the past fiscal year, the third year in a row it has met its recruiting goals. Good news for the Army has coincided with
terrible news elsewhere. The unemployment rate has jumped from 4.8 to 6.5 percent in the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During that time,
the ranks of the unemployed grew by 2.8 million, to 10.1 million. In an ideal world, people would join the military out of a sense of calling. And, of
many do. In reality, though, most sign up because it’s the best option available to them and then stay out of some
combination of liking the job and the reward of pension and other benefits.
course,
4. And, multiple alternate causalities to recruitment –
A. Fear of dying
Walsh, 3-12-05.
[David Walsh, “Opposition to Iraq war hitting US military recruitment” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/mili-m12.shtml]
Among those opposed to joining, fear “is the biggest barrier to joining the military.” The study observes, “In the past,
barriers [to enlisting in the army] were about inconvenience, or preference for another life choice. Now they have switched to
something quite different:—fear of death or injury.” Nearly twice as many young men and women in 2004 over four years earlier
listed fear of dying, being injured or going to war “as a barrier to military service for them.” The desire not to die or be
injured in a combat zone or even go to war or a combat zone was the leading single factor for not joining the military,
cited by 26 percent of those surveyed. Twenty-one percent mentioned hostility to “military life,” and 20 percent—a not
insignificant figure—objected to the military as an institution. The latter group did not believe in war or fighting or
considered itself “pacifist.” The drop in recruitment and a growing aversion to the military among young people inevitably
raise an issue that none of the above-mentioned articles cared to tackle: conscription. Under conditions of shrinking enlistment in the military
and an ever-lengthening list of countries targeted for Washington’s violent and bloody brand of “democratic” makeover, the American ruling elite
cannot pursue its worldwide aims without reintroducing compulsory military service.
B. Iraq
Weill-Greenberg, 2006. journalist based in D.C.
[Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, “The New Press - “10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military” by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg”,
http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1264]
The armed forces are having a tough time attracting new recruits lately, in no small part due to the mess in Iraq. Young
people are getting wise to the many excellent reasons not to join the U.S. Military, and this handy book brings them all together,
combining accessible writing with hard facts and devastating personal testimony. Contributors with firsthand experience point out the dangers
facing soldiers, describe the tricks used by recruiters, and emphasize that there really are other options, even in a sluggish
economy. It’s essential reading for anyone thinking of signing up.
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C. Parents
Koopman, 6-11-05. Chronicle Staff Writer.
[John Koopman, “Military's tough sell” http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/11/MNGS2D78701.DTL#ixzz0LLpN8BQd&C]
Recruiters say parents increasingly don't want their sons and daughters to join the military and risk combat service. Many
are becoming more militantly anti-military. And age isn't always the issue. Recruits who are 20, 25, even 28, sometimes
express interest in joining the armed services, only to back out after their parents object. Some recruiters tell stories of
young men or women who have gone all the way to the entry station -- and are awaiting transportation -- but leave at the
last second because of parental pressure. Maj. Mike Samarov, head of Marine recruiting in the Northern California region, said the war
looms large for every recruit and his or her parents. The Army and Marines are having trouble filling their quotas for at
least two reasons: Prospective recruits fear being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, and the demand for recruits is greater now
that U.S. troops are being killed and wounded in action.
5. Military Incentives strong now
Miles, 3-3-09, American Forces Press Service
[Donna Miles, “Officials Urge Congress to Protect Recruiting, Retention Incentives” http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53310]
Recognizing the likelihood of defense budget cuts, senior defense and military leaders urged Congress today to protect
incentives they call critical to recruiting and retention. Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon’s accessions policy director, emphasized the
importance of bonuses and other enticements that help to attract qualified candidates from the 25 percent of the recruitment-age population
that qualifies for military service. As the Defense Department and military services look for ways to pare recruiting and retention
programs, Gilroy urged the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel subcommittee to resist wholesale cuts that
would have a negative long-term impact. Gilroy conceded that the bleak labor market and flailing economy are likely to help
the military fill its ranks with quality recruits. “As the economy continues to dip and unemployment rises, recruiting should be somewhat less difficult. We know this,”
he said. “But the economy is not the only driver of our recruiting and retention programs. We have other significant challenges that are facing us today.” Adult influencers are less likely to
recommend military service to young people than four, three, or even two years ago. The propensity of young people to join the military has dropped. Meanwhile, there’s been a declining pool
of eligible, qualified young people who want to serve. Gilroy pointed to shortcomings he said disqualify about three-quarters of all recruitment-age youth: obesity and other health problems,
physical fitness deficiencies and lack of a high school diploma or equivalent, among them. “We have a crisis in this country,” he said. “When we add up all these disqualifiers, we find that only
Coleman, deputy Marine Corps commandant for
manpower and reserve affairs, joined Gilroy in emphasizing the importance of incentives that help the military recruit from
this select group. Coleman called these incentives key to the Corps’ success in growing its end strength to 202,000 Marines
by the year’s end, two years ahead of schedule. “Enlistment incentives make these achievements possible,” he said. Likewise,
he called the Marines’ selective re-enlistment bonus program “the foundation of our retention efforts.” Coleman noted that 36
percent of first-time Marines re-enlisted in fiscal 2008, up from the previous year’s historical high of 31 percent.
25 percent of our young people today ages 17 to 24 are qualified for military service.” Lt. Gen. Ronald S.
6. Re-enlistment solves
Griffin, 3-19-08. Writer for Fox News.
[Jennifer Griffin, “U.S. Army Isn't Broken After All, Military Experts Say” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339296,00.html]
Despite all the predictions of imminent collapse, the U.S.
Army and the combat brigades have proven to be surprisingly resilient. According to Army statistics obtained exclusively by FOX
News, 70 percent of soldiers eligible to re-enlist in 2006 did so — a re-enlistment rate higher than before Sept. 11, 2001. For
the past 10 years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have exceeded 100 percent. As of last Nov. 13, Army reenlistment was 137 percent of its stated goal. Scales, a FOX News contributor, said he based his assessment last year "on the statistics that showed a
But now, one year later, Scales has done an about-face. He says that he was wrong.
high attrition among enlisted soldiers, officers who were leaving the service early, and a decline in the quality of enlistments," a reference to the rising number of waivers
given for "moral defects" such as drug use and lowered educational requirements. "In fact, what we've seen over the last year is that the Army retention rates
are pretty high, that re-enlistments, for instance, particularly re-enlistments in Iraq and Afghanistan, remain very high," Scales
said. He noted that re-enlistments were high even among troops who have served multiple tours. A year ago, some military
experts were comparing the Army of 2007 with the army of a generation ago, at the end of the Vietnam War, when it was
considered "broken" due to morale problems and an exodus of the "best and the brightest" soldiers from service. Scales said
he didn’t take into account that, unlike Vietnam, this Army is sending soldiers to fight as a unit — not as individuals. He also neglected the "Band of Brothers"
phenomenon — the feeling of responsibility to fellow soldiers that prompts members of service to re-enlist. "The soldiers go back to the theater of
as units," Scales said. "They are bonded together, they know each other, they don't have to fight as an army of strangers.
war
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XT 1: RECRUITMENT QUALITY HIGH NOW
Military recruitment and troop quality high now- failing economy boosts recruitment rates
Bender 3-1-09. Boston Globe Staff writer.
[Bryan Bender, “Down Economy boosts military”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/03/01/down_economy_boosts_military/?page=full]
The faltering US economy is fueling a dramatic turnaround in military recruiting, with new statistics showing that the Army
is experiencing the highest rate of new enlistments in six years. The Army exceeded its goals each month from October
through January - the first quarter of the new fiscal year - for both the active-duty Army and the Army Reserve, according to figures
compiled by the US Army Recruiting Command. Officials said it is the first time since the first quarter of fiscal year 2003, before
the start of the Iraq War, that the Army has started out its recruiting year on such a high note. In recent years the Army either missed
its initial goals or barely met them, and was forced to accept increasing percentages of recruits who either did not graduate from high school, scored in the lowest
category on the armed forces qualification test, or required a waiver for past criminal activity. Those trends had sparked deep concern that the largest branch of the
armed forces was headed for a crisis in quality at a time when it is expanding the size of the overall force . The latest recruiting outlook "is good news
the nick of time," said Beth Asch, a senior economist specializing in military manpower studies at the government-funded Rand Corporation. Citing historical
trends, Asch and other specialists predict that quality will improve along with the numbers, including the share of new recruits
who have earned high school diplomas and scored high on entrance exams. The Army has long had a goal of ensuring that at least 90
in
percent of new recruits have high-school diplomas - considered a key measure of competence and commitment. But in recent years the percentage of enlistees who
completed high school has dropped below 80 percent. The recruiting command, based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, does not compile statistics on the quality of new
recruits until the end of the fiscal year, so such information about recent enlistees is not yet available. But Asch, who frequently advises the Pentagon on demographic
trends, thinks the Army has reason to be hopeful. "What the enlistment models would predict is there would be an increase in high-quality
enlistment," said Asch. Alan Gropman, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington who specializes in military recruiting, agreed.
"They have more people to choose from and they will choose better people," he said.
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XT 2: RECRUITMENT HIGH NOW – ECONOMY
Military recruitment high now – because of the economy and patriotism
Mulrine. 3-20-09. reporter for "U.S. News & World Report"
[Anna Mulrine, “The Slumping Economy Boosts Military Recruiting” http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/03/20/the-slumping-economyboosts-military-recruiting.html]
Sgt. Garrett Jolly, the recruiter here, walks out to greet them. These days, he's seeing more drop-ins like these four friends. In this office,
Jolly estimates, traffic has jumped from one recruit walk-in every two weeks to about two per week. "Due to the economy," he
observes, "kids have been walking in left and right." Throughout the country, the economy's rapid decline has been a boon for military
recruiters. Studies have shown that military recruitment figures increase when the unemployment rate rises. The latest figures
show the Army's best performance in six years, with the service steadily surpassing its recruiting goals since last fall. In
January, for instance, the Army set its sights on 9,000 new recruits and brought in 9,658. The rest of the services also have
met or exceeded their goals. The numbers are so good, in fact, that there's talk of scaling back the financial inducements
put into effect when recruiters were straining to meet their targets. In a recent hearing, Rep. Susan Davis, the chair of the House Armed Services
Subcommittee on Military Personnel, noted that the "recruit quality programs that had been of such great concern to this subcommittee just a few short months ago have
virtually evaporated." The brighter picture, the California Democrat added, "has a dark side that cannot be escaped: Budget managers will now begin to stop these
programs for savings, and rightly so. Because as recruitment and retention become easier, one must assume it can be done more cost-effectively." This, however, makes
some military personnel specialists nervous. Lt. Gen. Ronald Coleman, the Marine Corps's deputy commandant for manpower, pointed out in the same hearing that the
Marines had an "unprecedented" 36 percent retention rate among first-time enlistees. But Coleman added that retaining talent,
particularly in key fields, is still not that easy. Some personnel, such as linguists and explosive-ordnance specialists, require more incentives. "I think we
fail you if we don't admit that," he said. Jolly has seen similar trends in his recruiting station. The infantry slots are now closed
because they have been so popular this year, but he still needs recruits for more technical fields. And while the economy allows the
Corps to raise its standards, Jolly says, recruitment requires long hours: He typically works from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The four Falls Church
recruits discuss their reasons for joining; the economy isn't one of them. Ian Freas, a volunteer firefighter, stands on crutches because
he hurt his foot when he fell through the floor of a burning building. Undeterred by the intensified fighting in Afghanistan, he says, "I'm looking
forward to my deployments." Justin Williams says he turned down a full scholarship to study guitar at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in
Boston in order to serve his country. "These kids," says Jolly, "just want to do their part."
Military recruitment high – financial crisis – even branches that don’t normally get recruits
Alvarez 1-18-09. Writer for the New York Times.
[Lizette Alvarez, “More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all]
Although the other branches of the military have not struggled as much as the Army to recruit, they, too, are attracting
people who would not ordinarily consider enlisting. Just a few months ago, Guy Derenoncourt was working as an equity trader at a boutique
investment firm in New York. Then the equity market fell apart and he quit. Last week, he enlisted for a four-year stint in the Navy, a military branch he chose because it
would keep him out of Afghanistan and offer him a variety of aviation-related jobs. “I really had no intention to join if it weren’t for the financial
turmoil, because I was doing quite well,” Mr. Derenoncourt, 25, said, adding that a sense of patriotism made it an easier
choice.
Military recruitment high—unemployment
Bender 3-1-09. Boston Globe Staff writer.
[Bryan Bender, “Down Economy boosts military”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/03/01/down_economy_boosts_military/?page=full]
the dominant factor driving more people to consider Army careers appears to be the steady rise in the unemployment
rate across the country. Since September, the unemployment rate nationwide has increased from roughly 6.2 percent to 7.6
percent, a rise of more than 20 percent, according to government figures. Government studies in recent decades have indicated
that for every 10 percent increase in unemployment there is usually a 5 percent deboost in military recruiting. "Typically a
bad economy has worked to the benefit of the military," said retired Navy Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, currently the dean of the
Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H. So far this fiscal year, the Army's recruiting numbers show a steady improvement in
every month. The Army exceeded its goal by 293 in October, 730 in November, 429 in December, and 706 in January for a total of 2,158. "It was our best
[period] in six years, in that we achieved our monthly missions [in] both active and Reserve each month," said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the recruiting
command. "We know that historically an increase in the civilian unemployment rate has resulted in an increase in Army
enlistments." Indeed, it appears that the sagging economy is helping all the branches of the military, not just the Army,
which has borne the brunt of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But
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XT 2: RECRUITMENT HIGH NOW – ECONOMY
Military recruitment high – people are losing jobs and perceive current incentives as sufficient
Alvarez 1-18-09. Writer for the New York Times.
[Lizette Alvarez, “More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all]
As the number of jobs across the nation dwindles, more Americans are joining the military, lured by a steady paycheck,
benefits and training. The last fiscal year was a banner one for the military, with all active-duty and reserve forces meeting
or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004, the year that violence in Iraq intensified drastically, Pentagon officials
said. And the trend seems to be accelerating. The Army exceeded its targets each month for October, November and
December — the first quarter of the new fiscal year — bringing in 21,443 new soldiers on active duty and in the reserves.
December figures were released last week. Recruiters also report that more people are inquiring about joining the military, a
trend that could further bolster the ranks. Of the four armed services, the Army has faced the toughest recruiting challenge in recent years
because of high casualty rates in Iraq and long deployments overseas. Recruitment is also strong for the Army National Guard, according
to Pentagon figures. The Guard tends to draw older people. “When the economy slackens and unemployment rises and jobs become
more scarce in civilian society, recruiting is less challenging,” said Curtis Gilroy, the director of accession policy for the Department of
Defense. Still, the economy alone does not account for the military’s success in attracting more recruits. The recent decline in violence in Iraq
has “also had a positive effect,” Dr. Gilroy said. Another lure is the new G. I. Bill, which will significantly expand education
benefits. Beginning this August, service members who spend at least three years on active duty can attend any public college at government expense
or apply the payment toward tuition at a private university. No data exist yet, but there has traditionally been a strong link between increased education
benefits and new enlistments. The Army and Marine Corps have also added more recruiters to offices around the country in the
past few years, increased bonuses and capitalized on an expensive marketing campaign. The Army has managed to meet its
goals each year since 2006, but not without difficulty. As casualties in Iraq mounted, the Army began luring new soldiers by increasing signing
bonuses for recruits and accepting a greater number of people who had medical and criminal histories, who scored low on entrance exams and who
failed to graduate from high school. The recession has provided a jolt for the Army, which hopes to decrease its roster of less
qualified applicants in the coming year. It also has helped ease the job of recruiters who face one of the most stressful assignments
in the military. Recruiters must typically talk to 150 people before finding one person who meets military qualifications and is interested in enlisting.
Dr. Gilroy said the term “all-volunteer force” should really be “an all-recruited force.” Now, at least, the pool has widened. Recruiting offices
are reporting a jump in the number of young men and women inquiring about joining the service in the past three months. As a
rule, when unemployment rates climb so do military enlistments. In November, the Army recruited 5,605 active-duty soldiers, 6 percent
more than its target, and the Army Reserve signed up 3,270 soldiers, 16 percent more than its goal. December, when the jobless rate reached 7.2
percent, saw similar increases in recruitments.
Military Recruitment High Now- Stats show
Dennen 2-15-09. writer for Fredricksburg.com.
[Rusty Dennen, “Incentives in down economy boost recruiting pitching the military life” http://fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=61]
Anthony Parrish Jr. recently walked into the Navy recruiting office here and decided to join up. Parrish, 22, is well aware that, with the
war in Iraq winding down and the focus shifting to Afghanistan, it's still a dangerous time to be in the military. But he figures that being on
a ship will keep him out of harm's way, and he has other, practical concerns-- namely a better job and a career. "The economy is
not the big factor, but I wanted more of a secure job," he said. Interest in the military tends to rise with unemployment. The
Stafford County resident had been working at a local running store, and before that drawing blood as a phlebotomist. Parrish is among the
hundreds of mostly young men and women who have visited local recruiters in recent months. The Navy, Army, Marines, Air
Force and Coast Guard all have offices in a small strip shopping center off State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County. "My dad was in the Air Force, and I
wanted a military career. I decided to join the Navy because I wanted to move to travel," Parrish said. "And it's the perfect way to pay for school."
According to the Department of Defense, recruiting offices across the nation have been doing well in these uncertain
times. During the last fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2007, and ended Sept. 30, 2008, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines all
were at or above recruiting goals for the period, signing up a total of 184,831 recruits.
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XT 3: RECRUITMENT HIGH NOW – DECREASED VIOLENCE
Iraq withdrawal is causing more people to enlist—especially the most quality recruits
Bender 3-1-09. Boston Globe Staff writer.
[Bryan Bender, “Down Economy boosts military”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/03/01/down_economy_boosts_military/?page=full]
Another factor that may be driving the recent gains, specialists said, is the improved situation in Iraq and the expectation that
US military involvement in the war will be winding down - thus decreasing the likelihood that a new recruit would be
deployed there. On Friday, President Obama announced a plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 . A recent study by
researchers at Clemson University concluded that the Iraq war was a major factor in the steep drop in enlistments,
especially among the most highly qualified potential recruits. The 2007 study found that the Iraq war had "reduced
Army high-quality enlistments by one-third, after controlling for other factors." "If you extrapolate, this Iraq affect will
disappear and presumably there will be a reversal of that and there will be an increase in enlistment," said Asch.
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XT 4A: ALT CAUS – FEAR OF DYING
Fear of dying prevents people from recruiting—aff doesn’t overcome this
Russell, Jun. 2005. writer for The Crisis.
[Malik Russell, “Blacks Not Enlisting in Army; Iraq War Major Reason”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4081/is_200505/ai_n15665702/?tag=content;col1]
Safiya Codrington of Newark, N.J., considered the military as a career, but changed her mind in the face of war in Iraq. Three
years ago, as a high school senior, she says, the idea of using the military to pay for college is what initially attracted her to the services. "I wasn't as good of
a student as I should have been, everybody was going away (after graduation) doing something with their life and I said I need to do
something, so the military was an option," says Codrington, 22. While preparing for her enlistment, however, she became more aware of the
military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and began seeing many of her friends heading overseas. For the first time, she says, she realized that, "I'd have to
go fight." Codrington changed her mind and eventually entered the workforce. She is working on her bachelor's degree in business
management at Essex County College and plans to get an MBA as well. Looking back, Codrington believes she made the right decision. "I do
because so many people are going over there not coming back alive."
Alt. Cause- casualties prevent people from enlisting
Walsh, 3-12-05.
[David Walsh, “Opposition to Iraq war hitting US military recruitment” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/mili-m12.shtml]
A study conducted by Millward Brown, a marketing and research firm, found that among all groups, objections to the war,
casualties and incidents like the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison were taking a toll on recruiting efforts: “Reasons for not
considering military service are increasingly based on objections to the Iraq situation and aversion to the military.” The
findings of both the GfK and Millward Brown studies on young people’s attitudes toward the US military cannot be heartening to the
political and media establishment. Despite an unprecedented propaganda barrage since the September 11 terrorist attacks,
aimed at whipping up the American population into a frenzy about the need to make the world “safe” by conquering it,
American youth are increasingly unenthusiastic about the military. The GfK report, which compares the views of young people in 2000 and
2004, notes that attitudes toward the Army among all groups of American youth have grown more negative in recent years. In
their summary of findings, the report’s authors write: “The Army’s recruiting mission in a post 9/11 world is an extremely
difficult one.... The option of military service causes inner conflict in today’s youth.... College still ‘wins’ as the preferential
choice for most young adults.” Four in ten youth indicated a willingness “to fight for my country” depending on the cause;
only 22 percent indicated a willingness to fight for their country “for any cause.” Only 10 percent thought “everyone should
serve in the military.” The leading single reason—cited by 42 percent—for enlisting in the armed forces, among those not averse to joining, is “money
for college.” Duty came in second, with 34 percent, and the opportunity to travel and see the world third, with 21 percent.
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XT 4B: ALT CAUS – IRAQ
Lack of support for the war means people won’t enlist—and they don’t see the military as a way out of poverty
Russell, Jun. 2005. writer for The Crisis.
[Malik Russell, “Blacks Not Enlisting in Army; Iraq War Major Reason”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4081/is_200505/ai_n15665702/?tag=content;col1]
Data from the Army Recruiting Command indicates that African American enlistment has dropped 41 percent - from 23.5
percent in fiscal year 2000 to 13.9 percent of recruits in fiscal year 2005. "We don't necessarily have an answer for African American recruitment
as opposed to recruitment overall. But the ongoing war on terrorism and the improving civilian economy are the two main
factors [to which] we attribute our recruiting difficulties," says Army spokesperson Douglas Smith. In a 2003 Pew Research
Center survey, African Americans, more than any other ethnic group, were opposed to the war in Iraq - only 44
percent supported military action compared with 73 percent of Whites and 67 percent of Latinos. "Overwhelmingly, African
Americans are against this war going on in Iraq. They hear their elders talking about it; they hear about it in the barber
shops and beauty salons - they are opposed to it," says Ray Winbush, director of the Institute of Urban Research at Morgan State
University in Baltimore. Additionally, argues Winbush, many young people are no longer seeing the military as the only way
out of poverty.
Opposition to Iraq is the number-one barrier to recruitment
PRWEB 8-25-07.
[PRWEB, “Number of African-Americans Volunteering for Military Service Drops Drastically”
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/08/prweb548993.htm]
According to Pentagon statistics, enlistment of African-Americans in the military has dropped more than 30% since the
beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. The Army alone has experienced nearly a 45% drop in black recruitment over
the same period. These figures are of concern to national defense officials and military commentators such as retired Navy Diving Officer, Gregory
Black. Having served in the military for 21 years, Black now runs blackmilitaryworld.com, a rapidly growing online source of relevant news and
information for national consumption about African-Americans in the military. As a veteran of Desert Storm's Gulf War I, Black is immensely proud
of the selfless service of all servicemembers, and salutes the great sacrifice of those servicemembers fighting in defense of our nation. Black notes
historically, African-Americans have a proud legacy of participation in the military, beginning with Crispus Attucks, who was the first American to die
in the Revolutionary War. These blacks, he comments, viewed the military as a type of civil rights force possessing great power to liberate and protect
freedom. Although blacks are still joining the military in numbers approximating the overall black population, Black regards the reduction in
enlistment as alarming in the context of the historical record of strong African-American participation in the military.
While Black cites an improved economy and other opportunities as reasons for the decrease in African-American enlistees,
other reasons concern him. "Overwhelming opposition to the war by young African-Americans, is the primary factor
influencing their decision to decline to enlist," says Black. He also observes those black youth are also "persuaded against the
war by influencers, such as family, religious, and community leaders, who also oppose the war."
Opposition to Iraq deters enlistment
Koopman, 6-11-05. Chronicle Staff Writer.
[John Koopman, “Military's tough sell” http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/11/MNGS2D78701.DTL#ixzz0LLpN8BQd&C]
Meanwhile, military recruiting is starting to suffer. The Army has been hit the hardest. In May, even after the Army reduced
its recruiting goals, it made only 75 percent of its quota, missing its target of 6,700 new troops by 1,661 recruits, the
Defense Department said Friday. The Marine Corps, traditionally the service that most easily meets its recruiting goals, has
struggled during some periods, although it made its May quota of 1,904. The Air Force and Navy, the two services without
a major presence in Iraq or Afghanistan, have met their goals; the Navy enlisted 1,947 members in May and the Air Force,
1,049. The biggest problem for recruiters is the fighting in Iraq.
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XT 4B: ALT CAUS – IRAQ
Opposition to Iraq War and fear of death decrease recruitment
Walsh, 3-12-05.
[David Walsh, “Opposition to Iraq war hitting US military recruitment” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/mili-m12.shtml]
Recent reports indicate that growing opposition to the Iraq war, as well as fear of death or injury in a questionable cause, are
beginning to have an effect on US Army and National Guard recruitment. This, despite bleak economic prospects for great
numbers of youth and more enticing bonuses offered to all recruits. The Army, which has met its manpower goals every year since 1990,
has fallen behind in 2005. Through the first five months of a budget year that begins in October, the army is about 6 percent behind schedule toward
fulfilling this year’s goal. The Army is not only already stretched thin by the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, it has plans to expand by 30,000 soldiers.
The Army National Guard is having even greater difficulty. The Guard wanted to recruit 63,000 new members this year, in part to make up
for a shortfall in 2004. However, four months into the budget year, by the end of January, it had signed up only 12,800 men and women, 24 percent below
its target. The US Marine Corps failed to meet its recruiting goal for the second straight month in February, the first time it has
fallen short for two successive months in more than a decade. The Marines missed their objective last month by some 6.5
percent. A spokesman for the US Marine Corps Recruiting Command told a journalist, “It is a challenging recruiting environment right
now.” Young blacks and women in particular “are marching away from offers to join the army,” according to an article by Robert
Burns of Associated Press, a trend that suggests “the military’s largest service may be entering a prolonged recruiting slump at a time when it is trying to
expand its ranks.” Another article, appearing in the Washington Post,notes that the percentage of new African-American army recruits “has slipped
dramatically over the past five years.” In fiscal 2000, blacks made up 23.5 percent of army recruits; that number has now fallen to less than 14 percent, a 40
percent decrease. The percentage of female recruits has fallen during that same period by 23 percent, from 22 to 17 percent. Among blacks , the
unpopularity of the war is cited as the primary reason for the drop in enlistment. A report completed in August 2004 by GfK
Custom Research on “US Military Image” concluded: “More African Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don’t
support as a barrier to military service.” Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, notes that the Defense Department’s own
survey, conducted last May, indicated that “administration policies and the Iraq war have lowered the propensity of black youth to
enlist, particularly in the Army and Marine Corps, the ground forces taking most of the casualties.”
Dislike of Iraq War decreases recruitment
Murtha 1-4-06. Democratic Party Representative.
[Jack Murtha, “Don't Join the Military” http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/4/112703.shtml]
Democratic Party "defense hawk" Rep. Jack Murtha is racheting up his criticism of the war in Iraq, by urging young men and
women not to join the military - a position apparently shared by his close congressional ally, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Asked during
an interview broadcast Monday night if he would "join the military today," the decorated Vietnam combat veteran told "ABC's
Nightline" - "No." Murtha kept his answers brief, allowing "Nightline" interviewer John Donovan to spin his comments. "I think you're saying the
average guy out there who's considering recruitment is justified in saying 'I don't want to serve'," Donovan offered. "Exactly right," Murtha shot back.
Murtha's position is apparently shared by San Francisco Democrat Pelosi, whose constituents voted last November to have
the city ban military recruiters from public high schools. Pelosi defended the vote a few days later, explaining to Fox News host Neil Cavuto:
"What the city of San Francisco was talking about was honesty and recruitment in terms of what these young people are promised and what they are told
in that recruiting and that there should be some daylight shed on that."
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XT 4C: ALT CAUS – PARENTS
Parents prevent their children from enlisting
Ayers, 1-11-05. American elementary education theorist and former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. Involvement
in the Vietnam War.
[William Ayers, “Hearts and Minds: Military Recruitment and the High School Battlefield
” http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ayers011105.html]
Today, two years into the invasion of Iraq, recruiters are consistently failing to meet monthly enlistment quotas despite deep penetration
into high schools, sponsorship of NASCAR and other sports events, and a $3 billion Pentagon recruitment budget. Increasingly recruiters are offering
higher bonuses and shortened tours of duty, and widespread violations of ethical guidelines and the military's own putative standards are becoming
commonplace -- in one highly publicized case a recruiter was heard on tape coaching a high school kid about how to fake a mandatory drug test.
Recruiters lie: "One of the most common lies told by recruiters," writes Kathy Dobie (2005), "is that it's easy to get out of the military if you change your
mind. But once they arrive at training, the recruits are told there's no exit, period. . . ." Recruiters lie and lie, and still the number of young people signing
up is plummeting. The Army announced in October that, for fiscal year 2005, the active-duty Army recruited 73,373 new soldiers, 6,627 short of the goal
of 80,000 (i.e., 92% of the goal); the Army Reserve accessed 23,859 soldiers, 4,626 short of the goal of 28,485 (i.e., 84%); and the Army National Guard
gained 50,219 soldiers, 12,783 short of the goal of 63,002 (i.e., 80%). This has been, according to military statistics, the toughest recruiting year since 1973,
the first year of the all-volunteer army. Americans don't want to fight this war, and high school recruiting is the military's desperate hope. The high school
itself has become a battlefield for hearts and minds. On one side, the power of the federal government, claims (often unsubstantiated) of financial
benefits, humvees on school grounds, goody bags filled with donuts, key chains, video games and tee-shirts, and, most ominous of all, "No Child Left
Behind," the controversial omnibus education bill passed in 2001. Section 9528 reverses policies in place in many cities banning organizations that
discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation, including the military, and mandating that recruiters have the same access to students as
colleges, and requires schools to turn over students' addresses and home phone numbers to the military unless parents expressly opt out. On the other
side, a mounting death toll in Iraq, a growing sense among the citizenry that politicians lied to us and manipulated us at every turn in order to wage an
aggressive war outside any broad popular interest, and something surprising and unprecedented: organized groups of parents mobilizing to oppose high
school recruitment. A front page story the New York Times (Cave, 2005) reported a "Growing Problem for Military Recruiters:
Parents" (p. 1). The resistance to recruiters, according to the Times report, is spreading coast to coast, and, "was provoked by
the very law that was supposed to make it easier for recruiters to reach students more directly. 'No Child Left Behind' . . . is
often the spark that ignites parental resistance" (p.B6). And parents, it turns out, can be a formidable obstacle to a volunteer
army. Unlike the universal draft, which is the essential entry-point of a citizen-army with everyone, at least in theory, equally
eligible, signing up requires an affirmative act, and parents can and often do exercise a strong negative drag on their kids'
stepping forward. A Department of Defense survey from November, 2004 found that "only 25 percent of parents would
recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003" (New York Times, p. 1).
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XT 5: RECRUITMENT INCENTIVES STRONG NOW
Recruitment Incentives strong – attracting lots of diverse people
Dennen 2-15-09. writer for Fredricksburg.com.
[Rusty Dennen, “Incentives in down economy boost recruiting pitching the military life” http://fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=61]
Each of the recruiters might see 10 applicants a week. Their choice demographic is 17- to 25-year-olds, though some of the recruits are
older. For the Navy, they can be no older than 35 at boot camp. Generally, Jones says, "They're looking at educational opportunity, for a
steady job, and some just want to get out of Virginia. I had a guy in here two days ago who was 18 years old, working two jobs." Some of
the goodies he can offer: signing bonuses, which can range from $2,000 to $40,000, depending on the person and skill, and
education funds such as the Program Afloat for College Education, Tuition Assistance, and American Accreditation for
Education programs. There's also the G.I. Bill, a longtime tuition-assistance aid. "Some applicants come back, take their time, ask lots of
questions. For others, it can be quick," Jones said. All recruits are evaluated for the three M's--mental, moral and medical fitness. And they take a standard test, the
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. If everything checks out, they could walk through the door and be in the Navy within two days. Edwin Cardwell, 22, of
Spotsylvania joined the Navy last fall. He went to boot camp in Pensacola, Fla., in November, and was assigned to the aircraft carrier Harry S Truman in Norfolk. He'll
be supporting aircraft operations. Cardwell was back in town last week as part of the Navy's Recruiter Assistant Program. He accompanied recruiters to schools and
other community functions to talk about his experience. "Kids in high school are always told to go to college, don't join the military," Cardwell says. But for him, it was a
good option. When I'm talking to the kids, it's like I'm looking in the mirror." His uncle was in the Army. Another uncle is a retired Marine. Before signing up, Cardwell
worked at Circuit City in Central Park and attended Germanna Community College. Like Parrish, he had planned to join the Air Force, but stopped by the Navy
recruiting office and spoke to Chief Petty Officer Edwin Ngwa, who oversees the office, and another recruiter. "I felt like the Navy was a good choice for me." Cardwell
says he doesn't know what to expect with sea duty, but that the Navy could be a career. And he wants to earn a college degree in criminal justice. Still, the adjustment
won't be easy. "It will be very hard being away from my family. I've got close friends here. That's why I chose Norfolk, rather than [duty in] San Diego or Japan."
Looking for diversity Lisa Kedig, spokeswoman for the Navy Recruiting Command office in Richmond, said that last year, for the first time in five years,
the Navy achieved its recruiting goals for enlisted personnel and officers, and for active-duty Navy and the Reserve. The
focus for this year is attracting a more diverse officer corps, and more women. Those with experience in medical fields,
nuclear engineering and special operations are especially in demand. "We are in a difficult environment due to an uncertain political
environment and the corresponding instability of the military's size and role in the [Obama] administration's strategy," she said. As for the millions of
jobs lost, "Obviously, when the economy is in a downturn, some people who wouldn't have normally considered the Navy as a
first choice do think again about the opportunity to serve." The National Guard and reserves are options for those who want to keep
their jobs and also be in the military. Army Sgt. Maj. Christopher Brock, with the Virginia National Guard recruiting command at Fort Pickett near
Blackstone, said it's an attractive alternative. "You have people in civilian employment, but like the concept of being in the
military," said Brock. While these citizen soldiers have been heavily involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, another
appeal of the National Guard is its domestic role, he said.
Current incentives solve re-enlistment and military strength
Moniz, 7-17-05. USA Today Writer.
[Dave Moniz, “Soldiers Re-enlist beyond U.S. Goal” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-17-soldiers-re-enlist_x.htm]
Soldiers are re-enlisting at rates ahead of the Army's targets, even as overall recruiting is suffering after two years of the Iraq war. The
high re-enlistment rates would make up about one-third of the Army's projected 12,000-troop shortfall in recruiting, although the re-enlistments won't
address some key personnel vacancies, such as military police and bomb-disposal experts. Army officials attribute the strong re-enlistment
rates to unprecedented cash bonuses and a renewed sense of purpose in fighting terrorism. Some of the record bonuses are
tax-free if soldiers re-enlist while in Afghanistan and Iraq. Re-enlistment bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much
as $150,000, depending on the type of job and length of re-enlistment. The $150,000 bonuses are offered only to senior special operations
commandos who agree to stay in the military for up to six more years. The average bonus is $10,000, said Col. Debbra Head, who monitors Army retention at the
Pentagon. From Oct. 1 through June, the Army had re-enlisted 53,120 soldiers, 6% ahead of its goal of about 50,000 for that period. At that pace, the Army would finish
the year 3,850 troops ahead of its target of 64,162. Re-enlistment rates the past three years have been at least 6% above the service's
goals for the 500,000-member active Army. There are about 105,000 Army soldiers in Iraq, including members of the
National Guard and Reserve. "The biggest thing is that soldiers believe in what they are doing," Head said. The re-enlistment
rate has remained strong even though the Army has accounted for 1,179 of the 1,750 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, according to USA TODAY's
casualty database. By contrast, the Army through June was about 15% behind its goal of recruiting 80,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The Army
has said it faces the roughest recruiting climate since the start of the all-volunteer military in 1973. The bright re-enlistment picture won't fully compensate for the
recruiting problems, Head said, because the Army needs new troops to fill its lower ranks and has limits on how many senior soldiers it can keep. Thirty-five percent of
Army re-enlistments have come in combat zones, said Maj. Gerald Conway, who oversees retention policies for the Army. About 60% of all soldiers who
have re-enlisted this year, Conway said, have received cash bonuses of some kind. Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the
Brookings Institution, said the bonuses have encouraged soldiers to re-enlist, but that many soldiers are committed to fighting in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
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XT 5: RECRUITMENT INCENTIVES STRONG NOW
Recruiting Incentives Strong Now
Hefling 8-9-07, Associated Press Writer.
[Kimberly Hefling, “Army to Expand Recruiting Incentives” http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/1028882/army_to_expand_recruiting_incentives/]
Need a down-payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help - if you're willing to join up.
Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed
to fill wartime ranks. Under a new proposal, men and women who enlist could pick from a "buffet" of incentives, including up
to $45,000 tax-free that they accrue during their career to help buy a home or build a business. Other options would include
money for college and to pay off student loans.
Military Incentives Strong- Causing soldiers to re-enlist
Griffin, 3-19-08. Writer for Fox News.
[Jennifer Griffin, “U.S. Army Isn't Broken After All, Military Experts Say” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339296,00.html]
And then there are the re-enlistment bonuses, which rose from $50 million in 1998 to $562 million per year in 2007. The
amount of re-enlistment bonuses paid is now five times what it was at the start of the Iraq war, according to U.S. Army
figures. But Scales says the desertion by mid-grade officers — captains and majors — just hasn’t occurred as predicted. "The Army's collapse after
Vietnam was presaged by a desertion of mid-grade officers (captains) and non-commissioned officers," Scales wrote a year ago. "Many were killed or
wounded. Most left because they and their families were tired and didn't want to serve in units unprepared for war.... "If we lose our sergeants and
captains, the Army breaks again. It's just that simple. That's why these soldiers are still the canaries in the readiness coal-mine. And, again, if you look
closely, you will see that these canaries are fleeing their cages in frightening numbers." But an internal Army document prepared at the request of Army
Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and obtained by FOX News suggests that the comparison to the "hollow Army" of 1972 near the end of the Vietnam
War is inappropriate. The main reason: Today's Army is an all-volunteer force, and the Army in Vietnam largely was composed of draftees. Captain losses
have remained steady at about 11 percent since 1990, and the loss of majors has been unchanged at about 6 percent. "To date, the data do not show
heightened levels of junior officer departures that can be tied directly to multiple rotations in Afghanistan or Iraq," the internal Army memo concludes.
The key difference between now and Vietnam, Scales explains, is: "this idea that soldiers fight as part of a team. It’s the ‘Band
of Brothers’ approach to combat that makes armies effective in wartime, and the Army has been wise enough over the past
five years to work very hard to keep soldiers together in units and not to treat soldiers as sort of replacement parts, but to keep
them together as cohesive units. ... I believe, is the glue that has really served to hold this army together.”
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1NC AT: HEGEMONY ADV
1. Hege unsustainable—the U.S. is losing leadership in all traditional strongholds of power
Khanna 08 senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print “Waving
Goodbye to Hegemony” New York Times]
The Big Three dynamic is not just some distant contest by which America ensures its ability to dictate affairs on the other side of the globe.
Globalization has brought the geopolitical marketplace straight to America’s backyard, rapidly eroding the two-centuriesold Monroe Doctrine in the process. In truth, America called the shots in Latin America only when its southern neighbors
lacked any vision of their own. Now they have at least two non-American challengers: China and Chávez. It was Simón Bolívar
who fought ferociously for South America’s independence from Spanish rule, and today it is the newly renamed Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that
has inspired an entire continent to bootstrap its way into the global balance of power on its own terms. Hugo Chávez, the country’s clownish
colonel, may last for decades to come or may die by the gun, but either way, he has called America’s bluff and won, changing the rules of
North-South relations in the Western hemisphere. He has emboldened and bankrolled leftist leaders across the continent, helped Argentina
and others pay back and boot out the I.M.F. and sponsored a continentwide bartering scheme of oil, cattle, wheat and civil servants, reminding even
those who despise him that they can stand up to the great Northern power. Chávez stands not only on the ladder of high oil prices. He relies on tacit
support from Europe and hardheaded intrusion from China, the former still the country’s largest investor and the latter feverishly repairing
Venezuela’s dilapidated oil rigs while building its own refineries. But Chávez’s challenge to the United States is, in inspiration, ideological, whereas the
second-world shift is really structural. Even with Chávez still in power, it is Brazil that is reappearing as South America’s natural leader. Alongside
India and South Africa, Brazil has led the charge in global trade negotiations, sticking it to the U.S. on its steel tariffs and to Europe on its agricultural
subsidies. Geographically, Brazil is nearly as close to Europe as to America and is as keen to build cars and airplanes for Europe as it is to export soy
to the U.S. Furthermore, Brazil, although a loyal American ally in the cold war, wasted little time before declaring a “strategic alliance” with China.
Their economies are remarkably complementary, with Brazil shipping iron ore, timber, zinc, beef, milk and soybeans to China and China investing in
Brazil’s hydroelectric dams, steel mills and shoe factories. Both China and Brazil’s ambitions may soon alter the very geography of their relations, with
Brazil leading an effort to construct a Trans-Oceanic Highway from the Amazon through Peru to the Pacific Coast, facilitating access for Chinese
shipping tankers. Latin America has mostly been a geopolitical afterthought over the centuries, but in the 21st century, all resources will be competed
for, and none are too far away. The Middle East — spanning from Morocco to Iran — lies between the hubs of influence of the Big Three and
has the largest number of second-world swing states. No doubt the thaw with Libya, brokered by America and Britain after Muammar elQaddafi declared he would abandon his country’s nuclear pursuits in 2003, was partly motivated by growing demand for energy from a close
Mediterranean neighbor. But Qaddafi is not selling out. He and his advisers have astutely parceled out production sharing agreements to a balanced
assortment of American, European, Chinese and other Asian oil giants. Mindful of the history of Western oil companies’ exploitation of Arabia, he —
like Chávez in Venezuela and Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan — has also cleverly ratcheted up the pressure on foreigners to share more revenue with the
regime by tweaking contracts, rounding numbers liberally and threatening expropriation. What I find in virtually every Arab country is not such
nationalism, however, but rather a new Arabism aimed at spreading oil wealth within the Arab world rather than depositing it in
the United States as in past oil booms. And as Egypt, Syria and other Arab states receive greater investment from the
Persian Gulf and start spending more on their own, they, too, become increasingly important second-world players who
can thwart the U.S.
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1NC AT: HEGEMONY ADV
2. Rise of China and EU make hege decline inevitable
Khanna 08 senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” New York Times]
The rise of China in the East and of the European Union within the West has fundamentally altered a globe that recently
appeared to have only an American gravity — pro or anti. As Europe’s and China’s spirits rise with every move into new domains of
influence, America’s spirit is weakened. The E.U. may uphold the principles of the United Nations that America once dominated, but how much
longer will it do so as its own social standards rise far above this lowest common denominator? And why should China or other Asian countries
become “responsible stakeholders,” in former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s words, in an American-led international order when they
had no seat at the table when the rules were drafted? Even as America stumbles back toward multilateralism, others are walking away
from the American game and playing by their own rules. The self-deluding universalism of the American imperium — that the world
inherently needs a single leader and that American liberal ideology must be accepted as the basis of global order — has paradoxically resulted in
America quickly becoming an ever-lonelier superpower. Just as there is a geopolitical marketplace, there is a marketplace of models of success for the
second world to emulate, not least the Chinese model of economic growth without political liberalization (itself an affront to Western modernization
theory). As the historian Arnold Toynbee observed half a century ago, Western imperialism united the globe, but it did not assure that the West would
dominate forever — materially or morally. Despite the “mirage of immortality” that afflicts global empires, the only reliable rule of history is its cycles
of imperial rise and decline, and as Toynbee also pithily noted, the only direction to go from the apogee of power is down. The web of globalization
now has three spiders. What makes America unique in this seemingly value-free contest is not its liberal democratic ideals — which Europe may now
represent better than America does — but rather its geography. America is isolated, while Europe and China occupy two ends of the
great Eurasian landmass that is the perennial center of gravity of geopolitics. When America dominated NATO and led a
rigid Pacific alliance system with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Thailand, it successfully managed the Herculean task of
running the world from one side of it. Now its very presence in Eurasia is tenuous; it has been shunned by the E.U. and
Turkey, is unwelcome in much of the Middle East and has lost much of East Asia’s confidence. “Accidental empire” or not,
America must quickly accept and adjust to this reality. Maintaining America’s empire can only get costlier in both blood and treasure.
It isn’t worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It already has. Would the world not be more stable if America could be reaccepted
as its organizing principle and leader? It’s very much too late to be asking, because the answer is unfolding before our eyes. Neither China nor the E.U.
will replace the U.S. as the world’s sole leader; rather all three will constantly struggle to gain influence on their own and balance one another. Europe
will promote its supranational integration model as a path to resolving Mideast disputes and organizing Africa, while China will push a Beijing
consensus based on respect for sovereignty and mutual economic benefit. America must make itself irresistible to stay in the game. I believe that a
complex, multicultural landscape filled with transnational challenges from terrorism to global warming is completely
unmanageable by a single authority, whether the United States or the United Nations. Globalization resists centralization of almost any kind.
Instead, what we see gradually happening in climate-change negotiations (as in Bali in December) — and need to see more of in the
areas of preventing nuclear proliferation and rebuilding failed states — is a far greater sense of a division of labor among the Big Three,
a concrete burden-sharing among them by which they are judged not by their rhetoric but the responsibilities they fulfill.
The arbitrarily composed Security Council is not the place to hash out such a division of labor. Neither are any of the other multilateral bodies bogged
down with weighted voting and cacophonously irrelevant voices. The big issues are for the Big Three to sort out among themselves.
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3. Alt caus to hege decline—loss of manufacturing leadership due to outsourcing
Roberts 05 – former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, former Contributing Editor of National Review, and Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury during the Reagan administration
(Paul Craig, 8/22. “America’s Lost Hegemony.” http:// vdare.com/roberts/050822_hegemony.htm)
The US has no God-given comparative advantage in innovation and new technology. We were leaders in these fields,
because we were leaders in manufacturing. We were leaders in manufacturing, because Europe and Japan destroyed themselves in wars, and
the rest of the world destroyed themselves in various forms of socialism and cronyism . America’s hegemony in manufacturing, science and
engineering was the product of historical circumstances. Moreover, it occurred despite American protectionism. The historical
circumstances have changed. The US gave away its scientific and engineering education and its agriculture. It did this partly
for idealistic reasons and partly as cold war strategy. Once socialism collapsed in Asia, US corporations began outsourcing
abroad the manufacture of products for US markets. Success with offshore manufacturing has led to offshore outsourcing
of research and development and now innovation itself. As a recent report from the National Research Council recognizes, “product
development and technical support follow manufacturing.” One consequence for America is the loss of many
manufacturing capabilities and “the increasing availability abroad of unique technologies not found in the United States.”
This development is taking a huge toll on America’s human resources in manufacturing skills, engineering and science. The
first American victims were blue collar workers. Millions of them lost their jobs and experienced sharp declines in the quality of their lives. But as
research, engineering, design, and innovation followed manufacturing abroad, now it is white collar workers in information technology and university
graduates in engineering and physics who are being displaced. American university enrollments in science and engineering are
declining because there are no jobs for graduates. It is pointless to invest money, sweat and toil in an education that has no payoff. Markets
do work. Markets are working to shrink the demand for, and supply of, American engineers and scientists. The next impact is going to be on project
manager jobs, practically the sole remaining source of career related employment for many engineers and technical people. Project management jobs
require people experienced with the technology of the job. The loss of technical and engineering jobs empties the pipeline of people who have the
experience to assume management positions. Far from being able to innovate, the US will even lack the human resources to manage technical and
scientific projects. Many uninformed people believe the problem is that America doesn’t produce enough scientists and engineers. Manufacturing &
Technology News reports that “a group of 15 US business organizations has launched a national campaign aimed at doubling within 10 years the
number of bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.” What is the point of this when there is a huge supply of
unemployed engineers and technical people who have been displaced by offshore outsourcing and by H-1b and L-1 work visas for foreigners? I know
an American software engineer in his thirties whose job was outsourced. After searching fruitlessly for a job for four years, he took a job in Thailand
writing software programs for $850 per month. The anecdotal stories are legion. Yesterday, a friend reported to me that the service technician who
repaired his garage door opener said his company was flooded with resumes from college graduates and engineers who cannot find work and are
willing to take jobs installing garage doors. US executives, with an eye to quarterly earnings and their bonuses, continue to spend considerable
resources lobbying for increases in work visas that enable them to replace their American engineers, scientists, and technical people with lower cost
foreigners. These executives lie through their teeth when they assert the lack of qualified Americans for the jobs. The fact of the matter is, the
executives force their American employees to train their foreign replacements and then fire their American workers. In a word, American
capitalism is destroying itself by dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that have made large income inequalities
acceptable. By rewarding themselves for destroying American jobs and manufacturing, engineering and scientific capabilities, US executives are
sowing a whirlwind. American political stability will not survive the turning of an American university degree into a worthless
sheet of paper. Libertarians and free market ideologues who rejoice in freedom should open their eyes to freedom’s destruction.
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The rise of China and the EU make hege decline inevitable
Khanna 08 senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” New York Times]
Why? Weren’t we supposed to reconnect with the United Nations and reaffirm to the world that America can, and should, lead it to collective security and prosperity?
Indeed, improvements to America’s image may or may not occur, but either way, they mean little. Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but
it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial
overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent
groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial
countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived,
and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth. The Geopolitical Marketplace At best,
America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted
into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a
geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century:
the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in
both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules — their own rules — without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this postAmerican world. The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous
eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an “East-West” struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe.
What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle. In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as
being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and
if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of
Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch. It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really
need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former
Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new
pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and
begging to join? Robert Kagan famously said that America hails from Mars and Europe from Venus, but in reality, Europe is more like Mercury — carrying a big wallet. The E.U.’s market is the
world’s largest, European technologies more and more set the global standard and European countries give the most development assistance. And if America and China fight, the world’s money
will be safely invested in European banks. Many Americans scoffed at the introduction of the euro, claiming it was an overreach that would bring the collapse of the European project. Yet today,
Persian Gulf oil exporters are diversifying their currency holdings into euros, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has proposed that OPEC no longer price its oil in “worthless”
dollars. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela went on to suggest euros. It doesn’t help that Congress revealed its true protectionist colors by essentially blocking the Dubai ports deal in 2006.
With London taking over (again) as the world’s financial capital for stock listing, it’s no surprise that China’s new state investment fund intends to locate its main Western offices there instead of
New York. Meanwhile, America’s share of global exchange reserves has dropped to 65 percent. Gisele Bündchen demands to be paid in euros, while Jay-Z drowns in 500 euro notes in a recent
Europe’s influence grows at America’s expense. While America fumbles at
nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Many poor
regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real
African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like
Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in
London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on
their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past. More broadly, America controls legacy institutions few seem to want —
like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself.
The U.S. has a hard time getting its way even when it dominates summit meetings — consider the ill-fated Free Trade Area
of the Americas — let alone when it’s not even invited, as with the new East Asian Community, the region’s answer to
America’s Apec. The East Asian Community is but one example of how China is also too busy restoring its place as the world’s “Middle Kingdom” to be
distracted by the Middle Eastern disturbances that so preoccupy the United States. In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to
Chávez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of
thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy
supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector. The whole world is abetting China’s spectacular rise as evidenced
by the ballooning share of trade in its gross domestic product — and China is exporting weapons at a rate reminiscent of
the Soviet Union during the cold war, pinning America down while filling whatever power vacuums it can find. Every
country in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline
from China, Iran being the most prominent example. Without firing a shot, China is doing on its southern and western peripheries what Europe is achieving to its
video. American soft power seems on the wane even at home. And
east and south. Aided by a 35 million-strong ethnic Chinese diaspora well placed around East Asia’s rising economies, a Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere has
emerged. Like Europeans, Asians are insulating themselves from America’s economic uncertainties. Under Japanese sponsorship, they plan to launch their own regional
monetary fund, while China has slashed tariffs and increased loans to its Southeast Asian neighbors. Trade within the India-Japan-Australia triangle — of which China
sits at the center — has surpassed trade across the Pacific. At the same time, a set of Asian security and diplomatic institutions is being built
from the inside out, resulting in America’s grip on the Pacific Rim being loosened one finger at a time. From Thailand to Indonesia
to Korea, no country — friend of America’s or not — wants political tension to upset economic growth. To the Western eye, it is a bizarre phenomenon: small Asian
nation-states should be balancing against the rising China, but increasingly they rally toward it out of Asian cultural pride and an understanding of the historical-cultural
reality of Chinese dominance. And in the former Soviet Central Asian countries — the so-called Stans — China is the new heavyweight player, its manifest destiny
pushing its Han pioneers westward while pulling defunct microstates like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as oil-rich Kazakhstan, into its orbit. The Shanghai
Cooperation Organization gathers these Central Asian strongmen together with China and Russia and may eventually become the “NATO of the East.”
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China rise makes heg decline inevitable
Glaser and Morris 09 consulting for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of State, and other U.S.
government agencies [http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35241&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=2d090405f7 “Chinese
Perceptions of US Decline and Power”]
For the past few years, the Western world has been abuzz with talk of China’s rise. Most statesmen, pundits and academics have
concluded that China’s rise is inevitable, but as of yet there has been no consensus on the implications of China’s rise for the rest of the
world. While Westerners debate issues like whether and how China can be “molded” into becoming a responsible stakeholder in the international
system, the Chinese have been quietly conducting a debate of their own. After more than a decade of judging the international structure of power as
characterized by “yi chao, duo qiang” (one superpower, many great powers) [1]—with a substantial gap between the United States and other major
powers—Chinese scholars are debating whether U.S. power is now in decline and if multipolarity (duojihua) is becoming a
reality. A key precipitating factor is the global financial crisis, which has sown doubts in the minds of some Chinese experts
about the staying power of U.S. hegemony in the international system. Chinese perceptions of American power are consequential.
China’s assessment of the global structure of power is an important factor in Chinese foreign policy decision-making. As
long as Chinese leaders perceive a long-lasting American preeminence, averting confrontation with the United States is
likely seen as the best option. If Beijing were to perceive the U.S. position as weakening, there could be fewer inhibitions for China to avoid challenging the
United States where American and Chinese interests diverge. Since the late-1990s, Beijing has judged the United States as firmly entrenched in the role of sole
superpower. As long as the comprehensive national power of China and the other major powers lagged far behind the United States, and the ability of China to forge
coalitions to counterbalance U.S. power remained limited, Beijing concertedly avoided challenging U.S. interests around the world; for example, when the United States
invaded Iraq. Yet, China’s recent evaluation that the United States is overextended with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled
with a perceived U.S. weakness in the wake of the financial crisis, could imbue Chinese policy makers with the confidence
to be more assertive on the international stage in ways that may be inconsistent with American interests. The debate in China over
a possible U.S. decline is not new, however. After the end of the Cold War, Chinese experts embarked on a rigorous examination of the new global environment that
would emerge after the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe. At that time other rapidly expanding economies, especially Japan and Germany,
were perceived as having become powerful U.S. competitors in high technology. Some Chinese experts began to predict the emergence of a post-Cold War multipolar
world order, a greater balance among major powers, resistance toward “Western values” and an increased emphasis worldwide on economic and diplomatic approaches
as opposed to military might [2]. These predictions proved overly optimistic, however, and Beijing subsequently concluded that the United States would maintain its
status as “sole superpower” for the next 15 to 20 years, if not longer [3]. Recent events, notably U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
financial crisis, juxtaposed against China’s sustained economic growth, have rekindled the debate in China about the
sustainability of a U.S.-dominated international structure and China’s role in that new structure of power. In particular,
many Chinese experts are viewing the recent U.S.-led financial crisis as sounding the death knell for unfettered American
economic and hard power predominance and the dawn of a more inclusive multipolar system in which the United States
can no longer unilaterally dictate world events. Signs that the debate has been rejuvenated surfaced in 2006 with a provocative newspaper article by
Wang Yiwei, a young scholar at Shanghai’s Fudan University, who posed the question, “How can we prevent the USA from declining too quickly?”. The article, which
suggested that a precipitous decline in U.S. power would harm Chinese investments, predicted the United States would soon fall to the status of a regional power rather
than a global power because of its arrogance and imperial overreach and advised Washington to “learn to accept Chinese power on the world stage.” Wang’s article
generated a tremendous response from readers and intellectuals, which spurred further debate within China about whether U.S. power was in decline [4]. After the onset
of the financial crisis in the United States in 2008, which quickly reverberated globally, more articles appeared in Chinese newspapers positing a radical shift in the global
structure of power. In a May 18, 2009 article in China’s official state-run newspaper China Daily, Fu Mengzi, assistant president of the China Institutes of Contemporary
International Relations, maintained that “the global financial crisis offers global leaders a chance to change the decades-old world political and economic orders. But a
new order cannot be established until an effective multilateral mechanism to monitor globalization and countries' actions comes into place. And such a mechanism can
work successfully only if the old order gets a formal burial after extensive and effective consultations and cooperation among world leaders” [5]. Li Hongmei, editor and
columnist for People's Daily online, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, framed the argument more assertively in a February 2009 article by
predicting an “unambiguous end to the U.S. unipolar system after the global financial crisis,” saying that in 2008, U.S. hegemony was “pushed to the brink
of collapse as a result of its inherent structural contradictions and unbridled capitalist structure.” Li forecast that “in 2009, as a
result of this decline, the international order will be reshuffled toward multipolarity with an emphasis on developing economies like China, Russia and
Brazil” [6]. Li Hongmei and others highlight what they see as the main source of U.S. power decline: economics; and
especially share of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The IMF’s recently published figures on global GDP points out that in 2003,
GDP in the United States accounted for 32 percent of the world total, while the total GDP of emerging economies accounted for 25 percent. In 2008
however, the figures were reversed, with the total GDP of emerging economies at 32 percent and U.S. GDP at 25 percent of the world total
respectively [7]. From Li’s perspective, the recent financial crisis portends a continuation of the downward trend for the United States. Scholars such
as Wu Xinbo, professor and associate dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, and Zhang Liping, senior
fellow and deputy director of Political Studies Section at the Institute of American Studies in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS),
highlight a major shift in U.S. soft power and legitimacy after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. According to Wu, the United States
“lost its ‘lofty sentiments’ after it invaded Iraq and is feeling more ‘frustrated and lonely’ which will lead it to seek more
cooperation with other big powers” [8]. Similarly, Zhang points to a diminution in U.S. soft power, a decrease in its ability
to influence its allies, and diminished ability to get countries ‘on board’ with U.S. foreign policy initiatives after the invasion
of Iraq—all signs that augur a decline in America’s legitimacy abroad [9].
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Alt cause to hegemonic decline – war on terror
Wassef and Reals 1-14-09 CBS News [“US Decline Fueled Gaza Attack” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/14/terror/main4720357.shtml]
"The great and swift decline in America's influence is one of the most important motivations for Israelis to wage such a
barbaric attack on Gaza, in a bid to try and make use of the last days of (President) Bush's mandate and the neoconservatives," he says. The message was delivered in a speech downloaded Wednesday by CBS News from a Web site frequently used to
disseminate al Qaeda propaganda. The audio was produced by al Qaeda's media wing, as-Sahab. It was impossible to confirm the authenticity of the recording, but the
voice appeared to be that of the terror group's leader. The audio has not been heard before. The last known audio address from bin Laden was released on May 18, 2008.
"It appears this tape demonstrates his isolation and continued attempts to remain relevant," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Wednesday. The audio,
about 22 minutes long, is titled: "A Call for Jihad to Stop the Aggression on Gaza. The message of Sheikh Osama Bin Laden to the Muslim Ummah." "Israelis are in a
rush to get rid of their enemies in Gaza, and replace them with (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas and his administration, in order for him to protect their backs.
They thus carried out this horrific butchery before the end of Bush's term in office before the American weakness shows even more." Its release came on the 19th day
of Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas militants, which Palestinian doctors say has left 940 people dead, less than half of whom were combatants.
Bin Laden says Mr. Bush has left President-elect Barack Obama with "two bitter choices," and wonders aloud whether the
next American leader will be able to keep up the fight against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. "Can America keep up
the war with us for more decades to come? All reports and analysis indicate that this is not possible. In fact, 75 percent of
American people are happy with the departure of the president who got them into wars they could not possibly win." Bin
Laden goes on to say President Bush "drowned" the American people in economic woes and "left his successor a difficult
legacy, and left him one of two bitter choices… The worst heritage is when a man inherits a long guerrilla warfare with a
persevering, patient enemy - a war that is funded by usury. If he (Obama) withdraws from the war, that would be a military
defeat, and if he goes on with it, he'll drown in economic crisis." Quote If he (Obama) withdraws from the war, that would be a military defeat,
and if he goes on with it, he'll drown in economic crisis. Osama bin Laden The terrorist leader calls for Jihad, saying it is the only way to defeat the "Zionists" and liberate
the Gaza Strip. Bin Laden calls on Muslims worldwide to support the cause, and reissues his plea for donations. "Your duty is to support the Mujahideen with money
and men. I have experienced Jihad myself and I know how costly it can be. The Zakat (tithe) of one affluent Muslim merchant is enough to finance all the Jihadi front
against our enemies." Bin Laden said the current global situation offered a good opportunity to purge Muslim countries of Western influence. "Oh, Muslim Ummah
(nation), those wars and crisis represent a great opportunity, and wise men would not let it slip away from them. You have a great chance now to overthrow the injustice
and the tyranny that has overwhelmed you for decades." Bin Laden closed his speech by addressing Palestinians in Gaza. "My brothers in Palestine, you have suffered a
lot, and your fathers before you, for nine whole decades. Muslims sympathize with you, for what they see and hear. We, the Mujahideen, sympathize with you, too, much
more than anyone else… Because the Mujahideen lead the same kind of life that you lead; they are bombed the same way you are bombed, from the same airplanes, they
lose their children just like you do." Also in the address, bin Laden predicts that Mr. Obama will be unable to solve the economic
problems facing America. Quoting Mr. Obama's vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, bin Laden says, "Here’s Biden, the
deputy of the newly elected president, saying: 'The crisis is even worse than we expected, and the entire American economy
is in peril.'” It was the latest attack on Mr. Obama by an al Qaeda figurehead. Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, accused Mr. Obama of standing behind the
"massacre of Gaza" in an audio released earlier this month. Bin Laden also taunts President Bush over his pledge to abolish terrorism and kill or arrest terrorist leaders a promise the outgoing American president couldn't keep, according to the al Qaeda chief. "A group of your sons declared Jihad on that single power, the Hitler of our
time," bin Laden said. "We thus broke its horn, struck his fortress and demolished his tower. He thus became enraged and said he would bring the leaders of the
Mujahideen, dead or alive, to regain America's stature in the world and set it as an example for everybody." Prior to the release of the bin Laden communication, Mr.
Bush was asked Tuesday on CNN's Larry King Live if the U.S. will ever find the al Qaeda chief. "Absolutely," Mr. Bush said, adding, "He can't run forever." Pressed to
answer whether U.S. forces ever came close to bin Laden, the president said, "I really don't know."
And, other countries know US hegemony is over—Australia proves
Wallstreet Journal 5-8-09 [“A Pacific Warning: Australia prepares for US Decline” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124174053175598779.html]
In the preface to a sweeping defense review released Saturday, Australian
Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon writes: "The biggest changes
to our outlook . . . have been the rise of China, the emergence of India and the beginning of the end of the so-called
unipolar moment; the almost two-decade-long period in which the pre-eminence of our principal ally, the United States,
was without question." Australia isn't forecasting the end of U.S. dominance soon; the report predicts that will continue through 2030. There are
also a few bright spots, such as a stronger India and the emergence of Indonesia as a stable democratic ally. But without sustained U.S. defense
spending and focus on the Asia-Pacific, it's unclear which nation will ultimately dominate the region -- and that could have
profound effects on security and trade. The clearest challenge comes from China, which the Pentagon estimates spent $105
billion to $150 billion in 2008 bulking up its forces. Australia also worries about instability among its Pacific island
neighbors, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and emerging threats like cyber war. In response to this
outlook, Canberra is retooling its defense. It is doubling the size of its submarine fleet to 12 from six and buying about 100 Joint Strike Fighters, three
destroyers and eight frigates. The ships and subs will be equipped with cruise missiles. It will also upgrade its army and special forces units and look for
new ways to cooperate with the U.S. and other regional democratic powers. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Saturday: "Some have argued that in the
global economic recession we should reduce defense spending to ease the pressure on the budget. But the government believes the opposite to be
true. In a period of global instability Australia must invest in a strong, capable and well resourced defense force."
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AT: LINGUISTS ADV – STATUS QUO SOLVES
Army Linguists are Improving Now- No need for more.
Aldrich 04 Army Foreign Language Proponency Office for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (Ray Lane
Aldrich, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin Jan-Mar2004, Vol. 30 Issue 1, p58-59)
It is not flat nor a constant increase; it drops a little from time to time, and it looks like it may be reaching a plateau over
the last few years. The all-important fact to remember from this chart is that the trend is upward. My conclusion is that
somebody is doing something right. Army language proficiency is improving! I will give you some background on the numbers and
then I will tell you exactly why I think we are doing better. The numbers come from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). Many people do
not like DMDC numbers and some even do not believe these numbers; I will admit that I do like the DMDC numbers and I believe them. The
main thing is that these numbers are consistent. I can pull the same trend in the numbers from DMDC time after time. It
does not make any difference what the exact numbers are. The fact that I can pull the same trend of numbers out of the
DMDC database over a 15-year period gives me a great deal of confidence that I am on the track of something that is real
and valid. Why Are Army Linguists Getting Better.? Once we have established that Army linguists are getting better, the next question has
to be "Why?" Why are they getting better? There are actually four reasons for this noteworthy improvement. One of the primary
reasons is the increase in the proficiency of DLIFLC graduates from the mid-1980s to the present. Another excellent
reason is the existence of Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP). A third reason, one that is Army-specific, is the
funding provided by the Total Army Language Program (TALP) for foreign language maintenance and sustainment. The
fourth reason, also Army-specific, is the motivation provided by changes to the Army unit status report (USR) and AR
220-1, Unit Status Reporting.
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Immigrants are already incentivized to join the military—it’s a quick way to citizenship
Lutz 08 Assistant Professor of Sociology, Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public Affairs (Amy Lutz,
“RACE AND IMMIGRATION STATUS IN THE CONTEMPORARY MILITARY”, Winter2008, Vol. 36 Issue 2, p167-188)
Today, nearly 5% of the armed forces is comprised of immigrants, twothirds of whom are naturalized citizens (Batalova
2008). Like native-born Americans, immigrants living in the United States, including undocumented immigrants, are required to
register with the Selective Service (Stock 2006). Given that no draft currently exists, and that immigrants in today's military
are all volunteers, service in the military is often a way to expedite citizenship proceedings for those who serve. In July 2002,
President Bush used his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to expedite the citizenship of noncitizens who had been serving
honorably in the military since September 11, 2001. Since that time, more than 37,250 immigrants serving in the military have become United States
citizens and 111 have been given posthumous citizenship (Batalova 2008). The National Defense Authorization Act, passed in November of 2003,
also allows naturalizations to take place outside of the United States, thereby allowing military personnel serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to
become United States citizens while serving abroad (Batalova 2008, Stock 2006).
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The revolution in military affairs is coming now—the U.S. must develop it first and use it efficiently
BENBOW 04 Senior Lecturer @ the Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth
(Tim, The Magic Bullet? Understanding the 'Revolution in Military Affairs,' p. 88)
At least some of the capabilities associated with the RMA, then, are likely to emerge for the United States. The next question to
which this conclusion gives rise is whether the RMA is in fact desirable. There are some American heretics, not quite an imminent schism, yet neither a
persecuted, nearly invisible sect, who suggest that energetic pursuit of the RMA may not actually be in the interests of the USA. Harknert and his cowriters, for example, warn that the benefits of a truly transforming revolutionary shift might not be worth the associated risks and costs, when the
alternative of a more evolutionary approach is available. They describe RMA ideas as 'dangerously misguided' and suggest that for the US to 'pursue a
revolution that challenges the basis of the very system it currently dominates' would represent 'a major and unnecessary gamble'. They fear that the
RMA will not solve many current problems, would create significant vulnerabilities, and risks provoking a reaction against US foreign policy by current
allies as well as foes." They make an interesting and cogent case that is rarely put. The experience of previous RMAs gives some grounds for concern.
As Chapter Two showed, the RMAs epitomised by Napoleon and Hitler were swiftly countered and copied, and did not work to the long-term benefit
of either leader or their respective state. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution at first boosted British power but in the long term helped to undermine it.
Why should the US embrace large-scale and risky change when it already enjoys such a marked military superiority over any challenger? Indeed, would
not any attempt to extend this lead elicit the suspicion of, say, China and Russia, or even France, whose leaders have already expressed concern at the
unconstrained American 'hyperpower1? There is already evidence of unease surrounding such concepts as 'full spectrum dominance'. Other problems
will arise in accordance with the law of unintended consequences. There must be a danger that new military capabilities will give rise to new sources of
vulnerability, as well as producing new threats that could be turned against the West. Extending the military uses of space, for example, could well
bring about disadvantages for a state so dependent on the use of potentially vulnerable satellites if it provides an incentive for others to invest in antisatellite systems. ' An American leap to an entirely new model of intervention could also pose difficulties for operating with allies who are politically
vital if not militarily essential. In addition, the RMA will also change the nature of command, the internal organisation of the armed forces, perhaps
even their relationship with society. Could the RMA be a Pandora's box that the US would be best advised to leave well alone? There are two possible
responses to this argument. The first, provided by the RMA proponents, is to insist that the new capabilities will both deter potential peer competitors
and also prove effective for the new challenges. ' The second response would be that the new technologies are going to emerge
anyway, so the question is more accurately phrased as whether or not to take up a position on the crest of the RMA wave
as opposed to running the risk of another actor gaining a technological edge. This counter-argument leads to the next question. The
debate about the RMA has been disproportionately dominated by American analysts, which for some only reflects reality. It could well be seen as
something that has relevance only for the United States; indeed, it is often referred to as 'the American RMA'.1'" The challenges posed by the
ambitious technologies involved and the sheer level of resources required might be seen as restricting the new capabilities to the United States alone.
Clearly it is predominantly the US defence establishment that will determine the pace and the extent of the RMA. It would be rash to assume that the
US will be the only country to embrace it, however. The idea that the RMA could be solely American seems to be wishful thinking.
The experience of previous revolutions suggests that innovations spread, and the more successful they are, the more widely
and rapidly they will do so. By definition, no current or aspiring major power can ignore a true RMA. Furthermore, as has been argued, much of
the pace of IT development is being set in the civil sector, leaving some key elements of technology outside the control of any single state; civilian and
military technology seem to proliferate both faster and more widely today than hitherto. Many of the systems and capabilities referred to by
proponents are based on current technology. As The Economist put it, the basic elements of a revolution already exist: 'It is a matter of making
existing equipment fit together and adding a few innovations.' No single state would be able to slow down the RMA, let
alone to monopolise it. Still, there could be many potential benefits to be had from leading the process. To return to an example
mentioned above, the fact that the Industrial Revolution had a long term effect of eroding Britain's relative power does not mean that she was wrong
to pursue it, since she could not have prevented it from happening and to remain aloof would only have meant foregoing potential benefits from
change that was going to come regardless of her own actions.
The RMA requires LOWER troop levels – high numbers trade off with its development
Chapman 03 Director The 21st Century Project LBJ School of Public Affairs
(Gary, September. “An Introduction to the Revolution in Military Affairs.” www.lincei.it/rapporti/amaldi/papers/XV-Chapman.pdf)
Fast, deadly, smaller-unit force structures—The combined capabilities of battlespace dominance, elimination of the fog of
war, and PGMs suggests to some advocates of the RMA concept that large military forces, with their demanding logistical
requirements and sluggish movement, can be replaced by smaller, faster-moving, more agile and lethal force units. The
most vocal RMA proponents argue that with good information and lethal PGMs, small units can be as deadly or even more
so than the large military armies of the past, or those that still exist in some parts of the world. Consequently, RMA
evangelists have pressed for reforms in military command structures and reallocations of weapons and training in order to
build a smaller but more effective military force.
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U.S. dominance in RMA is critical to deter and manage conflicts in hotspots around the globe including China
and North Korea
Deitchman, 2004 (S. J., an independent defense consultant based in Bethesda, Maryland, formerly worked at DOD and the Institute for Defense Analyses,
Completing the transformation of U.S. military forces: the updated military excelled in Afghanistan and Iraq, but further progress must be supported now to ensure longterm security." Issues in Science and Technology 20.4, Summer)
Why not wait? Although there have been no arguments about the need to enhance the combat information network and systems, including their intelligence
components, there have been extensive arguments about the need for any or all of the new and advanced aircraft, ships, and ground combat vehicles. The
primary objections to the new systems are that they cost too much and are unnecessary now that the United States has no enemies
with the military sophistication that the Soviets possessed. But these arguments fail to account for certain realities. First, potential
opponents may field formidable armed forces to meet those of the United States. For example, North Korea remains an enigmatic
but powerful threat to U.S. interests in the Pacific region. Another example in that area might be a China that, although friendly in a
guarded sort of way now, could easily become a military opponent over the issue of Taiwan. That situation can blow up at any time
from misunderstanding of the positions of any of the three principals--China, Taiwan, or the United States. Without U.S. fielding of
forces obviously able to meet the North Koreans or the Chinese militarily, the growing capabilities of those countries could cause Japan to
wonder about the military reliability of the United States as an ally . Although Japan's constitution puts a limit on the growth of the country's
offensive military capability, the government could remove that limit if it felt threatened, and Japan has the technological capability to develop
advanced weapons, possibly including nuclear weapons. North Korea and China are but two examples of sudden military conflict
that might arise in the arc of instability that reaches from North Africa through the Middle East, south and central Asia, all the
way to the Korean peninsula. A third example of such a potential opponent arising without much strategic warning could be Pakistan if its
government were to fall to the country's Islamist fundamentalist factions. This is not the place to discuss the likelihood of such threats arising,
but we must take note of the potential developments that could evolve into military threats. As has been highlighted above, several of
these possible opponents are actively acquiring some of the advanced Soviet-era and more recent systems that can exploit the
vulnerabilities of today's U.S. forces. And we must certainly expect that China, with its fast-growing, technology-based economy, will
soon be able to field its own versions of such systems. The problem for the United States, then, is to track and maintain superiority
over the growing capability of potential military opponents. Current U.S. military systems are able to match those of such
opposition now, but if the United States stands down on advancing its capability, that increasingly precarious balance could
change. Worse, it might not realize that the balance had changed until it was already engaged in battle. The argument that if the United States remains alert, it can
identify developing threats in time to respond fails to recognize how long it takes to respond. It takes on the order of 10 to 20 years to field major new military
systems. It can take a decade just to field a significant improvement in an existing system, such as a new aircraft or ship radar system. Yet the strategic and
military need for such systems could arise in a year or two, or even as a total surprise, as the country learned at Pearl Harbor and
feared throughout the Cold War.
War over Taiwan means extinction
The Straits Times 2000
THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that
splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries
far and near and -- horror of horrors -- raise the possibility of a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it
considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this
means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the
conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to
redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq.
In south Asia, hostilities between India and
Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew
Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the
US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen
Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -- truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear
there is little hope of winning a war against China 50 years later, short of
using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems
weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability ,
prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding
nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson
International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it.
He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of
foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. There would be no
victors in such a war. While the prospect of a nuclear Armaggedon over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it cannot be ruled out
entirely, for China puts sovereignty above everything else. Gen Ridgeway recalled that the biggest mistake the US made during the Korean War
was to assess Chinese actions according to the American way of thinking. "Just when everyone believed that no sensible commander would march south of the
Yalu, the Chinese troops suddenly appeared," he recalled. (The Yalu is the river which borders China and North Korea, and the crossing of the river marked
China's entry into the war against the Americans).
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RMA underway now
McKeeby 06 (David, Washington File Staff writer, 6/22. Lexis.)
Thousands of US. troops will be repositioned and several overseas bases will be closed over the next five years as part of
the military's transformation agenda, defense officials told a congressional connnittee June 20. "rWe are reshaping our ability to
support diplomacy and build stronger partnerships to contend with uncertainty," Ryan Henry, Defense Department under
secretary for policy, told members of the House Armed Services Connnittee. Henry, joined by Philip Grone, deputy under secretary of defense
for installations and environment and Rear Admiral William Sullivan, vice director for strategic plans and policy, briefed connnittee members on
the progress of a comprehensive evaluation of D.S. forces around the globe and how best to redeploy them to meet future security threats.
Henry said that the process, known as the Global Defense Posture Review, was the result of combatant commanders' extensive analysis of
current and future security conditions. "We seek to transfonn our defense relationships, our presence and footprint overseas to
better deal with the post-9f11 strategic landscape," Grone said. Changes in the global strategic picture, in addition to
revolutions in military technology, transportation and logistics, mean that US. forces no longer need to maintain the
numerous large bases and supply hubs across Western Europe and northeast Asia. It is now possible for US. forces to do more
with less, the officials said, by maintaining fewer, smaller military bases overseas, minimally staffed "forward operating sites,"
and "cooperative security locations," sites operated by allied countries that could be activated for use by deployed American forces should the
need arise.
RMA occurring now—moving the military away from troop increases
O’Rourke 06 Ronald, Specialist in National Defense, Foreign Affairs, Defense, & Trade Division,
Defense Transformation: Background and Oversight for Congress, 2/17, http://www.fas.orglsgp/crsinatsecIRL32238
The Administration's vision for defense transformation calls for shifting the U.S. military away from a reliance on massed
forces. sheer quantity of firepower. military services operating in isolation from one another. and attrition-style warfare. and
toward a greater reliance on joint (i.e., integrated multi-service) operations, NCW, effects-based operations (EBO), speed and agility, and
precision application of fIrepower. Some transformation advocates characterize these changes as shifting from an industrial-age approach to war
to an information-age approach. As mentioned earlier, the Administration's transformation vision also includes proposals for
changing things like training practices, personnel management practices. logistics operations. and worldwide basing
arrangements. and for changing DOD's business practices. particularly with an eye toward streamlining those practices so
as to accelerate the fielding of new weapons and generate savings that can be used to invest in them.
Rumsfeld made the RMA a primary objective for the military
Sherman '06 Jason, June 29, Inside The PentagonVol. 22 #26, RumsfeldSets Defense Prioritiesfor Remainderof Bush Administration,Lexis
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has set forth a collection of priorities intended to guide the Pentagon for the remainder of the
Bush administration's second tenn, a list that calls for "significantly improving military intelligence capabilities" and meeting the
challenge of roadside bombs, a scourge of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. These goals are the newest additions to a brief catalog of objectives for the U.S.
military that Rumsfeld maintains and periodically updates. A copy of the previously undisclosed list, "Department of Defense --Priorities 2006-2008," dated
March 20, reflects a number of changes from the last version to circulate in the spring of 2004. Pentagon officials say Rumsfeld uses the list to articulate highlevel goals for the department in meeting with senior leaders across the military. "If you want to know what's on the mind of the most senior military people,
this is the sort of thing to look at," said a defense analyst with ties to the Pentagon who has seen the three-page list. "Because this is a secretary of defenseproduced thing, it is taken with greater weight." Among the new goals on the list of eight priorities is "focus on people -- military and
civilian," including caring for the wounded as well as the families of the fallen and those still serving. Rumsfeld has also set the
broad goal to "improve effectiveness and efficiency across the board," which encompasses making "the best use oftaxpayer dollars in all that we do," creating a "culture
of efficiency" and eliminating "waste at every level." The top priority, "pursue the global war on terrorism," remains nearly the same as it was in the 2004 list, which used
the wording "successfully pursue the global war on terrorism." With two years' experience and the benefit of a new defense strategy, the goal is refmed to "win the long
war" by reducing and defeating the threat of violent extremism. The "strategic approach" to fulfill this objective, according to the document, includes the protection and
defense of the u.s. homeland and interests; attacking terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world; improving the military's ability to "fmd, fix, and fmish" threats;
improving the military capability of partner countries; and strengthening U.S. strategic connnunications. Other objectives on the list consistent with Rumsfeld's 2004
goals: "Strengthen u.S. Combined and Joint Warfighting Capabilities" and "Continue Transforming the Joint Force." Updated to reflect the latest thinking in the
Pentagon, these objectives call for improving capabilities for irregular warfare and implementing an acquisition strategy that supports "joint interdependence." They also
take into account the execution ofreconnnendations in the Quadrennial Defense Review, completed earlier this year. The one new item on the list that is not supported
by any companion goals is meeting "the challenge of improvised explosive devices," an issue that Pentagon officials have recently decided to say little about in public. To
"significantly improve military intelligence capabilities." Rumsfeld has called for the Defense Department to make better use of spies and enhance its ability to distribute
and declassify intelligence "when possible" for tactical use. This overarching goal also calls for the Pentagon to "refocus intelligence" for the new defense strategy and
keep contingency plans fresh
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The technology revolution is just starting – the US must not fall behind- now is key
Vickers and Martinage 04 - Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
(Michael and Robert. The Revolution in War. p.11-13)
A revolution in war has been underway since the late 1970s.1 Although its future path is yet to be determined, we are likely only in the
early phase of this revolutionary change. Subsequent change could be even more discontinuous and profound, with
potentially serious consequences for the currently dominant position of the United States.2 This monograph examines the
fundamental changes in the conduct of warfare that have occurred over the past three decades, and provides a framework for thinking about
additional changes that may still lie ahead.
The RMA is underway now
Major 07 (Aaron, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Albany, 1/14. “Which Revolution in Military Affairs?” Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p182282_index.html)
Changes in the United States’ military posture and military strategy have traditionally lead to questions and concerns about the size and content of
defense spending, and more recently, to questions about the distribution of this spending and its role in the dynamics of economic and political
development. Since the end of the Cold War, much of this debate has been focused around the ‘peace dividend’ that was to be achieved as our armed
forces were scaled down following the collapse of the Soviet Union. More recently, with the arrival of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of
Defense in 2001, the attacks of September 11, and the subsequent “War on Terror” which followed thereafter, American
military policy is once again being reshaped—this time by a renewed build-up and strategic shift framed around the “Revolution
in Military Affairs” (RMA). In the early and mid-1990s debates in defense circles were centered on the question of whether or not a military force
built around the idea of an RMA would in fact create an armed force capable of dealing with new, non-traditional, and
asymmetric military threats. As the RMA concept has become enshrined in official Defense Department policy statements around the turn of
the millennium, the question is whether we are in fact seeing a real shift in the country’s military strategy, or merely a dressed-up version
of the status quo? Participants in this debate draw upon careful readings of emerging Defense Department policy statements and on the conduct of
recent American military operations as sources of evidence. Other scholars have suggested that evidence of fundamental shifts in a state’s military
strategy is found in changes in the patterns of defense spending activity across industrial sectors and across geographical space. This paper takes up the
latter approach, which has yet to be applied to the RMA debate. If there was in fact a major strategic turning-point around the RMA at the turn of the
century—what I will call the “RMA thesis”—then this strategic shift should be reflected in a marked change in the pattern of defense spending along
these two dimensions. Military Strategy, Economic Development, and Politics In recent decades social scientists have begun to pay close
attention to questions of military strategy and the role that defense spending, and the distribution of defense contracts, play
in the shaping of nation’s political and economic texture. A brief excurses into the main threads of this literature will make clear that the
issues raised by the RMA debate, and debates around military strategy in general, are not limited to the esoteric world of the defense 2 community, but
rather speak to core questions concerning the interplay of social institutions and the, often unintended, consequences of decision-making in one
sphere for outcomes in another. War, and the divergent strategies of planning for and executing war, has always played a critical role in the dynamics
of societal evolution. The classic statement of this relationship comes from Otto Heintz (1975) who argued differences in military strategies in the 16
th and 17 th centuries explain the emergence of absolutist or parliamentary states. Recent scholars have built upon this insight and have shown that
extended warfare in Western Europe during the 14 th century drove up the costs of military financing, favored state centralization, and contributed to
the development of modern state institutions (Giddens 1987; Rassler and Thompson 1989; Tilly 1990; Ertman 1997). The contemporary American
capitalist economy has likewise been buffeted by forces emanating from the state’s military function. In a landmark study, Anne Markusen and her
colleagues (1991) showed how the Cold War ‘high-tech’ military build-up that took place in the United States from the 1950s through the Reagan
administration reconfigured the geography of defense spending and led to the creation of a “gunbelt” of defense-spending laden states around the
perimeter of the nation, contributing to the economic hollowing-out of the industrial heartland. Spending on defense procurement has also been
found to correlate positively with states’ trade positions, further advantaging coastal regions in an era of heightened global competition (Noponen et.
al. 1996). What is most interesting about these arguments is that they highlight the importance of military-strategic state concerns for regional patterns
of economic growth. Much of the post-World War II economic development on the West coast is attributed to the shift to a
reliance on sophisticated aircraft to wage the Cold War and a strategic concern that these installations be located at the perimeter of the
nation (Hooks and Getz 1998; Hooks and Bloomquist 1992). These “high-tech” military installations have had substantial, positive
effects for economic growth in the communities in which they are located (Hooks 2003), though these benefits are hardly uniform as
women working near military installations face worse labor market situations than the broader female labor force (Booth 2000). At the level of
states, variations in federal defense spending have been found to correlate strongly with variations in Gross State Product
(Gitell 2000). In the realm of international economic competition the Department of Defense’s “high-tech” military has subsidized the
United States’ technology 3 sector throughout the 1970s and 1980s which allowed the economy as a whole to grow faster than those of Western
Europe (Simonazzi 2003).
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Increasing troops kills the RMA—the U.S. must continue to restructure to focus resources where they’re needed
Khalilzad 95
Zalmay, Analyst RAND Corporation, Washington Quarterly, Spring
U.S. planners should therefore give higher priority to research on new
technologies, new concepts of operation, and changes in organization, with the aim of U.S. dominance in the military
technical revolution that may be emerging. They should also focus on how to project U.S. systems and interests against weapons based on new technologies. The
Persian Gulf War gave a glimpse of the likely future. The character of warfare will change because of advances in military technology,
where the United States has the lead, and in corresponding concepts of operation and organizational structure. The
challenge is to sustain this lead in the face of the complacency that the current U.S. lead in military power is likely to engender. Those who are seeking to be
rivals to the United States are likely to be very motivated to explore new technologies and how to use them against it. A
determined nation making the right choices, even though it possessed a much smaller economy, could pose an enormous
challenge by exploiting breakthroughs that made more traditional U.S. military methods less effective by comparison. For
U.S. superiority in new weapons and their use would be critical.
example, Germany, by making the right technical choices and adopting innovative concepts for their use in the 1920s and 1930s, was able to make a serious bid for world
domination. At the same time, Japan, with a relatively small GNP compared to the other major powers, especially the United States, was at the forefront of the
development of naval aviation and aircraft carriers. These examples indicate that a major innovation in warfare provides ambitious powers an opportunity to become
dominant near-dominant powers. U.S. domination of the emerging military-technical revolution, combined with the maintenance of
a force of adequate size, can help to discourage the rise of a rival power by making potential rivals believe that catching UP
with the United States is a hopeless proposition and that if they try they will suffer the same fate as the former Soviet Union. Although, based on the
strategy proposed here, the United States needs increased capabilities in some areas. it can cut back elsewhere and do things
differently to free up resources for them. The United States still has too many bases. The country does not have the most effective
process for making informed decisions for allocating resources for various types of force elements -- that is, those forces that are required for current and future
objectives and operational requirements. As things currently stand there is too much duplication in some key areas and capabilities that
are
not as relevant now as they were before. This is especially true in the maintenance and support area. For example, the navy, the air force, and industry all provide
maintenance for military aircraft engines. Greater centralization here could save significant resources. The Defense Department is still being forced to buy weapon
systems that it says it does not need and will not be needed under the proposed strategy. The current acquisition system is very costly and can save resources if
streamlined. RMA is needed – our military is drastically under-resourced to be effective, manpower isn’t the issue. Carafano and
Rozensweig, 2005 (James Jay, Senior Research Fellow @ Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, and Paul, Senior Legal Research Fellow in the
Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, “Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving
Freedom,” www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/the-long-war-ch1.cfm) Clearly, today’s U.S. military is either under-resourced or incorrectly structured to
handle the missions that are being asked of it. Here is an example: In the summer of 2004, America had about 3 million men and women in
uniform. Yet we are having a tough time keeping 160,000 of them in Afghanistan and Iraq. You do the math. The problem is
not that the military is too small. It is simply structured to fight the last war in the last century. The result? Too many troops
in the wrong uniform, in the wrong places, trained in the wrong skills, who are subsequently of questionable value to the
war on terrorism.
RMA and high troop levels cannot co-exist
Grahm 97 Staff Writer for Washington Post (Bradley, “Cohen Weighing Three Possible Courses for Shape of Future U.S. Military”, 1/4, p. A104, lexis)
An alternative course would jump the Pentagon full-bore into what has been dubbed the "Revolution in Military Affairs," or RMA,
involving the accelerated integration of computer-age technologies into weapon systems and military command and control
networks. This option carries the promise of greater military agility, precision and potency but would require large force
reductions to finance. It also would ultimately mean radical adjustments in the way U.S. troops fight.
Maintaining low troop levels speeds the development of RMA
Brooks 06 Op-Ed Writer for NYT (David, “Iraq Notes”, 12/18/06,
http://rickcendo.blogspot.com/search?q=Why+was+Rumsfeld+so+reluctant+to+provide+sufficient+troops+or+increase+troop+levels+to+the+appropriate+metric
s%3F+His+agenda+in+taking+the+Sec+Def+job+was+RMA+--+Revolution+in+Military+Affairs+--+replacing+troops+with+smart+technology)
Rumsfeld so reluctant to provide sufficient troops or increase troop levels to the appropriate metrics? His agenda in taking the Sec
Def job was RMA -- Revolution in Military Affairs -- replacing troops with smart technology. Increasing troops levels would have
robbed him of money for RMA. Conversely, keeping troop levels artificially low would speed the development of RMA and
force its acceptance. New military technologies and tactics are never really accepted until validated in a real battlefield.
Why was
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High troop levels trade-off with tech superiority
Melillo 06 writer for US Army War College Quarter (Michael, “Outfitting a Big-War Military With Small-War Capabilities”, Autumn 2006,
PARAMETERS Magazine, p.24, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/PARAMETERS/06autumn/melillo.pdf)
In the wake of WorldWar II and throughout the ColdWar, the United States established its conventional force
structure and doctrine on a foundation of technological superiority as a trade-off for numerical inferiority. When
the Soviet Union collapsed, many defense analysts attributed its demise and the end of the Cold War to the inability of the
Kremlin to maintain pace with the United States’ advancements and costs in high-tech weaponry.7 While this may in fact be
true, it also reinforced the belief that technological superiority was paramount to American security and essential for the United States
to fulfill its role as the world’s sole superpower.
Low troop levels key to the RMA—China proves
Jun 04 Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics (Wu, The Impact of Revolution in Military Affairs on China’s Defense Policy,
2004, Google Docs, pg.4-5, http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3Ay6TgT_t7Sf8J%3Awww.lincei.it%2Frapporti%2Famaldi%2Fpapers%2FXVWuRMAImpact.pdf+revolution+in+military+affairs+fewer+troops&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1)
RMA requires lower troop numbers
Schactman 07 Winner of 2007 Online Journalist Award (Noah, Wired Magazine, “How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are
Social — Not Electronic”, 11/27/07, http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-12/ff_futurewar?currentPage=all)
The US military could use battlefield sensors to swiftly identify targets and bomb them. Tens of thousands of warfighters would act as a single, self-aware, coordinated
organism. Better communications would let troops act swiftly and with accurate intelligence, skirting creaky hierarchies. It'd
be "a revolution in military affairs unlike any seen since the Napoleonic Age," they wrote. And it wouldn't take hundreds of
thousands of troops to get a job done — that kind of "massing of forces" would be replaced by information management.
"For nearly 200 years, the tools and tactics of how we fight have evolved," the pair wrote. "Now, fundamental changes are affecting the very
character of war."
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RMA SOLVES CHINA WAR
China is aggressively trying to play military catch-up. The US must continue to out pace the PLA to deter it from
testing our resolve with nuclear weapons
Dreyer 00 - Director of East Asian programs at the University of Miami [Dr June Teufel Dreyer, House Armed Services, The U.S. Response to
China’s Increasing Military Power: Eleven Assumptions in Search of a Policy Military Capabilities of the People's Republic of China, 19 July 2000,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2000_hr/00-07-19dreyer.html]
The military capabilities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are growing in almost all areas, as my colleague Richard Fisher will
outline in some detail The administration has been quite complacent about the import of this growing military might. Its assumption seems
to be that growing economic prosperity will lead to pluralism, which in turn will cause the erosion of the communist state and its replacement by a democracy. Democracies are inherently
peaceful and do not fight each other. Therefore, the best course of action is to engage China. Not to engage China is equivalent to isolating China. In the words of one high-ranking
With regard to the military specifically, other members of the
administration have been dismissive of the growth in the military capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), stating that it is
no match for the U.S. military. There is a dangerous complacency in these assumptions. First, it is not certain that the PRC can continue current rates of
administration official, “If we treat China as an enemy, it most assuredly will become one.”
economic growth. As is often the case with rapid economic growth, prosperity is unevenly distributed, both within communities and geographically. The increasingly uneven distribution of wealth has opened social fissures
which threaten the country’s stability. This is a major reason behind party/government’s recent efforts to develop the western regions of the state. Additionally, the country’s banking system is in precarious health. State-owned
enterprises continue to operate in deficit, depleting the resources of the central treasury. Corruption, often with the collusion of party/government officials and military officers, is endemic. Efforts to restructure the economy
into a healthier, more efficient producer of goods and services have foundered because of the widespread social disruptions that terminating the employment of millions of people would cause. Second, there is no certainty that
that advent of capitalism will cause the demise of the communist government. The PRC has developed a variant market Leninism that has been characterized as “bureaucrat capitalism”: the state appears to have co-opted the
entrepreneurs, who remain highly dependent on the bureaucracy, rather than vice-versa. Third, even the collapse of the communist government does not guarantee the triumph of democracy. Certainly it did not in the former
Soviet Union. The successor states to the USSR boast few successes in terms of protection for civil liberties. Fourth, even if the PRC were to become a democracy, China would not necessarily become less of a threat to its
neighbors. There is no charismatic leader, and the ideology of communism under which the party came to power, has been discredited. This has undermined the legitimacy of the party and its ruling group. Particularly after the
demonstrations of 1989, the leadership seemed to become afraid of its own people. Partly to shore up its position, it stirred up nationalist passions---an “us versus them” mentality with regard to foreign countries. These have
proved quite popular, to the extent that, when Japanese leaders visit the PRC, anti-Japanese activists have been placed under house arrest. The current autocratic government has been able to keep these nationalist sentiments
in check; a democratic government would find it much more difficult to do so. People who have been educated to believe that various irredentist territories claimed by the PRC have always been part of the ancestral land have
a tendency to become passionate about reclaiming them. It is quite easy to imagine, for example, a democratic China resorting to armed hostilities against India or the Philippines. Fifth, the administration seems unwilling to
internalize the security consequences of an engagement that is one-way rather than, as it should be, a mutual process. A country that is assured that another country will engage it at any cost can use this commitment to extract
maximum leverage. There are minimal costs to intransigence, since the second country believes in engagement regardless of the actions of the first country. A sound policy would be grounded in the understanding that the
alternative to engagement is not necessarily isolation: there are intermediate positions.Sixth, if the statement that if the United States treats the PRC like an enemy, it will surely become one, is true, then the converse should be
PRC does regard the United States not only as an enemy but as the enemy. Military journals and newspapers
regularly discuss scenarios in which the PLA engages “a technologically superior” foe that could be only the United
States. Quite comfortable with the Cold War geopolitical balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union, the PRC was greatly discomfited by a situation in which there was only one superpower---the
true as well. In fact, the
United States---and became more so when the United States marshaled international support to reverse Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. In Beijing’s view, the one remaining superpower had chosen the role of international bully,
and would have to be countered. This determination was reinforced when the United States launched a relief effort to counter the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. The Chinese media expressed outrage that so-called humanitarian
considerations could be used as a pretext for violating the sovereign right of state to do whatever it wished within its own borders, and explicitly drew parallels about what this precedent might portend for an American
Proponents of People’s War pointed out that the Serbian people had not broken under heavy U.S. bombing attacks and
pointed out that if the PRC wished to prevail against the United States, it would have to
acquire comparable weapons systems. A third group argued that this was precisely what the Americans wanted: they had consciously lured the Soviet Union into an
response against Chinese actions in Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
neither would the Chinese people. Others
arms race that had forced the Soviet state into bankruptcy and collapse, and hoped to do the same to the PRC. The correct strategy for China was to develop a select few weapons that targeted
American weaknesses;
they
advocated asymmetric warfare
therefore
. None argued that it is necessary to engage the superpower or to accommodate to its wishes, even temporarily. Seventh,
to say that China is no match for the United States military is to misstate the question. It is likely that in a global confrontation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, America’s technological superiority
and more resilient economic system would enable the U.S. to prevail. But Beijing has no current intention of confronting the United States on a global scale. It wishes only to deter Washington in a regional context---to ensure
that American military might does not prevent it from taking over territories it regards as belonging to China. Hence, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would initially engage not U.S. forces but those of regional neighbors
with whom it has territorial disputes---mainly, but not limited to, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Here, its chances of prevailing militarily are much better. China has by far the largest military in the region; only
Japan and Taiwan have technologically superior equipment. In the case of Taiwan, this technological edge is eroding rapidly. Even were its technological superiority massive, its qualitative superiority could be eroded by the
massively larger numbers of weapons and manpower of the PLA. In the case of Japan, there is a serious internal debate about whether Article Nine of the country’s constitution would allow it to fight, even when attacked. The
United States has close ties with many of these countries, which include a Mutual Security Treaty with Japan and a commitment to provide Taiwan with defensive arms under the Taiwan Relations Act of April 1979. We also
have a long-standing relationship with the government of the Philippines, and a strong commitment both to stability in the region and to keeping the sea lanes open. Inevitably, there would be pressure on Washington to
become involved. The American military would thus be confronting China on its home turf. Moreover, as a global power, the United States has other interests to protect. At the moment, these other interests are focused on
Having downsized considerably since the demise
of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military is already stretched very thin to defend American interests and commitments. There
is a real question of what resources we could bring to bear in a confrontation in East Asia. China would also seek to control the public relations aspects of any confrontation.
the Middle East, but also include the successor states of the former Soviet empire as well as problems in Africa and Latin America.
They would portray the PRC’s victim as the aggressor. The official media already excoriate Taiwan as a “troublemaker” and describe Japan as in the grip of a dangerous trend back toward pre-World War II militarism. They
regularly remind the United States public that the U.S. has agreed that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of it, conveniently glossing over the fact that (a) the United States has never defined what it means by one
China
has already reminded Americans on several occasions that it possesses nuclear weapons, and asked them if they would be
willing to trade Los Angeles or San Francisco for Taiwan.
China(b) the U.S. has consistently maintained that the cross-Strait issue must not be solved by the use of force. Since the American public is unaware of these subtleties, there would be considerable confusion.
RMA is comparatively more effective to solve for conflict in East Asia
Sloan, Defence Analyst with the Directorate of Strategic Analysis at Canada's National Defence Headquarters, 2002 (Elinor, assistant professor in
the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada and nato, p. 52)
Second, and with the rise of China as a potential strategic competitor in mind, the review includes an increased focus on the East
Asian theatre of operations. Experts have argued that winning a conflict in this area "will mean long-range warfare, with dispersed,
mobile or concealed basing, and the kinds of forces that can sustain a long clash in the air, at sea, and in space." 49 Such
requirements point away from traditional systems like aircraft carriers, fighters, and main battle tanks and towards RMA systems like the
Arsenal ship, the stealthy B-2 bomber, and unmanned combat aerial vehicles.
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RMA GOOD – HEGEMONY !
Continued focus on RMA will allow the U.S. to retain global hegemony for decades
Gongora, Research Associate with the Institut quebecois des hautes etudes internationals, and von Riekhoff, Professor of Political Science,
Carleton University in Ottawa, 2K (Thierry and Harold, Toward a Revolution in Military Affairs? Defense and Security at the Dawn of the TwentyFirst Century, p. 7)
One cannot escape the central role of the United States in discussing national perspectives about the RMA. The present U.S.
position as the sole global power, established with the end of the Cold War, has been reinforced by the introduction of RMA
technologies and doctrines. Unlike the short-lived monopoly of atomic weapons, U.S. primacy in the RMA sphere promises to
continue unchallenged for at least another twenty years, if not longer. One merely needs to cite a few elementary facts to
establish the scope of U.S. dominance of the field. U.S. investment in intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance
(ISR), particularly space-based aspects of the so-called system of systems, exceeds that of all other nations combined, and the
United States also leads in C4I and precision force (Nye and Owens 1996, 28). U.S. R&D expenses in information technology
exceed those of the rest of the world. When it comes to dominant situational awareness, the United States, to cite Libicki, has
the "world's best eyes" (Libicki 1998, 414). In the foreseeable future, no country or group of countries can match U.S.
hegemony in the RMA sphere. As a consequence, all wars in which the United States chooses to become involved will
inevitably assume the nature of asymmetric conflicts (Freedman 1998,34).
US leadership is essential to avert global nuclear war
Khalilzad 95 – US Ambassador to Afghanistan and Former Defense Analyst at RAND [Zalmay, “Losing the
Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War,” Washington Quarterly, Spring, LN]
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for
the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a
world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment
would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world
would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats
of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of
another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers,
including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a
multipolar balance of power system.
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RMA is critical to preserve U.S. leadership and dominance in the face of terrorism
Blaker – Director of Foreign and Security Studies at the Progressive Policy Institute – 2-7-2001 (James R., Democratic
Leadership Council, www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=159&contentid=2980)
The new administration's top defense priority should be the completion of the Pentagon's great unfinished business of the
1990s: transforming the U.S. military into a leaner, faster, higher-tech fighting machine. This transformation, known as the
Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), is imperative if we are to meet the dramatically changing threats of the 21st century.
Begun nearly three decades ago, the RMA has hit a wall, and the new president needs to revive it. Unless we streamline,
modernize, and restructure our forces, we risk becoming locked into a military structure that is unsuited to the demands
that are now being placed on it. Today hostile powers can find increasingly affordable ways to counter American
dominance, either through low-tech terrorism or high-tech cyberwarfare, thus weakening our massive advantage in
conventional forces.
RMA guarantees hegemony into the next century
Canada FAIT '05
Feb. 25, Canada Foreign Affairs and International Trade
The RMA offers America "the prospect of military power beyond that of any other country on the planet. now and well
into the next century. " This is why American theorists have embraced the RMA for it appears to afford the United States the
opportunity to perpetuate its power.§ There is indeed about the RMA an American "boosterism," a profound sense of
national uniqueness in the technology and doctrine of war. "The next century is confidently expected to be an American one where
everyone follows our example: everyone must follow in our wake or fall apart. And that fact gives us a lasting information edge." By using the
technologies, including information warfare, America will be able to confound and quickly defeat its enemies, striking at
whole countries and destroying their will along with their forces and infrastructure, while they will be unable to strike back.
These emblems of United States technological superiority, observes Blank, "taken together and multiplied in effectiveness" are
alleged to "confer not just operational superiority, but a lasting American superiority and hegemony.
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RMA GOOD – TERRORISM !
A) RMA solves terrorism- long range strikes and information awareness prove
Sloan, 2002 Defence Analyst with the Directorate of Strategic Analysis at Canada's National Defence Headquarters
(Elinor, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada
and nato, p. 52)
Simply put, the United States can be expected to speed up those elements of the U.S. military's force transformation program that fit
with or advance America's ability to combat terrorism. Many elements are relevant here. They include, above all, developing the smaller,
more rapidly mobile, deployable, and lethal ground forces that have figured centrally in RMA doctrine from the outset. A particular
emphasis is placed on special operations forces. However the force transformation efforts begun by the U.S. army in 1999 will also be essential. Not
surprisingly, the QDR of 2001 calls on the secretary of the army to accelerate the introduction of forward-stationed interim brigade combat teams. In
addition, the army is exploring ways it can accelerate the development of its future combat systems .51 Strategic sea and air lift will also
be important, as will combat helicopters for battlefield mobility. Heavy platforms, like main battle tanks, are likely to become even more outdated in
the new strategic environment. A second key RMA capability central to the war against terrorism is long-range precision strike.
Associated platforms and weapons include stealthy 15-2 bombers equipped with satellite-guided joint direct attack munitions, u-i
bombers equipped with satellite-guided launched cruise missiles, and submarines equipped with satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles. Short-range
tactical aircraft, dependent as they are on overseas bases, carriers, and refuelling aircraft, are less likely to be a platform of choice for military planners
and political leaders. Finally, combatting international terrorism will depend to a significant degree on advanced battlespace awareness
and control capabilities. "Our highest priority right now is situational awareness," argued one high-level Pentagon official in the weeks
following the terrorist attacks of September 2001.51 Unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator and the Global Hawk will be particularly
important, as will advanced command, control communications, computing and intelligence (C41) systems. Consistent with these
trends, the Pentagon is using its share of the emergency funding provided after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington to accelerate the
development of unmanned aerial vehicles, precision munitions, and C41 programs.
B) Extinction
Alexander, 2003 [Yonah Alexander, professor and director of the Inter-University for Terrorism Studies, 8/28/03, Washington Times]
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the international community
failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to the very survival of civilization
itself. Even the United States and Israel have for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant rather than a critical
strategic challenge to their national security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the
unprecedented tragedy of 19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers. Likewise,
Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism triggered by the second intifada that
began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace
process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements [hudna]. Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries
affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons, including
misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the
religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda
and psychological warfare. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of
conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we
have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications
concerning national, regional and global security concerns.
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Modernizing our forces is critical to solving terrorism – the current pace of modernization avoids risks
Pudas, Acting Director of the Office of Force Transformation, 2006 (Terry, June 19, Disruptive challenges and
accelerating Force transformation, www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i42/16-JFQ42%20Pudas%20Pg%204350.pdf)
The conceptual core of U.S. defense strategy rests on the four security challenges described in the 2005 National Defense Strategy (NDS): traditional,
irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive.2 In turn, the NDS provided an essential strategic foundation for the conduct of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense
Review (QDR). While acknowledging that U.S. military forces maintain significant advantages in traditional forms of warfare , the
NDS argues that our enemies are more likely to pose asymmetric threats— including irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges—to the
United States and its multinational partners in the years ahead (see figure 1). To "operationalize the National Defense Strategy. .. senior
civilian and military leaders [within DOD] identified four priority areas" as the focus of the QDR: "defeating terrorist networks;
defending the homeland in depth; shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads; and preventing hostile states and nonstate actors from acquiring or using WMD [weapons of mass destruction] ." Figure 2 illustrates the ongoing shift within DOD to the type of
capabilities and forces needed to address irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges, while maintaining those capabilities and forces required to
deal with traditional challenges.3 The four security challenges are interrelated. Equally important, none of the four challenges is subordinate to, or a
lesser included case of another. All have important claims on resources because it is their interaction that poses the greatest national security challenge
to the United States. This is a significant change to longstanding U.S. planning assumptions regarding priorities, resource allocation, and military
requirements. The NDS and the QDR Report emphasize the goal of broadening U.S. military capabilities , underlining the need to
develop ways of meeting both present and future dangers quickly. Transformation is a necessary component of dealing with each of the
four challenges. It has been difficult, however, to reach a consensus within DOD regarding the rate of transformation needed to cope with each of
these challenges. While the Secretary of Defense and other senior leaders have consistently sought to increase the rate of force transformation, some
have expressed caution, arguing that we cannot afford to increase the rate of transformation too dramatically as we fight the war on terror and that the
department might actually increase the risks to U.S. forces by going too fast. The current transformation rate represents a careful balance
between benefit and risk in U.S. force planning on terror and that the department might actually increase the risks to U.S. forces by going too
fast.
Modernized technology solves conventional terrorism- Afghanistan proves
Sloan, 2002 – Defence Analyst with the Directorate of Strategic Analysis at Canada's National Defence Headquarters
(Elinor, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, The Revolution in Military
Affairs: Implications for Canada and nato, p. 143)
It is the international security element of the response to terrorism that is most directly related to the revolution in military affairs
(RMA) and that is catalyzing trends in military technologies, doctrines, and organizations. In the war on terrorism in Afghanistan almost no area
of the RMA was left untouched. The campaign demonstrated the utility of advanced precision munitions and the doctrines of precision
force and disengaged combat. Some 60 percent of the munitions dropped on Afghanistan were precision-guided, compared with
about 6 percent in the Gulf War and 35 percent during the Kosovo air campaign.4 Their accuracy enabled the United States military to do
much of the work of combating international terrorism from safe standoff distances . Advanced surveillance, reconnaissance, and
command and control capabilities were also central, with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS) playing a particularly crucial role. Geared towards
monitoring troop movements, the Predator adapted easily to the task of tracking terrorists and was used both for determining air strike
targets and guiding and protecting U.S. ground forces. The Global Hawk strategic UAV, with its cloud-penetrating sensors, was also used
extensively for surveillance and reconnaissance.
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RMA – AT: KILLS MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS
Defense transformation yields a more effective military – allows for downsizing in forces
Peña 06- senior fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy – (Charles V., Orbis, “A Smaller Military to Fight the War on
Terror,” vol. 50, no. 2, p. 289-306, www.sciencedirect.com)
Defense transformation is another reason U.S. military forces can be downsized. Technological advances act as force multipliers that allow U.S. forces
to achieve equal or greater combat effectiveness with fewer troops. For example, both Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and
Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated that the U.S. military could engage and defeat on the battlefield the military forces
of adversaries using significantly smaller force size than required in previous conflicts. If fewer soldiers are needed to fight
wars, a smaller military can be a capable and effective fighting force. And although it seems counterintuitive, even a smaller U.S.
military would still be able to apply the Powell Doctrine of ‘‘overwhelming force,’’ because of superiority achieved via
advanced technology rather than sheer numbers.
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1NC POLITICS LINK – PLAN UNPOPULAR
Congress hates military benefits right now – budget cuts, and there’s no legislative team in favor of them
Philpott 09- former Army Times reporter- (Tom, “Defense Bill Can’t Provide More Time with Families”, dailypress.com, 7/5/09,
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_milupdate_0705jul05,0,6960689.story
Otherwise, the fiscal 2010 defense bill is lighter than usual on significant personnel initiatives. There are many possible reasons for
this. First, much has been done already to raise wartime pay, benefits and support programs. Indeed these gains, along with a dismal civilian job
market, have the services meeting recruiting and retention targets despite 200,000 U.S. troops continuing to rotate through Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, proposals that boost significantly the overall cost of defense, including military personnel accounts, are eyed today
against a backdrop of soaring budget deficits, aggravated by a $700 billion economic stimulus plan and billions more to bail
out banks, car companies and insurance firms. Third, President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress have
focused much legislative attention on a vigorous domestic agenda, to address the U.S. financial and housing crises, global warming and
energy need, and a campaign promise to provide a universal health care program. Fourth, with many senior defense appointees still to be named,
including an undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, there isn’t a team in place to push a new legislative agenda for
personnel this year. Fifth, the new administration’s defense budget request reached Capitol Hill three months later than
usual, leaving the armed services committees less time to hold hearings or weigh new initiatives. Given that delay, some
substantive personnel initiatives, such as a retroactive $500-a-month payment for members kept on active duty under stop
loss orders, have been attached to other bills, in this case a wartime supplemental appropriation.
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POLITICS LINK WALL – PLAN UNPOPULAR
Congress doesn’t like military benefits- bonus limitations prove
Powers 08 graduate of the Air Force NCO Academy, Senior NCO Academy, and the Air Force First Sergeant Academy
(Rod, “2009 Military Pay and Benefits”, about.com, 2008,
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/payandbenefits/a/congress09.htm)
Bonuses. Congress likes to keep tight control over military bonuses, such as enlistment, accession, and reenlistment
bonuses. When Congress approves such bonuses, they generally impose a one-year time limit, and then extend the time
limit for one year, when they pass the new Defense Authorization Act. This year is no different. Sections 611 through 620 of the
bill extends the current bonus authority to December 31, 2009. The bill also makes a few changes to bonus programs: The nurse accession bonus
increases from $10,000 to $20,000, and the monthly stipend for nurse officer candidates increase from $1,200 to $30,000 per year. Nuclear offers no
longer have to agree to a four or five-year commitment to receive nuclear officer continuation pay. The new bill changes this requirement to three
years. The bill also creates a new bonus of up to $12,000 per year for officer candidates who are in training for critically needed foreign languages or
cultural studies programs. Finally, a new accession bonus of up to $400,000 per year, and a retention bonus of up to $25,000 per year has been created
for psychologists. Keep in mind that while Congress authorizes these bonuses, and sets the maximum amounts payable, whether or not the bonuses
are offered are up to the individual services, depending on their current recruiting needs.
Congress doesn’t like military benefits- Tricare fees prove
Powers 08 graduate of the Air Force NCO Academy, Senior NCO Academy, and the Air Force First Sergeant Academy (Rod, “2009
Military Pay and Benefits”, about.com, 2008, http://usmilitary.about.com/od/payandbenefits/a/congress09.htm)
Tricare Fees. For three straight years in a row, the Pentagon has tried to increase Tricare enrollment and cost-share fees.
Each year, Congress has blocked them by including a provision in the annual Defense Authorization Act prohibiting any
increases for a year. This year is no different. Sections 701 and 702 of the act prohibits any increases in Tricare or
Pharmacy fees for another year. The act also waives co-payments for certain preventative care services, such as annual
physicals, vaccinations, and cancer screenings.
Military bonuses are unpopular—they are being cut now
USA Today 09 (“National Guard Cuts Forces After Recruiting Creates Surplus”, 5/8/09, http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-05-07national-guard-surplus_N.htm)
The Guard has already cut some bonuses, stopped accepting convicted felons on special waivers and lowered the maximum age for recruits.
The Guard stopped issuing felony waivers in 2007 in an attempt to increase the quality of its recruits, according to the Government Accountability
Office. The maximum enlistment age has been reduced from 42 to 35, said Grant Zachary, deputy chief of the Army National Guard's strength
maintenance division. "We've taken all kinds of measures in order to increase the quality of the force," Zachary said. The Army
National Guard began to rebuild in late 2005. Bonuses and more recruiters stemmed the decline, said Lt. Col. Ronald Walls, chief
of the Guard's strength maintenance division. Soldiers in critically needed specialties, such as military police, truck drivers and intelligence analysts,
were eligible for $20,000 bonuses, twice the former rate. The number of full-time recruiters jumped to 5,100 from 2,700. Another
successful program pays contractors $1,000 for each recruit who signs up for the Army National Guard . Along with lower bonuses, the
Guard is trimming other incentives. Budget documents released Thursday show the Pentagon proposes reducing education
benefits to Army National Guard members from $285 million in 2009 to $201 million in 2010.
Military payroll deficits prove Congress hates soldier benefits
MacKenzie 08 Writer for Talk Radio News Service (Meredith, “IF congress doesn’t act, soldiers will go unpaid”, 5/6/08,
Talk Radio News Service, http://talkradionews.com/2008/05/pentagon-if-congress-doesnt-act-soldiers-will-go-unpaid/
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell briefed the press, starting with a statement about the Global War on Terror budget supplemental request,
which is slated to go before the House this week. He said that currently the military is borrowing form Army payroll accounts in order
to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that if the Congress does not act the the Defense Department will not be
able to pay soldier, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan after June 15, 2008. He said the only options available if Congress does
not pass $108 billion in war supplementals would be for the Defense Department to petition Congress to allow certain “reprogramming” of other funds so that soldiers don’t’ go without pay.
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POLITICS LINK WALL – PLAN UNPOPULAR
New military spending unpopular—even Republicans hate it
Alarkon 09, staff writer for The Hill (Walter, “In Reverse, GOP Balks at War Funding”, 6/15/09, http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/inreversal-gop-balks-at-war-funding-2009-06-15.html)
House Republicans are preparing to vote en bloc against the $106 billion war-spending bill, a position once unthinkable for
the party that characterized the money as support for the troops. For years, Republicans portrayed the bills funding the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan as matters of national security and accused Democrats who voted against them of voting against the
troops. In 2005, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went so far as to say sending troops into battle and not paying for it would be an
“immoral thing to do.” And just last year, more House Republicans voted for the war supplemental bill than did Democrats,
who opposed the legislation because it did little to wind down the military effort in Iraq. But Republicans say this year is different. Democrats
have included a $5 billion increase for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help aid nations affected by the global financial crisis. Republicans
say that is reason enough to vote against the entire $106 billion spending bill and are certain voters will understand. “Once the American people
learn that the Democrats are using a war-funding bill for a global bailout, they’ll know what to do,” House Republican Conference Chairman Mike
Pence (Ind.) told The Hill. “We’ll take the message to the floor and to the American people, and I expect we’ll win this fight.” Republicans are
gambling that voters will be able to decipher the nuances of policymaking in Washington and reject campaign slogans that will accuse GOP lawmakers
of flip-flopping on what was once the party’s top priority. Or perhaps they are reading the polls that suggest the war has dropped from the America
public’s radar. Six years after the invasion of Iraq and nearly eight years after entering Afghanistan, the impact of military action on voters has taken a
backseat to the effect of the struggling economy. According to a Gallup poll taken last month, 47 percent of Americans said that the economy was
the country’s biggest problem. Another 14 percent specifically mentioned unemployment as their top issue. Nine percent put the situation in Iraq as
their main worry. The House will vote on a conference report for the supplemental war bill as early as Tuesday. The Senate is expected to vote on a
conference report later this week. The House initially passed a bill on May 14 by a vote of 368-60, and all but nine Republicans backed the measure.
But the House version did not include the IMF funding; the Senate version did, and the conference report adopted that provision. A spokesman for
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) noted the Republican support for the version that did not include the IMF funding and accused
Democrats of politicizing the issue by including non-war-funding provisions. “It is the Democratic leadership that is playing politics with our troops
by insisting on using them as leverage to pass over $100 billion in global bailout money for the IMF,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman.
However, Republicans also have used the supplemental war bills to advance non-related priorities. In 2006, Republican senators included $4 billion for
farm programs and $700 million for a railroad project on the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast. Republicans also embraced the war supplemental in
2007 — advanced by the Democratic-controlled Congress — that included an increase in the minimum wage. While the Obama administration has
said that increasing the IMF funding is crucial to the global response to the economic crisis, Republicans said the money could end up in countries that
are hostile to the United States. Once the GOP votes against war funding, Democrats will seek to paint Republicans as flip-floppers, just as
Republicans did when Democrats changed their position on a war-spending vote. The charge reached its peak in the 2004 presidential election, when
Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was forced to defend his 2003 vote against the war-spending measure after initially supporting it.
“Anytime there was a Democrat [who] raised concern on some of these supplementals, he was tarred as being anti-troop,” said a House Democratic
leadership aide. The Democratic aide charged House Republicans with “hypocrisy” for opposing a bill because of the IMF funding, which amounts
to less than 5 percent of the proposed spending in the legislation. “It seems like they’re putting the interest of the Republican Party and the ability
for them to develop a campaign narrative ahead of the interest of the troops,” he said . House Republican leaders said that most GOP
House members will oppose the bill, just as they did with the Democrats’ previous big-ticket items, including the $787 billion stimulus and the
$410 billion omnibus. “As written, if this bill is going to pass — with all of its troubling provisions and funding — it will need to pass on the
strength of Democrat votes, which is why Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] continues to pressure members of her own party,” said Brad Dayspring, a
spokesman for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
Military benefits unpopular with tax payers- too costly
Philpott- 07 former Senior editor for Army Times (Tom, “White House Hits Pay Plans”, military.com, 5/17/07,
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,136106,00.html#1)
As the House of Representatives prepared to pass its fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the White House urged lawmakers
to reconsider a host of costly personnel initiatives added by the armed services committee. Initiatives opposed by the White House
included: Bigger Pay Raises – The House was set to vote for a 3.5 percent basic pay increase for January 2008. That’s .5
percent higher than proposed by the Bush administration. The bill also would continue a string of annual raises set .5 percent higher
than private sector wage growth through at least 2012. A 3 percent raise next January would be enough to keep military pay competitive,
said the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in a “Statement of Administration Policy” on the bill, HR 1585, released May 16. The
“unnecessary” half-percentage point bump would cost taxpayers $265 million in 2008 and $7.3 billion over six years,
budget officials complained. “When combined with the overall military benefit package, the President’s proposal provides a good quality of life
for service members and their families,” said the OMB letter to committee leaders.
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Military benefits unpopular—they don’t get any attention
AP 09 (“Obama: Time to stop wasteful spending”, 5/22/09, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30884730/)
There was no specific figure on how much the legislation could save taxpayers, although lawmakers cited a recent
congressional report finding that 96 major weapons systems are now running almost $300 billion over original cost
estimates and are on average 22 months behind schedule. "If we had not squandered that $300 billion," said Rep. Rob
Andrews, D-N.J., a key sponsor, "we would have had enough to pay the salaries of the troops, the health benefits of the
troops and their families, for more than two years."
Military benefits are unpopular in Congress- GI Bill disagreement proves
Veterans Today 08 (“Born of Controversy: The GI Bill of Rights”, 12/18/08)
The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights—nearly stalled in Congress as members of
the House and Senate debated provisions of the controversial bill. Some shunned the idea of paying unemployed veterans
$20 a week because they thought it diminished their incentive to look for work. Others questioned the concept of sending
battle-hardened veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich. Despite their differences, all agreed
something must be done to help veterans assimilate into civilian life. Much of the urgency stemmed from a desire to avoid the missteps following
World War I, when discharged veterans got little more than a $60 allowance and a train ticket home. During the Great Depression, some veterans
found it difficult to make a living. Congress tried to intervene by passing the World War Adjusted Act of 1924, commonly known as the Bonus Act.
The law provided a bonus based on the number of days served. But there was a catch: most veterans wouldn't see a dime for 20 years. GI BILL A
group of veterans marched on Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1932 to demand full payment of their bonuses. When they didn't get it, most went
home. But some decided to stick around until they got paid. They were later kicked out of town following a bitter standoff with U.S. troops. The
incident marked one of the greatest periods of unrest our nation's capital had ever known. The return of millions of veterans from World War II gave
Congress a chance at redemption. But the GI Bill had far greater implications. It was seen as a genuine attempt to thwart a looming social and
economic crisis. Some saw inaction as an invitation to another depression. Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion
and former Republican National Chairman, is credited with drawing up the first draft of the GI Bill. It was introduced in the House on Jan. 10, 1944,
and in the Senate the following day. Both chambers approved their own versions of the bill. But the struggle was just heating up. The bill
almost died when Senate and House members came together to debate their versions. Both groups agreed on the education
and home loan benefits, but were deadlocked on the unemployment provision.
Military benefits unpopular—the Pentagon wants to increase the cost to servicemembers
NAUS 08 (National Association for Uniformed Services, “Congress Make it Official: no TRICARE Fee Hikes for
2009, 10/2/08, http://www.naus.org/what/documents/Release10-02-08NoTRICAREFeeHikes.pdf)
. The proposed increases and new fees, including increased prescription drug copayments for active duty dependents who
purchase medications at retail pharmacies, and doubling or even tripling of some TRICARE out-of-pocket costs for
retirees, were being pushed for by the Pentagon, following the report of its own handpicked Task Force on the Future of
Military Health Care. The President of the National Association for Uniformed Services® (NAUS), MG Bill Matz, USA
(Ret), along with NAUS Legislative Director Rick Jones, held firm to a member-supported position that any unwarranted
increases in TRICARE costs violated the promises made to those who spend a career in uniformed service.
“Servicemembers have already paid a higher premium for their health care in the form of a career of sacrifice and service to
country, often under arduous conditions,” said Matz. “I’m disappointed that the Administration fails to understand this,
especially during a time of war, but am pleased by Congress’ action to protect this important benefit by rejecting
TRICARE cost increase every year for the past three years,” he added. The fight against TRICARE fee increases will
resume next year, as the Defense Department continues to use the report of its Task Force as the blueprint for shifting
more of the costs of the military healthcare system to its beneficiaries, particularly retirees. “NAUS is sticking to our guns,
and we’re ready to fight this issue again,” said Matz. “Our members, all of our retirees, and those serving today deserve and
need a strong advocate on their behalf.”
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Military benefits are bipartisan and popular—08 REAP bill proves
Congressional Documents and Publications 08 (4/16, “Senators Unveil Bipartisan Legislation to Enhance Benefits for Our Country's
Citizen Soldiers.” Lexis.)
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators-including Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.),
Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Ken Salazar (D-Colo.),
and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)-today unveiled their plan to provide the men and women of our National Guard and Reserves with benefits
that better reflect their increased service to our country. The Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) Enhancement Act of 2008,
introduced today, would make three much-needed improvements to the structure and value of the Montgomery G.I. Bill education benefits
for our citizen soldiers by providing accruable benefits for those who have served multiple deployments; by replacing the current three-tiered
formula for REAP benefits with one that more accurately reflects service rendered; and by shifting jurisdiction of REAP benefits from the
Department of Defense to the Veterans Administration. "Last year, Congress made important progress by improving access to
educational benefits for our citizen soldiers, but too many inequities still remain in the current G.I. Bill," Lincoln said. "Approximately 3,000
members of Arkansas's 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team deployed to Iraq last month. The majority of the brigade has returned for a second tour,
but these members will not receive one additional penny of educational benefits because benefits are based on the single-longest deployment for each
soldier and are not accruable. With increasing frequency, our country is calling on our citizen soldiers to place themselves in harm's way on our behalf.
It's time that a grateful nation takes needed steps to more appropriately honor their sacrifice." "The government must ensure that the men and women
who serve our country excel when they go back to college," Brown said. "This bill would provide the Guard and Reserve with support when they
return so they can make a seamless transition back into their life at college. Soldiers should not be punished academically or financially because they
were called to duty." "As a nation, we lean on our National Guard to protect us at home and abroad," said Casey. "Pennsylvania currently has over 700
troops in Afghanistan. A year from now, Pennsylvania could have at least 7,000 National Guard members in Iraq. Providing them with these extended
benefits is the least we can do to repay them for spending time away from their families, homes and jobs for our protection." "Our brave men and
women didn't have to stand in line when they signed up to serve, and they shouldn't have to stand in line when they come home," said Klobuchar.
"We owe our Guard and Reserve members the opportunities for a better future - this bill honors their service as they return from long deployments in
Iraq and Afghanistan." "The scope of assignments given to the National Guard and Reserves has grown significantly since September 11, 2001,"
Crapo said. "Their efforts to meet our national security needs must be equally met with the appropriate recognition and compensation." "Our National
Guard and Reservists lay their lives on the line to protect our freedom. Their contributions in battle cannot be underestimated," Smith said. "Despite
serving in the trenches of the war on terror, they are not eligible to receive the same educational benefits as full-time members of the military. Giving
every opportunity for a bright future is the least we can do for the brave men and women who wear our uniform in battle." "Only in Washington
would some people fail to understand that soldiers who serve longer should receive more benefits. It's an insult to those who have worn our country's
uniform to tell them that only a fraction of the days they put their lives on the line are counted towards their benefits. This reform recognizes
every day each soldier spends serving their country in a war-zone and honors their sacrifices. Giving soldiers the educational
benefits they deserve is one small way we can repay our Guard and Reservists," said Kerry. "The brave men and women in our Guard and Reserve
have been fighting side-by-side with our active duty troops in Iraq and Afghanistan so that we may live in freedom. Our citizen Soldiers make great
sacrifices and honor their country by volunteering to serve - often second, third and fourth tours of duty," said Mikulski. "We must recognize and
honor their service and sacrifice, not just with words, but with deeds. That's why I am fighting for benefits that reflect the unprecedented sacrifices
they are making for their country." "The GI Bill helped millions of American soldiers get an education after World War II, opening important doors of
opportunity for them and propelling the growth of the middle class in this country," said Salazar. "Today, more than five years into the war in Iraq and
six years into the war in Afghanistan, it is time that we re-evaluate the educational benefits we are offering those who are serving
our country to ensure that we are properly honoring their service and doing all we can to improve retention and
recruitment. I am pleased to support the Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) Enhancement Bill of 2008 that aims to
improve the educational benefits available to the Guard and Reserve; those citizen soldiers who have been called upon to give more than ever
expected in the last six years. It is only right that we offer educational benefits that match their service." "The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have
placed an extraordinary burden on our reservists and National Guard, and we need to step up and show them how much we value their service," Bayh
said. "No Americans serving multiple and extended tours in a combat zone should come home and find themselves unable to afford an education."
The REAP Enhancement Act builds on the progress of Lincoln's Total Force Educational Assistance Enhancement and
Integration Act of 2007 (S.644). A significant provision of the Total Force bill-allowing citizen soldiers who have served
combat tours to access their educational benefits for up to ten years following their service, just as active duty soldiers have been able to
do-was signed into law as part of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The REAP Enhancement Act is endorsed
by the Military Officers Association of America.
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Military benefits popular—uniformed services lobbying groups are powerful
NAUS 08 (National Association for Uniformed Services, “Congress Make it Official: no TRICARE Fee Hikes for 2009,
10/2/08, http://www.naus.org/what/documents/Release10-02-08NoTRICAREFeeHikes.pdf)
Military retirees and active duty servicemembers won another huge legislative victory this week as Congress just said no to
drastic increases in TRICARE fees and copayments, and rejected establishment of new fees for TRICARE For Life and
TRICARE Standard beneficiaries in the fiscal year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The proposed increases and new
fees, including increased prescription drug copayments for active duty dependents who purchase medications at retail pharmacies, and
doubling or even tripling of some TRICARE out-of-pocket costs for retirees, were being pushed for by the Pentagon, following the report
of its own handpicked Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care. The President of the National Association for Uniformed
Services® (NAUS), MG Bill Matz, USA (Ret), along with NAUS Legislative Director Rick Jones, held firm to a member-supported
position that any unwarranted increases in TRICARE costs violated the promises made to those who spend a career in
uniformed service. “Servicemembers have already paid a higher premium for their health care in the form of a career of sacrifice and service to
country, often under arduous conditions,” said Matz. “I’m disappointed that the Administration fails to understand this, especially during a time of
war, but am pleased by Congress’ action to protect this important benefit by rejecting TRICARE cost increase every year for
the past three years,” he added. “This is a clear victory for our uniformed servicemembers and retirees,” said Jones, who had
testified against TRICARE fee increases on Capitol Hill several times in the spring and summer leading up to passage of the NDAA. “Even as the resolve of some other
military and veterans organizations has begun to crumble under the constant pressure by the Pentagon to unfairly increase these costs, the NAUS position against any
TRICARE cost increases has once again been vindicated by our elected officials,” he added. The fight against TRICARE fee increases will resume next year, as the
Defense Department continues to use the report of its Task Force as the blueprint for shifting more of the costs of the military healthcare system to its beneficiaries,
particularly retirees. “NAUS is sticking to our guns, and we’re ready to fight this issue again,” said Matz. “Our members, all of our
retirees, and those serving today deserve and need a strong advocate on their behalf.”
Military benefits popular—Congress hates anything that’s not perceived as supporting the troops
Shanker 09 Graduate of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Thom, New York Times “Plan to Shift Military Spending Faces Skepticism”,
5/10/09, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11gates.html)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited southern Afghanistan late last week not only to assess the American war effort, but also to showcase the kind of conflict he
thinks the military must prepare to fight in the years ahead. Mr. Gates predicted more of these messy, unconventional wars, and he argued that this kind of conflict
requires America to shift spending to items like mine-resistant vehicles, surveillance drones and medical-evacuation helicopters, at the expense of tanks, bombers and
aircraft carriers. But as Mr. Gates returned to Washington on Saturday for what will mostly likely be a lengthy, detailed and often
hostile series of Congressional budget hearings this week, opponents of his risk assessment are attacking the spending plan
as rendering America unprepared for traditional war. They say the proposal goes too far in shifting money to unconventional warfare from the
weapons needed to deter and defeat an enemy nation. And Mr. Gates’s focus on counterinsurgency training, they say, means that troops have not spent enough time
honing their skills for conventional conflict. Mr. Gates has slashed money for the Army’s future combat vehicle because its flat-bottom design
made it vulnerable to roadside bombs. Here in Afghanistan, he examined a fleet of angular, heavily armored mine-resistant vehicles sent as part of the multibillion-dollar
crash program he ordered to counter the insurgents’ weapon of choice. Standing beside one armored troop carrier crippled by a huge homemade mine, Mr. Gates spoke
with two soldiers who had emerged from the wreck unscathed. Others suffered a broken arm, a knee injury and a concussion. “These vehicles keep us alive,” said Lt.
Col. Michael Jernigan, commander of the Marines’ Combat Logistics Battalion 3. Mr. Gates has proposed eliminating money for the new, high-
tech presidential helicopter and capping purchases of a top-of-the-line jet-fighter — but here he also met with the crew operating 10
medical-evacuation helicopters ordered from the Nevada desert to be on standby in the deserts of southern Afghanistan. Mr. Gates had been angered by how long it
took to move the wounded, so he increased the number of helicopters here, plus three more field hospitals. Lt. Col. Christopher Barnett is commander of the Air Force
medical-evacuation helicopter unit moved to Afghanistan from war games in Nevada, where it played on the enemy team. “Now it’s about saving lives,” he told Mr.
Gates. And to highlight the defense secretary’s initiative to get faster tactical intelligence to American troops in combat, Mr. Gates toured a secret intelligence fusion
center, where a series of oversize screens showed real-time video broadcast from surveillance drones in the skies over insurgent havens of Afghanistan. “My job is to get
you what you need to get the mission done successfully,” Mr. Gates told several hundred Marines who just landed here at Camp Leatherneck as the vanguard of more
than 20,000 additional troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama. The defense industry, which makes what Mr. Gates wants as well as what he does not, has
chosen to mute its complaints on the proposed spending plan. But on Capitol Hill, champions of programs in jeopardy are preparing to do battle this week. The
proposed spending plan “is taking us down a path that leads to a weaker military that is poorly equipped,” said Senator
James M. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.“Are the forces being provided to our commanders in the field postured to counter the full spectrum of
threats both in the near and far term?” he asked during a speech on the Senate floor. “Are we providing our troops the best and most capable equipment available? We
are not today.” Others, like Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, cite the threats posed by nations around the world that remain true adversaries — or at least are
competitors to American interests. In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center in Washington, Mr. Cornyn said that China was
upgrading and expanding its navy to challenge American warships, that Russia was striving to intimidate its neighbors and re-establish a sphere of influence, and that
North Korea and Iran continued to expand their missile arsenals while pursuing nuclear weapons. “Despite so many security threats emerging or
growing,” Mr. Cornyn said, “the administration envisions a military that will have less strength to meet them.” Mr. Gates
explained during troop visits in Afghanistan that half of his budget proposal remained committed to conventional warfare, while 40 percent paid for
weapons that can be applied to both traditional and unconventional conflicts.
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GI Bill of Rights shows that military services are popular
Haley 09 reporter for WVLT, a CBS affiliate (Heather, “Post 9/11 Bill, Coverage Varies”. 7/8/09,
http://www.volunteertv.com/news/headlines/50257202.html)
The government's best known education program is getting its biggest boost since its World-War II era creation. The new
"Post 9/11" GI Bill starts August 1, and 30% more veterans are expected to enroll in college this Fall, compared to last
year. But how much you get for your education varies. With a little more than a month till the Fall semester starts, Sharon
Shastid is expecting to be busy, as the VA Coordinator for Pellissippi State Technical and Community College. Sharon says,
"Many people are so excited about it that they're planning to do what they need to do to be eligible for that, so I expect to
have a good showing for the new Chapter 33." Congress passed the "Post 9/11" Government Issue Bill last year, offering
veterans the most coverage of higher education since the original bill, in 1944. Sharon says, "There's a lot of them who
have injuries who are forcing them into new paths, and so this a great opportunity for them to have the funds necessary for
them to pursue that." But Sharon expects the major changes, to cause some confusion. She says, "We certify it differently
because there's different things the VA needs from us, so it's not going to be as it was, there's going to be some delays, they
need to have a lot of patience while this is all worked out." The new bill covers full in-state undergraduate tuition and fees
to any public college, plus a monthly stipend called a housing allowance. "And then they're going to get a book and supply
allowance that they haven't gotten before," added Sharon. It normally only covers the cost of public college, which can be
applied at a private school, but Maryville College is reaching out with special assistance. Bill Sliwa, Vice President of
Enrollment Management, says, "We're looking forward to this large number of people coming home that have served our
country, and working with them to help them in achieving the next step in achieving a college degree." Bill says the extra
aid they'll provide will make the $38,000 education free for 50 veterans.
Congress loves military incentives—everyone supports pay raises and other benefits
Philpott- 07 former Senior editor for Army Times (Tom, “White House Hits Pay Plans”, military.com, 5/17/07,
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,136106,00.html#1)
As the House of Representatives prepared to pass its fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the White House urged
lawmakers to reconsider a host of costly personnel initiatives added by the armed services committee. Initiatives opposed
by the White House included: Bigger Pay Raises – The House was set to vote for a 3.5 percent basic pay increase for January
2008. That’s .5 percent higher than proposed by the Bush administration. The bill also would continue a string of annual
raises set .5 percent higher than private sector wage growth through at least 2012. A 3 percent raise next January would be enough to
keep military pay competitive, said the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in a “Statement of Administration Policy” on the bill, HR
1585, released May 16. The “unnecessary” half-percentage point bump would cost taxpayers $265 million in 2008 and $7.3
billion over six years, budget officials complained. “When combined with the overall military benefit package, the President’s proposal
provides a good quality of life for service members and their families,” said the OMB letter to committee leaders . Both House Republicans and
Democrats disagreed. Rep. Thelma Drake, a Virginia Republican, offered the amendment, adopted by the armed services committees, to
stretch the string of bigger raises out to 2012. The Senate Armed Services Committee will mark up its version of the defense authorization
bill next week. That committee is said to be more supportive of the administration’s view that military pay is competitive now and will stay competitive
with a 3 percent raise next January. Higher TRICARE Fees – The White House is disappointed that the House bill does not allow Defense officials to
raise TRICARE fees and co- payments for retired military beneficiaries under 65 or allow implementation of some new set of cost containment
actions expected to be recommended soon by the DoD-appointed Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care. The administration says fee
increases are needed to sustain a high-quality health care benefit “by largely capturing the inflation increases that have occurred since cost sharing was
first established in 1996.” Blocking any such initiatives this year will add $1.86 billion to military health costs in 2008 and more than $19 billion
through 2013. The House bill also would restore $200 million in health care spending that Defense officials sought to remove
through unspecified “efficiency wedges” imposed on service medical budgets. TRICARE Retail Drugs “Fair Pricing” – The administration “strongly
opposes” a provision in the House bill to require drug manufacturers to give the Defense Department the same price discounts on drugs dispensed
through the TRICARE retail network that they provide to base pharmacies, the TRICARE mail order pharmacy and VA clinics and hospitals. The
White House says “market competition,” not government price control, “is the most effective way to promote discounts.” Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)
reiterated that argument on the House floor. He said price-setting in TRICARE retail pharmacies will eliminate retail competition and, in time,
endanger drug discounts for veterans using VA health care. At Buyer’s urging, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the armed services committee,
agreed to support a study of the impact of the fair pricing initiative on veterans and other beneficiaries . CRSC Expansion -- The House bill
would open the Combat-Related Special Compensation program to some disabled retirees forced from service short of
normal retirement because of service-connected injuries or ailments.
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Military benefits popular—they’re Michelle Obama’s pet project
Walsh 09 Chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report (Kenneth, US News and World Report,
“Michelle Obama Makes Military Families Her Mission”, 3/26/09,
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/03/26/michelle-obama-makes-military-families-her-mission.html)
First ladies are always the subject of fascination. Their experiences often illustrate the evolving roles of women in our society, and they are usually
an essential part of the governing team at the White House. Most first ladies have taken on special projects that reflect
their core values, such as highway beautification for Lady Bird Johnson and the promotion of reading for Laura Bush.
Michelle Obama is emulating her predecessors, with a difference. Her signature initiative—improving the lives of military
families—has become a personal mission and an emotional cause.
Obama absolutely adores military spending- no cuts despite recession
WSJ 08 (“Obama Adviser Doesn't Expect Defense Cuts National-Security Aide Says Future Combat Systems and MissileDefense Efforts Need a 'Serious Scrub'”, 11/3/08)
A top national-security adviser to Barack Obama said he expects military spending during a Democratic administration
wouldn't drop, a key concern for a defense industry that is accustomed to growing Pentagon budgets and anxious about potential cutbacks. Richard
Danzig, a U.S. Navy secretary during the Clinton administration and a leading contender to be the secretary of Defense in an Obama administration,
said he doesn't "see defense spending declining in the first years of an Obama administration. There are a set of demands
there that are very severe, very important to our national well-being." U.S. defense spending has risen at a steady clip
throughout the Bush administration.
Obama is wooed by military benefits
PRNewswire 09 (“Bridgepoint Education's Ashford University Extends Military Benefits to Children of Fallen Soldiers”, 7/7/09)
President Barack Obama has signed into law the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations bill that extends GI Bill benefits to the
children of fallen soldiers. The bill changes the current law and expands grants to survivors of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new
benefit, known as the Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship in honor of a fallen soldier with three young children, will take effect on
Aug. 1, 2009. The law will allow children of those who have died while on active duty since 9/11 to use benefits that could
have been transferred to them if their military parent had lived. Until now, the Veterans Administration had to tell children
of soldiers killed in the line of duty that they weren't eligible for the GI Bill because their father or mother did not serve
long enough before they died.
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Current bills prove Congress likes military benefits
De Soto 09- Staff writer for The News (Niki, “Veterans Benefits May Increase”, The News, 7/9/09,
http://www.areawidenews.com/story/1553515.html)
During the press conference, Congressman Berry discussed the status of bills signed into law during the last Congress such as the new GI Bill
of Rights for the 21st Century, as well as historic funding increases for the Veterans Administration. In addition, a majority of the press conference
was focused on what Congress will be doing in the upcoming year to provide additional assistance for veterans and their
families. In June, the House of Representatives passed a one-year expansion of eligibility for concurrent receipt of Military
Retired Pay and Veterans' Disability Compensation, also known as Concurrent Receipt. This bill will allow service
members that have been retired for service disability to concurrently receive military retired pay from the Department of
Defense and disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Congressman Berry will be working to make this
temporary fix permanent in the upcoming legislative session. Also, Congressman Berry is an original co-sponsor of H.R.2673, the Equal Treatment
for Widows of Wartime Veterans Act, which would correct a discrepancy in the pension benefits paid to widows of
wartime veterans. Currently, a wartime veteran with a spouse receives a maximum benefit of $15,493 in pension benefits. If the spouse of the
veteran passes away, the veteran's pension is reduced to $11,830 a year, the same amount received by a veteran without a spouse. However, if the
veteran dies, the surviving spouse's pension is reduced to $7,933 a year. The bill will increase the surviving spouse benefit to the same
amount as the wartime veteran benefit. "The sacrifices our troops and their families make while serving our country are enormous," said
Berry. "Any instance where a veteran or their family receives less than the best services and benefits this country is able to provide is not only shameful
-- it's wrong. As we continue to take steps to improve health care and benefits for our troops and their families, we must honor their service with real
actions that fulfill our commitment and demonstrate how grateful we are for their service."
Congress likes military benefits- GI Bill in the works
Powers 08 graduate of the Air Force NCO Academy, Senior NCO Academy, and the Air Force First Sergeant Academy (Rod, “Congress Revamps
GI Bill” about.com, 6/23/2008, http://usmilitary.about.com/od/payandbenefits/a/congress09.htm)
Congress has revamped the GI Bill for military members (including active duty, Reserves, and National Guard), who have at least 90
days of active duty service after September 11, 2001. The new program, commonly referred to as the "GI Bill for the 21st Century,"
offers substantial increases in monthly education benefits. The post 9/11 program goes into effect on August 1, 2009 and
includes provisions to pay full tuition, $1,000 per year for books and supplies, and a monthly housing stipend. The bill was
approved by the House on Thursday, and the Senate is expected to approve it this week. After that, the bill will go to the
President to sign into law. President Bush has indicated he will sign the bill.
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XT: PLAN POPULAR
Obama and Congress are enchanted by military benefits
McMichael 09 Staff Writer for Army Times (William, “Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010”, 3/4/09, Army Times,
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/03/miliytary_payraise_030209w/)
But there’s
good news for troops who will get a pay raise next year, along with improved benefits — President Barack
Obama is proposing a 2.9 percent military pay raise effective Jan. 1, 2010, a figure that would match, but not exceed, average
private-sector wage growth. The pay raise is contained in a broad-stroke summary of Obama’s first federal budget. Full details of the budget are not expected to be released until
late March or early April. In every year of this decade so far, the military pay raise has been at least half of a percentage point above average private-sector wage growth, a sustained effort by
Congress to close a purported gap between military and civilian pay that some say has existed since 1982. The gap reportedly is now at 2.9 percent. The Bush administration also proposed
military pay raises that matched private-sector wage growth in at least two years of this decade, but lawmakers consistently bumped up the increase slightly in the final defense budget. And
despite the poor economic climate, no one in Congress appears eager to be portrayed as unsupportive of the troops. The
minimum raise is set in law; each year’s increase must at least match the private-sector wage growth as measured by the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index. Exceptions can be granted,
but the Pentagon has not submitted such a request, defense officials say. Obama’s proposal to match, but not exceed, the ECI is the right call this year, said former defense budget analyst
Michael O’Hanlon of The Brookings Institution. “I don’t think there’s any need for a big new personnel benefit at this point, even though our troops are performing so heroically,” O’Hanlon
said. “We’ve taken pretty good care of them, to the extent that money can address these kinds of issues. There’s plenty of room for debate about whether we should be doing more in other ways
The pay raise should be accompanied by improved
health care and benefits. Obama did not provide many details, leaving those to the full defense budget that will go to Congress some time in late March or early
April. But Obama made clear during a Feb. 24 address to Congress that troops and their families should be recognized and
rewarded for their service. “Our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad, and more are readying to deploy,” Obama said. “To each and every one
of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: We honor your service,
we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support.” Obama’s defense budget request for fiscal 2010 totals $533.7 billion, a
by, for example, increasing the size of the force. But I think financially, we take pretty good care of people. ”
4 percent increase over this year’s figure of $513.3 billion. That does not include funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has asked for $75.5
billion for the rest of this fiscal year and $130 billion in fiscal 2010 in wartime supplemental funding. At the same time , the administration will begin
shifting back into the base defense budget spending for some programs that have been supported out of the wartime
supplemental budget in recent years. The administration says these programs do not belong in the “wartime emergency” category. They include “certain
medical services, family support initiatives, security assistance to foreign governments, and enhancements to intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance.” Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he thought the overall
amount requested “is a reasonable level which will allow us to provide the resources needed to support our troops and
keep America safe.”
Democrats want more military benefits- SB. 3001 proves
Powers 08 graduate of the Air Force NCO Academy, Senior NCO Academy, and the Air Force First Sergeant Academy (Rod, “2009 Military Pay
and Benefits”, about.com, 2008, http://usmilitary.about.com/od/payandbenefits/a/congress09.htm)
This year's Defense Authorization Act has been passed by the full Congress and the President has now signed it into law. Here are the major
pay and benefit changes for 2009: 2009 Pay and Benefit Changes Basic Pay. Section 601 of the bill increases 2009 Basic Pay 3.9 percent over 2008 basic
pay rates. This is one-half percent above the average increases in civilian pay wages. This marks the eighth consecutive year that Congress has decided to approve a
basic pay increase that was slightly higher than the civilian wage growth for the year. This brings the pay gap between military and civilian wages down to 2.9 percent. The pay raise is effective on January 1, which means that
military members will see the raise in their January 15 paychecks. Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). As with last year, Congress has funded BAH at 100 percent of the average rental costs for each area. Each year, the
Department of Defense conducts in-depth surveys of housing rental costs around the nation. These surveys are then used to set the individual BAH rates for the upcoming year. The 2009 BAH rates average 6.9 percent higher
Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS). BAS rates are automatically calculated each year, based on the on the Bureau
of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, which is prepared by the Department of Agriculture each December. The 2009 BAS rates have increased 10 percent over 2008 BAS rates.
than the 2008 BAH rates. The new BAH will be effective on January 1.
The new rates are effective on January 1. Bonuses. Congress likes to keep tight control over military bonuses, such as enlistment, accession, and reenlistment bonuses. When Congress approves
such bonuses, they generally impose a one-year time limit, and then extend the time limit for one year, when they pass the new Defense Authorization Act. This year is no different. Sections 611
the bill extends the current bonus authority to December 31, 2009. The bill also makes a few changes to bonus programs:
The nurse accession bonus increases from $10,000 to $20,000, and the monthly stipend for nurse officer candidates increase from
through 620 of
$1,200 to $30,000 per year. Nuclear offers no longer have to agree to a four or five-year commitment to receive nuclear officer continuation pay. The new bill changes
this requirement to three years. The bill also creates a new bonus of up to $12,000 per year for officer candidates who are in
training for critically needed foreign languages or cultural studies programs. Finally, a new accession bonus of up to $400,000 per
year, and a retention bonus of up to $25,000 per year has been created for psychologists. Keep in mind that while Congress authorizes these bonuses,
and sets the maximum amounts payable, whether or not the bonuses are offered are up to the individual services, depending on their current recruiting needs. Retiree Pay
Raise. Military retirees receive an annual COLA, or Cost of Living Allowance, each year to keep up with inflation. This year, the COLA has been set at 5.8
percent. Retirees will see this raise in their January 1 paycheck. New GI Bill. Congress has created a new GI Bill, which they have dubbed " The GI Bill of the 21st Century "
for anyone who has had at least 90 days of active duty after September 11, 2001. Depending on the amount of active duty time, this bill offers several enhanced benefits over the Active Duty
Montgomery GI Bill and the Reserve Montgomery GI Bill. Details are still being worked out, but under the new GI Bill program, military members will be able to transfer some of their benefits
to spouses and children. Spouse Tuition Assistance. Section 582 of the
act allows the Secretary of Defense to set up a tuition assistance program for military
spouses to help them get or keep a job. This new program would be designed to pay tuition assistance for the purpose of taking college courses or training resulting in a credential or license.
The law doesn't specify tuition assistance amounts or what courses would be authorized, so that will be up to DOD, should they decide to implement the program. If DOD decides to implement the program (the law doesn't
mandate it, only authorizes it), then it will become effective whenever DOD establishes the program details.
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POLITICS LINKS – IMMIGRANTS IN THE MILITARY UNPOPULAR
Congress hates illegal immigrants—cracking down on them is bipartisan
States News Service 07 (11/7, “KANJORSKI JOINS 90 COLLEAGUES IN INTRODUCING BIPARTISAN BILL TO HALT ILLEGAL
IMMIGRATION.” Lexis.)
Yesterday, Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11) helped
introduce H.R. 4088, the SAVE Act, which aims to halt illegal
immigration in the United States through stronger worker verification and increased enforcement of America's borders.
The bill uses a three-point strategy to combat illegal immigration by securing the borders through recruitment and increasing the
number of border patrol agents, mandating that employers verify work authorization before hiring new employees, and enforcing existing laws
pertaining to illegal immigration. "Illegal immigration is an issue of utmost importance to Pennsylvania and America. Through the SAVE Act we can
reduce illegal immigration and greatly improve the security of our borders by incorporating stronger enforcement and verification approaches," said
Congressman Kanjorski. "I have consistently voted to bring an end to illegal immigration, and this bill follows such a course to rectify our
current immigration policies through multi-pronged, thorough, and bipartisan action." The SAVE Act would result in the following
actions, among others: Mandate that within three years, that all employers check the status of potential employees through an online E-Verification
system to confirm the potential employee's eligibility to work in the United States, Hire 8,000 additional U.S. Border Patrol Agents within 5 years,
Employ 1,150 additional U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents to enhance enforcement efforts, Require that the Department of
Homeland Security increase its use of aerial technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, cameras, and satellites, among others, to ensure that the
borders are watched at all times, Provide more facilities and resources for the detention, processing, and removal of illegal immigrants, Require
cooperation between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to secure the border and share equipment to reduce
costs and save taxpayers money. Congressman Kanjorski maintains a strong and consistent record of voting against illegal immigration, including:
March 21, 1996 and September 25, 1996 - Improving deterrence of illegal immigration by increasing border patrol and improving the employment
verification system (Roll no. 89 and 432, 104th Congress), May 6, 2004 - Opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants and favoring an enforcement-only
approach (Congressional Record), December 7, 2004 - Expanding the grounds of inadmissibility and deportation of illegal immigrants and increased
penalties for smuggling aliens (Roll no. 544, 108th Congress), February 10, 2005 - Making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain driver's
licenses (Roll no. 31, 109th Congress), December 16, 2005 - Mandating that employers confirm the authenticity of employees' Social Security numbers
against a national database of legitimate numbers (Roll no. 661, 109th Congress), December 16, 2005 - Making it a federal crime for illegal immigrants
to be in the U.S. unlawfully (Roll no. 661, 109th Congress), December 16, 2005 - Increasing systematic surveillance at our borders (Roll no. 661, 109th
Congress), August 11, 2006 - Supporting the establishment of a Northeastern Pennsylvania office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(Letter to Julie Myers, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), September 14, 2006 - Favoring constructing a fence along
the Mexican border (Roll no. 446, 109th Congress), September 21, 2006 - Clarifying that state and local law enforcement have the "inherent authority"
to apprehend illegal immigrants and transfer them to custody (Roll no. 468, 109th Congress), September 21, 2006 - Creating new criminal penalties for
constructing illegal tunnels under the U.S. border and doubling penalties for smuggling illegal immigrants, drugs, or weapons of mass destruction
through an illegal tunnel (Roll no. 469, 109th Congress), June 15, 2007 - Providing $8.9 million for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in
2008 (Roll no. 491, 110th Congress), June 15, 2007 - Appropriating $4.8 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 2008 (Roll no.
491, 110th Congress), July 31, 2007 - Excluding illegal immigrants from access to Medicaid, among other actions (Letter to Chairman Dingell, 110th
Congress), August 2, 2007 - Co-sponsoring legislation to pressure the Bush Administration to enforce current immigration laws and improve border
security to reduce illegal immigration (H.R. 499, 110th Congress). The bipartisan SAVE Act has 90 original co-sponsors, including 44
Democrats and 46 Republicans, illustrating that halting illegal immigration is an important issue across both party lines. The
bill will now go to the committee of jurisdiction for further review.
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1NC SHORT-TERM ENLISTMENT CP
Text: The United States Department of Defense should offer a 15-month enlistment option for participation in
the Armed Services.
Short term Enlistments Solve Recruiting Crisis and Military Quality
Moskos 05 - Professor of sociology at Northwestern University.
[Charles, A former U.S. Army draftee in the combat engineers in Germany, his research has taken him to combat units in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi
Arabia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq., “Toward a New Conception of the Citizen Soldier,” E-Notes, Foreign Policy Research Institute,
April 7, 2005, pg. http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050407.military.moskos.newconceptioncitizensoldier.html]
A New Citizen Soldier - The era of the Abrams Doctrine has come to an end. Mobilization on the scale of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) reveals
that heavy reliance on reserve components for such missions cannot be a long-term option. This is due to both unpredictable disruptions in personal and familial life and, most especially,
Now is precisely the time
to explore the use of short-term active- duty enlistments to perform duties currently conducted by reservists and even
active-duty personnel. Namely, college graduates (and to some degree stop-outs) to fulfill the demands for a 21st century citizen
soldier. Two-thirds of American high school graduates now go directly on to some form of higher education. Of these, about half will graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Each year 1.2
million young people graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Yet military recruitment of college graduates at the enlisted level is minuscule. Recruiting just 10 percent of
these college graduates would solve the current recruitment woes of the armed forces. Very significantly, among the college graduates,
40 percent intend to go on to some form of graduate work. In point of fact, a higher percentage of youth now go on to graduate school then went to
undergraduate school in the post-WWII years of the original G.I. Bill. The average college graduate today leaves with about $19,000 in debt. The
average debt of one who attends graduate school is $38,000! The most practical way of alleviating impending shortfalls and
excessive reliance on reserve components is to introduce a short enlistment option targeted at college attendees and college graduates. This would
entail a 15-month active duty commitment. Such 15-month enlistees could well perform many of the roles now being met by reserve
components as well as some number of active duty personnel. There is a definite, albeit limited, market of college graduates who state
a propensity for military service if the active-duty commitment is 15 months coupled with generous educational benefits. In the fall of 2002 enlistment
propensities of undergraduates were assessed through surveys conducted at four representative universities: Northwestern University, University of Arizona,
the increased likelihood of casualties. Emerging problems in recruitment and retention make reserve components a less reliable manpower resource.
University of California-Los Angeles, University of Illinois-Chicago. A similar survey was completed in October 2004 at Northwestern University. These were the first and only surveys
on enlistment propensity ever conducted on a university campus. Options were given with different enlistment lengths and educational benefits. The educational benefits options ranged
Twentythree percent indicated an enlistment propensity for the 15-month option (with $15,000 in educational benefits) compared to two
from $60,000 for a four-year enlistment to $15,000 for the 15-month enlistment. Across all universities, shorter terms had a notable positive effect on enlistment propensity.
percent for the four- year option (with $60,000 in educational benefits). Few of the students at the more selective universities had close relatives or friends who were serving in the
military. Noteworthy, there was no correlation between military knowledge (half of the students did not know a colonel was higher than a major). There was also no correlation between
Very significantly, the October 2004 survey at Northwestern
specifically asked how many of the students would consider serving as a prison guard in places like Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo. In return, they would have their student loans forgiven and be given G.I. Bill benefits for graduate school. A remarkable 11 percent said that this
would be a "very likely” option and another 18 percent would “seriously consider” such an option. Noteworthy is that the leading
political values and enlistment, with liberals and conservatives having the same propensity.
scholar on prison guards has also argued that short-term "citizen-guards” are preferable to professional prison guards.
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1NC POLITICS NET BENEFIT (OBAMA GOOD)
First, the Department of Defense enacts the CP – avoids politics because it’s an agency without connections to
Congress—wouldn’t affect the agenda.
And, The CP is politically popular—“Call to Service” bill proves that Congress loves short-term enlistment
Magee 02 – fellow for Citizenship and National Service at the Progressive Policy Institute
(Marc, 5/22. “Congress and National Service: Benchmarks for Success.”
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=115&subsecID=145&contentID=250516)
The introduction last October of a comprehensive, bipartisan "Call to Service" bill by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John
McCain (R-Ariz.), followed by the president's call for a major expansion of civilian service opportunities in his 2002 State of
the Union Address, have together created the best atmosphere in nearly a decade for a quantum leap toward a system of
voluntary national service. But while support for national service in Washington is becoming quite broad, it is not yet deep.
Entrenched forces on the political left and right and their friends in Congress are unlikely to launch a serious effort to defeat action on national service this year, but they
can and will attempt to water down the legislation so that it represents a diffuse showering of money on existing volunteerism efforts rather than a robust commitment to serious and sustained civilian and military
service. Indeed, that's the very tactic that was employed by critics of national service in 1993, when President Clinton's AmeriCorps proposal was significantly diminished in Congress from its original thrust as a full-tilt
commitment to full-time service to the country. The odds of another quiet counter-revolution against national service have been materially increased by President Bush's apparent decision to adopt a passive approach
to legislative action, letting Republicans in the House and the HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee in the Senate take the lead. Already there are reports that GOP leaders would prefer a smaller,
more diffuse commitment to service than the president has called for, while HELP staffers have put out the word that the college work study provisions endorsed both by the president and by Sens. Bayh and McCain
are "dead on arrival" at the behest of higher education lobbyists. The House Subcommittee on Select Education, chaired by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), will soon take up a national service bill that embodies the
principles on national service outlined by the White House. GOP strategists plan to use this bill to demonstrate broad Republican support for the White House plan while shifting momentum away from potential
Democratic alternatives. Reports suggest that the Senate HELP committee, chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), will begin work on a bill of its own as the details of the House bill are revealed. Since virtually
everyone involved in legislative action will claim to be supporting national service , it's important that national service advocates lay down clear benchmarks on the elements that must be included in any meaningful
Congressional initiative. This issue brief offers five such benchmarks: 1) a significant expansion of the scale of national service, 2) a commitment to preserving the "national" characteristics of national service, 3) a
focus on both military and civilian service, 4) a restoration of the original community service purpose of the work study program, and 5) an effort to connect homeland security to the existing national service
infrastructure. Expand the Scale of National Service Citizenship is founded on rights as well as responsibilities. National service is one important way in which Americans can give something back to their country and
their fellow citizens. However, in order for national service to be a truly transformative force in American civic life, this call to service must be matched with programs of sufficient size and scale to provide all
Americans who want to serve with the opportunity to do so. When President Clinton signed the bill that created AmeriCorps, he rightly described it as a down payment in the effort to make national service a rite of
passage in American life. The Bayh-McCain bill makes good on this down payment by quintupling the size of the AmeriCorps program from the current 50,000 members to 250,000 members by 2010. Half of this
increase is dedicated to meeting the needs currently being tackled by AmeriCorps members -- tutoring students, constructing houses, vaccinating children, providing disaster relief -- while the other half is dedicated to
meeting the new challenges of homeland security. The president's proposal to increase AmeriCorps by 50 percent to 75,000 members by 2003 is an important first step in this effort to significantly expand full-time
service opportunities and should be the minimum that progressives are willing to accept in this year's national service legislation. Keep the "National" in National Service National service is distinct from part-time,
unpaid volunteerism. As the political base of support for national service is expanded to include former opponents, it is important that the programs themselves retain their focus on full-time service members tackling
critical problems on a national scale. Although fewer congressional Republicans now call for the outright elimination of AmeriCorps, conservative skeptics are pushing two restrictions that reduce the national
characteristics of national service and risk transforming AmeriCorps into a vehicle for the "thousand points of light" vision of part-time volunteerism. First, while the original 1993 legislation specifies that 67 percent
of the AmeriCorps funds are to be distributed through the states and 33 percent are to be distributed directly to national nonprofit service organizations by the Corporation for National and Community Service, for
the last five years Republicans in Congress have capped funding for national direct grants at 17 percent. This cap has resulted in an increase in the cost of operating nationwide service organizations since expansion to
new states has required the establishment of a new funding stream for each state. For example, the national service organization Public Allies estimates the additional time and expense of managing six separate state
commission grants resulted last year in an extra $150,000 in administrative costs. City Year, one of the oldest and most widely praised AmeriCorps programs, reports similar administrative burdens as the cap in federal
funds has forced it to manage 10 separate state commission grants. This capping of national direct grants restricts the growth of the nationwide service programs like City Year, Teach for America, Public Allies, and
Habitat for Humanity that have proven the most successful in creating meaningful service opportunities, and therefore undermines the effort to expand the scale of national service. Progressives should support efforts
to boost the amount of funds distributed directly to national service organizations by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Second, this year Republicans in Congress have sought to further restrict
funding for national service by arguing that the average cost per service member, now under the control of the Corporation for National and Community Service, should be set in legislative stone at $12,400. In
addition, this cost per member would be applied to every program regardless of the cost of living in the area in which it operates and the degree of training required for its specific activities, in contrast to the flexibility
allowed under the current rules. It is important to note that this $12,400 cap is already significantly below, for example, City Year's per member costs for training and living expenses. This statutory cap would put the
Corporation in a legislative straightjacket that prevents it from choosing between programs based on the value of the services provided instead of simply the cost per member. As a result, PPI believes this cap would
reduce the quality of the training and supervision given to AmeriCorps members and encourage programs to use a greater percentage of less-costly, part-time AmeriCorps members. While creating a more cost
effective AmeriCorps program is a worthy goal, this goal would be better served if Congress focused on measuring the value of the service provided per dollar by the organizations instead of fixing their expenses per
member at a uniform minimum rate. Focus on Both Military and Civilian Service The primary value promoted through national service is reciprocal responsibility: the idea that Americans should share equally in both
the rights and responsibilities of active citizenship. Since no form of service is more fundamental to citizenship than that of preserving our free institutions, PPI believes that we must make every effort possible to
assure that our military recruitment policies encourage service from young Americans of all backgrounds. This requires that military service be understood for what it is -- the most fundamental form of national service
At
the heart of the military provisions of the Bayh-McCain proposal is a new short-term enlistment track in the Armed
Forces designed for young Americans who want to serve their country in the military without choosing a military
career. According to Northwestern University Prof. Charles Moskos, the country's pre-eminent military sociologist, this short-term
enlistment track would remove one of the most important barriers to military service for college graduates: the three
to five year terms of service, which are perceived as obstacles to their larger career goals. For example, findings from a survey of
American college students conducted by Prof. Moskos for the U.S. Army shows that on average the shorter the enlistment term, the greater the
percentage of students who say their enlistment in the military is very likely or possible. This pattern was strongest among the
and the heart of any comprehensive national service initiative. While Bayh-McCain views military and civilian service as coequal pillars of national service; the White House proposal sees no such connection.
young Americans currently least likely to enlist: students from upper-tier universities. While President Bush remains silent on how military service is connected to
his national service initiative, progressives have been working behind the scenes to overcome the traditional skepticism of the
Department of Defense in linking military service and national service through a short-term enlistment policy. This effort cleared a major
hurdle in Congress recently with the Personnel Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee voting 11-0 to
include a modified version of the Bayh-McCain proposal for a short-term enlistment option and increased access for military recruiters
in the 2003 Defense Authorization bill (the entire bill was later approved 17-8 by the full committee).
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The CP avoids politics—short-term enlistments are popular with the public—it’s perceived as crucial support for
the military
Wong 08 - Research Prof of Military Strategy
[Strategic Studies Institute: “Maintaining Support for Military Operations” by Leonard Wong. January 2008. Pdf online @
(http://www.911investigations.net/IMG/pdf/doc-148.pdf)]
There are two possible scenarios taking place in America today. The first suggests that our nation has returned to an era
similar to the early days of the Cold War. People who earnestly desire our demise have threatened our national existence,
our shores no longer protect us, and, unless we take action, our way of life is in danger. Civil defense is back, the National Guard has returned to
doing more than disaster relief, and intelligence is moving back into a prominent role in national security. As a result, public support of
military action is high, and America will indefinitely continue to approve of the use of the military to safeguard the nation. The other scenario
suggests that this current situation is merely a temporary disruption. The public is willing to support military action for
months and even longer in order to return to life as it was before September 11. The public, in this scenario, is looking forward to
the day when the military finally gets its hands on terrorism and is successful in attempts to “stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.”
Military force is necessary and supported, but only long enough to permit the American public to get back to enjoying
“normal” lives again. Of course, our future probably lies somewhere between these two scenarios. Americans are uniting in this fight because we
understand that this is a total war like the Cold War, yet we are also being told to “Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great
destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life.” Americans want the single-minded resolve that
characterized the fight against communism found early in the Cold War, but our society is also struggling not to “let the terrorists win” by minimizing
the changes to everyday life. This unique combination of public expectations has three implications in maintaining public support for military actions.
First, the public desires and expects victory. A surprising 87 percent of Americans said they believe the United States “absolutely
must” capture or kill bin Laden and break up al Qaeda, and 8 out of 10 were confident that this would happen. Similarly, 91
percent said the United States must reduce the number of terrorist attacks in the United States, and an equal percentage was confident that this would
be done. The military must show the public that their expectations are being met. Tactical successes must be periodically publicized. A
decrease in the threat of terrorist attacks will be evident, but the public must be occasionally made aware that its armed forces are why the terrorists are
on the run. Part of the strategic planning for this war on terrorism needs to include combining operational security requirements with the realization
that public support is part of America’s center of gravity in this war. The focus should not be on “spin” or public relations, but on showing a
correlation between military action and a decrease in terrorist activity. Second, as images of the collapsing towers and burning Pentagon
wear off, and Americans realize that their contribution to this war effort is to live as if there were no war, public support
will drop as individual involvement in the war decreases. It is hard to mobilize the public when their role is not to ration or to step up
security, but to act normal. Part of the message the military sends to the public must emphasize that America’s military is part of
America. The public cannot be permitted to disconnect psychologically from the war effort. This may be difficult as much of the
war will be conducted by less visible special operations troops instead of entire divisions. It may be time to resurrect notions of national service (not
the draft) as military manpower gets stretched beyond current available end strengths. This will be especially crucial for the reserve component in a
protracted war. National service will require the sacrifice that pulled the public together in other major wars. A good interim
solution is to immediately offer short-term enlistments (18 months) to college graduates in exchange for college loan
repayment. These enlistees could serve a year in Bosnia, Kosovo, or Afghanistan and then revert to several years in the reserve component. The
short-term benefit would be valuable, high quality manpower in the active and reserve components, but the longer lasting
and more important result would be an America that is more connected to its armed forces
And, public popularity is key to the agenda – passing popular policies insures victories in congress – studies
prove
SPITZER 93 Prof of Poli Sci, State University of New York
[Robert J., President and Congress: Executive Hegemony at the Crossroads of American Government]
An important empirical study of the relationship between the President’s public standing and presidential support in
Congress concluded that the two are inextricably linked. Presidents who manage to satisfy public expectations are
rewarded by high and stable public support. In turn, public support translates directly into success for the President in
Congress. According to the data analysis of political scientists Charles Ostrom, Jr., and Dennis Simon, “the cumulative rate of
roll-call victories [for the President in Congress] will decline by three points for every ten-point drop in [public] approval.”
In turn, “Presidential effectiveness in the legislative arena is an important component in maintaining public support.” Naturally, many of the factors
that influence the President’s standing are beyond direct control, such as the onset of a sharp economic downturn at the start of an administration.
But Ostrom and Simon conclude that a shrewd President can influence public support and that the typical long-term decline in a
President’s public standing is by no means inevitable.
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“Call to Service” was bipartisan—proves the CP is politically popular
Magee and Nider 02 - director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute & director of foreign
and security studies at the Progressive Policy Institute.
(Marc and Steven J, 12/17. “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror.” PPI Policy Report.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=115&subsecID=145&contentID=251099)
In a breakthrough that marries national service and national defense, President Bush recently signed into law a new, short-term
enlistment option for America's Armed Forces. It would enable volunteers to sign up for 18 months of service on active duty -- the
average enlistment now is four years -- followed by service in the Reserves and then either a period of availability in the Individual Ready
Reserves or civilian service in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps. The provision, contained in this year's defense authorization bill, represents
a triumph for Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who proposed such a "citizen soldier" option in legislation last year
aimed at enlarging national service. The short-term enlistment is intended to attract volunteers who would like to serve their country in uniform
without pursuing a military career. Supporters say short-term enlistments would appeal especially to college-educated youths, who are now
dramatically underrepresented in America's all-volunteer force. The creation of a citizen soldier enlistment track marks the most important
change in America's military recruitment policy since the draft was ended. The introduction of the all-volunteer force in 1974 ushered in an era
of military recruitment that targeted people primarily interested in cash, job security, or technical training. The citizen soldier track adds a civic
dimension to this economic model. It offers the nation's most fortunate sons and daughters a voluntary equivalent of the old draft -- a way to
contribute to America's defense without choosing a military career. With America embroiled in a global war on terrorism, and perhaps soon to
be engaged in a conflict with Iraq, public attention inevitably turns to a crucial question: Who is doing the fighting and dying for all of us?
Drawing on recent survey data and analysis of the latest Department of Defense and General Accounting Office reports, in this paper we
conclude that the current recruitment policy -- based exclusively on economic incentives and career-track enlistments -- does not attract well-off
and well-educated citizens. Moreover, it has created a force structure ill suited for long-duration conflicts and driven steady increases in
personnel costs. We further conclude that the use of citizen soldiers, together with a national call to service, could help spread the risks of
defending America more widely and equitably, ease the strains created by long-duration conflicts, and help contain rising manpower costs. First
proposed in the mid-1980s by Northwestern University's Charles Moskos, the nation's preeminent military sociologist, and featured in the
Democratic Leadership Council's 1988 book Citizenship and National Service, the short-term enlistment option is not designed to replace the
professional soldiers recruited through the traditional career track. Instead, it aims to supplement a core professional military with a rotating
system of citizen soldiers. In 1989, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.) introduced the "Citizenship
and National Service Act," which incorporated both the short-term enlistment option and the civilian service initiatives
developed by Moskos and the DLC. While the bill failed to pass in either chamber of Congress, the civilian service initiatives were later taken up
by then Gov. Bill Clinton in his 1992 campaign and were signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, creating the civilian national service
program AmeriCorps. In 2001, the military pillar of this national service initiative was revived in the bipartisan "Call to
Service" bill introduced in the Senate by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and in the House of Representatives by
Reps. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) and Tom Osborne (R-Neb.). The final plan approved by Congress creates a new enlistment track involving an
active duty commitment of 15 months (following at least three months of initial entry training), followed by 24 months in the Selected Reserves
(which includes the National Guard and Active Reserves) and either a six-year period of availability for national emergencies in the non-drilling
Individual Ready Reserves or a one- to two-year commitment of full-time civilian service in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps. In return for their
service, these citizen soldiers are offered the choice of an $18,000 education grant, a $5,000 cash bonus, or monthly educational assistance
provided under the Montgomery GI Bill (either the full amount for one year or half of the full amount for three years). The defense
authorization bill requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a full plan for implementation of this new short-term citizen soldier option no
later than March 31, 2003, to commence with this new program no later than October 31, 2003, and to issue reports on its effectiveness no later
than March 31, 2005 and March 31, 2007.
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1NC POLITICS NET BENEFIT (OBAMA BAD)
First, the Department of Defense enacts the CP – avoids politics because it’s an agency without connections to
Congress—wouldn’t affect the agenda.
And, National service like short-term enlistment is unpopular—Republicans think it’s welfare for yuppies
Dionne and Drogosz 03
E.J. Dionne, Jf. and Kayla Meltzer Drogosz, Brookings Senior Fellow and a columnist at The
Washington Post., Brookings Senior Research Analyst in Governance Studies, June 2003[The Promise Of National Service: A (Very) Brief History
of an Idea, http://www.brook.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb120.htm ]
Yet how firm is our belief in service? There is no prospect anytime soon that we will return to a military draft. The number of politicians
who support compulsory national service is small. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), in his now-famous December 2002 New York Times
article, succeeded in creating the most serious debate on renewing the draft since its expiration after the Vietnam years. Most of the American
military remains skeptical of a new draft, a view reflected by former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's response to Rangel in the pages of
the Wall Street Journal. Yet while only a few lawmakers signed on to Rangel's proposal, many joined the debate he sparked. A Buffalo News
editorial headline summed up the mood: "Even if Conscription Stands No Chance, the Idea Poses Food for Thought." It is true that the
service idea took an important new institutional form when President Clinton succeeded in pushing his AmeriCorps
program through Congress. Clinton still talks of it as one of his proudest achievements. But it's worth remembering that at the time
and for many years afterward, there were many Republicans, like former Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, who denounced the idea
as "a welfare program for aspiring yuppies" and "government-managed, well-paid social activism." Many Americans
also doubt the basic premise that they or their fellow citizens actually "owe" anything to a country whose main business
they see as preserving individual liberty, personal as well as economic. In a free society, liberty is the right of alL worthy and unworthy alike.
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XT: CP UNPOPULAR
CP is politically unpopular—Citizen and National Service Act proves
Magee and Nider 02 - director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute & director of foreign
and security studies at the Progressive Policy Institute.
(Marc and Steven J, 12/17. “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror.” PPI Policy Report.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=115&subsecID=145&contentID=251099)
In 1989, Sen. Sam
Nunn (D-Ga.) and Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.) introduced the "Citizenship and National Service Act,"
which incorporated both the short-term enlistment option and the civilian service initiatives developed by Moskos and the DLC.
While the bill failed to pass in either chamber of Congress, the civilian service initiatives were later taken up by then Gov. Bill
Clinton in his 1992 campaign and were signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, creating the civilian national service program AmeriCorps.
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2NC CP SOLVES – QUALITY OF RECRUITS
Short- Term Enlistments Increase High Quality Recruits
Magee and Nider 02- director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute. and director of foreign and
security studies at PPI.
[PPI: “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror” by Marc Magee and Steven J Nider, pdf online @
(http://newdems.net/documents/Citizen_Soldier_1202.pdf)]
In addition to more equitably distributing the burdens of military service, this
short-term enlistment option could also help reverse
a troubling decline over the last decade in the quality of our military recruits. Although the military has continued to meet its
recruiting targets, there are signs that it is having difficulty attracting and retaining the kind of recruits needed for the
high-tech military of the 21st century. For example, the percentage of enlistees scoring in the top half of the Armed Forces Qualification
Test (AFQT) has dropped by a third since the mid-1990s. Another troubling sign is that in 2000, the Army took in 380 recruits with felony
arrests—twice the number of felons from just two years before. While some analysts have attributed these recruiting problems to the strong
economy and low unemployment of the late 1990s, a more compelling explanation is found in the steadily increasing
percentage of young Americans that go directly from high school to college and then on to a civilian career-track job.
With about two-thirds of all high school graduates currently going directly on to higher education, the failure of the
military to offer an enlistment option that appeals to this group of Americans has made recruiting quality personnel
increasingly difficult regardless of the economic environment.12 Attracting highly educated, high-aptitude enlistees
requires a better strategy for getting young Americans to consider enlistment in the first place. As was discussed above, the
greatest barrier to enlistment among upper-tier university students is the current long-term enlistment requirements. By lowering this
barrier through the use of an 18-month enlistment option, the military would increase the numbers of highly
educated, high-aptitude young Americans among each year’s crop of enlistees. It is likely that a good number of these
enlistees would find that they enjoy being part of the military and would choose to reenlist after serving 18 months.
Thus, the short-term enlistment option could serve as a cost-effective recruitment tool for attracting some of these
college graduates to stay on for additional training for the high-tech positions a 21st century force requires. In
summary, the evidence suggests that 1) college graduates and people from the uppermiddle and upper classes are significantly
underrepresented in the military; 2) one of the most important barriers to enlistment among this group is the long-term enlistment
requirement; and 3) the use of an 18-month enlistment option, together with a national call to service, could potentially go
a long way toward translating this desire to serve into a more equal distribution of the burden of military service and a
better-educated, higher-quality pool of recruits.
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2NC CP SOLVES – RECRUITMENT SHORTFALL
Short Term Enlistments Increase Recruitment
Magee and Nider 02- director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute, director of foreign and security studies at PPI.
[PPI: “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror” by Marc Magee and Steven J Nider, pdf online @
(http://newdems.net/documents/Citizen_Soldier_1202.pdf)]
Would a short-term enlistment option attract more college graduates and people from the upper-middle and upper classes? There exists very little
evidence on the attitudes of this potential pool of recruits to different kinds of military enlistment options. However, a recent study conducted
by Charles Moskos suggests that the use of a short-term enlistment option could make a big difference in increasing the
number of college graduate enlistees. Results from this survey are summarized in Table 2. In this unique survey, the first such study ever
conducted on college campuses, Prof. Moskos examined the receptivity of more than 900 students in three American
universities—an upper-tier private university (Northwestern), an upper-tier public university (UCLA), and a middle-tier public
university (University of Illinois, Chicago)—to different kinds of military enlistment options.9 He found that these university students said
that military enlistment was very likely or possible in far greater numbers in response to an 18-month enlistment with a
$15,000 education scholarship than with a fouryear enlistment with a $60,000 education scholarship. For example, students were
five times more likely to say they would consider enlisting in the 18-month plan than the four-year plan at the University of Illinois and 18 times more likely at UCLA. At
Northwestern, while 9 percent of students said they would consider enlisting with the 18-month plan, none said they would consider enlisting with the four-year plan.
These results suggest not only that university students are extremely sensitive to the time commitment of a military enlistment, but also that the importance of a shortterm enlistment was more pronounced in the upper-tier public university than the middle-tier public university, and most pronounced of all in the upper-tier private
university. When the students were surveyed again after listening to a “call to service” speech by Moskos, the percentage of students who said that
military enlistment was very likely or possible increased for the short-term enlistment, but not at all for the more traditional
long-term enlistment options.10 This increase in the willingness to enlist for 18 months was most pronounced among students
in the upper-tier private university, climbing from 9 percent before the speech to 26 percent afterward. These results suggest that a call
to service by public figures could play an important role in ensuring the success of the short-term enlistment option,
especially among the young Americans critical to the effort to more equitably distribute the burdens of military service:
students at uppertier private universities. Further support is found in the fact that among these upper-tier university
students “the probability of serving overseas” makes them twice as likely to enlist as not enlist and that the attacks of Sept. 11 made
them three times more likely to join the military than not. As Moskos stated recently, “The two main reasons we have not seen a surge of enlistment
on elite college campuses since Sept. 11 are the long enlistments pushed by military recruiters and the fact that President Bush has yet to include
military service in his overall call to service to the nation.”11
Short-term enlistments will ease the military’s chronic enlistment problems
New Democrats Online 02
[“National Service: Better Late Than Never,” February 7, 2002, pg. http://www.scdlc.org/content/article.asp?id=46]
Unlike the Bayh-McCain bill, the President's plan does not include military service. Bayh and McCain see military and civilian service as co-equal pillars of national service. They call for
a new, short-term enlistment option to attract young Americans who don't plan to make their careers in the military. By
channeling many of the nation's best and brightest toward uniformed service, the Senators' approach would help ease the military's chronic recruiting
problems and ensure that more of the nation's future leaders and decision-makers have military experience.
Short Term Enlistments Solve Immediately- Empirically Proven
Marshall and Magee 05 - President of the Progressive Policy Institute, Research director of the Partnership for Public Service.
[Will Marshall and Marc Porter Magee, “The Voluntary Path to Universal Service” | Blueprint Magazine | July 23, 2005, pg.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=115&subsecID=145&contentID=253462]
In October 2003, the military began taking in its first recruits through the new "citizen-solider" shortterm enlistment program, the most significant change in recruiting since the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. 5 Conceived by Northwestern University sociologist Charles
Moskos and shepherded into law by Senators McCain and Bayh, the citizen-soldier option is intended to help meet our growing personnel demands by offering America's
youth a voluntary equivalent of the draft: a way to serve their country in uniform without choosing a military career. The new option enables volunteers to sign up for 15
months of service on active duty followed by 24 months in the reserves -- a radical departure from the four- and five-year active duty enlistments that are
now the norm. A look at the initial class of 3,600 recruits suggests that the program is already beginning to fulfill its promise. The
short-term program has a much higher percentage of college-educated and collegebound enlistees than traditional enlistment programs. It is also providing
immediate relief to the active-duty military positions experiencing the greatest manpower shortages and is on track to deliver experienced soldiers into a reserve force stretched
thin by frequent mobilizations since 9/11. National service advocates should urge the president and the Defense Department to support
both a larger military and a more ambitious recruiting goal for this innovative program: Twenty-five thousand citizen-soldiers per
year by 2008 and 75,000 per year by 2012.
Recruit More Citizen-Soldiers -
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XT: CP SOLVES RECRUITMENT
15 Month Enlistment will reduce personnel turnover and shortfall
Moskos 05 - Professor of sociology at Northwestern University.
[Charles, A former U.S. Army draftee in the combat engineers in Germany, his research has taken him to combat units in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo,
and Iraq., “Toward a New Conception of the Citizen Soldier,” E-Notes, Foreign Policy Research Institute, April 7, 2005, pg.
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050407.military.moskos.newconceptioncitizensoldier.html]edlee
Three major arguments are raised against the short enlistment. These are given below with rejoinders. 1. “Short enlistments would increase demands
on the training base.” Let us remember that almost one-third of our service entrants now fail to complete their initial
enlistments. In fact, soldiers signing up for long enlistments — four to six years — have attrition rates double that of those who
enter with two-year enlistments. Completion of an enlistment term is also strongly correlated with higher education. Much
better to have a soldier serve 15 months honorably than be prematurely discharged. A 15-month enlistment option would
both reduce personnel turnover and counter shortfalls in end strength.
Limited time commitment is key to getting college graduates to participate. It will address the recruitment
shortfall without sacrificing training
New Dem Daily 00 [“ Idea of the Week: Citizen-Soldiers,” March 29, 2000, pg.
http://www.ppionline.org/ndol/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=159&contentid=718]edlee
Is conscription the only way we can draw our military personnel from a broader segment of the population, including those who are college-bound or
already in college? Not at all, argues Northwestern University military sociologist, and Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) fellow, Charles
Moskos. He proposes a return to the concept of the citizen-soldier, but through a short-term enlistment option rather than a
draft. Moskos calls for making a 15-month enlistment available: five or six months of training, followed by an overseas tour (and a post-service
reserve duty requirement, as is the case with other enlistees). These short-term citizen-soldiers would also be eligible for post-service
educational benefits, including student loan forgiveness, an especially attractive inducement for current or recent college
graduates. Indeed, one of the great attractions of a 15-month enlistment is that it would be less disruptive of college plans
than the three or four years now required as minimum commitments. In a March 8, 1999 op-ed piece appearing in The Washington
Post, Moskos argues that short-term enlistees would not only address the current recruitment shortfalls, but would help
diversify the armed services at a lower cost and without sacrifices in training or quality. He notes that more than one-third of
today's soldiers fail to complete their initial enlistment commitments, often because they have been involuntarily separated for disciplinary violations.
"Much better to have a soldier serve 15 months honorably than to be discharged prematurely for cause," he says. But the most important reason for
considering a citizen-soldier option is that it would help reconnect young Americans with their civic obligation to give something back to their country
for the blessings of life in a free society, without the compulsion associated with a military draft. As Moskos says: "If serving one's country became
more common among privileged youth, more future leaders in civilian society would have had a formative citizenship experience. This can only be to
the advantage of the armed forces and the nation." If the resources were made available to create and expand a short-term military
enlistment option, it could -- along with the AmeriCorps National Service initiative -- provide an opportunity for service to the
community for a broad cross-section of young people, while also providing a way to earn upward mobility through
educational benefits, just as the World War II generation did thanks to the GI Bill. Today's ethic of federal education assistance as an
entitlement sends exactly the wrong message to young people: the blessings of citizenship are free. As we are again witnessing in the Balkans, that just
isn't true.
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XT: CP SOLVES RECRUITMENT
Short term enlistments solve—increase recruitment for those who would not otherwise join the military
Garamone 03 Military Forces Press Service Writer for DoD
[U.S Department of Defense News: “DoD Instituting Short Term Enlistments” January 17, 2003. Pg online @
[(http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=29561)]
A new military short-term enlistment program will begin Oct. 1 aimed at expanding the opportunities for all Americans to
serve the country. Congress authorized the National Call to Service enlistment option as part of the fiscal 2003 National
Defense Authorization Act. Bob Clark, assistant director in DoD's accession policy directorate, said the program would allow the
military services a new option to reach a group of young Americans who otherwise might not serve due to the length of
traditional enlistment options. The program will work like this: A recruit enlists for the option and incurs a 15-month active duty
service obligation following completion of initial-entry training, for a total active duty commitment of about 19 months. Following successful
completion of active duty, service members may re-enlist for further active duty or transfer to the selected reserve for a 24-month
obligation. Once this is completed, service members may stay in the selected reserve or transfer to individual ready reserve for the remainder of their
eight-year commitments. "The unique piece of this legislation is that while in the individual ready reserve, these young people will be given the
opportunity to move into one of the other national service programs, such as AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps, and time in those will count toward
their eight-year obligation," Clark said. While the Army and Navy already have a limited two-year enlistment program, this is the first time the Air
Force and Marine Corps will offer the option. Clark stated that the option would be limited to high- quality recruits -- those with a high school
diploma and scores in the top half of aptitude tests. Officials hope this will make the military more attractive to college- bound youth who might
volunteer to take a short period out between high school and college, but would not take off that three- or four-year period. He feels the option may
also attract college graduates interested in serving their country before attending graduate school. But perhaps the largest potential pool for the option
is with community college graduates who might serve the country for a short time and use available incentives to enter a four-year school, Clark said.
There are four incentives under the option. The first is a $5,000 bonus payable upon completion of active duty service. The second is a loanrepayment option also paid at the end of the active duty portion. The legislation allows for repayment of up to $18,000 of qualifying student loans.
The final two incentives are tied to but not part of the Montgomery G.I. Bill. One gives 12 months of a full Montgomery G.I. Bill stipend currently
about $900 a month. "This should attract college graduates looking to go to grad school," Clark said. The other incentive offers 36 monthly payments
at one-half of the current Montgomery G.I. Bill stipend. "We look at this as being an incentive to both high school graduates or
maybe college students who are financially strapped who may need to sit out for a period, serve the country, learn, see the
world and then go to school," he said. The services will set the enlistment criteria. Military specialties that involve long-term
training will not be offered. Basic medical specialties, some engineer skills, and personnel, administration and combat
specialties will be part of the mix. The first members who opt for this program will go into the delayed-entry program beginning Oct. 1, 2003.
Clark was adamant that service members in this program would not be "second class citizens." He said although they will serve
shorter periods of time, they would be treated the same way as those with longer-term enlistments. Traditional enlistment terms
are three, four, five and six years, he said. The program will start with a small number of inductees; there is no set number that will indicate success. As
the program ramps up, DoD will work with national service organizations to ensure recruits under this program understand all
their options. Clarks said the department is coming off its most successful recruiting year ever. "The department does not need this program to fill
the ranks," he said. "But we are excited about offering the chance to serve the country to young men and women who
ordinarily might not."
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2NC – CP SOLVES BETTER
CP Solves Best- Plan creates a disincentive to join the military
Moskos 02 - Professor of sociology at Northwestern University.
[Charles, A former U.S. Army draftee in the combat engineers in Germany, his research has taken him to combat units in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi
Arabia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq., “Reviving the citizen-soldier,” Public Interest, Spring2002, Issue 147//EBSCOhost]edlee
Recreating the citizen-soldier - The conventional wisdom within the Defense Department attributes recruitment and retention fluctuations to the economy. The conventional wisdom is
two-thirds of high school graduates go directly on to higher education.
But military recruitment centers on the high school graduate -- and, recently, those without diplomas as well. To focus on this population, rather than the
expanding pool of college students and graduates, is self-limiting. The military needs to place greater attention on college recruitment, and must
recognize that attracting college youth will require changes in the prevailing enlistment philosophy. The biggest disincentive
for college youth is the long enlistment. The armed forces try to get recruits to sign on for three, four, or more years by emphasizing such inducements as high pay and
job training. For college youth, this is a nonstarter. Rather than stress military career opportunities, recruitment appeals must
reinvigorate the ideal of the citizen-soldier. But more than the message must change. The Defense Department spent $270,000,000 on recruitment advertising in
wrong: The real problem is the high rate of college attendance. Today, some
2001. To the consternation of many, the Army recently adopted a new recruiting slogan: "An Army of One." The hullabaloo over recruitment slogans may be overdone. In a survey of
UCLA students I conducted last spring, three-quarters said they had not even heard of the slogan! Of those who had, over 90 percent said it would not affect their inclinations one way or
the other. (Of the small number for whom the slogan had any effect, more said that it would make them less rather than more likely to join.) The extent to which the impact of such
advertisements has been exaggerated was vividly brought to my attention when I addressed a large conference of Army recruiters in 1996. I asked them if they would prefer to have their
The most effective way to revive the
citizen-soldier ideal would be to introduce a 15-month or 18-month enlistment option. Such a term would involve five or six months of training
advertisement budget tripled or have Chelsea Clinton join the Army. They unanimously raised their hands for the Chelsea option.
followed by an overseas assignment. Obvious locales would be Korea, Germany, the Sinai, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Alternatively, the assignment might involve homeland defense. Rather
It would be important to couple such a
military enlistment with generous post-service educational benefits linked to a reserve obligation of, say, two years. Dedicated and intelligent reservists
than seeing such duty as onerous, short-termers would see it as a chance to do something entirely different for a year.
will be a vital part of future homeland-security missions. Students who have earned bachelor's degrees often want a break before entering graduate school or the professional world. A
short enlistment would also appeal to those who want to take a year off from school at some time during their college career. It could become the military equivalent of the "junior year
A G.I. Bill that paid off student loans not just for college but also for graduate school would be especially attractive.
The proportion of students with a bachelor's degree who go on to pursue an advanced degree is now higher than the
proportion of World War II veterans who used the G.I. Bill to attend college. Indeed, a major obstacle to military recruitment is the substantial
abroad."
amount of federal aid already given to college students. We now spend annually over $20 billion in grants and loan subsidies to college students. We have, in effect, created a G.I. Bill
without the G.I. If we want to encourage the ideal of service, there must be a push to link federal college aid to enlistment--whether military or civilian. It is noteworthy that a 1995 Gallup
A U.S. Army
recruiting study showed that linking federal aid to some form of national service would boost military enlistments as well as
civilian service.
poll found that 40 percent of the American public favored this proposition, an amazing level of support for a concept that has not even entered the public debate.
Only the CP attracts high-quality recruits- it allows soldiers the option of a career after the military
Kurtz 03
[Stanley, “ It's Getting a Little Drafty: Our armed forces need expansion. How to go about it?,” National Review, April 21, 2003, Vol. LV, No. 7//ln]edlee
How can a citizen-soldier track solve the military's recruitment problems? The answer is college. The military has done a good job of turning itself into a major career choice for highschool graduates. But ever
higher numbers of Americans are now going to college, and the typical college student is planning on a
civilian career. Research conducted by the respected military sociologist Charles Moskos shows that even increased financial
incentives can't get college students to sign up; but shortening the four-year enlistment period can. With an 18-month enlistment, college
students can serve while also staying on track for a good non-military career. An 18-month track directed at college students
could solve a number of problems at once. It would raise the overall education level of our recruits (and at least some of
the citizen soldiers would probably change their minds and decide to make the military a career). A citizen-soldier track would also quiet
complaints about the lack of shared sacrifice. Rep. Rangel has claimed that minorities are overrepresented in our armed forces, but he is mistaken. There is, however, a real dearth of
relatively affluent, college-educated recruits. It would be good for the army -- and for the country -- to have people from all walks of life in the armed services. Sounds promising, but the
Pentagon is not impressed, and Sen. McCain is worried that the services will refuse to fund the new enlistment track at a level that will enable it to prove its worth. The military's
objections are understandable. As it stands, funding for the program will have to come out of the Pentagon's current recruitment budget. Sensibly enough, the Pentagon is reluctant to
tamper with an already fragile recruitment system for the sake of an unproven experiment. Today's high-tech army requires soldiers to go through lengthy and expensive training.
Advocates of the citizen-soldier track counter that there are many entry-level military jobs that require only a few months of training. That's true,
but every entry-level post taken up by a short-term enlistee blocks a career soldier from accumulating real experience for the long term. No wonder the military is less than enthusiastic
about citizen soldiers. Officials are assuming, however, that the military recruiting budget will remain a zero-sum game. Until now, Progressive Policy Institute scholars Marc Magee and
Steven Nider have advertised citizen soldiers as a way to make the military more representative of the country. But what we really need is to make the military bigger. Once the Pentagon
sees a citizen-soldier track that could add to the current force structure, without undercutting the training of career soldiers, it will probably warm to the idea. Following the war in Iraq,
military police, and here is where the citizen soldiers could be of real help. MPs can be trained quickly, and shortterm recruits can serve under the direction of experienced peacekeepers. The question is, will college kids sign up for short-term stints as military
we're going to need
police in an occupied Iraq? True, our American soldiers in Iraq may get shot at. All things considered, however, the job will be less dangerous and demanding than front-line soldiering.
If we can recruit a substantial number of military police
from the ranks of college kids, our regular troops can get out of the business of nation-building and turn their attention to serious fighting.
And there will be the chance, not only to serve America, but to do good works for the people of Iraq.
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CP SOLVES – TERRORISM
Short-term enlistments solve the war on terror
Magee and Nider 02- director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute. and director of foreign and security studies at PPI.
[PPI: “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror” by Marc Magee and Steven J Nider, pdf online @
(http://newdems.net/documents/Citizen_Soldier_1202.pdf)]
Would a greater reliance on short-term citizen soldiers help ease these strains on the National Guard and Reserves and
increase the sustainability of long-duration military campaigns? The evidence suggests that it would. The greatest source of
strain on the National Guard and Reserves is the long mobilizations necessitated by the lack of comparative skills in the
active-duty force. Even before Sept. 11, the Guard and Reserve contributions averaged 12 million duty days a year, which equates to about 35,000 full-time personnel. That is, Guard
and Reserve troops were used in peacetime to fill in for what is more accurately understood as a 35,000-troop shortfall in the active-duty force. With the large-scale increase in
military operations necessitated by the ongoing war against terrorism, and a possible conflict with Iraq, the gap between
what our current force structure is able to sustain and what the new realities of the 21st century demand of us as a nation
continues to grow ever wider. While mobilization of the Guard and Reserve force can close this gap over the short term, it
is increasingly clear that during the long term, additional full-time personnel will be needed to meet these growing
demands. Because many of the positions in the National Guard and Reserves require only a short training component, the use
of more short-term citizen soldiers could potentially help reduce the strain on Guardsmen and Reservists created by longduration military campaigns. The short-term enlistment option is designed so that all enlistees under this option must serve
15 months in the active-duty force after their initial entry training is completed (Basic Combat Training plus Advanced Individual Training). This
approach provides the military with the flexibility to place these short-term enlistees into a wide range of positions and still
be assured of a significant length of service regardless of the length of training required for these positions. While there are many
positions in the Armed Forces that require extended training periods, there are also a large number of positions that do not. The length of initial entry training for important Military Occupation
Specialties such as military police, psychological operations, civil affairs, chemical operations, general construction, water treatment, health care, and military intelligence are between three and
one half to five and one half months (Table 4). In meeting these needs over the course of a longduration campaign, short-term enlistees would not only be useful, but would indeed be essential
to ensuring the military’s success. As Dave McGinnis, former senior fellow of the National Guard Association of the United States, has stated, “The
recruitment of short-term
enlistees would go a long way toward providing the military with the force structure it needs to sustain this long war against
terrorism. With more citizen soldiers in place the National Guard and Reserves could be— after more than a decade of creeping
overuse— finally returned to their original role of providing large numbers of personnel for a high-intensity declared war.
Short-term enlistment solves terrorism – combats long-term strain on our forces
Democratic Leadership Council 02 – Organization That Evaluates Policy Reforms
[DLC: “Can Citizen Soldiers Help Win War on Terrorism?” December 17, 2002. Article online @
(http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=85&subid=108&contentid=251112)]
a new, short-term enlistment option for America's
Armed Forces was enacted in the 2003 Defense Authorization bill. The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a report assessing the potential
impact of these new "citizen soldiers" that finds many benefits to our collective security and the health of our civic compact
will come from involving more Americans in the fight against international terrorism." Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror" is the first publication of a
In the most important change in America's military recruitment policy since the end of the draft,
new PPI research and educational project -- the Center for Civic Enterprise. Its mission is to define, develop and advance a key theme of the new progressive politics -- replacing big government with big citizenship. Building
on PPI's previous work on innovative public policies grounded in active citizenship -- such as community policing, civic environmentalism and charter schools -- the Center for Civic Enterprise is charged with exploring new
ways to involve more Americans in common efforts to tackle the great challenges of our time. In this new report, Marc Magee, Ph.D., director of the new Center for Civic Enterprise, and Steven Nider, PPI's director of foreign
current military recruitment policies, based only on economic incentives and career-track enlistments,
have created a force structure lacking in diversity and ill-suited for long-duration conflicts and has driven steady increases
in personnel costs. "With America embroiled in a global war on terrorism, and perhaps soon to be engaged in a conflict with Iraq, public attention inevitably turns
to a crucial question: Who is doing the fighting and dying for all of us?" write Magee and Nider. "[The citizen soldier track] offers the nation's most
fortunate sons and daughters a voluntary equivalent of the old draft -- a way to contribute to America's defense without
choosing a military career." Using recent survey data and analysis of the latest Department of Defense and General Accounting Office reports, Magee and
Nider find that the new citizen soldier, short-term enlistment program will benefit the U.S. Armed Forces by: * more equally
distributing among the American population the burdens of providing for the common defense by attracting citizens
currently not interested in military service, including those from higher income backgrounds and with higher levels of
education; * easing the strains of long-duration conflicts on the Selected Reserve force; and * containing the rising
manpower costs in our Armed Forces. "[W]inning the war on terrorism is not simply a function of having the right
strategy, technology and equipment, but also about having the right people," conclude Magee and Nider. "By making full use of the new
short-term 'citizen soldier' option, we will be able to better deal with the strains created by the long-duration military campaigns that
await us as a nation in the 21st century with a force that is more representative of the nation as a whole and uses our
limited resources more wisely."
and security studies, argue that
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CP SOLVES – HEGEMONY
Short Term Enlistments strengthen the reserves and support the US global strategy
Foreign Policy Research Institute 05
[Foreign Policy Research Institute: article reviews by Michael P. Noonan, “Citizen Soldier: the ideal and reserve culture” January 19, 2005. Pg online @
(http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20050119.military.noonan.citizensoldier.html)]
America’s leading military sociologist Charles Moskos, professor emeritus of sociology at Northwestern University and former U.S. Army
draftee and reservist, began his paper presentation by stating that it was a given that in terms of people our AC and RC are
under-strength. The reserves now supply 40+ percent of forces currently serving in Iraq and this trend will continue. He reported that a survey that
he conducted in Iraq in 2003, by invitation of Central Command combatant commander General John Abizaid, showed that AC morale was higher
than he expected but that RC morale was much lower. The RC felt like second-class citizens due to training and equipment issues, etc.
Moskos stated, however, that this was fixable and was not mission-oriented. “Reservists frequently have non-monetary motives, very
importantly, not only patriotism but having an added dimension to their life, but there is a double-bind that reservists
confront that the active duties confront at a much lower level: family, employment, things of this sort.” In order to address
future manpower issues, Moskos argued, we needed to re-define the citizen-soldier concept in line with the realities of the 21st
century. He pointed out that the personnel officials within the Department of Defense drastically under-appreciate the
demographic effects of higher education on younger people. Today, two-thirds of high school graduates go on to some form of higher
learning and half of those are earning bachelor’s degrees. “So we have one-third of all youth today are college graduates or will shortly
be college graduates, and yet the number of enlisted recruits with college diplomas is minuscule in the active duty force,”
said Moskos. In surveys that he has conducted at Northwestern, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Arizona, and at the
University of Illinois-Chicago, he says that 23 percent answered that they would seriously consider joining the military if they could
serve a short-term enlistment (15 months total; as opposed to current options of 18-24 months). In a follow-on survey in October 2004 at
Northwestern, he was surprised to learn that 11 percent of students would be very likely to enlist, and another 18 percent said they
would seriously consider enlisting, to serve as prison guards at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay if their student loans were forgiven
and they were given generous GI Bill benefits for graduate school.Short-term enlistments, he argued, would be the only way
for the military to make itself attractive to college graduates who likely would not enlist under any other circumstances. If
you could attract 10 percent of the annual number of college graduates that would translate into 120,000 potential recruits.
In absence of such a new stream of recruits he stated that in order to make mission the military would: (1) lower entrance standards, (2) raise
enlistment bonuses and pay which can lead to higher attrition, (3) increasingly rely on contractors whose costs are hard to determine because their
funding comes from the operations budget, or (4) rely more heavily on non-American recruits. At this point, he noted, U.S. forces serving in
Operation Iraqi Freedom include three percent in the ranks who are non-U.S. citizens. He closed by saying, “we need new thinking on the citizensoldier in the 21st century. Such a short-term recruit would be a supplement, not a replacement, for reserve components. Let us
keep in mind, too, there are other long- term benefits not just to the military but to the larger society if we had privileged
youth serving as well as those who come from the working class, because these will be tomorrow’s leaders.” John Allen
Williams, Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago and a retired Captain in the Naval Reserve, began by
acknowledging that there is no political support for a draft, now or in the future, and that Moskos’ idea of short-term enlistments
should be explored. He said that short-term enlistments could help personnel requirements for the AC and RC, but also provide
societal and individual benefits by expanding the base of those who serve. Turning his attention to the reserves, Williams stated that
the RC has very important manifest and latent functions. In manifest terms they support the AC by: increasing the size of
active forces, providing capabilities not found in the AC, and providing a military capability to the states. More important, the
RC’s latent function provides a partial linkage between the AC and civil society and also serves as “a check on military
actions.” He finished his remarks by stating that the RC is a vital force multiplier. It is increasingly difficult to do anything in
support of U.S. global strategy without mobilizing the reserves, but to be effective they must have the respect of the AC.
“To get that respect, they have to deserve it, and I think it’s a reminder to all of us that war is too important to be left to full-time professionals alone,”
said Williams.
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CP SOLVES – MILITARY BENEFITS
Short Term Enlistments Increase Education and Career Benefits
Moskos 05 Prof of Sociology at Northwestern University
[Military Review: “Saving the All Volunteer Force” by Charles C. Moskos, May/Jun 2005, pdf online @
[(http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/MayJun05/MayJun05/moskos.pdf)]
Opponents of the short-enlistment option raise three arguments against it. The first asserts that “short enlistments
would increase demands on the training base.” Let us remember that almost one third of those now entering military
service fail to complete their initial enlistments. Soldiers signing up for long (4- to 6-year) enlistments have attrition rates 1-1/2 times
greater than those who enlist for 2 years. Completing an enlistment term strongly correlates with higher education; it is much
better to have a soldier serve 15 months honorably than be discharged prematurely. A 15-month enlistment option
would reduce personnel turnover and counter shortfalls in end strength. The second argument opponents of short
enlistments put forth is that “today’s military requires highly technical skills that cannot be met by short-termers.”
Precisely. The Armed Forces should offer higher compensation to those whose skills require extended training and experience. In the draft era,
the pay ratio between a senior noncommissioned officer and a private was 6 to 1; today it is less then 3 to 1. The military should give
future pay raises to its career soldiers. Fifteen-month enlistees could fill jobs that would require only a short formal
training period or even only on-the-job training. For example, a major morale problem among Reservists is pulling guard duty at
installations. Guard duty would be an appropriate task for a short-term enlistee. The total length of training for military police officers—from
the time they enter service to completion of training—is 14 weeks. The short-term enlistee would be ideally suited for duties in
peacekeeping missions such as in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Sinai. Surveys show such missions are the most appealing
to college students. Indeed, short-enlistment soldiers are especially well suited to those military occupational specialties now experiencing
recruitment shortfalls and excessive reliance on RCs. Also well documented is that recruits who have higher educations have
markedly lower attrition rates and the skills and motivation to quickly learn a wide variety of military jobs. The third
argument commonly advanced against short-term enlistment asserts that “a short-enlistment option would attract
soldiers who otherwise would sign up for a longer enlistment.” Quite the contrary. A 15-month enlistment
accompanied by educational benefits would attract college students and graduates who never would have considered
entering the Armed Forces. The short-term option could capitalize on the fact that there is a dual market in
recruitment. One group would volunteer for military service based on salary, skill training, and career benefits; the
other, to obtain a paid, temporary break between college and graduate studies or between school and a career.
Recruiting only 10 percent of college graduates would end recruitment woes.
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CP SOLVES – MILITARY DIVERSITY
Short term enlistments solve – creating a more diverse and equally distributed military
Magee and Nider 03 - director of the Center for Civic Enterprise at the Progressive Policy Institute, director of foreign & security studies, PPI.
[PPI: “Uncle Sam Wants You- For 18 Months” by Marc Magee and Steven J Nider, pdf online @
(http://www.ndol.org/documents/Citizen_Soldier_0303.pdf)]
As war has moved to the center of the public debate, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and other leading politicians have called
for a return of the draft. They argue that the burden of military service in the all-volunteer force falls
disproportionately on minorities and the underprivileged. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has responded that there is not a
large racial disparity in today’s armed forces and that a return of the draft would damage America’s all- volunteer
force.1 While it is true, as Rangel and others have stated, that military service is not shared equally across all segments of society,
the disparity is one of class, not race. Sharing the burden of defense more widely and equitably does not require a return of the
draft, but does demand a new approach to how we recruit for our all-volunteer force. In this policy brief, PPI provides
benchmarks for a radical overhaul of recruitment policy to target those who are underrepresented in today’s military:
young Americans from affluent families. Writing recently on this issue in The Washington Post, former Secretary of the Navy John
Lehman argued, “Our all-volunteer force, for all its many virtues, is not representative of American society. The privileged
are largely absent from it. Thus the burdens of defense and the perils of combat do not fall even close to fairly across all of our society.” The
problem, Lehman continued, lies with the military’s exclusive focus on recruiting “lifers.” While at the onset of past wars our armed
forces were infused with “a tide of citizen-soldiers and sailors from every social stratum,” Lehman observed that this time
young Americans motivated by a sense of duty and love of country have gotten a cold shoulder from military
recruiters instructed voluntary equivalent of the old draft—a way for young Americans to contribute to the common
defense without choosing a military career.2 Because of the hard work of Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the
opportunity to create a voluntary equivalent of the old draft may soon be at hand. In a breakthrough that marries national service and national
defense, Congress recently approved a new, short-term enlistment option for America’s Armed Forces. It would
enable volunteers to sign up for 18 months of service on active duty—the average enlistment now is four years—followed by
service in the Reserves and then either a period of availability in the Individual Ready Reserves or civilian service in AmeriCorps or the Peace
Corps. This short-term “citizen soldier” option was a key provision of the Bayh-McCain Call to Service Act, which was
designed to dramatically expand national service in America. By shortening the length of enlistment and basing
recruitment on a call to service rather than the current focus on cash incentives, this citizen soldier plan could help
spread the risks of defending America more widely and equitably in a time of war. But whether it actually does so will depend
on how it is implemented over the course of this year.
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CP SOLVES – COLLEGE GRADUATE RECRUITMENT
Extended commitment time prevents college graduate enlistment
Klein 03 [Gil, “MILITARY WILL OFFER INCENTIVES: SHORTER ENLISTMENT TERMS ARE PLANNED, Winston-Salem Journal, February
9, 2003, Pg. 1]edlee
In a move that some analysts are calling the most important change in military recruitment since the end of the draft, the Defense Department is
developing a short-term enlistment category of 18 months. The idea is to encourage college graduates who normally would not consider a military
career to enlist as a patriotic act of national service. "This would make enlisting in the military a decision upper middle-class youth
could identify with," said Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University military sociologist who developed the idea. "Today, they don't even
know anyone in the military." Few college graduates see enlisting in the military as an option, Moskos said, because most enlistments
are for four years. They may want to serve their country. They may be intrigued by going overseas. But they don't want to
commit for four years. Offer an option of 18 months of active service, he said, and interest jumps.
Short-term enlistment removes the primary barrier to enlistment by college graduates
Investors Business Daily 99 [“The Draft,” February 19, 1999, pg. http://www.mises.org/story/158]edlee
To compete, the Army is relying on a new MTV-style television ad campaign and bigger enlistment bonuses—$50,000 in an Army College Fund, or
$16,000 to join the combat arms, with a $3,000 ''kicker'' for entering sooner rather than later. Pay raises and retirement increases now being considered
by Congress may also help, but critics say money alone isn't the answer . ''College is the competition,'' said Charles Moskos, professor of
sociology at Northwestern University. ''It's not the economy.'' Moskos says two-thirds of American high school graduates go
to college. Most of the rest don't qualify for the military because of low test scores. The military, however, still presents itself as a
long-term, blue-collar career opportunity. Moskos believes the military would do better by offering college-bound high school
graduates a break from the routine of schooling. He recommends shorter enlistments, preferably 15 months - six months of training and
nine months of overseas duty. 'What we want is people who remain single through their first term, who will look upon foreign
deployments as fun, rather than a drag,'' he said.
15 Month Enlistment Solves- Attracts Many College Students
Moskos 99 - Professor of sociology at Northwestern University.
[Charles, A former U.S. Army draftee in the combat engineers in Germany, his research has taken him to combat units in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia,
Kosovo, and Iraq., “BEING ALL THEY CAN BE?,” OmlineNewsHour, March 12, 1999, pg. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june99/army_3-12.html]edlee
The citizen soldier. - CHARLES MOSKOS: The
key factor, the philosophical factor is that the concept of a citizen soldier has been lost sight of in the allvolunteer force and in recruitment campaigns. It's not the economy. That's - ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Explain what you mean. CHARLES
MOSKOS: It is the long enlistment. Typically the services like to recruit people for three or four or more years. This is not going to
attract, as Secretary Caldera said, the college student. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what you mean by citizen soldier. You can't have a citizen
soldier if it's that long a period. CHARLES MOSKOS: That's right. By the way, it should also be also brought out I'm a former draftee, so I was one of those citizen
soldiers. I think many college youths would welcome the opportunity for a short enlistment, say fifteen months, six months of
training then an overseas assignment. Rather than looking upon it as a burden, which the current force does because much of it is married, the single young
men and women I think would look at this as a break in the academic routine, particularly if it were associated with generous
GI Bill benefits, particularly say, forgiving student loans and things of that sort. So rather than seeing it as an onerous thing, I got to go overseas, thank God I
am going overseas. I think that would be a tremendous appeal. And we have to shift our thinking not to look just at the high school graduate or even the high
school dropout, but look at the growing market, which is the college student and the college graduate.
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CP SOLVES – DECREASES MILITARY SPENDING/COSTS
Short term enlistments increase military effectiveness for the least possible costs
PPI (Progressive Policy Institute) 02 – a Research institute for US Policies
[PPI: “Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror”, by Marc magee and Steven J. Nider, pdf online @
[http://www.ppionline.org/documents/Citizen_Soldier_1202.pdf]]
Can the short-term enlistment option help hold down manpower costs? There are two reasons to believe that it can. First, the demographics of
short-term enlistees are likely to minimize the growing expenses created by the proliferation of family benefits. By
drawing more young Americans into the military interested in serving their country for a short period of time before returning
to their civilian career track, this short-term enlistment option is likely to involve a greater percentage of low-cost, unmarried enlistees without
children. In addition, the short-term enlistment option itself is designed to keep costs down both during the service period and
in the post-service period. As such, while serving in the military, short-term enlistees would qualify only for basic pay, housing
allowances, and health care. Further, the post-service benefits for short-term enlistees would be limited to the education
scholarship, thus helping to reduce the growing personnel costs created by the retirement and post-service health care
benefits of career-track personnel. Therefore, the use of short-term enlistees could play an important role in helping to stem
the steady increase in personnel costs and thus help make every dollar count in the long war against terrorism.
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CP SOLVES – AT: LOGISTICALLY DIFFICULT
Army has a history of using short-term enlistments. The program will be smoothly incorporated
Graham 99 [Bradley Graham, “ Short-Term Remedy for Recruiters? Key Senator Backs18-Month Enlistment,” The Washington Post, March 18, pg. ln]edlee
Given scant public support for reinstituting the draft, some defense
experts have begun to advocate shortening enlistment from
standard four-year terms to make military service appear less of an interruption in young people's lives. Warner, in his letter to
the military heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, singled out one proposal by Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University
sociologist. Writing in The Washington Post last week, Moskos outlined a 15-month enlistment term that would require recruits to attend regular
basic training and learn some specialty skill, then spend one year or one sea-tour overseas helping with the growing number of peacekeeping
missions. Military officials generally prefer longer terms. They have worried that reducing enlistment periods would raise training costs. They
also have argued that today's high-tech weaponry and complicated peacekeeping assignments require soldiers with greater skills and
professionalism than can be taught in abbreviated tours of duty. But there is ample precedent for offering limited terms in at least some
specialties. The Army has been most open to the idea. It already allows two-year enlistments in 11 infantry, artillery, air
defense and other combat arms specialties; 19 other support jobs qualify for two years of active duty, plus a two-year
commitment in the reserves. The Army plans to open another 27 noncombat specialties to two-year enlistments this
month.
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