Mostly New Aff 1ac
Contention 1- Pharmaceuticals
TTIP agreement talks between the US and EU are coming
EC 7/12/13 – (“EU and US conclude first round of TTIP negotiations in Washington”, European
Commission, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=941)//javi
The first week-long round of talks for an EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) comes to a closure today in Washington. “It’s been a very productive week”, said EU
Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia-Bercero coming out of the talks. “We have been striving already for many
months to prepare the ground for an ambitious trade and investment deal that will boost the
transatlantic economy, delivering jobs and growth for both European and Americans. This week we have been able to
take this negotiation to the next step. The main objective has been met: we had a substantive round of talks on
the full range of topics that we intend to cover in this agreement. This paves the way to for a good second
round of negotiations in Brussels in October.” Working throughout the week, the negotiating groups have
set out respective approaches and ambitions in as much as twenty various areas that the
TTIP - the biggest bilateral trade and investment negotiation ever undertaken - is set to cover. They included:
market access for agricultural and industrial goods, government procurement, investment, energy and raw materials, regulatory
issues, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, services, intellectual property rights, sustainable development, small- and mediumsized enterprises, dispute settlement, competition, customs/trade facilitation, and state-owned enterprises. Negotiators
identified certain areas of convergence across various components of the negotiation and
- in areas of divergence – begun to explore possibilities to bridge the gaps. The talks have been based on a
thorough review of the stakeholders views expressed to date. The negotiators met also in the middle
of the week with approximately 350 stakeholders from academia, trade unions, the private sector, and non-governmental
organisations to listen to formal presentations and answer questions related to the proposed agreement.
US should invite Mexico to EU-US partnership
Siekierski 3/15/13 – (BJ, “Is Mexico looking for NAFTA-EU trade talks?”, iPolitics,
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/03/15/is-mexico-looking-for-nafta-eu-trade-talks/)//javi
“It seems really logical to us that this be a trilateral negotiation and that Mexico join,” Minister
Guajardo was quoted as saying, in Spanish, by a prominent Mexican business newspaper, El Financiero, Wednesday. Though
Mexico already has an agreement with the European Union — which came into force in 2000 — the
El Financiero article says Mexican and European authorities have agreed to strengthen it. Rather
than negotiate simultaneously with the Americans, therefore, the idea would be to bring both negotiations
under one roof. And since Canada is a fellow NAFTA partner, common sense would dictate Canadian involvement as well.
With the EU and U.S. aiming to begin their Transatlantic talks in June, Guajardo indicated that
Mexico would be “formally petitioning” the EU President and Barack Obama to make it a NAFTAEU negotiation, El Financiero reported.
Mexico needs to be included – expands trade and development of common
standards
Negroponte 5/2/13 – Diana Negroponte is a nonresident senior fellow with the Latin America
Initiative under Foreign Policy at Brookings. She focuses on Latin America and researches and
writes about the New Left, populism and the relationship between criminal gangs and state
institutions. Negroponte is editor of The End of Nostalgia: Mexico Confronts the Challenges of
Global Competition Ph.D., Georgetown University J.D., American University B.S. Econ, London
School of Economics & Political Science (Diana Villiers, “Obama’s Mexico Trip: Putting Trade
and Investment at the Top of the Agenda”, Brookings, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/upfront/posts/2013/05/02-obama-mexico-trip-trade-investment-negroponte)//javi
Investment flows are also mutually beneficial. According to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, sales of
services in Mexico by majority U.S. owned affiliates were $34.4 billion in 2010. Sales of services in the United States by majority
Mexico-owned firms were $4.8 billion. According to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, the United States currently provides 41 percent of
the reality of trade
and investment is that the United States and Mexico compete together in the global
economy. Production and supply chains in North America are deeply integrated with the
U.S. content of Mexico exports to the United States estimated at 40 cents on the dollar. This compares to 25 cents for
all foreign direct investment in Mexico, benefiting more than 21,139 companies. Beyond the numbers,
Canadian exports to the United States and 4 cents for China and 2 cents for the European Union, according to a Wilson Center
report. In short, there exists a growing integrated manufacturing platform that takes advantage of geography, time zones and
cultural affinity.
The challenge ahead is how to build on that integration for the forthcoming Trans
Atlantic Trade and Investment talks with the E uropean U nion. The development of common
standards and regulations will impact both Mexican and Canadian industry. Therefore, they need to be
either at the table, or close to the negotiations . How close will the consultations with the Mexican trade delegation
be? Ideally, the
Mexicans would like to be at the negotiating table, but that is improbable. More likely
is a commitment from President Obama to consult closely with the Mexican delegation. This
could include both pre-talks and post-talk briefings, reinforcing Obama’s call “to maintain the
economic dialogue over a long period of time.” On the European side, Turkey wishes to have a
close consultative arrangement with the EU negotiators. This creates a balanced need for
consultations with immediate trading partners.
Trade declines if Mexico is not included
Felbermayr et. al. 13 – (“Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Who
benefits from a free trade deal?”, GED, http://www.ged-shorts.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/06/Study-TTIP_final_ENG.pdf)//javi
Table 7 examines the changes in trade in North America and between the USA and the BRICS. A few important insights are
striking. First, TTIP leads to trade diversion effects within the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA)
between USA, Mexico and Canada. In the comprehensive liberalization scenario, both exports and imports
decline for NAFTA partner countries within the region . The two NAFTA countries whose position is not improved
That is an impressive example of trade diversion
effects between countries not directly affected in anyway by TTIP: The access of these
countries especially to the US market becomes less attractive due to increased competition
from the EU, leading to a substantial rise in trade between them. What makes this effect so strong is
by TTIP, Mexico and Canada, intensify their trade.
that the trade barriers, as we know, between Mexico and Canada have already been eliminated. Interestingly, TTIP leads to an
expansion of trade between the EU and Canada. Geographic circumstances are decisive for this result. Because of its closeness to
the USA, Canada is especially affected by trade diversion effects involving the USA . This effect leads to creating
trade with the EU countries that are geographically farther away, so that transport costs
are lower, and the change in the relative cost structures leads to replacement of the
American market with the EU. This circumstance means that finalization of an agreement between the
EU and Canada, currently under negotiation, would strengthen the trade of the countries involved with
each other but not eliminate the negative trade diversion effects.
Exclusion of Mexico hurts trade partnership
BFNA 6/17/13 – (“US, EU Benefit Significantly From TTIP”, Bertelsmynn Foundation,
http://www.bfna.org/article/us-eu-benefit-significantly-from-ttip)//javi
WASHINGTON, DC/GUETERSLOH, GERMANY (June 17, 2013) - The US and all EU member countries would benefit
significantly from a comprehensive trade pact, according to "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Who
benefits from a free trade deal?", an ifo Institute study commissioned by the Bertelsmynn Foundation. A TTIP that
eliminates non-tariff trade barriers and tariffs would boost per capita GDP and
employment on both sides of the Atlantic but impose losses on much of the rest of the world. The
US would achieve the greatest growth from a TTIP, with long-term per capita GDP climbing 13.4 percent. EU member states would,
on average, see five-percent growth in long-term per capita GDP. The United Kingdom would be Europe’s biggest beneficiary; its
long-term per capita GDP would rise 9.7 percent. Other EU member countries that would profit more than average from a farreaching liberalization of trade include small export-oriented economies, such as those of the Baltic states, and crisis-ridden
southern European countries. The large economies of Germany and France would benefit less than the EU average from a
comprehensive free-trade agreement. Long-term Germyn per capita GDP would increase 4.7 percent; the comparative French
figure is 2.6 percent.
Intensified trade relations between the US and the EU would decrease their
imports from the rest of the world. As a result, long-term per capital GDP would drop 9.5 percent in
Canada and 7.2 percent in Mexico. Japan would also see a fall, of 5.9 percent. Additional losers would include developing
countries, especially those in Africa and central Asia.
US-Mexico trade key to resolve Mexican instability and manufacturing
sector
O’Neill 3/18/13 – (Shannon, “Mexico and the United States are linked closer than ever
through trade”, Voxxi, http://www.voxxi.com/mexico-united-states-linked-trade/)//javi
we
have seen a transformation of Mexico’s economy over the last couple of decades: It has moved from a
very closed, inward-looking economy, one whose exports were dominated by oil, to an
economy that is one of the most open and increasingly competitive in the world. In measures like
trade to GDP, Mexico outpaces not just the United States or places like Brazil, but it outpaces China. It is quite an open and competitive economy now. A
big part of that is due to its deepening ties to the United States. Since the North American Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta) was signed almost 20 years ago, we have seen the creation of regional supply chains for a
myriad of different types of industries and companies. For every product that is imported from Mexico in the US, on average 40
percent of it would actually have been made in the U.S. It has become a very symbiotic relationship ,
and it has become an integrated economy in many ways and in many sectors, particularly in manufacturing .
There, we see almost seamless integration in some companies, where production happens on
both sides of the border. What it means is these economies, companies and industries are now not only intimately tied, but
permynently tied at this point. Mexico’s positive future tied to the United States Mexico’s positive future is closely tied to
the United States , in part because of this integration of production. If it does extend beyond the
United States, it would most likely be through an expansion of what is already this North American
production platform, through agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would expand Nafta beyond
Canada and Mexico, to include other Latin American countries and many Asia Pacific
countries. It is quite a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, and one could see it expanding in production
When it comes to Mexico, people usually think about the security issue, and that’s what much of the news coverage has been. But underneath that, behind the headlines,
chains in many other countries that are participants, and sales would be going up. The U.S., for all of its hiccups in recent years, is still the largest market in the world, so
being tied to the U.S. is not a bad thing at all. Recently, talk about a mega-agreement on trade between the world’s biggest trading
bloc—the European Union—and the United States has surfaced. But it is not clear at all that this would hurt Mexico; it already has its own trade agreement with the EU and, on
there may be incentives to extend the EU-U.S. trade agreement to include other
countries.
the other hand,
US is an integral part of Mexican manufacturing industry
Villarreal 8/9/12 – (M. Angeles, “U.S.-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues, and
Implications”, Congressional Research Service,
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf)//javi
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been an integral part of the economic relationship between the
United States and Mexico since NAFTA implementation. FDI consists of investments in real estate,
manufacturing plants, and retail facilities, in which the foreign investor owns 10% or more of the
entity. The United States is the largest source of FDI in Mexico . The stock of U.S. FDI increased from $17.0
billion in 1994 to $91.4 billion in 2011, a 440% increase (see Table 4). Mexican FDI in the United States is much lower than U.S.
investment in Mexico, with levels of Mexican FDI fluctuating over the last 10 years. In 2010, Mexican FDI in the United States
totaled $12.6 billion (see Table 4). The sharp rise in U.S. investment in Mexico since NAFTA is also a result of the liberalization of
Mexico’s restrictions on foreign investment in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Prior to the mid-1980s, Mexico had a very
protective policy that restricted foreign investment and controlled the exchange rate to encourage domestic growth, affecting the
entire industrial sector. Mexico’s trade liberalization measures and economic reform in the late 1980s represented a sharp shift in
policy and helped bring in a steady increase of FDI flows into Mexico. NAFTA provisions on foreign investment helped to lock in the
reforms and increase investor confidence. Under NAFTA, Mexico gave U.S. and Canadian investors nondiscriminatory treatment of
their investments as well as investor protection. NAFTA may have encouraged U.S. FDI in Mexico by increasing investor
confidence, but much of the growth may have occurred anyway because Mexico likely would have continued to liberalize its foreign
investment laws with or without the agreement. Nearly
half of total FDI investment in Mexico is in the
manufacturing industry , of which the maquiladora industry forms a major part. (See “Mexico’s
Export-Oriented Assembly Plants” below.) In
Mexico, the industry has helped attract investment from
countries such as the United States that have a relatively large amount of capital. For the United States,
the industry is important because U.S. companies are able to locate their labor-intensive
operations in Mexico and lower their labor costs in the overall production process.
Mexican manufacturing is critical to address challenges facing the U.S. –
picks up the slack for U.S. manufacturing
Bañuelos et al 12 (Carlos Guzmán Bofill, Ana María Rivas Llamas, Carlos Casas Guerrero,
Juan Ángel Vargas Plata, Juan Carlos Téllez Girón Barrón, Luis Anthony Olivé Hawley,
Sebastián Escalante Bañuelos, Natalia Herrero Martínez, Izael Mijangos González, June,
http://www.promexico.gob.mx/work/models/promexico/Resource/1985/1/images/Aerospace_CH
IHUAHUA_ENG.pdf)
In the last decade, Mexico has proven that it has the capabilities and talent in advanced
manufacturing to supply the international market of the aerospace industry. The integration of design
and advanced manufacturing capabilities on a national level prove that the Mexican industry has included high technology and
engineering in its processes. Through the projects identified in this Road Map, which involves the efforts of academia, industry and
government, Chihuahua will become the leading A+D cluster in Latin America in precision manufacturing for the
high-tech industry and dual-use goods. This exercise identified projects and factors that will promote Chihuahua’s
ability to attract future high technology investments for the aerospace and defense sector by as well as
creating the capabilities to optimize the sector’s industrial competitiveness in the region, such as: the creation of a talent
management platform; reducing dependency on the importation of molds, dyes and tooling in the sector; and making better use of
future investments that have been encouraged by Mexico’s acceptance in the WA. Chihuahua has been able to determine the right
path to reach its maximum potential and become one of Mexico´s most competitive regions in the aerospace sector with a mediumand long-term vision. The road to success has been forged, and the coming years will be bursting with opportunities and new
challenges for Chihuahua.
Mexico is key – the US can’t solve
Bañuelos et al 12 (Carlos Guzmán Bofill, Ana María Rivas Llamas, Carlos Casas Guerrero,
Juan Ángel Vargas Plata, Juan Carlos Téllez Girón Barrón, Luis Anthony Olivé Hawley,
Sebastián Escalante Bañuelos, Natalia Herrero Martínez, Izael Mijangos González, June,
http://www.promexico.gob.mx/work/models/promexico/Resource/1985/1/images/Aerospace_CH
IHUAHUA_ENG.pdf)
The United States our major commercial partner is going through a talent crisis due to a lack of engineering
graduates, added to constant cuts in defense spending, which complicates the upkeep of its current abilities to
research, develop and produce defense and high-tech dual-use items. Mexico has more engineering
graduates per capita than the United States and skilled and engineering labor costs are more competitive in Mexico; the
technological sophistication of its manufactured goods is above that of BRIC countries such as India and Brazil. These three factors make Mexico the
best answer to the issues that affect the United States. The creation of the SCE and Mexico’s acceptance into the WA have laid the
foundation to guarantee national surveillance during the export of restricted and dual-use technologies and goods. According to conservative estimates, the WA will enable the
national industry to access a potential high-technology export market of close to an additional 11.3 billion dollars per year, added to the potential creation of between 30 and 40
thousand highly paid jobs in the next five years.7 Chihuahua’s advanced manufacturing vocation (landing gears, fuselages, engines, harnesses and precision machining) make
is in negotiations with the US Department of
Defense to develop a regional aerospace and defense manufacturing block focused on Buy NAFTA. This could be completed with the signing of a MoU between the US
it the ideal destination for projects in the A+D cluster. Furthermore, the Federal Government
Department of State and the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA)
Manufacturing drives innovation and pharmaceuticals
Swezey 11 (Devon Swezey, Project Director for Breakthrough Institute where he works as an
energy and climate policy analyst and Ryan McConaghy, pg online @
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/BTI_Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-_Manufacturing_Growth_.pdf)
Manufacturing is a core component of the nation’s
innovation ecosystem. Firms engaged in manufacturing re-invest a significant portion of revenues in research and development
(R&D). Overall, the manufacturing sector comprises two-thirds 9 of industry investment in R&D
and employs nearly 64% of the country’s scientists and engineers. 10 Manufacturers also have
unique opportunities to apply new technologies for specialized functions and achieve
economies of scale at the plant or firm, 11 making the return on manufacturing R&D significant.
The transition to advanced manufacturing will enhance the sector’s role in fostering
innovation and developing and commercializing new technologies. Advanced manufacturing
industries, including semiconductors, computers, pharmaceuticals, clean energy technologies, and nanotechnology, play an
New manufacturing thrives on and drives innovation.
outsized role in generating the new technologies, products, and processes that drive economic growth. Advanced manufacturing is also
characterized by the rapid transfer of science and technology into manufacturing processes and products, which in and of itself drives innovation.
The research-to-manufacturing process is cyclical, with multiple feedbacks between basic R&D, pre-competitive research, prototyping, product
development, and manufacturing. This
opens new possibilities for product development and manufacturing.
12
Tech innovation solves extinction
Zhong 07, CEO at Jade Bird Dashing, 7-31-7 (Roger, “The Effects and Influences of
Technology on Society and Humyn Kind,” http://scienceray.com/technology/applied-science/theeffects-and-influences-of-technology-on-society-and-humyn-kind/”)
The question that persists however, is, “Is technology in fact harming our society as a whole?” Albeit the fact that this is a
remarkably intricate question of sorts, it can be answered with a simple answer. The actuality of this situation remains that
technology is by no means detrimental to our society here in the United States, civilization throughout the world,
or to the greater humynity of the humyn race; instead, it is vital to its survival. Nuclear Technology To
illustrate this point, let us first examine an exceedingly significant technological advance of our time, nuclear technology. Nuclear
technology is research that involves the reactions of atomic nuclei. It has many vital applications in modern society, the most
prominent of which are nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine, and nuclear power. The most controversial of these is, without a
doubt, nuclear weapons. First created by the United States in 1945 during World War II, they were developed out of the fear
that Nazi Germany would first develop them. A weapon of incredible power, a single nuclear weapon has to potential to
decimate, level, and destroy an entire city. The first and only times a nuclear weapon has been used are in World War II, when
the United States bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the “Little Boy” and “Fat Myn” bombs,
respectively. The usage of these bombs allowed for the near instantaneous end to the destructive World War II. Although two
cities were leveled and many lives were lost, the situation involving the usage of these nuclear weapons is not nearly as negative
as one may perceive. Had the bombs not been dropped, Japan would not have surrendered, and it would have without a doubt
prolonged the war for months or even years. This would have forced an Allied Forces ground invasion of Japan in an effort to
end the war, which would have resulted in the loss of many more people than caused by the deployment of the two nuclear
weapons. When you look at the usage of nuclear technology, you must look at the situation from the viewpoint of humyn
society as a whole, and not from a standpoint of an individual. While the nuclear bombs destroyed two cities and killed many,
they ended a horrific World War II and prevented the loss of many other lives. Today, in more modern terms, nuclear weapons
play a huge role in our lives. As citizens of the United States, it is common knowledge that we are guaranteed many degrees of
freedoms and rights, but have you ever considered who enforces our right to these freedoms in the world? The military might
of the United States is the key to us retaining our democratic freedoms. Being in possession of nuclear weapons is not only a
positive thing, it allows for us to be free. By holding an arsenal of nuclear weapons, we have a nuclear deterrent. In this sense,
we prevent wars and conflicts from escalating into another World War by instituting world order. By having nuclear technology,
we are ensuring the well-being, longevity, and freedoms of the humyn race. Internet Technology Another prominent
technological innovation that well represents our society today is the Internet. The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible
network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data between themselves. It is an extremely large network that
consists of countless smaller networks. The World Wide Web is accessible only through this Internet infrastructure which allows
us our access to websites, email, file sharing, downloads, and media. As well as being an important provider for us common
citizens who wish to access the World Wide Web, the internet serves a much greater purpose. It allows for the sharing of
information almost instantaneously between scholars, researchers, and others. It allows for information to be shared from the
United States to China in less than a second. Before the times of the internet, the other alternatives to transmit information were
not nearly as efficient or effective. The Internet allows for us to, in some ways make the world smaller. In the days of today’s
stock markets, financial infrastructure, global news organizations, powerful militarizes, strong governments and big corporations,
instantaneous communication is an asset we can not afford to lose. The Internet allows for our society in modern day times to
interconnect and promote globalization and information sharing.
Medical Technology Perhaps one of the most vital
technological advances in our society today is in the field of humyn medicine and health sciences. This field deals with the
maintenance, prolongment, and restoration of humyn health through the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease
and injury. Medicine is an area where knowledge is obtained, then applied to treatment. It has been around at least as far as
the beginning of recorded history, perhaps even farther. Today, modern medicine is practiced within a well-developed
framework of health-care infrastructure. Research in the field of medicine has allowed for the development of many new
treatments, drugs, medicines, and solutions that have allowed for the dramatic prolongment of the humyn lifespan. Today, with
the influence of medicine, the lifespan of the average humyn is only increasing. Medicine in today’s world provides the most
vital of all services; it ensures the survival of the humyn race as a whole. Review Now, let us review the implications of
technology on our civilization here on Earth as a whole. Could the notion of technology possibly have any basis? Simply put, it
does not have any credibility of any sort. Technology itself does not signify any concrete object or thing; instead it collectively
portrays humyn kind’s achievements as a whole. Any advancements, abilities, creations, undertakings, views, or knowledge of
us as humyns are in essence technology. This definition alone refutes the argument that technology is detrimental. Take for
three significant technological advances of the humyn race covered in this article: nuclear
technology, the internet, and medicine. Nuclear technology, an important advancement for our society, creates a
world order, protects the inhabitants of the world, and ensures the longevity, freedoms, and well-being of the
entire humyn race. Also, the internet allows for our society to inter-connect and progress further into
enlightenment. Perhaps most important of all, medicine, allows for us to ensure our own survival on this
planet. These three technologies well represent technology as a whole, and clearly show that technology is extremely
beneficial to our society. Only by advocating and advancing technology, can we as humyns,
and as humynity, succeed.
instance the
Mexican pharmaceuticals are key
NAPS 4/11/13 (North American Production Sharing Incorporated,
http://www.napsintl.com/news/index.php/2013/04/11/the-medical-device-industrymanufacturing-in-mexico-has-a-clean-bill-of-health/)
As costs in the
United States and Eastern Europe continue to rise, especially with the implementation of “Obamacare”
and its direct impact on medical device companies, more organizations are considering
manufacturing in Mexico as a viable solution. No other place in Mexico is this more evident than in Tijuana, where
they now claim the largest concentration of medical device companies in all of North
America. The ability to provide both timely deliveries and consistently high quality products are a few reasons why medical device
manufacturers are choosing Mexico. Also, there is a tremendous base of talented labor with experience in
medical device, automotive, electronics, aerospace and other sophisticated industries to
Medical device companies manufacturing in Mexico continue to exhibit steady growth with no sign of a slow down in sight.
support the growth of manufacturing in Mexico. Furthermore, the labor laws in Mexico provide companies much more flexibility in terms of
compensation, scheduling and seasonality, which plays an important roll on profitability. Another factor drawing medical device manufacturers to
Mexico is the government’s enforcement, and employee’s respect, for intellectual property. Unlike many other low-cost manufacturing countries,
Mexico is known for its low piracy rates, which cost companies billions of dollars a year. One of the challenges facing these companies is
understanding the business landscape and culture in Mexico, which is why many of these firms are choosing to outsource their administration and
compliance management to shelter companies. A good shelter company will handle 100% of the administration, including Humyn Resources in
Mexico, Payroll in Mexico, Accounting in Mexico, Import/Export in Mexico and Environmental, Health & Safety in Mexico, allowing the manufacturer
to focus on production and quality control. “We are receiving a record number of inquires from medical device manufacturers around the world
who want to explore Mexico as a competitive solution,” said Scott Stanley, Sr. Vice President of North American Production Sharing, Inc. (NAPS),
Tijuana’s largest and most sophisticated shelter service provider. “NAPS guides these companies through the process of feasibility by providing
all the facts and figures about expanding into Mexico so sound business decisions can be made. Thereafter, we essentially become partners and
With an increase in demand for medical device products, not only
in the United States but also within Mexico’s public health sector, Mexico will continue to be the primary choice
for medical device manufacturing.
typically work together for many years.”
Pharmaceuticals is key to the development of DOD non-lethal chemical
weapons
The Sunshine Project 03 (“Pentagon Perverts Pharma with New Weapons”,
http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr110203.html)
The conventional view is that pharmaceutical research develops new ways to treat disease and reduce humyn suffering; but
the Pentagon disagrees.
Military weapons developers see the pharmaceutical industry as
central to a new generation of anti-personnel weapons. Although it denied such research as recently
as the aftermath of the October theater tragedy in Moscow, a Pentagon program has recently released more
information that confirms that it wants to make pharmaceutical weapons. And on February 5th, US
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went a big step further. Rumsfeld, himself a former pharmaceutical industry CEO (1),
announced that the US is making plans for the use of such incapacitating biochemical weapons in an invasion of Iraq (see News
Release, 7 February 2003).
The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) and the US Army's
leading the research. Of interest to the military
Soldier Biological Chemical Commynd (SBCCOM) are
are drugs that target the brain's regulation of many aspects of cognition, such as sense of
pain, consciousness, and emotions like anxiety and fear. JNLWD is preparing a database of
pharmaceutical weapons candidates, many of them off-the-shelf products, and indexing
them by manufacturer. It will choose drugs from this database for further work and, according to Rumsfeld, if President Bush
signs a waiver of existing US policy, they can be used in Iraq. Delivery devices already exist or are in advanced development.
These include munitions for an unmynned aerial vehicle or loitering missile, and a new 81mm (bio)chemical mortar round.
Many of the Pentagon’s so-called "nonlethal" (bio)chemical weapons candidates are
pharmaceuticals. Different names are used for these weapons ("calmatives", "disabling chemicals", "nonlethal
chemicals", etc.). Used as weapons, all minimally aim to incapacitate their victims. They belong to the same
broad category of agents as the incapacitating chemical that killed more than 120 hostages in the Moscow theater. That agent
was reported to be based on fentanyl, an opiate that is also among the weapons being assessed by JNLWD. In the US,
pharmaceutical fentanyl is sold by Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica. Remifentanil, a closely related
US military contractors have identified a host of other agents
manufactured by a Who's Who list of the pharmaceutical industry. In 2001 weapons researchers
drug, is a GlaxoSmithKline product.
at the Applied Research Laboratory of Pennsylvania State University assessed the anesthetic drugs isoflurane and sevoflurane,
produced by Syngenta and Abbott Laboratories, respectively. The same Penn State team recommended other drugs for
"immediate consideration," some of which are in the chart below. The Pentagon is also interested in industry’s new ways to
apply (bio)chemicals through the skin and mucous membranes, which could bring previously impractical drug weapons closer
to reality by overcoming technical hurdles related to delivery of certain agents.
Those are good – prevent collateral damage
Alexander 99, Retired U.S. Army colonel, an author, and a consultant to various U.S.
government agencies. He spearheaded the research on nonlethal weapons at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, 1999 (John B., Oct 1st, “Nonlethal Weapons: When Deadly Force Is Not
Enough”, The Futurist, L/N)
The military and law enforcement situations mentioned so far are fairly clear cut and a logical extension of current practices.
However, the future of nonlethal weapons lies in far more important areas. Many of the potential enemies of the future are
nontraditional. In the past few years the impact of terrorism and organized crime has been felt around the
world. In most cases, response by means of conventional force is unsuitable or inadequate. When the
enemy commingles with an innocent civilian population, it is not appropriate, and often
counterproductive, to use bombs or missiles to attack them. As was seen earlier this year in Yugoslavia,
even precision weapons can occasionally go astray and hit an unintended target. Without the development of
advanced nonlethal weapons, the options available to political leaders and military commynders are
too limited. It is under circumstances in which lethal weapons could lead to much broader
engagements that nonlethal weapons take on strategic importance. An example of a
situation that seems to have gone tragically wrong is the 1998 U.S. cruise missile attack on
a pharmaceutical company in Sudan. This attack was undertaken based on a belief that the factory was
supporting Osama bin Laden, a terrorist who had allegedly instigated and coordinated bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar
es Salaam and Nairobi. The
factory, located near the Sudanese capital city of Khartoum, was hit by cruise
missiles at night in hopes that civilian casualties would be minimal. It was later learned that
the factory was targeted on erroneous information and that people did die in the attack. This
incident highlights the limitations of conventional weapons. In the future we need to have
weapons that can degrade or destroy such facilities without the collateral damage caused
by high explosives. Very few of these weapons are being thoroughly researched. However, with some effort more
weapons can be developed to make long-range, nonlethal strikes against terrorist
infrastructures.
That prevents a world war
Close 98, Arab affairs specialist for the CIA for twenty-six years & an independent consultant
on the region, 1998 (Raymond, “The Only Effective Defense Against Terrorism is To Rebuild
America's Reputation For Fairness,” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November)
Despite U.S. government claims to the contrary, there is, in my opinion, a serious question whether our
action in bombing
alleged terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan was a justifiable violation of the accepted and respected norms
of international law. The attacks were on the sovereign territory of another legally
recognized state with which we are technically at peace. We can attempt to justify this action by quoting Osama
bin Laden's "declaration of war" on the American government and the American people, without distinction between them. But that is to claim, is
it not, that the government of Afghanistan and the government of the Sudan abetted, and therefore share complicity in, acts of war against the
United States? In fact, all that Afghanistan seems to have done was to provide Bin Laden with the sanctuary where the acts against us were
planned. (Not the location where they were carried out.) We
must now be ready to accept the full implications of
this interpretation of our international rights. This means, it seems to me, that we are declaring one of two
conditions to be true: A. That the United States makes the rules by which it acts in the world community. We are a law unto ourselves. Do we
really want to say that? B. Or, that
if one state believes it has enemies who are being granted refuge in another
country, it is permissible to launch bombing attacks against those elements without the
knowledge or permission of the legitimate host government. Is setting that precedent always going to redound
to our benefit? Have we thought about that carefully? Most of us accept the premise that terrorism is a phenomenon that
cannot be defeated by brute force, but only by ideas, by persuasion, by the amelioration of its causes -- whether real or
imagined. Terrorism has only one real asset, in the final analysis -- the passion and commitment of its adherents. Are humyn passions capable
of being altered by cruise missiles? Having
accepted that premise intellectually as reasonable and
civilized, we now have to live with the fact that in other international situations in the future,
others may emulate our resort to violence, taking the law into their own hands to launch
attacks against other members of the international community if they feel their national
interests are similarly threatened. This is how world wars start.
Bioterrorism coming now — no impediments to deployment
Glassmyn, 12 (James, “We're Letting Our Bioterrorism Defenses Down,” April 4th, 2012,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesglassmyn/2012/04/04/were-letting-our-bioterrorism-defensesdown/print/)
A little over three years ago, a commission of experts, established by Congress, concluded that the chances were better than 50-50
that a weapon of mass destruction would be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by 2013. And, said the Commission
on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, that weapon is more likely to be biological than nuclear.¶ Both Michael
Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security, and Admiral Mike McConnell, former director of national intelligence, have said
that bioterror – not a nuclear weapon – was their greatest fear when they were in office. “In terms of catastrophic
attacks, bio was at the top of the list,” said Chertoff, who served from 2005 to 2009¶ Bacillus anthracis, via
Wikipedia¶ But we haven’t heard much about bioterrorism since the anthrax incidents that closely followed 9/11, a little over a
decade ago. The truth is that America remains vulnerable to an attack that could kill
hundreds of thousands. Terrorists could spray Bacillus anthracis from crop-dusters over
football stadiums. Or they could send intentionally infected fanatics out to spread the
smallpox virus through a crowded city, doing far more damage than a brigade of suicide bombers.¶ While biological warfare
dates back centuries (cadavers were used to contaminate the water supplies of enemies), the United States was paying scant
attention to bio-defense until a few years before the airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Despite a
relatively swift mobilization after 9/11, severe problems remain.¶ A “Bio-Response Report Card” study, issued last October by the
Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center, concluded, “The nation does not yet have adequate bio-
response capability to meet fundamental expectations during a large-scale biological
event.” The study gives grades of “D” to “detection and diagnosis” and “medical counter-measure availability” for a major bioterror
attack.¶ Biological weapons have been called the “poor myn’s atom bomb.” They are nowhere near as difficult to
manufacture as nuclear weapons, and their return address is hard to assess, making them ideal for non-state actors
like Al Qaeda, which, in fact, has been seeking to acquire biological WMD since at least 1999.¶ A report 12 years ago concluded,
“Individuals, with no background in the development and production of bioweapons and
no access to the classified information from the former U.S. bio-weapons program, were
able to produce a significant quantity of high-quality weaponized Bacillus globigii – a close
cousin to the well-known threat, Anthrax.”¶ Colonies of Baccilus subtilis, via Wikipedia¶ In the spring of 2001, a Defense Science
Board report, co-authored by Nobel Prize winner Joshua Lederberg and George Whiteside, former chair of the Harvard chemistry
department, concluded that “major impediments to the development of biological weapons…have
largely been eliminated in the last decade by the rapid spread of biotechnology.¶ Later that
year, five Americans were killed by anthrax powder, carried in letters. The FBI is convinced that the letters came from a civilian
employee of the U.S. Army. If so, then “a single employee with no work experience in the
weaponization of pathogens,… using equipment that could be readily purchased over the Internet, was able to
produce very high-quality, dry-powdered anthrax,” said the Bio-Response Report Card.
But manufacturing solves – sensors and encryption tools
Morgan et al. 03 (Sarah Morgan East Texas Baptist University, Silverio Colon, Arizona State
University Department of Bioengineering College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Judith
A. Ruffner and John A. Emerson Organic Materials Department, Ramona L. Myers Nuclear
Safety Assessment Department, “Biomanufacturing: A State of the Technology Review
“September 2003,
http://www.che.ncsu.edu/academics/concentrations/documents/BiomanufacturingAStateofTechRev.pdf)
Perhaps the most unique and advantageous aspect of biomanufacturing is the excellent control
that may be afforded during fabrication. In particular, sequence-by-sequence building of polymeric
materials may be possible. Biological species can be used to synthesize polymers of more uniform chain lengths or chain branching
than those produced by conventional synthesis techniques. Additionally, biosynthesis could be used to produce specialty copolymers that are not
available through traditional synthesis methods. These applications are of particular interest to SNL as we strive to understand polymers and
nanoparticles in terms of their thermal, mechanical, optical, and electrical properties for use in nuclear weapons, satellites, and homeland defense
Other biomanufacturing areas of interest include fabrication of sensors and
encryption tools. It may be possible to utilize this technology to manufacture sensors that offer
superior recognition of chemical and biological agents. Currently, it is possible to manufacture
sensors that are able to detect only one or a few agents. However, development of the
appropriate bioprocessing techniques will enable manufacture of sensors that are able to
detect all materials of interest at once. This is of tremendous interest in detecting and
neutralizing potential terrorist attacks using these agents. Additionally, it may be possible to use
biosequencing to provide encryption and subsequent decoding of complex, sensitive data. Biomanufacturing has the potential
to be one of the defining technologies in the upcoming century. Research, development, and
applications in the fields of biotechnology, bioengineering, biodetection, biomaterials,
biocomputation and bioenergy will have dramatic impact on both the products we are able to
create, and the ways in which we create them. Sandia National Laboratories has the expertise to contribute to any one
applications.
of these fields.
Those cause extinction
Matheny 07 (Jason G. Matheny, Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg
School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, “Reducing the Risk of Humyn Extinction”,
Risk Analysis, Vol. 27, No. 5, 2007)
Of current extinction risks, the most severe may be bioterrorism. The knowledge needed to
engineer a virus is modest compared to that needed to build a nuclear weapon; the necessary
equipment and materials are increasingly accessible and because biological agents are selfreplicating, a weapon can have an exponential effect on a population (Warrick, 2006; Williams, 2006). 5
Current U.S. biodefense efforts are funded at $5 billion per year to develop and stockpile new drugs and vaccines, monitor biological
agents and emerging diseases, and strengthen the capacities of local health systems to respond to pandemics (Lam, Franco, &
Shuler, 2006).
Independently, causes retaliation that goes nuclear
Hymers 01, Ret. Lt. Colonel in the US Army, published over a hundred articles, summa cum
laude Masters Degree in Theology, (Robert, “The Roots of Terrorism”,
http://www.rlhymersjr.com/Online_Sermons/11-04-01PM_TheRootsOfTerrorism.html)
It could be smallpox, botulism or other deadly biological agents. Anthrax is the current focus of the nation's post-September 11 trauma, but it's just one
of many potential weapons in bioterrorism's terrible arsenal. This news article deals with
bioterrorism
through salmonella, drug resistant
tuberculosis, and "flesh eating" bacteria. The article says: Even without high-tech delivery systems, a single suicidal terrorist spraying
a few drops of smallpox virus - or a liquid solution of Ebola or even plague - in a crowded mall or into the ventilation system of a large building could
cause untold harm…Or a terrorist might use…botulism [or] a few drops of cholera bacteria, for example, [to] poison the water tank of an apartment
house…Health and Humyn Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said last week what worries him most is the safety of the nation's food supply,
especially of imports...[and] an attack on Americans, if
traced back to a state sponsor, could trigger nuclear retaliation. (Time,
November 5, 2001, pp. 44-45). In other words, terrorism could easily spark World War III - with nuclear bombs going off
- here in Los Angeles, the water supply and the food supply poisoned, and thousands infected with smallpox, incurable tuberculosis, or the Black Plague.
This is a frightening time to be alive! That's why you need to get back here to church next Sunday - and become a real Christian!
Mexican economic collapse causes instability
Barnes 11 – (4/29/11, Joe, Bonner Means Baker Fellow James A. Baker III Institute for Public
Policy Rice University, “Oil and U.S.-Mexico Bilateral
Relations,” http://bakerinstitute.org/publications/EF-pub-BarnesBilateral-04292011.pdf)
There is already a short- to medium-term risk of substantial instability in Mexico. As noted,
the country is enduring extremely high levels of drug-related violence. Even if the Mexican government
eventually succeeds in its efforts to suppress this violence, the process is likely to be expensive, bloody, and corrosive in terms of human rights. A period of
feeble economic growth, combined with a fiscal crisis associated with a drop in revenues
from Pemex, could create a “perfect storm” south of the border. If this were to occur,
Washington would have no choice but to respond. In the longer-term, the United States
has a clear interest in robust economic growth and fiscal sustainability in Mexico. There is at
least one major example of the U.S. coming to Mexico’s aid in an economic emergency. In 1994, the United States extended US$20 billion in loan guarantees to Mexico when
the peso collapsed, in large part to make U.S. creditors whole. Not least, a healthy Mexican economy would reduce the flow of illegal immigration to the United States. To the
extent that prospects for such growth and sustainability are enhanced by reform of Pemex, the United States should be supportive. It might be best, in terms of U.S. economic
and commercial interests, were Pemex to be fully privatized, but even partial reforms would be welcome. Not all national oil companies are created equal: Pemex’s
development into something like Norway’s Statol would mark an important improvement.
Mexico’s economy is critical to the US – collapse causes decline of US
economy and competitiveness
O’Neal ’13 - Shannon K. O’Neil is a senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR) a nonpartisan foreign-policy think tank and membership organization,
(“Two Nations Indivisible”, it’s a book)
Mexico has come a long way in the last three decades, shifting from a closed to an open economy, from booms and busts to
macroeconomic stability, and from a poor to a middle class nation. But it has yet to unlock its true growth potential, or to match the
economic gains and growth rates seen in many of its emerging market peers—China, South Korea, Brazil, and Peru. One might
sum up U.S. interest as friendly concern for a neighbor, and it is indeed that. But the U.S. economic future is also increasingly tied to
Mexico. A real economic partnership between the two neighbors can be more than just an
engine for Mexico’s economic middle; it can help protect and expand America’s middle class.
The United States’ economic reliance on Mexico is no less real just because it is overlooked. Already
twenty-two of the fifty U.S. states claim Mexico as their first or second destination for
exports. Leading the pack are the border states. Each month Texan companies send over US$7 billion and their Californian
counterparts almost US$2 billion in goods to their neigh bor.82 But this bonanza isn’t limited just to the border. ‘The economies of
states such as South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Hampshire now depend on exports to Mexico as well. U.S. companies in
industries as diverse as elec tronic equipment, household appliances, paper products,
red meat, pears, and grapes rely today on Mexican industry and consumers for their liveli
hoods. Because of these ties, economic expansion to the south will boost growth to the north.
The opposite is also true; future downturns in Puebla will mean layoffs in Peoria. This dependence through
economic integration with Mexico is only deepening as companies worldwide transform the way they make
things. American businesses such as Ford, General Electric, Honeywell, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard have rebounded by “nearshoring” or opening fac tories in nearby Mexico. Less recognized, this has saved many U.S. jobs in the
process.83 Studies estimate that roughly 40 percent of Mexican-made products value is actually
“made in the U.S.A.”—ten times that of Chinese-made goods.84 In this age of inexorable globalization,
U.S. eco nomic cooperation with Mexico holds out the hope—and indeed the promise—of
stopping the wholesale decampment of manufacturing firms to trans-Pacific locales.
Misunderstood by U.S. politicians and pundits alike, NAFTA, and Mexican outsourcing more generally, can he a good thing for U.S.
work ers and the U.S. middle class. With a different mindset and approach, U.S.-Mexico economic ties can help
boost America’s chances in the global economic race. Using raw data collected confidentially
from thousands of large U.S. multinational manufacturing firms, two Harvard Business School
professors, along with a colleague from the University of Michigan, upend the conventional wisdom,
finding that as companies ramp up investment and employment abroad they also invest
and hire more people at home.8 Companies become more productive—and more
competitive—and with their better products, lower prices, and higher sales, they create
new jobs all around.86 The study shows that, on average, when a firm hires ten employees abroad, it will actually hire, not
lay off at least two employees at home. This means that efforts to stop “oftshoring” might actually have the
reverse and perverse effect of undermining U.S. jobs.
Global economic decline causes nuclear war
Auslin ‘9
(Michael, Resident Scholar – American Enterprise Institute, and Desmond Lachman – Resident Fellow – American Enterprise
Institute, “The Global Economy Unravels”, Forbes, 3-6, http://www.aei.org/article/100187)
global chaos
followed hard on economic collapse. The mere fact that parliaments across the globe, from America to Japan, are
What do these trends mean in the short and medium term? The Great Depression showed how social and
unable to make responsible, economically sound recovery plans suggests that they do not know what to do and are simply hoping
for the least disruption. Equally worrisome is the adoption of more statist economic programs around the globe, and the concurrent
decline of trust in free-market systems. The threat of instability is a pressing concern. China, until last year the
world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20 million migrant laborers lost their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years,
China faced upward of 70,000 labor uprisings a year. A sustained downturn poses grave and
possibly immediate threats to Chinese internal stability. The regime in Beijing may be faced with a choice of
repressing its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's neighbors. Russia, an oil state
completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put down riots in its Far East as well as in downtown
Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse. If that devil's
bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing threatening posture
toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies face increasing risk and the threat of internal or
possibly external conflict. As Japan's exports have plummeted by nearly 50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have passed
emergency economic stabilization plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary employees hired during the first part of this decade
are being laid off. Spain's unemployment rate is expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish unions are already
protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as occurred in the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece,
workers have already taken to the streets. Europe as a whole will face dangerously increasing tensions
between native citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have increased the labor pool in the past several
decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since 1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's residents have foreign citizenship,
A prolonged
global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise tensions inside these countries.
Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial disputes
in all regions of the globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what they are doing. The result
may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang .
including almost 2 million Turks. The xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not bode well for the rest of Europe.
Plan
The United States federal government ought to include the United Mexican
States in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Contention 2 - EU Relations
Negotiations with Mexico are necessary to the success of TTIP
Knigge 2/26/13 – (Michael, “EU-US trade deal is 'unique opportunity'”, DW,
http://www.dw.de/eu-us-trade-deal-is-unique-opportunity/a-16584523?maca=en-rss-en-top1022-rdf)//javi
Experts are skeptical as to whether such an agreement can ever be reached. They point
to similar visions of free, transatlantic trade from the past that fizzled out in the political chambers of
Washington and Brussels. After the multi-year and ultimately fruitless worldwide trade deal called the Doha Development Agenda
failed in 2008, Washington is also tired of endless discussion. In order to gauge the seriousness of Europeans on the matter, the
Obama administration has recently been anxious for a clear signal from Brussels. Yet
even if the EU and US begin
negotiations in the coming months, success is anything but assured. Negotiators from both the US
Without the ultimate approval of
US Congress and the EU Parliament, there will be no agreement. Other countries, such as Turkey, which has a
customs agreement with the EU, or Canada and Mexico, which are linked to US trade through NAFTA, will at the very
least have to play an informal role in future negotiations.
government and the EU Commission will not be free to negotiate as they please.
TTIP failure hurts US-EU trade ties and relations
Llana 7/8/13 – (Sara Miller, “Will US-EU trade talks spur growth - or show globalization's
limits?”, CSM, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0708/Will-US-EU-trade-talks-spurgrowth-or-show-globalization-s-limits)//javi
Yet even if it fails – and there are plenty who think that the obstacles such as agriculture and,
most recently, data privacy are insurmountable – a failure would be pivotal, showing that
tariffs can be dropped but non-tariff barriers, which are often more cultural in nature,
remain stubborn. A failure , says Fredrik Erixon, the director of the European Center for International Political Economy
(ECIPE) in Brussels, “ could
lead to a large r standstill in efforts to address 21st century trade barriers.”
Long-standing obstacles Tariffs
between the US and EU are already relatively low, but because of the
sheer size of trade between the two – representing half of global economic output –
advocates say it would be a major booster of growth and jobs, especially in debt-stricken
Europe that has seen record high unemployment at 12.2 percent. The two already invest nearly $4 trillion in each other’s
economies, according to US statistics, which translates into 7 million jobs. It’s the non-tariff barriers, however, that
most are watching in TTIP talks. Today, if a product is made in France, for example, it goes
through the various regulatory hurdles to bring it to the marketplace; it then has to go
through another set of strenuous – and often redundant – hurdles to reach the US market. Under the
TTIP, both sides could agree to mutually recognize the others’ systems. When it comes to car safety,
reducing red tape may be an easy compromise. But other issues on the table have long vexed negotiators. That includes French
subsidies for its film industry, European resistance to genetically modified foods (GMOs), or data privacy laws – especially in the
wake of the information released by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revealing the US
systematically spies on its own citizens, as well as European institutions. “One of the sleeper issues in the deal is how to deal with
privacy,” says Bruce Stokes, the director of the Global Economic Attitudes program at the Pew Research Center. Europeans,
particularly Germans, are far more sensitive than Americans when it comes to data privacy. “There is a disconnect between
Europeans and Americans about this new digital economy,” Mr. Stokes says. And even if the Snowden case is about government,
not industry, it bolsters European assumptions that Americans don’t care about privacy, he says. Supporters of the agreement know
these talks will be arduous, but at a time of economic weakness, they might have the political will to push forward. “Europe is stuck,
and the US is also stuck, although not quite as bad,” says Thomas Wright, a fellow in the Managing Global Order project at the
Brookings Institution. “This offers a way that leaders can be proactive and generate growth. I think that resonates with people,
particularly in Europe.” Mr. Erixon also says that regulators in specific industries have more of an incentive
to find solutions now, because their refusal to compromise would influence every other
industry included in the talks. On the issue of the US using chlorine when washing chicken, for example,
compromise has been impossible because the context was always too small.
“Regulators were trying to defend their position, with no interest at all in participating in
negotiations with other countries,” he says. “If you play filibuster now, the cost is higher.” 'Cultural exceptions' – and
similarities So far TTIP has not generated widespread controversy in the US. That might be because it’s still early days. But it’s also
because of the nature of the deal, says Charles Kupchan, a transatlantic expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
“Since trade is relatively free and since [the US] and the EU are at similar stages of development, this is not a deal that is going to
cause major dislocation,” he says. “This is an easier sell politically.” Opposition might be stronger on the European side. Already the
French sought to invoke the so-called “cultural exception” in the talks, as a way to protect its movie industry from an incursion from
Hollywood. France ultimately agreed to allow media to be included in talks so that they could officially launch, but it will be among
the most difficult issues to negotiate. “It’s not a little issue. It’s the cultural meat of a nation,” says Josef Braml, transatlantic expert at
the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, who has little hope that a deal is attainable – above all, he says, because of the
weakness of President Obama. But the “cultural exception” debate could be a harbinger of sentiments that develop as the trade
talks get underway. Guillaume Xavier-Bender of the German Marshall Fund of the US in Brussels says that in many ways the talks
will show how similar regulations between Europe and the US are. “There are more things in common between Europeans and
Americans than there are differences,” he says. But on the politically most sensitive issues, claims that
TTIP is merely an American instrument to change European values could be made. “It is
possible in Europe you see anti-globalization and anti-liberalization movements evolve into anti-Americanism,” he says. If an
agreement becomes impossible to forge, it may ultimately illustrate more than transatlantic
differences. Mr. Stokes says that global economies have continuously become more closely
integrated over time. But if in the TTIP it’s possible to get rid of tariffs yet not non-tariff
barriers, he says it will be telling for the future of trade agreements globally – a sign, he says, that
“we may be encountering the edges of the limits of globalization.”
EU says yes
COG 3/3/08 – (Bob Thiel, “A Combined EU & North American Trade Block Coming?”, Church
of God News, http://www.cogwriter.com/news/prophecy/a-combined-eu-north-american-tradeblock-coming/)//javi
Fifty-five U.S. Senators and Congressman currently serve as advisors to a “working group” for the Transatlantic Common Market
between the U.S. and the European Union. “An economist from the World Bank has argued in print that the formation of the
Transatlantic Common Market is designed to follow the blueprint of Jean Monet, a key intellectual architect of the European Union,
recognizing that economic integration must inevitably lead to political integration.” The idea of this union came to light in April 2007,
when President Bush, German Chancellor Merkel, and European Commission President Barroso launched the Transatlantic
Economic Council. Efforts are already underway to create a North American Community, including
the U.S., Mexico and Canada. This community is to be based on security and economic issues and is intended to be in place by
2010 (WorldNetDaily.com, July 20, 2005; September 25, 2006). The Transatlantic Common Market is intended to combine the North
American Community with the EU, creating the world’s most formidable trade bloc—a trade bloc that would be so
large that its trading policies would automatically become policies for the world. Plans for this
new “common market” are proceeding and are intended to pass through in a “treaty” form, much
like the most recent EU Treaty, in order to avoid the scrutiny and debate that often come with more “formal” agreements (January
16, 2008). Revelation 18 warns of a future Beast, known as Babylon the Great, through which “the merchants of the earth have
become rich through the abundance of her luxury” (v. 3). I have been expecting such a development for some time. And today, I
would like to explain what I have believed for over 20 years will most likely happen with the above proposed trade block.
Negotiations will continue and some type of loose agreements will happen. In the spirit
of accommodation and personal interest, many of the “standards” of the European Union will be adopted by
the USA, Canada and Mexico, as well as by nearly all of the countries of the world. The Arab nations will most likely agree
with many of the standards as they seem to be destined to form a brief end-time alliance with the Europeans (The Arab World In the
Bible, History, and Prophecy).
Decline in US-EU relations causes Protectionism
C. Fred Bergsten 99, Director, Institute for International Economics, “America and Europe:
Clash of the Titans?” FOREIGN AFFAIRS v. 78 n. 2, March/April 1999, p. 20+, LN.
Both sides now run the risk of drift and even paralysis in transatlantic trade policy -- with
potentially severe repercussions for the rest of the world. A slide into protectionism or even a
failure to continue opening new markets would have a major impact on the global trading system. Could
we then expect Asian economies, who depend on expanded exports to emerge from their deep recessions, to keep their own
markets open? Would the transition economies in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Asia stick to their liberalization
strategies? With the backlash against globalization already evident everywhere, the ominous inward-
looking protectionist and nationalistic policies that the world has rejected so decisively
could reemerge once again. A failure of transatlantic leadership would make such policy
reversals particularly likely. The United States and the EU are the only economic
superpowers and the only two regions enjoying reasonable economic growth. They created
the GATT system and, more recently, the WTO. Despite their own occasional transgressions, they have nurtured and defended the
system throughout its evolution over the past 50 years. While Japan has been important on a few issues and the developing
countries played an encouraging role in the Uruguay Round, the Atlantic powers built and sustained the
world trade order. Their failure to maintain that commitment would devastate the entire
regime.
Great power war
Panzer 8 (Michael J., Faculty – New York Institute of Finance, Financial Armageddon: Protect
Your Future from Economic Collapse, p. 137-138)
The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous
confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors of production that must, out of
necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic
necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where
demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the environment and
natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such tensions will give rise
to full-scale military encounters , often with minimal provocation. In some instances, economic
conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious
differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by
channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap
technology and the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and
scale of their horrifying attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions
will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old
clashes will also take on a new, more heated sense of urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly
belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may embark on overt colonization of its
neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing
number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientists at the University of Chicago, have even
speculated that an “intense confrontation” between the United States and China is “inevitable” at some point. More than a few
disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of
words to battles soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of human
instincts and triggering genocidal acts. Terrorists
employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie
with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause
widespread destruction. Many will interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies
as the beginnings of a new world war .
US-EU cooperation also solves disease and environmental degradation
Steinberg 3 James B., Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution, Summer 2003
(“An Elective Partnership: Salvaging Transatlantic Relations” – Survival) p. OUP Journals
Both the United States and Europe face new global threats and opportunities that, in almost every
case, can be dealt with far more successfully if we act together. Transnational threats, from terrorism
and international crime to environmental damage and disease pose an increasing danger to our
wellbeing. Porous borders and the extraordinary global flows of goods, money, people and ideas facilitate the
spread of economic opportunity – but also foster the proliferation of technology for weapons of mass destruction.
Weak states threaten our security as much as powerful ones. Ocean and land barriers offer little protection. Nonstate actors – from businesses and NGOs to terrorist and money-launderers – play an increasingly influential role.
In the place of geopolitics, a new ‘global politics’ is required to address the threats and opportunities
that affect us all. If we can work together, we are likely to be far more successful at meeting the new
global threats, and preserving our freedom and prosperity, than if we try to achieve these goals alone.
Disease causes extinction
Quammen 12 David, award-winning science writer, long-time columnist for Outside
magazine for fifteen years, with work in National Geographic, Harper's, Rolling Stone, the New
York Times Book Review and other periodicals, 9/29, “Could the next big animal-to-human
disease wipe us out?,” The Guardian, pg. 29, Lexis
Infectious disease is all around us. It's one of the basic processes that ecologists study, along with predation and competition. Predators are big
beasts that eat their prey from outside. Pathogens (disease-causing agents, such as viruses) are small beasts that eat their prey from within. Although infectious disease can
under ordinary conditions, it's every bit as natural as what lions do to wildebeests and zebras. But conditions
aren't always ordinary. Just as predators have their accustomed prey, so do pathogens. And just as a lion might occasionally depart from its normal behaviour
- to kill a cow instead of a wildebeest, or a human instead of a zebra - so a pathogen can shift to a new target. Aberrations occur. When a pathogen leaps from
an animal into a person, and succeeds in establishing itself as an infectious presence, sometimes causing illness or death, the result is a zoonosis. It's a mildly technical
seem grisly and dreadful,
term, zoonosis, unfamiliar to most people, but it helps clarify the biological complexities behind the ominous headlines about swine flu, bird flu, Sars, emerging diseases in
It's a word
destined for heavy use in the 21st century
general, and the threat of a global pandemic.
of the future,
. Ebola and Marburg
are zoonoses. So is bubonic plague. So was the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918-1919, which had its source in a wild aquatic bird and emerged to kill as many as 50 million
people. All of the human influenzas are zoonoses. As are monkeypox, bovine tuberculosis, Lyme disease, West Nile fever, rabies and a strange new affliction called Nipah
a pathogen that can "spillover",
crossing into people from other animals. Aids is a disease of zoonotic origin caused by a virus that, having reached humans through a few
encephalitis, which has killed pigs and pig farmers in Malaysia. Each of these zoonoses reflects the action of
accidental events in western and central Africa, now passes human-to-human. This form of interspecies leap is not rare; about 60% of all human infectious diseases currently
known either cross routinely or have recently crossed between other animals and us. Some of those - notably rabies - are familiar, widespread and still horrendously lethal,
killing humans by the thousands despite centuries of efforts at coping with their effects. Others are new and inexplicably sporadic, claiming a few victims or a few hundred, and
then disappearing for years.
Zoonotic pathogens can hide. The least conspicuous strategy is to lurk within what's called a
reservoir host: a living organism that carries the pathogen while suffering little or no illness. When a disease seems to disappear between outbreaks, it's often still
lingering nearby, within some reservoir host. A rodent? A bird? A butterfly? A bat? To reside undetected is probably easiest wherever biological diversity is high and the
ecosystem is relatively undisturbed. The converse is also true: ecological disturbance causes diseases to emerge. Shake a tree and things fall out. Michelle Barnes is an
energetic, late 40s-ish woman, an avid rock climber and cyclist. Her auburn hair, she told me cheerily, came from a bottle. It approximates the original colour, but the original is
gone. In 2008, her hair started falling out; the rest went grey "pretty much overnight". This was among the lesser effects of a mystery illness that had nearly killed her during
January that year, just after she'd returned from Uganda. Her story paralleled the one Jaap Taal had told me about Astrid, with several key differences - the main one being that
Michelle Barnes was still alive. Michelle and her husband, Rick Taylor, had wanted to see mountain gorillas, too. Their guide had taken them through Maramagambo Forest and
into Python Cave. They, too, had to clamber across those slippery boulders. As a rock climber, Barnes said, she tends to be very conscious of where she places her hands. No,
she didn't touch any guano. No, she was not bumped by a bat. By late afternoon they were back, watching the sunset. It was Christmas evening 2007. They arrived home on
New Year's Day. On 4 January, Barnes woke up feeling as if someone had driven a needle into her skull. She was achy all over, feverish. "And then, as the day went on, I
started developing a rash across my stomach." The rash spread. "Over the next 48 hours, I just went down really fast." By the time Barnes turned up at a hospital in suburban
Denver, she was dehydrated; her white blood count was imperceptible; her kidneys and liver had begun shutting down. An infectious disease specialist, Dr Norman K Fujita,
arranged for her to be tested for a range of infections that might be contracted in Africa. All came back negative, including the test for Marburg. Gradually her body regained
strength and her organs began to recover. After 12 days, she left hospital, still weak and anaemic, still undiagnosed. In March she saw Fujita on a follow-up visit and he had her
serum tested again for Marburg. Again, negative. Three more months passed, and Barnes, now grey-haired, lacking her old energy, suffering abdominal pain, unable to focus,
got an email from a journalist she and Taylor had met on the Uganda trip, who had just seen a news article. In the Netherlands, a woman had died of Marburg after a Ugandan
holiday during which she had visited a cave full of bats. Barnes spent the next 24 hours Googling every article on the case she could find. Early the following Monday morning,
she was back at Dr Fujita's door. He agreed to test her a third time for Marburg. This time a lab technician crosschecked the third sample, and then the first sample. The new
results went to Fujita, who called Barnes: "You're now an honorary infectious disease doctor. You've self-diagnosed, and the Marburg test came back positive." The Marburg
virus had reappeared in Uganda in 2007. It was a small outbreak, affecting four miners, one of whom died, working at a site called Kitaka Cave. But Joosten's death, and
Barnes's diagnosis, implied a change in the potential scope of the situation. That local Ugandans were dying of Marburg was a severe concern - sufficient to bring a response
team of scientists in haste. But if tourists, too, were involved, tripping in and out of some python-infested Marburg repository, unprotected, and then boarding their return flights
to other continents, the place was not just a peril for Ugandan miners and their families. It was also an international threat. The first team of scientists had collected about 800
bats from Kitaka Cave for dissecting and sampling, and marked and released more than 1,000, using beaded collars coded with a number. That team, including scientist Brian
Amman, had found live Marburg virus in five bats. Entering Python Cave after Joosten's death, another team of scientists, again including Amman, came across one of the
beaded collars they had placed on captured bats three months earlier and 30 miles away. "It confirmed my suspicions that these bats are moving," Amman said - and moving
not only through the forest but from one roosting site to another. Travel of individual bats between far-flung roosts implied circumstances whereby Marburg virus might ultimately
be transmitted all across Africa, from one bat encampment to another. It voided the comforting assumption that this virus is strictly localised. And it highlighted the
complementary question: why don't outbreaks of Marburg virus disease happen more often? Marburg is only one instance to which that question applies. Why not more Ebola?
Sars
could have been very much worse
Why not more Sars? In the case of
, the scenario
. Apart from the 2003 outbreak and the aftershock
cases in early 2004, it hasn't recurred. . . so far. Eight thousand cases are relatively few for such an explosive infection; 774 people died, not 7 million. Several factors
contributed to limiting the scope and impact of the outbreak, of which humanity's good luck was only one. Another was the speed and excellence of the laboratory diagnostics finding the virus and identifying it. Still another was the brisk efficiency with which cases were isolated, contacts were traced and quarantine measures were instituted, first in
If the virus had arrived in a different sort of big city - more loosely governed,
it might have burned through a much larger segment of
southern China, then in Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi and Toronto.
full of poor people, lacking first-rate medical institutions -
humanity. One further factor, possibly the most crucial, was inherent in the way Sars affects the human body: symptoms tend to appear in a person before, rather than
after, that person becomes highly infectious. That allowed many Sars cases to be recognised, hospitalised and placed in isolation before they hit their peak of infectivity. With
1918-1919 influenza.
occurred in the era before globalisation. Everything nowadays moves around the planet faster, including viruses.
When the Next Big One comes, it will likely conform to the same perverse pattern as the 1918 influenza: high
infectivity preceding notable symptoms. That will help it move through cities and airports like an angel of
death. The Next Big One is a subject that disease scientists around the world often address. The most recent big one is Aids, of which the eventual total bigness cannot
even be predicted - about 30 million deaths, 34 million living people infected, and with no end in sight. Fortunately, not every virus goes airborne from
one host to another. If HIV-1 could, you and I might already be dead. If the rabies virus could, it would be the
most horrific pathogen on the planet. The influenzas are well adapted for airborne
transmission, which is why a new strain can circle the world within days. The Sars virus travels this route, too, or anyway by the respiratory droplets of sneezes and
influenza and many other diseases, the order is reversed. That probably helped account for the scale of worldwide misery and death during the
And that infamous global pandemic
coughs - hanging in the air of a hotel corridor, moving through the cabin of an aeroplane - and that capacity, combined with its case fatality rate of almost 10%, is what made it
so scary in 2003 to the people who understood it best.
Human-to-human transmission is the crux. That capacity is what
separates a bizarre, awful, localised, intermittent and mysterious disease (such as Ebola) from a global pandemic . Have you noticed
the persistent, low-level buzz about avian influenza, the strain known as H5N1, among disease experts over the past 15 years? That's because avian flu worries them deeply,
though it hasn't caused many human fatalities. Swine flu comes and goes periodically in the human population (as it came and went during 2009), sometimes causing a bad
pandemic and sometimes (as in 2009) not so bad as expected; but avian flu resides in a different category of menacing possibility. It worries the flu scientists because they
know that H5N1 influenza is extremely virulent in people, with a high lethality. As yet, there have been a relatively low number of cases, and it is poorly transmissible, so far,
from human to human. It'll kill you if you catch it, very likely, but you're unlikely to catch it except by butchering an infected chicken. But if H5N1 mutates or reassembles itself in
just the right way, if it adapts for human-to-human transmission, it could become the biggest and fastest killer disease since 1918. It got to Egypt in 2006 and has been
especially problematic for that country. As of August 2011, there were 151 confirmed cases, of which 52 were fatal. That represents more than a quarter of all the world's known
human cases of bird flu since H5N1 emerged in 1997. But here's a critical fact: those unfortunate Egyptian patients all seem to have acquired the virus directly from birds. This
indicates that the virus hasn't yet found an efficient way to pass from one person to another. Two aspects of the situation are dangerous, according to biologist Robert Webster.
The first is that Egypt, given its recent political upheavals, may be unable to staunch an outbreak of transmissible avian flu, if one occurs. His second concern is shared by
influenza researchers and public health officials around the globe: with all that mutating, with all that contact between people and their infected birds, the virus could hit upon a
As long as H5N1 is out there in the world," Webster told me, "there
is the possibility of disaster. . . There is the theoretical possibility that it can acquire the ability to transmit human-to-human." He paused. "And then
God help us." We're unique in the history of mammals. No other primate has ever weighed upon the planet to anything
like the degree we do. In ecological terms, we are almost paradoxical: large-bodied and long-lived but grotesquely abundant. We are an
outbreak. And here's the thing about outbreaks: they end . In some cases they end after many years, in others they end
genetic configuration making it highly transmissible among people. "
rather soon. In some cases they end gradually, in others they end with a crash. In certain cases, they end and recur and end again. Populations of tent caterpillars, for example,
seem to rise steeply and fall sharply on a cycle of anywhere from five to 11 years. The crash endings are dramatic, and for a long while they seemed mysterious. What could
account for such sudden and recurrent collapses? One possible factor is infectious disease, and viruses in particular.
So does environment collapse
Coyne and Hoekstra 7 – professors of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
(Jerry and Hopi, *professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of
Chicago AND Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at
Harvard
University,
New
Republic,
“The
Greatest
Dying,”
9/24,
http://www.truthout.org/article/jerry-coyne-and-hopi-e-hoekstra-the-greatest-dying)
But it isn't just the destruction of the rainforests that should trouble us. Healthy ecosystems the world over provide hidden services like waste disposal,
nutrient cycling, soil formation, water purification, and oxygen production. Such services are best rendered by ecosystems that
are diverse. Yet, through both intention and accident, humans have introduced exotic species that turn biodiversity into monoculture. Fast-growing zebra mussels, for example, have outcompeted more than 15
species of native mussels in North America's Great Lakes and have damaged harbors and water-treatment plants. Native prairies are becoming dominated by single species (often genetically homogenous) of corn
, soils will erode and become unproductive - which, along with temperature change, will diminish
agricultural yields. Meanwhile, with increased pollution and runoff, as well as reduced forest cover, ecosystems will no longer be able to purify
water; and a shortage of clean water spells disaster. In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of all. As overfishing eliminates major
predators, while polluted and warming waters kill off phytoplankton, the intricateaquaticfoodweb could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which so many humans depend,
or wheat. Thanks to these developments
will be a fond memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by phytoplankton, with the rest coming from
land plants.) Species extinction is also imperiling coral reefs - a major problem since these reefs have far more than recreational value: They provide tremendous amounts of food for human populations and buffer
coastlines against erosion. In fact, the global value of "hidden" services provided by ecosystems - those services, like waste disposal, that aren't bought and sold in the marketplace - has been estimated to be as
much as $50 trillion per year, roughly equal to the gross domestic product of all countries combined. And that doesn't include tangible goods like fish and timber. Life as we know it would be impossible if ecosystems
collapsed. Yet that is where we're heading if species extinction continues at its current pace. Extinction also has a huge impact on medicine. Who really cares if, say, a worm in the remote swamps of French Guiana
goes extinct? Well, those who suffer from cardiovascular disease. The recent discovery of a rare South American leech has led to the isolation of a powerful enzyme that, unlike other anticoagulants, not only
prevents blood from clotting but also dissolves existing clots. And it's not just this one species of worm: Its wriggly relatives have evolved other biomedically valuable proteins, including antistatin (a potential
anticancer agent), decorsin and ornatin (platelet aggregation inhibitors), and hirudin (another anticoagulant). Plants, too, are pharmaceutical gold mines. The bark of trees, for example, has given us quinine (the
first cure for malaria), taxol (a drug highly effective against ovarian and breast cancer), and aspirin. More than a quarter of the medicines on our pharmacy shelves were originally derived from plants. The sap of the
Madagascar periwinkle contains more than 70 useful alkaloids, including vincristine, a powerful anticancer drug that saved the life of one of our friends. Of the roughly 250,000 plant species on Earth, fewer than 5
percent have been screened for pharmaceutical properties. Who knows what life-saving drugs remain to be discovered? Given current extinction rates, it's estimated that we're losing one valuable drug every two
years. Our arguments so far have tacitly assumed that species are worth saving only in proportion to their economic value and their effects on our quality of life, an attitude that is strongly ingrained, especially in
Americans. That is why conservationists always base their case on an economic calculus. But we biologists know in our hearts that there are deeper and equally compelling reasons to worry about the loss of
biodiversity: namely, simple morality and intellectual values that transcend pecuniary interests. What, for example, gives us the right to destroy other creatures? And what could be more thrilling than looking around
us, seeing that we are surrounded by our evolutionary cousins, and realizing that we all got here by the same simple process of natural selection? To biologists, and potentially everyone else, apprehending the
genetic kinship and common origin of all species is a spiritual experience - not necessarily religious, but spiritual nonetheless, for it stirs the soul. But, whether or not one is moved by such concerns, it is certain that
our future is bleak if we do nothing to stem this sixth extinction. We are creating a world in which
exotic diseases flourish but natural medicinal cures are lost; a world in which carbon waste
accumulates while food sources dwindle; a world of sweltering heat, failing crops, and impure
water. In the end, wemust accept the possibility that we ourselves are not immune to extinction. Or, if we survive,
perhaps only a few of us will remain, scratching out a grubby existence on a devastated planet. Global warming will seem like a secondary problem
when humanity finally faces the consequences of what we have done to nature: not just another
Great Dying, but perhaps the greatest dying of them all.
.
Trade eliminates the only rational incentives for war—proves sustainability
Gartzke 11 Erik Gartzke is an associate Professor of political science at the University
of California, San Diego PhD from Iowa and B.A. from UCSF "SECURITY IN AN
INSECURE WORLD" www.cato-unbound.org/2011/02/09/erik-gartzke/security-in-aninsecure-world/
Almost as informative as the decline in warfare has been where this decline is
occurring. Traditionally, nations were constrained by opportunity. Most nations
did not fight most others because they could not physically do so. Powerful nations, in contrast,
tended to fight more often, and particularly to fight with other powerful states. Modern “ zones of peace ” are dominated by
powerful, militarily capable countries . These countries could fight each other, but
are not inclined to do so . At the same time, weaker developing nations that continue to
exercise force in traditional ways are incapable of projecting power against the developed world,
with the exception of unconventional methods, such as terrorism. The world is thus divided between those who could use force but prefer not to (at least not against each other)
Warfare in the modern world has thus
become an activity involving weak (usually neighboring) nations, with intervention by
powerful (geographically distant) states in a policing capacity. So, the riddle of peace boils down to why capable nations are not
fighting each other. There are several explanations, as Mack has pointed out. The easiest, and I think the best, explanation
has to do with an absence of motive . Modern states find little incentive to bicker
and those who would be willing to fight but lack the material means to fight far from home.
over tangible property, since armies are expensive and the goods that can be looted
are no longer of considerable value.
Ironically, this is exactly the explanation that Norman Angell famously supplied before the World
Yet, today the evidence is abundant that the most prosperous, capable nations
prefer to buy rather than take . Decolonization, for example, divested European powers of
territories that were increasingly expensive to administer and which contained
tangible assets of limited value. Of comparable importance is the move to
substantial consensus among powerful nations about how international affairs
should be conducted. The great rivalries of the twentieth century were ideological rather than
territorial. These have been substantially resolved, as Francis Fukuyama has pointed out. The fact that
remaining differences are moderate, while the benefits of acting in concert are
large ( due to economic interdependence in particular ) means that nations prefer to
Wars.
deliberate rather than fight . Differences remain, but for the most part the capable
countries of the world have been in consensus, while the disgruntled developing world is incapable of acting on respective
nations’ dissatisfaction. While this version of events explains the partial peace bestowed on
the developed world, it also poses challenges in terms of the future. The rising
nations of Asia in particular have not been equal beneficiaries in the world political system.
These nations have benefited from economic integration , and this has proved sufficient in
the past to pacify them . The question for the future is whether the benefits of tangible resources through markets are sufficient to compensate the rising
powers for their lack of influence in the policy sphere. The danger is that established powers may be slow to accommodate or give way to the demands of rising powers from
these nations are
rising in power, their domestic situations are evolving in a way that makes their
interests more similar to the West. Consumerism, democracy, and a market
orientation all help to draw the rising powers in as fellow travelers in an
expanding zone of peace among the developed nations. Pessimists argue instead that capabilities among the rising powers are growing faster than
Asia and elsewhere, leading to divisions over the intangible domain of policy and politics. Optimists argue that at the same time that
their affinity for western values, or even that fundamental differences exist among the interests of first- and second-wave powers that cannot be bridged by the presence of
If the peace observed among western, developed nations
is to prove durable, it must be because warfare proves futile as nations transition to
prosperity . Whether this will happen depends on the rate of change in interests and capabilities, a difficult thing to judge. We must hope that
the optimistic view is correct, that what ended war in Europe can be exported
market mechanisms or McDonald’s restaurants.
globally . Prosperity has made war expensive , while the fruits of conflict, both in
terms of tangible and intangible spoils have declined in value . These forces are not guaranteed to prevail
indefinitely. Already, research on robotic warfare promises to lower the cost of conquest. If in addition, fundamental differences among capable communities arise, then warfare
We must all hope that the consolidating forces of
prosperity prevail, that war becomes a durable anachronism .
over ideology or policy can also be resurrected.
2ac
Topicality
2ac – intermediary parties
Either is topical
Haass 00 – Richard N. Haass, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the
Brookings Institution, and Meghan L. O’Sullivan, Fellow with the Foreign Policy Studies Program
at the Brookings Institution, “Engaging Problem Countries”, Brookings Policy Brief, No. 61,
June,
http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/18245/1/Engaging%20Problem%20Coun
tries.pdf?1
Engagement as a policy is not merely the antithesis of isolation. Rather, it involves the
use of economic, political, or cultural incentives to influence problem countries to alter their
behavior in one or more realms. Such a strategy can take a variety of forms . Conditional
engagement is a government-to-government affair in which the U nited S tates offers
inducements to a target regime in exchange for specified changes in behavior. This was the
approach favored in 1994 when the United States and North Korea entered into a framework agreement under which Pyongyang
pledged to curtail its nuclear weapons development in exchange for shipments of fuel, construction of a new generation of nuclear
power-generating reactors, and a degree of diplomatic normalization. In contrast, unconditional engagement is
less contractual, with incentives being extended without the explicit expectation that a
reciprocal act will follow. Unconditional engagement makes the most sense in promoting civil society in hopes of
creating an environment more conducive to reform.
Engagement directed to a third party but about a target country meets
“toward”
Taylor 6 – CJ Taylor, Supreme Court Justice on the Supreme Court of Michigan, “Supreme
Court of Michigan. Grievance Administrator, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Geoffrey N. Fieger,
Respondent-Appellee”, 7-31,
http://faculty.law.wayne.edu/henning/ProfResp/Grievance%20Administrator%20v%20Fieger.pdf
Mr. Fieger next asserts that MRPC 3.5(c) and MRPC 6.5(a) only
apply to comments within a
courtroom or its immediate environs. We disagree.
MRPC 3.5(c) provides that a lawyer shall not "engage in undignified or discourteous conduct
toward the tribunal." (Emphasis added.) We note that the rule does not provide a definition of the
word "toward." HN17It is well established that if a term in a court rule is not defined, we interpret
the term in accordance with its everyday, plain meaning . See, e.g., People v Petit, 466 Mich. 624, 627; 648
N.W.2d 193 (2002). Random House Webster's [*251] College Dictionary (1997) lists several definitions of the
preposition "toward," including "in the direction of" and "with respect to; as regards."
In light of this definition, we disagree with Mr. Fieger's argument that the rule is inapplicable to his
statements because those statements were directed toward an audience and outside a courtroom,
and, therefore, not toward a tribunal. Mr. Fieger made remarks about (a) the three judges (b) who
comprised the panel (c) that ruled against his client (d) with regard to the [***27] content and value of that judgment, (e) which
remarks aired on a public broadcast.
Even though made outside a courtroom, Mr. Fieger's statements
attacked the judges in their capacity as judges and in a forum designed to reach both the public and these judges (who were
included among the members of the community who could receive this broadcast). Because such comments were
"in the direction of" and "with respect to" these judges, they were necessarily comments
made "toward the tribunal."
There is nothing in this phrase "toward the tribunal" that limits the applicability of the rule only to
remarks made in a courtroom. 18 Mr. Fieger's construction of the rule would effectively insert the requirement that the
[*252] conduct "actually disrupt the proceeding." Yet this language, which is in the American Bar Association version of this rule, is
absent from our rule. Further, if MRPC 3.5(c) applies only when an attorney is in a courtroom, the rule would be largely superfluous,
and of little practical utility, given that a court's contempt power, enforceable by fine or incarceration pursuant to MCL 600.1711(1), is
always available to restore or maintain order when the [***28] offending conduct or remarks occur before the judge in the
courtroom.
EU CP
EU can’t get Mexico on board
EA 5/27/13 – (“EU-US trade deal seen with concern in Mexico”, EurActiv,
http://www.euractiv.com/development-policy/eu-trans-atlantic-deal-seen-conc-news520010)//javi
Mexico, which sees itself as a privileged US partner, is concerned about the possible consequences of the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Spanish MEP Ricardo Cortés Lastra told EurActiv in an interview. Cortés Lastra, who is the
author of the report on the basis of which the European Parliament Resolution “On defining a new development cooperation policy with Latin America”
was adopted in June 2012, shared his impression from his recent visit to Mexico, where he held talks with his counterparts. The Sociliast and
Democrat MEP said that his Mexican
colleagues were worried that the EU-US trade deal could have as a
result that the EU would become a more important to the US at the expense of Mexico. “Logically Mexico,
which has the US as great business partner and has a little diversified market, watches with some concern what kind of consequence these
agreements might have,” he said. The ideas expressed by Cortés Lastra reflect the state of mind reported in other developing countries, especially in
Africa. Both
the EU and the US give trade preferences to some African nations, but their
benefit schemes differ. Therefore the expected policy harmonisation is raises the question on the
negative consequences for some of the countries. Cortés Lastra also said that the EU needed to put in place a new
bilateral agreement, the current one, called Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement, dating to 1997. Criticism at the
Commission
The Spanish MEP blasted the Commission for scaling down its development activities in
Latin America.
He said that the
Europe an Parliament wanted to send a message that Latin America
remains , and will remain important to Europe, but
opposite message”.
that
the Commission was “issuing the
Even though some Latin American countries have progressed economically, “enormous pockets of poverty” remained,
and the EU “should not allow itself” to stop its aid, he insisted.
The EU can’t effectively include Mexico into a large trade agreement – lack
of integration
Schott and Oegg 1 – Senior Fellow; Research Associate (Jeffrey J. Schott and Barbara
Oegg, “Europe and the Americas: Toward a TAFTA-South?”, World Economy,
http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/schott0601.pdf)
To be sure, the European Union itself has not proposed a broad free trade pact with Latin
America similar to the “Free Trade Area of the Americas” under negotiation between the
United States and 33 other countries in the Western Hemisphere (see Schott and Hufbauer 1999). Given
the diversity in size and level of economic development of Europe’s trading partners in Latin
America and the Caribbean Basin, a TAFTA-South agreement would be a daunting task . In some respects, it
is comparable to, though much less well defined than, the pursuit of an FTAA among Western Hemisphere countries. Indeed, like
the United States, the European Union has started the process by taking small steps with individual countries and regional groups;
unlike the United States, it has not yet integrated those initiatives into a single negotiation that
over time could create a super-regional free trade zone.
K
2ac – framework
The Role of the Ballot is Policy Simulation
Hodson 10 Derek, professor of education – Ontario Institute for Studies @ University of
Toronto, “Science Education as a Call to Action,” Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics
and Technology Education, Vol. 10, Issue 3, p. 197-206
**note: SSI = socioscientific issues
The final (fourth) level of sophistication in this issues-based approach is concerned with students findings ways of putting
their values and convictions into action, helping them to prepare for and engage in responsible
action, and assisting them in developing the skills, attitudes, and values that will enable them to take control
of their lives, cooperate with others to bring about change , and work toward a more just and
sustainable world in which power, wealth, and resources are more equitably shared. Socially and
environmentally responsible behavior will not necessarily follow from knowledge of key concepts and possession of the “right attitudes.” As Curtin (1991) reminded us, it is
important to distinguish between caring about and caring for. It is almost always much easier to proclaim that one cares about an issue than to do something about it. Put
simply, our values are worth nothing until we live them. Rhetoric and espoused values will not bring about social justice and will not save the planet. We must change our
politicized ethic of care (caring for) entails active involvement in a local manifestation of a particular
problem or issue, exploration of the complex sociopolitical contexts in which the problem/issue is
located, and attempts to resolve conflicts of interest. FROM STSE RHETORIC TO SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTION Writing from the
perspective of environmental education, Jensen (2002) categorized the knowledge that is likely to promote
sociopolitical action and encourage pro-environmental behavior into four dimensions: (a) scientific and
technological knowledge that informs the issue or problem; (b) knowledge about the underlying
social, political, and economic issues, conditions, and structures and how they contribute to creating social and environmental
problems; (c) knowledge about how to bring about changes in society through direct or indirect action; and (d) knowledge
about the likely outcome or direction of possible actions and the desirability of those
outcomes. Although formulated as a model for environmental education, it is reasonable to suppose that Jensen's arguments are applicabl e to all forms of SSIoriented action. Little needs to be said about dimensions 1 and 2 in Jensen's framework beyond the discussion earlier in the article. With regard to dimension 3, students
need knowledge of actions that are likely to have positive impact and knowledge of how to
engage in them. It is essential that they gain robust knowledge of the social, legal, and
political system(s) that prevail in the communities in which they live and develop a clear understanding of how
decisions are made within local, regional, and national government and within industry, commerce, and the
military. Without knowledge of where and with whom power of decision making is located and
awareness of the mechanisms by which decisions are reached, intervention is not
possible. Thus, the curriculum I propose requires a concurrent program designed to achieve a measure of political literacy,
including knowledge of how to engage in collective action with individuals who have different
competencies, backgrounds, and attitudes but share a common interest in a particular SSI. Dimension 3 also includes knowledge of likely
actions. A
sympathizers and potential allies and strategies for encouraging cooperative action and group interventions. What Jensen did not mention but would seem to be a part of
science-oriented knowledge that would enable students to appraise the
statements, reports, and arguments of scientists, politicians, and journalists and to present their
own supporting or opposing arguments in a coherent, robust, and convincing way (s
dimension 3 knowledge is the nature of
ee Hodson [2009b] for a lengthy discussion of this aspect of science education). Jensen's fourth category includes awareness of how (and why) others have sought to bring
about change and entails formulation of a vision of the kind of world in which we (and our families and communities) wish to live. It is important for students to explore and
develop their ideas, dreams, and aspirations for themselves, their neighbors and families and for the wider communities at local, regional, national, and global levels—a clear
An essential step in cultivating the critical scientific and technological
literacy on which sociopolitical action depends is the application of a social and political
critique capable of challenging the notion of technological determinism. We can control technology and its environmental and social impact. More significantly, we
can control the controllers and redirect technology in such a way that adverse environmental impact is
substantially reduced (if not entirely eliminated) and issues of freedom, equality, and justice are kept
in the forefront of discussion during the establishment of policy.
overlap with futures studies/education.
Debating about policy towards Latin America is valuable – without it
change is impossible and their discourse gets coopted
Ried Ijed ’10- Ried Ijed is the Revista interamericana de Educación para la Democracia
Interamerican Journal of Education for Democracy, (“Towards a Deliberative and Democratic
Model of International Cooperation in Education in Latin America”, Vol 3 No. 2, December 2010)
While the discourse of international organizations has changed over the past decade to
emphasize more local participation, there continues to be a disjuncture between
“explicit” statements embodying democratic values and ideals, and the actual practices within these
organizations (Samoff, 2004). There are potentially several factors (both political and technical) that lead to disjuncture
between policy and practice. Among the most commonly cited of political factors is the tendency
for international organizations to co-opt discourses about participation in order to gain legitimacy, but without
showing any real commitment to a democratic transformation and the devolution of power, authority, and
control (see Klees, 2002). Democratization policies in these contexts are merely “symbolic,” in that at a
public level the problem is recognized but at the implementation level they are neither
supported with adequate resources nor sufficiently specific enough to be operationalized (Stromquist,
2003). Technical factors may include the inherent limitations on representation in
democratic processes, or the lack of financial resources, technical know- how, and skills required to implement changes and
mechanisms that would allow for more democratic participation.
2ac – biopolitics turn
Their K creates a world without political enmity – creates a terrifying system without an
exterior – enemies re-appear in internalized struggles – that causes worse biopolitical
violence
Prozorov 06 /Professor of International Relations at Petrozavodsk State University, Russia/
[Sergei, “Liberal Enmity: The Figure of the Foe in the Political Ontology of Liberalism”,
Millennium - Journal of International Studies]
Schmitt’s concern with the liberal effacement of pluralism in the name of cosmopolitan humanity does not merely seek to unravel
hypocrisy or ridicule inconsistency but has more serious implications in the context of the transcendental function of enmity that we
have introduced above. For Schmitt, the ‘pluriversal’ structure of international relations accords with his political ontology that affirms
the ineradicability of difference, from which, as we have discussed, Schmitt infers the ever-present ‘extreme possibility’ and the
the actual pluriversal structure of international relations
satisfies the criterion of equality between the Self and the Other by precluding the emergence of a
global hierarchy, whereby a particular ‘concrete order’ lays a claim to represent humanity at large. While this pluralism
does nothing to eliminate the ‘most extreme possibility’ of violent conflict, it may be said at least
to suspend it in its potentiality by retaining the possibility that the ‘existentially different and alien’
might not become the enemy simply by remaining outside the ‘concrete order’ of the Self and
thus positing no actual existential threat. Moreover, as long as the boundary between the Self and
the Other is present, there remains a possibility that whatever conflicts may ensue from the
irreducible ontological alterity, they may be resolved on the basis of the mutually recognised
sovereign equality of the Self and the Other in the domain of the international, which by definition is
effaced by any political unification of humanity.43 Thus, for Schmitt ‘it is an intellectual historical misunderstanding
of an astonishing kind to want to dissolve these plural political entities in response to the call of
universal and monistic representations, and to designate that as pluralist’.44 However, this dissolution of
demand for the decision on the enemy. Moreover,
actually existing pluralism is not a mere misunderstanding, a logical fallacy of presupposing the existence of the unity that is yet to
be established. In an invective that we consider crucial for understanding Schmitt’s critique of liberal ultra-politics, Schmitt
approaches liberal monism with an almost existential trepidation: ‘What would be terrifying is a world in which
there no longer existed an exterior but only a homeland, no longer a space for measuring and
testing one’s strength freely.’45 Why is a world in which there is ‘only a homeland’, a Wendtian ‘world state’, posited as
outright terrifying, rather than objectionable on a variety of political, economic, moral or aesthetic grounds? The answer is evident
from the perspective of Schmitt’s ontology of alterity and the affirmation of the ‘extreme possibility’ of existential negation. If
alterity is ontological and thus ineradicable in any empirical sense, then the establishment of a
‘domesticated’ world unity, a global homeland, does nothing to diminish the danger of the advent of
the Other, but, on the contrary, incorporates radical alterity within the ‘homeland’ of the Self so that
the ever-present possibility of violent death can no longer be externalised to the domain of the
international. The monistic disavowal of alterity, of the ‘existentially different and alien’, is thus terrifying as it enhances the
‘most extreme possibility’ of killing and being killed. Schmitt’s objection to the liberal monism of the ‘homeland of
humanity’ is therefore two-fold. First, the effacement of ontological pluralism, which subsumes radical
alterity under the ‘universal homeland’, must logically entail the suppression of difference
through the 3: ‘Since even a world state would not be a closed system, it would always be vulnerable to temporary disruptions.
However, a world state would differ from anarchy in that it would constitute such disruptions as crime, not as politics or history. The
struggles
recast as a priori
criminal acts in the new order of the world state, calling for global police interventions rather
than interstate war. ‘The adversary is no longer called an enemy, but a disturber of peace and is
thereby designated to be an outlaw of humanity.’48 The exclusionary potential of universalism is evident:
theoretically, we may easily envision a situation where a ‘world state’ as a global police structure
does not represent anything but itself; not merely anyone, but ultimately everyone may be excluded
from the ‘world unity’ without any consequences for the continuing deployment of this abstract
universality as an instrument of legitimation. In Zygmunt Bauman’s phrase, ‘the “international community”
has little reality apart from the occasional military operations undertaken in its name’.49 Thus, for
Schmitt, if the monistic project of liberalism ever succeeded, it would be at the cost of the transformation of the world
possibility of crime may always be with us, but it does not constitute a stable alternative to a world state.’47 Thus,
against hegemony or domination, which indeed have constituted politics and history as we know them, are
2ac – security good – pragmatism
Foreign policy should be guided by a mix of moral and self-interested
motivations – the alt’s absolutism causes paralysis and incoherence that
creates more violence
George Friedman - founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of Stratfor –
12/6/11, Egypt and the Idealist-Realist Debate in U.S. Foreign Policy,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20111205-egypt-and-idealist-realist-debateus-foreign-policy?utm_source=freelistf&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20111206&utm_term=gweekly&utm
_content=readmore&elq=88a5097c3a284763b9202918890c5a91
Western countries, following the principles of the French Revolution, have two core beliefs. The first is the concept
of national self-determination, the idea that all nations (and what the term “nation” means is complex in itself) have the right to determine for
themselves the type of government they wish. The second is the idea of human rights, which are defined in several documents but are all
built around the basic values of individual rights, particularly the right not only to participate in politics but also to be free in your private life from government intrusion. The
first principle leads to the idea of the democratic foundations of the state. The second
leads to the idea that the state must be limited in its power in certain ways and the individual must be
free to pursue his own life in his own way within a framework of law limited by the principles of liberal democracy. The core assumption within this is that a democratic polity will
yield a liberal constitution. This assumes that the majority of the citizens, left to their own devices, will favor the Enlightenment’s definition of human rights. This assumption is
simple, but its application is tremendously complex. In the end, the premise of the Western project is that national self-determination, expressed through free elections, will
create and sustain constitutional democracies. It is interesting to note that human rights activists and neoconservatives, who on the surface are ideologically opposed, actually
share this core belief. Both believe that democracy and human rights flow from the same source and that creating democratic regimes will create human rights. The
neoconservatives believe outside military intervention might be an efficient agent for this. Human rights groups oppose this, preferring to organize and underwrite democratic
movements and use measures such as sanctions and courts to compel oppressive regimes to cede power. But they share common ground on this point as well. Both groups
believe that outside intervention is needed to facilitate the emergence of an oppressed public naturally inclined toward democracy and human rights. This, then, yields a theory
of foreign policy in which the underlying strategic principle must not only support existing constitutional democracies but also bring power to bear to weaken oppressive regimes
The case of
Egypt raises an interesting and obvious question regardless of how it all turns out. What if there are
democratic elections and the people choose a regime that violates the principles of
Western human rights? What happens if, after tremendous Western effort to force democratic elections, the electorate chooses to reject Western values
and free the people to choose to build the kind of regimes that reflect the values of the European Enlightenment. Complex Questions and Choices
and pursue a very different direction — for example, one that regards Western values as morally reprehensible and aims to make war against them? One obvious example of
this is Adolf Hitler, whose ascent to power was fully in keeping with the processes of the Weimar Republic — a democratic regime — and whose clearly stated intention was to
supersede that regime with one that was popular (there is little doubt that the Nazi regime had vast public support), opposed to constitutionalism in the democratic sense and
hostile to constitutional democracy in other countries. The idea that the destruction of repressive regimes opens the door for democratic elections that will not result in another
repressive regime, at least by Western standards, assumes that all societies find Western values admirable and want to emulate them. This is sometimes the case, but the
general assertion is a form of narcissism in the West that assumes that all reasonable people, freed from oppression, would wish to emulate us. At this moment in history, the
obvious counterargument rests in some, but not all, Islamist movements. We do not know that the Islamist groups in Egypt will be successful, and we do not know what
Islamists have
a principled disagreement with the West on a wide range of issues, from the relation of
the individual to the community to the distinction between the public and private sphere.
They oppose the Egyptian military regime not only because it limits individual freedom
but also because it violates their understanding of the regime’s moral purpose. The
Islamists have a different and superior view of moral political life, just as Western
constitutional democracies see their own values as superior. The collision between the
doctrine of national self-determination and the Western notion of human rights is not an
abstract question but an extremely practical one for Europe and the United States. Egypt is the
largest Arab country and one of the major centers of Islamic life. Since 1952, it has had a
secular and military-run government. Since 1973, it has had a pro-Western government. At a time when the United States is trying to end its
ideologies they will pursue, but they are Islamists and their views of man and moral nature are different from those of the European Enlightenment.
wars in the Islamic world (along with its NATO partners, in the case of Afghanistan), and with relations with Iran already poor and getting worse, the democratic transformation of
This raises questions regarding the type of
regime Egypt has, whether it is democratically elected and whether it respects human
rights. Then there is the question of how this new regime might affect the United States
and other countries. The same can be said, for example, about Syria, where an oppressive regime is resisting a movement that some in the West regard as
Egypt into a radical Islamic regime would shift the balance of power in the region wildly.
democratic. It may be, but its moral principles might be anathema to the West. At the same time, the old repressive regime might be unpopular but more in the interests of the
West. Then pose this scenario: Assume there is a choice between a repressive, undemocratic regime that is in the interests of a Western country and a regime that is
These are blindingly
complex questions that some observers — the realists as opposed to the idealists — say
democratic but repressive by Western standards and hostile to those interests. Which is preferable, and what steps should be taken?
not only are unanswerable but also undermine the ability to pursue national interests
without in any way improving the moral character of the world. In other words, you are choosing
between two types of repression from a Western point of view and there is no preference.
Therefore, a country like the United States should ignore the moral question altogether
and focus on a simpler question, and one that’s answerable: the national interest. Egypt
is an excellent place to point out the tension within U.S. foreign policy between idealists,
who argue that pursuing Enlightenment principles is in the national interest, and realists,
who argue that the pursuit of principles is very different from their attainment. You can
wind up with regimes that are neither just nor protective of American interests. In other words,
the United States can wind up with a regime hostile to the United States and oppressive
by American standards. Far from a moral improvement, this would be a practical
disaster. Mission and Power There is a temptation to accept the realist argument. Its weakness is
that its definition of the national interest is never clear. The physical protection of the United States is obviously an issue —
and given 9/11, it is not a trivial matter. At the same time, the physical safety of the United States is not always at stake. What exactly is our interest
in Egypt, and does it matter to us whether it is pro-American? There are answers to this but not always obvious
ones, and the realists frequently have trouble defining the national interest. Even if we accept the idea that the primary objective of U.S. foreign policy is securing the national
two principles emerge. The first is that
having no principles beyond “interest” is untenable. Interest seems very tough-minded, but it is really a
vapid concept when you drill into it. The second principle is that there can be no moral good
without power. Proclaiming a principle without having the power to pursue it is a form of
narcissism. You know you are doing no good, but talking about it makes you feel
superior. Interest is not enough, and morality without power is mere talk. So what is to be done about
interest irrespective of moral considerations, what exactly is the national interest? It seems to me that
Egypt? The first thing is to recognize that little can be done, not because it would be morally impermissible but because, practically, Egypt is a big country that is hard to
influence, and meddling and failing is worse than doing nothing at all. Second, it must be understood that Egypt matters and the outcome of this affair, given the past decade, is
An American strategy on Egypt — one that goes
beyond policy papers in Washington — is hard to define. But a number of points can be deduced from this exercise. First,
not a matter to which the United States can afford to be indifferent.
it is essential to not create myths. The myth of the Egyptian revolution was that it was going to create a constitutional democracy like Western democracies. That simply wasn’t
sometimes, in
confronting two different forms of repression, the issue is to select the one that is most
in the national interest. This will force you to define the national interest, to a salutary effect. Washington, like all capitals, likes policies and hates political
the issue on the table. The issue was between the military regime and an Islamist regime. This brings us to the second point, which is that
philosophy. The policies frequently fail to come to grips with reality because the policymakers don’t grasp the philosophical implications. The contradiction inherent in the human
rights and the neoconservative approach is one thing, but the inability of the realists to define with rigor what the national interest is creates policy papers of monumental
. Both sides create polemics as a substitute for thought. It’s in places like Egypt
where this reality is driven home. One side really believed that Egypt would become like
Minnesota. The other side knew it wouldn’t and devised a plan to be tough-minded — but
not tough-minded enough to define what the point of the plan was. This is the crisis of
U.S. foreign policy. It has always been there, but given American power, it is one that creates global
instability. One part of the American regime wants to be just; the other part wants to be
tough. Neither realizes that such a distinction is the root of the problem. Look at the American (and European) policy toward
insignificance
Egypt and I think you can see the predicament.
2ac – threats real
Literature and psychological bias runs towards threat deflation- we are the
opposite of paranoid
Schweller 04 [Randall L. Schweller, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science
at The Ohio State University, “Unanswered Threats A Neoclassical RealistTheory of
Underbalancing,” International Security 29.2 (2004) 159-201, Muse]
Despite the historical frequency of underbalancing, little has been written on the subject. Indeed, Geoffrey Blainey's
memorable observation that for "every thousand pages published on the causes of wars there is less than one page directly
on the causes of peace" could have been made with equal veracity about overreactions to threats as opposed to
underreactions to them.92 Library shelves are filled with books on the causes and dangers of exaggerating threats, ranging
from studies of domestic politics to bureaucratic politics, to political psychology, to organization theory. By comparison, there
have been few studies at any level of analysis or from any theoretical perspective that directly explain why states have
with some, if not equal, regularity
underestimated dangers to their survival. There may be some cognitive
there is a commonly used word, paranoia, for the
unwarranted fear that people are, in some way, "out to get you" or are planning to do oneharm. I suspect that just as many
people are afflicted with the opposite psychosis: the delusion that everyone loves you when, in
or normative bias at work here. Consider, for instance, that
fact, they do not even like you. Yet, we do not have a familiar word for this phenomenon. Indeed, I am unaware of any word
that describes this pathology (hubris and overconfidence come close, but they plainly define something other than what I have
described). That noted, international relations theory does have a frequently used phrase for the pathology of states'
underestimation of threats to their survival, the so-called Munich analogy. The term is used, however, in a disparaging
way by theorists to ridicule those who employ it. The central claim is that the naïveté associated with Munich and the outbreak
of World War II has become an overused and inappropriate analogy because few leaders are as evil and unappeasable as
Adolf Hitler. Thus, the analogy either mistakenly causes leaders [End Page 198] to adopt hawkish and overly competitive
policies or is deliberately used by leaders to justify such policies and mislead the public. A more compelling explanation for
the paucity of studies on underreactions to threats, however, is the tendency of theories to reflect contemporary issues as
well as the desire of theorists and journals to provide society with policy- relevant theories that may help resolve or manage
urgent security problems. Thus, born in the atomic age with its new balance of terror and an ongoing Cold War, the field of
security studies has naturally produced theories of and prescriptions for national security that have had little to say
are, in fact, heavily biased against warnings of—the dangers of underreacting to or
underestimating threats. After all, the nuclear revolution was not about overkill but, as Thomas Schelling pointed out,
speed of kill and mutual kill.93 Given the apocalyptic consequences of miscalculation, accidents, or
inadvertent nuclear war, small wonder that theorists were more concerned about overreacting to
threats than underresponding to them. At a time when all of humankind could be wiped out in less than twentyabout—and
five minutes, theorists may be excused for stressing the benefits of caution under conditions of uncertainty and erring on the
side of inferring from ambiguous actions overly benign assessments of the opponent's intentions. The overwhelming fear was
that a crisis "might unleash forces of an essentially military nature that overwhelm the political process and bring on a war
thatnobody wants. Many important conclusions about the risk of nuclear war, and thus about the political meaning of nuclear
forces, rest on this fundamental idea."94 Now that the Cold War is over, we can begin to redress these biases in the literature.
In that spirit, I have offered a domestic politics model to explain why threatened states often fail to adjust in a prudent and
coherent way to dangerous changes in their strategic environment. The model fits nicely with recent realist studies on imperial
under- and overstretch. Specifically, it is consistent with Fareed Zakaria's analysis of U.S. foreign policy from 1865 to 1889,
when, he claims, the United States had the national power and opportunity to expand but failed to do so because it lacked
sufficient state power (i.e., the state was weak relative to society).95 Zakaria claims that the United States did [End Page 199]
not take advantage of opportunities in its environment to expand because it lacked the institutional state strength to harness
resources from society that were needed to do so. I am making a similar argument with respect to balancing rather than
expansion: incoherent, fragmented states are unwilling and unable to balance against potentially dangerous threats because
elites view the domestic risks as too high, and they are unable to mobilize the required resources from a divided society. The
arguments presented here also suggest that elite fragmentation and disagreement within a competitive political process, which
Jack Snyder cites as an explanation for overexpansionist policies, are more likely to produce underbalancing than
overbalancing behavior among threatened incoherent states.96 This is because a balancing strategy carries certain political
costs and risks with few, if any, compensating short-term political gains, and because the strategic environment is always
somewhat uncertain. Consequently, logrolling among fragmented elites within threatened states is more likely to generate
overly cautious responses to threats than overreactions to them. This dynamic captures the underreaction of democratic
states to the rise of Nazi Germany during the interwar period.97 In addition to elite fragmentation, I have suggested some
basic domestic-level variables that regularly intervene to thwart balance of power predictions.
Our models are true – we’ve used error correction models
Dritsakis 04-professor, Department of Applied Informatics University of Macedonia Economics
and Social Sciences (Nikolaos , “EXPORTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: AN EMPIRICAL
INVESTIGATION OF E.U, U.S.A AND JAPAN USING CAUSALITY TESTS”,
http://users.uom.gr/~drits/publications/Exports_and_Economic_Growth.pdf)
In this paper an effort was made in order to examine the relationship between exports and
economic growth in the three major exporter countries of the world through the analysis
of multivariate causality based on an error correction model. For empirical testing of the
above variables we used the Johansen cointegration test and Granger causality test
based on an error correction model. ¶ The results of the cointegration analysis suggest
the existence of cointegration relationship between the three variables for the countries of
European Union and United States of America, while there is no causal relationship for Japan. This indicates the
presence of a common trend or a long-run relationship between the variables of these
examined countries, while there is no long-run relationship between for the variables of Japan.¶ The results of
causality analysis suggest that there is a “strong bilateral causal relationship” between
exports and economic growth for European Union (this result is 18 consistent with the study of (Thornton 1997) for
some countries of EU), and for USA (this result is consistent with the study of (Konya 2000), while the results for Japan suggest
that there is not either a long run relationship or any causality between exports and economic growth.
Empirical evidence proves exports are key to economic growth
Dritsakis 04-professor, Department of Applied Informatics University of Macedonia Economics
and Social Sciences (Nikolaos , “EXPORTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: AN EMPIRICAL
INVESTIGATION OF E.U, U.S.A AND JAPAN USING CAUSALITY TESTS”,
http://users.uom.gr/~drits/publications/Exports_and_Economic_Growth.pdf)
There is a wide body of literature analyzing the theoretical links between exports and
economic growth. According to this literature, the relationship between exports and
economic growth is determined by different factors. Clearly, since exports are a component of
GDP, exports growth contributes directly to GDP growth. Exports relax binding foreign
exchange constraints and allow increases in imported capital goods and intermediate
goods (McKinnon 1964, Chenery and Strout 1966). Also exports allow poor countries with narrow
domestic markets to benefit from economies of scale (Helpman and Krugman 1985). In addition,
exports lead to improved efficiency in resource allocation and, in particular, improved capital
utilization owing to competition in world markets (Balassa 1978, Bhagwati and Srinivasan 1979, Krueger
1980). ¶ The ratio of exports to gross domestic product also provides us information about
the importance of exports in the national economy. Since the ratio of exports to gross
domestic product is an index of openness, a larger ratio of exports to gross domestic
product indicates a more open economy. Larger economies – as measured by area, population, and size of the
domestic market- can produce and absorb a larger share of their output domestically, they tend to have lower ratios (Pereira and Xu
2000).
2AC Short – Our Impact is True
Economic rationality is good
Avent 11 (Ryan, author of The Gated City, “Economic Science” 3/17//11, The Bellows)
http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2380
Is economics a science? Let me first associate myself with Adam Ozimek’s comments
here. If you want to say that economics isn’t a “hard science”, that might be all right,
depending on just what you mean by it. If you mean that economists can’t run lab
experiments and can’t predict outcomes as accurately as, say, chemists, then that’s
acceptable to me. If you mean that economists have no experiments, or don’t use
the scientific method, or something of that nature, then you’re dead wrong. The
currency of the economics realm is evidence. When economists do research
they form hypotheses, build models, gather data, test the models against the
data, and publish their conclusions. If other economists try to get similar results
and fail, the original result is called into question. Economics is quite often
effectively predictive. If the supply of one good is disrupted, economists can tell
you with great certainty what will happen to demand for complementary goods
and substitutes. If supply levels are known and research establishing elasticities has
been done, they can tell you even more about what will happen . Their predictions
will nearly always be right. And this is true for many aspects of economics. It’s
important to note that because economists can’t always run their own experiments,
there will tend to be more confidence about theories that focus on things which occur
very often. Prices shift constantly, and economists consequently know a LOT about
prices. Massive, global economic recessions occur about once a century. There is
obviously a lot more uncertainty regarding the theories that describe these events.
Economics struggles with limited data at times. Economists could substantially
increase their macroeconomic sample sizes if they had good data on economic activity
for all of human history, but unfortunately governments haven’t been collecting data all
that long. (Though economic historians have put together respectable careers carefully
assembling historical data sets.) The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which
has been the subject of intense study in this recession, only goes back to 2000. But
much of the progress of “hard” science has been about improving the available
data. These limitations don’t detract from the scientific endeavor at the heart of
the economics discipline. Economics is not empty philosophizing or groping in
the dark.
CIR
PC Not Key
(--) Political capital worthless on immigration: Obama has no relationship
with Congressional Republicans:
Linda Feldmann, 10/16/2013 (staff writer, “Debt limit deal: Obama may have won,
but victory is hardly lasting,” http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/1016/Debtlimit-deal-Obama-may-have-won-but-victory-is-hardly-lasting, Accessed 10/16/2013,
rwg)
And yet Obama
is talking as if he can pick up with his domestic policy agenda without
skipping a beat. On Tuesday, he told a Spanish-language TV station in Los Angeles that he plans to renew
his push for comprehensive immigration reform.¶ Once the fiscal crisis has been resolved, he said, “the day
after I’m going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform." ¶ That hardly seems credible , given
Obama’s barely existent relationship with congressional Republicans, says Steven Schier, a
political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.¶ “You have to build confidence through
negotiations and ongoing relations over time,” he says. “I don’t see how this current crisis
helped him build any relations that will move other legislative priorities forward.”
Farm Bill Thumper – Food Stamps
Obama Pushing Using PC on the Food Stamps Provision of the Farm Bill
Nedra Pickler 10/17 2013 Obama: Focus on budget, immigration, farm bill
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/10/17/3778131/obama-focus-on-budgetimmigration.html#storylink=cpy
Likewise, the roughly $500 billion farm bill has been held up over a dispute between the two chambers, this time over food
stamps. The House has endorsed up to $4 billion in annual cuts to the almost $80 billiona-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, while the Senate farm bill would cut
only $400 million a year. The White House has threatened to veto the House bill.Obama did
not mention the rift over food stamps but said the House should accept the Senate version of the bill.
"Let's negotiate. What are we waiting for? Let's get this done," Obama said.
Obama No PC Now
Even if Obama Has PC He Lacks Credibility to Influence Congress
Keith Koffler, who covered the White House as a reporter for CongressDaily and Roll Call
Obama’s crisis of credibility
By: Keith Koffler
October 11, 2013
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=CFCD7934-C4A3-4CCC-8261-9038B7E1D759
is like a novice flier thrust into the cockpit of a 747. He’s pushing
buttons, flipping switches and radioing air traffic control, but nothing’s happening . The plane
is just slowly descending on its own, and while it may or may not crash, it at least doesn’t appear to be
headed to any particularly useful destination.¶ Obama’s ineffectiveness, always a hallmark of his
presidency, has reached a new cruising altitude this year. Not even a year into his second term, he looks like a
President Barack Obama
lame duck and quacks like a lame duck. You guessed it — he’s a lame duck. ¶ On the world stage, despite Obama’s
exertions, Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning, the Israelis and Palestinians remain far apart, Bashar Assad is still in power, the
Taliban are gaining strength and Iraq is gripped by renewed violence.¶ At home, none of Obama’s agenda has
passed this year. Republicans aren’t bowing to him in the battle of the budget, and much of the GOP seems uninterested in
House Speaker John Boehner’s vision of some new grand bargain with the president.Obama has something worse on
his hands than being hated. All presidents get hated. But Obama is being ignored. And that’s
because he has no credibility . A president enters office having earned a certain stock of
political capital just for getting elected. He then spends it down, moving his agenda forward,
until he collects a fresh supply by getting reelected. But political capital is only the intangible
substrate that gives a president his might . His presidency must also be nourished by
credibility — a sense he can be trusted, relied upon and feared — to make things happen. A
president enters office with a measure of credibility. After all, he seemed at least trustworthy
enough to get elected. But unlike political capital, credibility must be built in office.
Otherwise, it is squandered. Obama has used every credibility-busting method available
to eviscerate any sense that he can be counted on. He’s dissimulated, proven his
unreliability, ruled arbitrarily and turned the White House into a Chicago-style political
boiler room. His credibility has been sapped with his political opponents, a public that
thinks him incompetent, our allies, who don’t trust him, and, even worse, our enemies, who don’t
fear him.
General – XO Solves
XO solves
Nakamura 1-6 – David Nakamura and Tara Bahrampour, January 6th, 2013 "Obama using
authority for immigrant issues," Washington Post,
www.journalgazette.net/article/20130106/NEWS03/301069950/1066/NEWS03
Obama administration’s decision this week to ease visa requirements for
hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants represents its latest move to reshape immigration
through executive action , even as the White House gears up for an uncertain political fight over
a far-more-sweeping legislative package in the months ahead.¶ Immigration advocates on
Thursday hailed a rule change at the Department of Homeland Security that would make it
easier for many undocumented immigrants to stay in the U nited S tates as they seek
permanent residency, saying it will improve the lives of relatives who could have been
separated for years without the changes.¶ For President Obama – who has called the inability to achieve
comprehensive immigration reform among the biggest regrets of his first term – the new policy is among a series of
steps his administration has taken over the past year aimed in part at easing the pace of
deportations, which have surged during his tenure. The steps also came amid a presidential campaign that
WASHINGTON - The
included sharp disagreements over immigration policy and strong support among Latinos and Asians for Obama.¶ The centerpiece
was Obama’s decision, announced last June, to stop deporting people who were brought to the country as children and have gone
on to be productive and otherwise law-abiding residents.¶ “ He
is checking off every administrative box he can of
what he can do with executive authority that comports with his overall view of immigration
policy ,” said Angela Kelley, an analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank allied with the White House.¶ The
latest policy change is focused on illegal immigrants who have a spouse, parent or child with U.S. citizenship. Currently, in order to
become legal they must leave the United States and apply for a waiver forgiving their unlawful presence in the country. Only then
can they apply for an immigrant visa. And if they don’t get a waiver, they are barred from returning to the United States for up to 10
years, depending on the case.¶ The specter of being barred deterred many from applying. But under the rule change finalized
Wednesday, those who qualify will be able to apply for waivers from within the United States starting March 4. Applicants must
return to their native country for a brief period for the consular immigrant visa process. ¶ The
new rule greatly reduces
the risk inherent in applying for a waiver, as people whose applications are rejected would still
be in the United States when they heard the news. Even for those whose applications are
approved, the new rule will allow them to spend much less time outside the United States, as
they will travel abroad with waivers in hand.
Hirsch
Political capital doesn’t exist and isn’t key to their DA- more likely winners
win
Michael Hirsch, 13 chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh
previously served as the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington
bureau. He was also Newsweek’s Washington web editor and authored a weekly column for Newsweek.com, “The
World from Washington.” Earlier on, he was Newsweek’s foreign editor, guiding its award-winning coverage of the
September 11 attacks and the war on terror. He has done on-the-ground reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
places around the world, and served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to
1994. http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207
On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Obama will do what every president does this time of year. For about 60 minutes, he will lay out a sprawling and ambitious wish list highlighted by gun control and immigration reform, climate change and
pundits will do what they always do
talk about
how much political capital Obama possesses to push his program through
this talk will have no bearing on what actually happens
Three months ago
if someone had talked
about
capital to oversee
both immigration
and gun-control
this person would
have been called crazy
In his first term
Obama didn’t dare to
even bring up gun control
And yet,
for reasons that have very little to do with Obama’s
political
capital chances are fair that both will now happen What changed In the case of gun
control
Newtown
debt reduction. In response, the
this time of year: They will
“
by sagacious reckonings of
how unrealistic most of the proposals are, discussions often informed
”
. Most of
over the next four years. Consider this:
November election,
seriously
reform
, just before the
Obama having enough political
passage of
legislation at the beginning of his second term—even after winning the election by 4 percentage points and 5 million votes (the actual final tally)—
and stripped of his pundit’s license. (It doesn’t exist, but it ought to.)
, in a starkly polarized country, the president had been so frustrated by GOP
resistance that he finally issued a limited executive order last August permitting immigrants who entered the country illegally as children to work without fear of deportation for at least two years.
, a Democratic “third rail” that has cost the party elections and that actually might have been even less popular on the right than the president’s health care law.
personal prestige or popularity—variously put in terms of a “mandate” or “
”—
.
, of course, it wasn’t the election. It was the horror of the 20 first-graders who were slaughtered in
?
, Conn., in mid-December. The sickening reality of little girls and boys riddled with bullets from a high-capacity assault
weapon seemed to precipitate a sudden tipping point in the national conscience. One thing changed after another. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association m arginalized himself with poorly chosen comments soon after the massacre. The pro-gun lobby,
once a phalanx of opposition, began to fissure into reasonables and crazies. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head two years ago and is still struggling to speak and walk, started a PAC with her husband to appeal to the moderate middle
of gun owners. Then she gave riveting and poignant testimony to the Senate, challenging lawmakers: “Be bold.” As a result, momentum has appeared to build around some kind of a plan to curtail sales of the most dangerous weapons and ammunition and the way
people are permitted to buy them. It’s impossible to say now whether such a bill will pass and, if it does, whether it will make anything more than cosmetic changes to gun laws. But one thing is clear: The political tectonics have shifted dramatically in very little time.
Whole new possibilities exist now that didn’t a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile
immigration
turnaround has very little
It has almost entirely to do with
, the Republican members of the Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on
reform, a sharp
change after an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would “self -deport.” But this
to do with Obama’s personal influence
the
Hispanic vote
movement on immigration has
the Republican Party’s introspection
—his political mandate, as it were.
and 27. That’s 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney,
breakdown of the
Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the
recent
just two numbers: 71
in the 2012 presidential election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a
mainly
come out of
, and the realization by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a
shift the party may be facing demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white bir ths have fallen into the minority. It’s got nothing to do with Obama’s political capital or, indeed, Obama at all. The point is not that “political
capital” is a meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for “mandate” or “momentum” in the aftermath of a decisive election—and just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because
he was elected and Romney wasn’t, he has a better claim on the country’s mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. “It’s an unquantifiable but meaningful concept,” says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise
the idea of
is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it
Institute. “You can’t really look at a president and say he’s got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, it’s a concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side.” The real problem is that
political capita
wrong.
l—or mandates, or momentum—
“Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an electoral mandate to do something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In
capital
than we really do about ever-elusive
1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980.” For that reason, political
suddenly change everything
conveys that we know more
political power
unforeseen events can
is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It
the
concept of
the idea
, and it discounts the way
. Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might have real investment capital—that a particular leader
can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him?
Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy—at the moment, still stuck—or some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into
the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can
align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just don’t know what you can do until you try. Or as Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, “Winning wins.” In
depending on Obama’s handling of any
issue, even in a polarized time he
could still deliver on his second-term goals depending on
the breaks
theory, and in practice,
particular
a lot of
,
,
his skill and
. Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like
Newtown. Epiphanies can dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies
political capital is, at best, an empty concept that almost nothing in the academic
literature successfully quantifies or even defines it.
say that
, and
“It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a president’s popularity, but there’s no mechanism there. That makes it
kind of useless,” says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests.
Winning on one issue often
changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital
. “The idea here is,
Ornstein says. “If they
think he’s going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. It’s a
bandwagon effect.Ӧ
¶
if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors”
ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ
Sometimes, a clever practitioner of power can get more done just because he’s aggressive and knows the hallways of Congress well. Texas A&M’s Edwards is right to say that
the outcome of the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, was one of the few that conveyed a mandate. But one of the main reasons for that mandate (in addition to Goldwater’s ineptitude as a candidate) was President Johnson’s
masterful use of power leading up to that election, and his ability to get far more done than anyone thought possible, given his limited political capital. In the newest volume in his exhaustive study of LBJ, The Passage of Power, historian Robert Caro recalls Johnson
getting cautionary advice after he assumed the presidency from the assassinated John F. Kennedy in late 1963. Don’t focus on a long-stalled civil-rights bill, advisers told him, because it might jeopardize Southern lawmakers’ support for a tax cut and appropriations
bills the president needed. “One of the wise, practical people around the table [said that] the presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn’t to expend it on this,” Caro writes. (Coinage, of course, was what political capital was called in
those days.) Johnson replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” Johnson didn’t worry about coinage, and he got the Civil Rights Act enacted, along with much else: Medicare, a tax cut, antipoverty programs. He appeared to understand not just the ways of
Congress but also the way to maximize the momentum he possessed in the lingering mood of national grief and determination by picking the right issues, as Caro records. “Momentum is not a mysterious mistress,” LBJ said. “It is a controllable fact of political life.”
Johnson had the skill and wherewithal to realize that, at that moment of history, he could have unlimited coinage if he handled the politics right. He did. (At least until Vietnam, that is.) And then there are the presidents who get the politics, and the issues, wrong. It
was the last president before Obama who was just starting a second term, George W. Bush, who really revived the claim of political capital, which he was very fond of wielding. Then Bush promptly demonstrated that he didn’t fully understand the concept either. At
his first news conference after his 2004 victory, a confident-sounding Bush declared, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. That’s my style.” The 43rd president threw all of his political capital at an overridi ng passion: the
partial privatization of Social Security. He mounted a full-bore public-relations campaign that included town-hall meetings across the country. Bush failed utterly, of course. But the problem was not that he didn’t have enough political cap ital. Yes, he may have
overestimated his standing. Bush’s margin over John Kerry was thin—helped along by a bumbling Kerry campaign that was almost the mirror image of Romney’s gaffe-filled failure this time—but that was not the real mistake. The problem was that whatever
credibility or stature Bush thought he had earned as a newly reelected president did nothing to make Social Security privatization a better idea in most people’s eyes. Voters didn’t trust the plan, and four years later, at the end of Bush ’s term, the stock-market
collapse bore out the public’s skepticism. Privatization just didn’t have any momentum behind it, no matter who was pushing it or how much capital Bush spent to sell it. The mistake that Bush made with Social Security, says John S ides, an associate professor of
political science at George Washington University and a well-followed political blogger, “was that just because he won an election, he thought he had a green light. But there was no sense of any kind of public urgency on Soc ial Security reform. It’s like he went into
the garage where various Republican policy ideas were hanging up and picked one. I don’t think Obama’s going to make that mistake.… Bush decided he wanted to push a rock up a hill. He didn’t understand how steep the hill was. I think Obama has more
Obama may get his way
not because of
his reelection,
but because Republicans are beginning to doubt whether taking a
hard line on fiscal policy is a good idea
¶
¶
momentum on his side because of the Republican Party’s concerns about the Latino vote and the shooting at Newtown.”
also
on the debt ceiling,
Sides says, “
,” as the party suffers in the polls.
THE REAL LIMITS ON POWER
Presidents are limited in what they can do by time and attention span, of
course, just as much as they are by electoral balances in the House and Senate. But this, too, has nothing to do with politic al capital. Another well-worn meme of recent years was that Obama used up too much political capital passing the health care law in his first
term. But the real problem was that the plan was unpopular, the economy was bad, and the president didn’t realize that the national mood (yes, again, the national mood) was at a tipping point against big-government intervention, with the tea-party revolt about to
burst on the scene. For Americans in 2009 and 2010—haunted by too many rounds of layoffs, appalled by the Wall Street bailout, aghast at the amount of federal spending that never seemed to find its way into their pockets—government-imposed health care
coverage was simply an intervention too far. So was the idea of another economic stimulus. Cue the tea party and what ensued: two titanic fights over the debt ceiling. Obama, like Bush, had settled on pushing an issue that was out of sync with the country’s mood.
Unlike Bush, Obama did ultimately get his idea passed. But the bigger political problem with health care reform was that it distracted the government’s attention from other issues that people cared about more urgently, such as the need to jump-start the economy
and financial reform. Various congressional staffers told me at the time that their bosses didn’t really have the time to und erstand how the Wall Street lobby was riddling the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation with loopholes. Health care was sucking all the
oxygen out of the room, the aides said. Weighing the imponderables of momentum, the often-mystical calculations about when the historic moment is ripe for an issue, will never be a science. It is mainly intuition, and its best practitioners have a long history in
American politics. This is a tale told well in Steven Spielberg’s hit movie Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewis’s Abraham Lincoln attempts a lot of behind-the-scenes vote-buying to win passage of the 13th Amendment, banning slavery, along with eloquent attempts to move
people’s hearts and minds. He appears to be using the political capital of his reelection and the turning of the tide in the Civil War. But it’s clear that a surge of conscience, a sense of the changing times, has as much to do wit h the final vote as all the backroom
horse-trading. “The reason I think the idea of political capital is kind of distorting is that it implies you have chits you can give out to people. It really oversimplifies why you elect politicians, or why they can do what Lincoln did,” says Tommy Bruce, a former political
consultant in Washington. Consider, as another example, the storied political career of President Franklin Roosevelt. Because the mood was ripe for dramatic change in the depths of the Great Depression, FDR was able to push an astonishing array of New Deal
programs through a largely compliant Congress, assuming what some described as near-dictatorial powers. But in his second term, full of confidence because of a landslide victory in 1936 that brought in unprecedented Democratic majorities in the House and
Senate, Roosevelt overreached with his infamous Court-packing proposal. All of a sudden, the political capital that experts thought was limitless disappeared. FDR’s plan to expand the Supreme Court by putting in his judicial allies abruptly created an unanticipated
wall of opposition from newly reunited Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. FDR thus inadvertently handed back to Congress, especially to the Senate, the power and influence he had seized in his first term. Sure, Roosevelt had loads of popularity
and momentum in 1937. He seemed to have a bank vault full of political capital. But, once again, a president simply chose to take on the wrong issue at the wrong time; this time, instead of most of the political interests in the country aligning his way, they opposed
him. Roosevelt didn’t fully recover until World War II, despite two more election victories. In terms of Obama’s second-term agenda, what all these shifting tides of momentum and political calculation mean is this: Anything goes. Obama has no more elections to win,
if he picks issues
there
is no reason to think he can’t win far more victories than
careful calculators of political
capital believe is possible
If he can get some early wins
that
will create momentum, and one win may well lead to others. “Winning wins
and he needs to worry only about the support he will have in the House and Senate after 2014. But
that the country’s mood will support—such as, perhaps, immigration reform and gun control—
any of the
now
agenda clearly in mind and will ride the mood of the country more adroitly.
, including battles over tax reform and deficit reduction. Amid today’s atmosphere of Republican self-doubt, a new, more mature Obama seems to be emerging, one who has his
—as he already has, apparently, on the fiscal cliff and the upper-income tax increase—
.” Obama himself learned some hard
lessons over the past four years about the falsity of the political-capital concept. Despite his decisive victory over John McCain in 2008, he fumbled the selling of his $787 billion stimulus p lan by portraying himself naively as a “post-partisan” president who somehow
had been given the electoral mandate to be all things to all people. So Obama tried to sell his stimulus as a long-term restructuring plan that would “lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth.” The president thus fed GOP suspicions that he was just another
big-government liberal. Had he understood better that the country was digging in against yet more government intervention and had sold the stimulus as what it mainly was—a giant shot of adrenalin to an economy with a stopped heart, a pure emergency
measure—he might well have escaped the worst of the backlash. But by laying on ambitious programs, and following up quickly with his health care plan, he only sealed his reputation on the right as a closet socialist. After that, Obama’s public posturing provoked
automatic opposition from the GOP, no matter what he said. If the president put his personal imprimatur on any plan—from deficit reduction, to health care, to immigration reform—Republicans were virtually guaranteed to come out against it. But this year, when he
sought to exploit the chastened GOP’s newfound willingness to compromise on immigration, his approach was different. He seemed to understand that the Republicans needed to reclaim immigration reform as their own issue, and he was willing to let them have
some credit. When he mounted his bully pulpit in Nevada, he delivered another new message as well: You Republicans don’t have to listen to what I say anymore. And don’t worry about who’s got the political capital. Just take a hard look at where I’m saying this: in
a state you were supposed to have won but lost because of the rising Hispanic vote. Obama was cleverly pointing the GOP toward conclusions that he knows it is already reaching on its own: If you, the Republicans, want to have any kind of a future in a vastly
changed electoral map, you have no choice but to move. It’s your choice.
Won’t Pass
8 Alt causes
Nacht 13
[Michael, professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy (Cal), “The Cyber
Security Challenge,” Berkley Blog, 6/10, http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/06/10/the-cybersecurity-challenge/]
Major challenges¶
The national security community is wrestling with several tough problems which
will take considerable time and effort to resolve. These include:¶ 1. declaratory policy — The U.S.
government has no official policy publicly communicating what it would or would not do in
the event of a major cyber attack against U.S. forces, command and control systems, electric power grids, financial
networks, or other elements of military power or critical infrastructure. Should there be a declaratory policy and, if so, what should it
stipulate? For example, should we define categories of “major cyber attack” that are unacceptable, so-called “red lines,” that would
2. deterrence policy — Much of the nuclear age has been
marked by refinements of deterrence policy crafted to influence adversarial behavior in irregular, conventional and even
nuclear war. Are these concepts applicable to the cyber domain where attribution of the attack is often difficult to
likely trigger a major U.S. retaliatory response?¶
ascertain and the range of cyber attack damage can be from the trivial (e.g., slowing email receipt) to the profound (e.g., disabling
the nation’s military early warning systems)?¶ 3 . authorities and responsibilities — If cyber attacks against U.S. forces or critical
infrastructure originate abroad, a response to them would almost surely involve violation of the sovereignty of the state where the
attack originated. What
is the legal basis for the U.S. to conduct such operations ? This is a very
thorny problem . Moreover, there is a huge time lag between obtaining appropriate legal authorities
(measured often in weeks or months) and the need for national security forces to respond effectively (measured at times in minutes
or hours). How
can this time lag be most effectively bridged?¶ 4. guarantees of civil liberties — The United
cyber security presents a major tension between
the policy and legal communities. Given the difficulty in attributing the origins of cyber attacks, and the possibility
that some of these attacks could originate in the U.S. or by American citizens, how do we formulate effective
policies that still guarantee the civil liberties of our citizens? Under what circumstances would it
be justified for the US government to monitor the cyber communications of U.S. citizens or, if
necessary, to degrade or disable these systems? And who and how should these activities be
monitored?¶ 5. oversight — What is the role of the U.S. Congress in overseeing U.S. cyber
activities by the executive branch? Should new committees be formed — perhaps a Senate Select Committee on Cyber
States is built on a “government of laws, not men.” But
Operations, for example — analogous to how the Congress addresses the oversight of intelligence operations? What type of
legislation should the Congress consider that would strengthen, not hinder, U.S. cyber security?¶
6 . international consultations,
negotiations and agreements — The
U.S. is sharing selected information on cyber security with key
allies. Should it broaden the dialogue? What types of information should be shared? What should we seek to
learn from others, and how can we cooperate? Should the U.S. seek explicit codes of conduct to govern cyber behavior on a
bilateral or multilateral basis? Are there advantages to formal treaties, or are they too cumbersome, constraining
and difficult to enter into force because of the politicized U.S. Senate ratification process? ¶
7. cross-domain deterrence and
responses — If the U.S. experienced a major cyber attack, it is not required that the response be in cyber space.
What rules
should govern the U.S. response that could take a political, economic, diplomatic or
military form? Would such actions be seen by potential adversaries as proportional or escalatory?¶ 8. strengthen private
sector-government cooperation — How can this best be achieved so that the U.S. financial networks,
electric power grids and other essential systems that are in private hands remain well
protected? Should, for example, the National Economic Council in the White House play an active role in promoting this
cooperative activity or should it be left to specific executive branch agencies?¶
We are still in the infancy of
understanding cyber security — perhaps analogous to the late 1940s in the nuclear age. During the Cold War,
it took more than a decade to convince ourselves that we had an understanding of the
rules of the road that would protect U.S. national security. Indeed, to this day some critics claim
we still don’t have it right. We are thus embarking on an extensive period of analysis, debate
and implementation to determine how to make our cyber networks — and all that they enable us to do — secure. This is an
important, exciting and uncertain road ahead, a major new development for U.S. national security policy.
1ar
Policy simulation key to creativity and decisionmaking
Eijkman 12
The role of simulations in the authentic learning for national security policy development:
Implications for Practice / Dr. Henk Simon Eijkman. [electronic resource]
http://nsc.anu.edu.au/test/documents/Sims_in_authentic_learning_report.pdf. Dr Henk Eijkman
is currently an independent consultant as well as visiting fellow at the University of New South
Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy and is Visiting Professor of Academic
Development, Annasaheb Dange College of Engineering and Technology in India. As a
sociologist he developed an active interest in tertiary learning and teaching with a focus on
socially inclusive innovation and culture change. He has taught at various institutions in the
social sciences and his work as an adult learning specialist has taken him to South Africa,
Malaysia, Palestine, and India. He publishes widely in international journals, serves on
Conference Committees and editorial boards of edited books and international journal
Policy simulations stimulate Creativity Participation in policy games has proved to be a highly effective
way of developing new combinations of experience and creativity, which is precisely
what innovation requires (Geurts et al. 2007: 548). Gaming, whether in analog or digital mode, has the power to
stimulate creativity, and is one of the most engaging and liberating ways for making group work productive, challenging and
enjoyable. Geurts et al. (2007) cite one instance where, in a National Health Care policy change environment, ‘the many parties
involved accepted the invitation to participate in what was a revolutionary and politically very
sensitive experiment precisely because it was a game’ (Geurts et al. 2007: 547). Data from other
policy simulations also indicate the uncovering of issues of which participants were not
aware, the emergence of new ideas not anticipated, and a perception that policy simulations are also an
enjoyable way to formulate strategy (Geurts et al. 2007). Gaming puts the players in an
‘experiential learning’ situation, where they discover a concrete, realistic and complex initial situation, and the
gaming process of going through multiple learning cycles helps them work through the situation as it unfolds. Policy gaming
stimulates ‘learning how to learn’, as in a game, and learning by doing alternates with
reflection and discussion. The progression through learning cycles can also be much
faster than in real-life (Geurts et al. 2007: 548). The bottom line is that problem solving in policy development processes
requires creative experimentation. This cannot be primarily taught via ‘camp-fire’ story telling learning mode but demands hands-on
‘veld learning’ that allow for safe creative and productive experimentation. This is exactly what good policy
simulations provide (De Geus, 1997; Ringland, 2006). In simulations participants cannot view issues solely
from either their own perspective or that of one dominant stakeholder (Geurts et al. 2007). Policy
simulations enable the seeking of Consensus Games are popular because historically people seek and enjoy the tension of
competition, positive rivalry and the procedural justice of impartiality in safe and regulated environments. As in games,
simulations temporarily remove the participants from their daily routines, political
pressures, and the restrictions of real-life protocols. In consensus building, participants engage in
extensive debate and need to act on a shared set of meanings and beliefs to guide the policy process in the
desired direction.
No impact – threat construction isn’t sufficient to cause wars
Kaufman, Prof Poli Sci and IR – U Delaware, ‘9
(Stuart J, “Narratives and Symbols in Violent Mobilization: The Palestinian-Israeli Case,”
Security Studies 18:3, 400 – 434)
Even when hostile narratives, group fears, and opportunity are strongly present, war occurs
only if these factors are harnessed. Ethnic narratives and fears must combine to create
significant ethnic hostility among mass publics. Politicians must also seize the opportunity to
manipulate that hostility, evoking hostile narratives and symbols to gain or hold power by riding
a wave of chauvinist mobilization. Such mobilization is often spurred by prominent events (for
example, episodes of violence) that increase feelings of hostility and make chauvinist appeals
seem timely. If the other group also mobilizes and if each side's felt security needs threaten the
security of the other side, the result is a security dilemma spiral of rising fear, hostility, and
mutual threat that results in violence. A virtue of this symbolist theory is that symbolist logic
explains why ethnic peace is more common than ethnonationalist war. Even if hostile
narratives, fears, and opportunity exist, severe violence usually can still be avoided if ethnic
elites skillfully define group needs in moderate ways and collaborate across group lines to
prevent violence: this is consociationalism.17 War is likely only if hostile narratives, fears, and
opportunity spur hostile attitudes, chauvinist mobilization, and a security dilemma.
Politics
Obama’s political capital not key to immigration reform:
Hirsh, 2/16/2013 Feb. 16, 2013 (chief correspondent , political analyst) NATIONAL JOURNAL
news.yahoo.com/no-thing-political-capital-201002390-politics.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CRyFSBRwTEAoV3QtDMD
Meanwhile, the Republican members of the Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight are pushing
hard for a new spirit of compromise on immigration reform, a sharp change after an election year in
which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they
this turnaround has very little to do with Obama’s personal influence—
his political mandate, as it were. It has almost entirely to¶ do with just two numbers: 71 and 27.
That’s 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, the breakdown of the¶ Hispanic vote in the 2012
presidential election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a speech on immigration reform ¶ on Jan. 29 at a
Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in¶ November. But the
movement on immigration has mainly come out of the Republican Party’s recent
introspection, and the¶ realization by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of
Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that¶ without such a shift the party may be facing
demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first¶ time, that white births have fallen into the
minority. It’s got nothing to do with Obama’s political capital or, indeed, Obama¶ at all.
would “self-deport.” But