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*^*^*^*OFF CASE*^*^*^*
T – Investment/Transportation Infrastructure
Interpretation:
(A) “Investment” requires capital expenditure – it must add to the physical capital stock.
Anderson 6
(Edward, Lecturer in Development Studies – University of East Anglia, et al., “The Role of Public Investment in Poverty Reduction: Theories, Evidence and Methods”,
Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 263, March, http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/1786.pdf)
1.3 Definitions We define (net) public investment as public expenditure that adds to the public physical capital stock .
This would include the building of roads, ports, schools, hospitals etc. This corresponds to the definition of public
investment in national accounts data, namely, capital expenditure . It is not within the scope of this paper to include
public expenditure on health and education, despite the fact that many regard such expenditure as investment. Methods for
assessing the poverty impact of public expenditure on social sectors such as health and education have been well covered
elsewhere in recent years (see for example, van de Walle and Nead, 1995; Sahn and Younger, 2000; and World Bank,
2002).
(B) Infrastructure is defined by specific physical characteristics --- this differentiates transportation from
utilities, communication, and energy
Inderst 9
(Georg, Financial Affairs Division – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure”, OECD Working Paper,
No. 32, January, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/9/42052208.pdf)
Definition of infrastructure assets The definition of infrastructure investment seems intuitive. The OECD uses a simple and
general definition for infrastructure as the system of public works in a country, state or region, including roads, utility lines
and public buildings. A standard dictionary‘s definition is: ―The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the
functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines, and
public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons. ‖ (American Heritage Dictionary). Infrastructure assets are
traditionally defined by their physical characteristics . One can split them into two main categories, and a range of
sectors within those: Economic infrastructure transport (e.g. toll roads, airports, seaport, tunnels, bridges, metro, rail
systems) utilities (e.g. water supply, sewage system, energy distribution networks, power plants, pipelines, gas storage)
communication
renewable energy Social
infrastructure
infrastructure if it is defined by its physical nature , and
people disagree what exactly should or should not count as infrastructure asset. For example, do utility companies count as
infrastructure? When their activities span production, distribution and networks, where is the dividing line? More generally,
where does public infrastructure end and private infrastructure start?
Violation:
The AFF doesn’t invest in capital expenditure in physical transportation infrastructure. The AFF is
investing in research making geospatial data more organized and coordinated making it not capital
expenditure. Remote sensors are communication infrastructure making it not physical infrastructure.
Voting Issue:
Limits – the AFF over limits the topic. By running a AFF that don’t invest or don’t invest in
transportation infrastructure, the AFF explodes the topic. Plans that don’t spend, don’t have any returns,
or are not transportation infrastructure allows for MILLIONS of more affs that creates an enormous
reseach burden for the neg. It would be impossible to research all the possible AFFs under their
interpretation. This kills education because it doesn’t allow for clash making it bad for debate.
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Ground - The neg has to run generic arguments that don’t specifically link, because their arguments are
not topical. They can spike out of our DA links.
Security K
The affirmative’s obsession with ranking and managing risk is the essence of security logic
Hagmann & Cavelty, 2012 (National risk registers: Security scientism and the propagation of permanent insecurity, John
Hagmann and Myriam Dunn Cavelty, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Sage Journals Feb 15 2012)
With the demise of communism as an overarching organizing principle and crystallization point, Western security doctrines
have seen the inclusion of a growing range of different security issues from political, societal, economic and environmental
sectors. By the same token, Western security politics has also been prominently infused with risk narratives and logics since
the 1990s (Petersen, 2011; Hameiri and Kühn, 2011). Particular to risk-centric conceptualizations of public danger is the
understanding that national and international security should take into account a varied set of natural or man-made disaster
potentials, as well as other probable disruptions with potentially grave consequences for society. Also, specific to these
dangers is the profound uncertainty regarding their exact form and likely impact, and the substantial room for conflicting
interpretations surrounding them. However, precise and ‘actionable’ knowledge of looming danger is quintessential to
security politics, the shift to new security narratives notwithstanding. Without conceptions of existing or upcoming
collective dangers, security schemes are neither intelligible nor implementable. Whether the matter at hand concerns the
installation of hi-tech body scanners at airports, the construction of avalanche barriers in the Alps or diplomatic initiatives
for a global anti-terror alliance, any security agenda is rhetorically and politically grounded in a representation of national
or international danger. In recent years, the epistemological foundations of security politics have been addressed by
reflexive and critical approaches, a literature that enquires into the formation, contestation and appropriation of (in)security
discourses. Situating itself in this broader literature, this article focuses on national risk registers as a particular means for
authoritative knowledge definition in the field of national security. National risk registers are fairly recent, comprehensive
inventories of public dangers ranging from natural hazards to industrial risks and political perils. Often produced by civil
protection agencies, they seek to provide secure foundations for public policymaking, security-related resource allocation
and policy planning. Evaluating and ranking all kinds of potential insecurities, from toxic accidents and political unrest to
plant diseases, thunderstorms, energy shortages, terrorist strikes, wars and the instability of global financial markets, risk
registers stand at the intersection of the broadening of security politics and the adoption of risk logics.
In particular, infrastructure development is the essence of modern securitization – it translates the
normal function of life into the discourse of security
Lundborg and Vaughan-Williams, 10 (Tom Lundborg, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Nick VaughanWilliams, University of Warwick, “There’s More to Life than Biopolitics: Critical Infrastructure, Resilience Planning, and Molecular
Security,” Paper prepared for the SGIR Conference, Stockholm, 7-10 September, 2010)
While the terrain of security studies is of course fiercely contested, what is common among a range of otherwise often
diverse perspectives is the core premise that ‘security’ relates to a realm of activity in some sense beyond the ‘norm’ of
political life. Thus, in the language of the Copenhagen School, a securitizing move occurs when an issue not previously
thought of as a security threat comes to be produced as such via a speech act that declares an existential threat to a
referent object (Buzan et al 1998). A similar logic can be identified in approaches to security that focus on exceptionalism:
the idea, following the paradigmatic thought of Carl Schmitt, that sovereign practices rely upon the decision to suspend
the normal state of affairs in order to produce emergency conditions in which extraordinary measures—such as martial
law, for example—are legitimised. For this reason, a tendency in security studies—even among self-styled ‘critical’
approaches – is to privilege analysis of high-profile ‘speech acts’ of elites, ‘exceptional’ responses to ‘exceptional’
circumstances, and events that are deemed to be ‘extraordinary’. Arguably this leads to an emphasis on what we might call
the ‘spectacle of security’, rather than more mundane, prosaic, and ‘everyday’ aspects of security policy and practice. By
contrast, the world of CIs necessitates a shift in the referent object of security away from the ‘spectacular’ to the ‘banal’.
Instead of high-profile speech-based acts of securitization, we are here dealing with telecommunications and transportation
networks, water treatment and sewage works, and so on: ‘semi-invisible’ phenomena that are often taken-for-granted
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fixtures and fittings of society, yet vital for the maintenance of what is considered to be ‘normal daily life’. For this
reason our subject matter calls for a re-thinking of the very ‘stuff’ considered to be apposite for the study of international
security. Indeed, analysing the role of CIs and resilience planning in global security relations adds particular resonance to
existing calls within the literature to broaden and deepen the way in which acts of securitization are conceptualised (Bigo
2002; Balzacq 2005; McDonald 2008; Williams 2003). Those adopting more sociologically-oriented perspectives, for
example, have sought to emphasise the way in which securitizing moves can be made by institutions (as well as
individuals), through repeated activity (as well as one-off ‘acts’), and involve various media (not only ‘speech’, but visual
culture, for example). From this reconfigured point of view it is possible to then see how the design, planning, management,
and execution of CIs also constitute an arena in which processes of securitization—of physical and cyber networks—takes
place.
The dream of security produces apocalypse– constructions of existential risk produce the annihilation
they are meant to escape
Pever Coviello, Prof. of English @ Bowdoin, 2k [Queer Frontiers, p. 39-40]
Perhaps. But to claim that American culture is at present decisively postnuclear is not to say that the world we inhabit is in
any way postapocalyptic. Apocalypse, as I began by saying, changed-it did not go away. And here I want to hazard my
second assertion: if, in the nuclear age of yesteryear, apocalypse signified an event threatening everyone and everything
with (in Jacques Derrida’s suitably menacing phrase) "remainderless and a-symbolic destruction," then in the postnuclear
world apocalypse is an affair whose parameters are definitively local. In shape and in substance, apocalypse is defined now
by the affliction it brings somewhere else, always to an "other" people whose very presence might then be written as a
kind of dangerous contagion, threatening the safety and prosperity of a cherished "general population." This fact seems
to me to stand behind Susan Sontag's incisive observation, from 1989, that, 'Apocalypse is now a long-running serial: not
'Apocalypse Now' but 'Apocalypse from Now On."" The decisive point here in the perpetuation of the threat of
apocalypse (the point Sontag goes on, at length, to miss) is that apocalypse is ever present because, as an element in a vast
economy of power, it is ever useful. That is, through the perpetual threat of destruction-through the constant
reproduction of the figure of apocalypse-agencies of power ensure their authority to act on and through the bodies of a
particular population. No one turns this point more persuasively than Michel Foucault, who in the final chapter of his first
volume of The History of Sexuality addresses himself to the problem of a power that is less repressive than productive, less
life-threatening than, in his words, "life-administering." Power, he contends, "exerts a positive influence on life land,
endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations?' In his
brief comments on what he calls "the atomic situation;' however, Foucault insists as well that the productiveness of modern
power must not be mistaken for a uniform repudiation of violent or even lethal means. For as "managers of life and
survival, of bodies and the race," agencies of modern power presume to act 'on the behalf of the existence of everyone."
Whatsoever might be construed as a threat to life and survival in this way serves to authorize any expression of force, no
matter how invasive or, indeed, potentially annihilating. "If genocide is indeed the dream of modem power," Foucault
writes, "this is not because of a recent return to the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the
level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population." For a state that would arm itself not with
the power to kill its population, but with a more comprehensive power over the patterns and functioning of its collective
life, the threat of an apocalyptic demise, nuclear or otherwise, seems a civic initiative that can scarcely be done without.
Alternative – Reject the affirmative’s security logic – only resistance to the discourse of security can
generate genuine political thought
Mark Neocleous, Prof. of Government @ Brunel, 2008 [Critique of Security, 185-6]
The only way out of such a dilemma, to escape the fetish, is perhaps to eschew the logic of security altogether - to reject it
as so ideologically loaded in favour of the state that any real political thought other than the authoritarian and reactionary
should be pressed to give it up. That is clearly something that can not be achieved within the limits of bourgeois thought
and thus could never even begin to be imagined by the security intellectual. It is also something that the constant iteration
of the refrain 'this is an insecure world' and reiteration of one fear, anxiety and insecurity after another will also make it
hard to do. But it is something that the critique of security suggests we may have to consider if we want a political way out
of the impasse of security. This impasse exists because security has now become so all-encompassing that it marginalises
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all else, most notably the constructive conflicts, debates and discussions that animate political life. The constant
prioritising of a mythical security as a political end - as the political end constitutes a rejection of politics in any meaningful
sense of the term. That is, as a mode of action in which differences can be articulated, in which the conflicts and struggles
that arise from such differences can be fought for and negotiated, in which people might come to believe that another world
is possible - that they might transform the world and in turn be transformed. Security politics simply removes this; worse, it
remoeves it while purportedly addressing it. In so doing it suppresses all issues of power and turns political questions into
debates about the most efficient way to achieve 'security', despite the fact that we are never quite told - never could be told what might count as having achieved it. Security politics is, in this sense, an anti-politics,"' dominating political discourse
in much the same manner as the security state tries to dominate human beings, reinforcing security fetishism and the
monopolistic character of security on the political imagination. We therefore need to get beyond security politics, not add
yet more 'sectors' to it in a way that simply expands the scope of the state and legitimises state intervention in yet more and
more areas of our lives. Simon Dalby reports a personal communication with Michael Williams, co-editor of the important
text Critical Security Studies, in which the latter asks: if you take away security, what do you put in the hole that's left
behind? But I'm inclined to agree with Dalby: maybe there is no hole."' The mistake has been to think that there is a hole
and that this hole needs to be filled with a new vision or revision of security in which it is re-mapped or civilised or
gendered or humanised or expanded or whatever. All of these ultimately remain within the statist political imaginary, and
consequently end up reaffirming the state as the terrain of modern politics, the grounds of security. The real task is not to
fill the supposed hole with yet another vision of security, but to fight for an alternative political language which takes us
beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois security and which therefore does not constantly throw us into the arms of the
state. That's the point of critical politics: to develop a new political language more adequate to the kind of society we want.
Thus while much of what I have said here has been of a negative order, part of the tradition of critical theory is that the
negative may be as significant as the positive in setting thought on new paths. For if security really is the supreme concept
of bourgeois society and the fundamental thematic of liberalism, then to keep harping on about insecurity and to keep
demanding 'more security' (while meekly hoping that this increased security doesn't damage our liberty) is to blind
ourselves to the possibility of building real alternatives to the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics. To situate
ourselves against security politics would allow us to circumvent the debilitating effect achieved through the constant
securitising of social and political issues, debilitating in the sense that 'security' helps consolidate the power of the existing
forms of social domination and justifies the short-circuiting of even the most democratic forms. It would also allow us to
forge another kind of politics centred on a different conception of the good. We need a new way of thinking and talking
about social being and politics that moves us beyond security. This would perhaps be emancipatory in the true sense of the
word. What this might mean, precisely, must be open to debate. But it certainly requires recognising that security is an
illusion that has forgotten it is an illusion; it requires recognising that security is not the same as solidarity; it requires
accepting that insecurity is part of the human condition, and thus giving up the search for the certainty of security and
instead learning to tolerate the uncertainties, ambiguities and 'insecurities' that come with being human; it requires
accepting that 'securitizing' an issue does not mean dealing with it politically, but bracketing it out and handing it to the
state; it requires us to be brave enough to return the gift."'
Downgrade
A. Fiscal discipline now – political pressure will lead to debt compromise
Washington Post 7/18
Washington Post 7/18/12, http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jul/18/coalition-aims-to-head-off-debtdisaster/
WASHINGTON — A coalition of business leaders, budget experts and former politicians launched a $25 million campaign
yesterday to build political support for a far-reaching plan to raise taxes, cut popular retirement programs and tame the national
debt. With anxiety rising over a major budget mess looming in January, the campaign — dubbed "Fix the Debt" — is founded on
the notion that the moment is finally at hand when policymakers will be forced to compromise on an ambitious debt-reduction
strategy. After nearly three years of bipartisan negotiations, the broad outlines of that strategy are clear, the group's leaders said
during a news conference at the National Press Club: Raise more money through a simplified tax code and spend less on Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the primary drivers of future borrowing. "Everyone knows in their hearts and their minds what
has to be done," said Democratic former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who is chairing the group with former New Hampshire
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Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican. The goal of the campaign is to "create a safe environment where it's not only good policy, but
good politics as well." The campaign was founded by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former
Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. The two men led an independent fiscal commission that in 2010 produced a $4
trillion debt-reduction framework that has won praise from politicians across the political spectrum. But the Bowles-Simpson plan
never won the explicit backing of President Barack Obama or GOP leaders and therefore never gained real traction in Congress.
The campaign plans to launch a social media drive to persuade lawmakers to approve a plan similar to the Bowles-Simpson
framework by July 4, 2013 — replacing $600 billion in abrupt tax hikes and sharp spending cuts that are otherwise set to take
effect in January.
B. New infrastructure spending kills fiscal discipline – it undercuts the spirit of “shared sacrifice”
O’Hanlon 10
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, 12/22/10, “THE DEFENSE BUDGET AND
AMERICAN POWER,”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2010/1222_defense_budget/20101222_defense_budget.pdf
So the minute that someone says, well, defense is the top constitutional obligation of the federal government and therefore
it should be protected regardless, and we should make our deficit reduction out of other accounts. If we start a conversation
in those terms, then a big constituency is going to come up and say let's protect Social Security, or let's protect college loans
for students because that's our future after all. Or let's protect science research or infrastructural development, and you get
the idea pretty soon you've lost the spirit of shared sacrifice that I think is essential if we're going to have any hope of
reducing the deficit in the coming years. So that's the basic motivation. We're not probably going to reduce the deficit
effectively, and therefore strengthen our long-term economy and the foundation for our long-term military power, if we
don't establish a spirit of shared sacrifice.
C. Loss of fiscal discipline causes a downgrade
Mark Gongloff, Wall Street Journal, 08/2/’11, [Moody’s Affirms US AAA Rating,
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/08/02/moodys-affirms-us-aaa-rating/] VN
Moody’s just came out and said, great job, USA, you get to keep your AAA rating. For now. This follows Fitch, which earlier said
more or less that they were still reviewing the US rating, a process that could take through August. They didn’t promise they’d
keep a AAA rating at the end of the process, but called the debt deal “a step in the right direction.” Now the big shoe dangling is
S&P, which is really on the hook, having sounded the loudest warning about a downgrade. The size of the debt deal doesn’t seem
to hit the $4 trillion mark S&P has said would be necessary to keep a AAA rating. My prediction? They’ll issue a similar
placeholder statement soonish. Meanwhile, let’s hear what Moody’s has to say: Moody’s Investors Service has confirmed the
Aaa government bond rating of the United States following the raising of the statutory debt limit on August 2. The rating outlook
is now negative. Moody’s placed the rating on review for possible downgrade on July 13 due to the small but rising probability of
a default on the government’s debt obligations because of a failure to increase the debt limit. The initial increase of the debt limit
by $900 billion and the commitment to raise it by a further $1.2-1.5 trillion by yearend have virtually eliminated the risk of such a
default, prompting the confirmation of the rating at Aaa. In confirming the Aaa rating, Moody’s also recognized that today’s
agreement is a first step toward achieving the long-term fiscal consolidation needed to maintain the US government debt metrics
within Aaa parameters over the long run. The legislation calls for $917 billion in specific spending cuts over the next decade and
established a congressional committee charged with making recommendations for achieving a further $1.5 trillion in deficit
reduction over the same time period. In the absence of the committee reaching an agreement, automatic spending cuts of $1.2
trillion would become effective. In assigning a negative outlook to the rating, Moody’s indicated, however, that there would be a
risk of downgrade if (1) there is a weakening in fiscal discipline in the coming year; (2) further fiscal consolidation measures are
not adopted in 2013; (3) the economic outlook deteriorates significantly; or (4) there is an appreciable rise in the US government’s
funding costs over and above what is currently expected.
D. Further downgrades would create a debt spiral, crippling the economy
Rowley 12 Charles Rowley, Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University, 10/15/12, “Renewed threats to U.S.
credit rating,” Charles Rowley’s blog, http://charlesrowley.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/renewed-threats-to-u-s-credit-rating/
If Moody’s downgrades and if S & P further downgrades U.S. credit ratings, this would move the United States out of the
exclusive club of AAA-rated nations, and throw into question the privileged status of U.S. Treasury securities as a safe
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haven for global investors. Any significant flight from Treasuries would raise Treasury bond rates, with crippling
consequences for the economy. A 1-percentage point increase in rates would raise Treasury debt payments by $1 trillion
over the next decade, wiping out the benefits of all the budget cuts enacted by Congress last year. The dynamics of such a
process may prove to be devastating, moving the U.S. federal government onto a path of sovereign downgrades that
accelerates an already worsening fiscal situation. Greece here we come.
E. Economic collapse causes global nuclear war.
Merlini, Senior Fellow – Brookings, 11
[Cesare Merlini, nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in Rome. He served as IAI president
from 1979 to 2001. Until 2009, he also occupied the position of executive vice chairman of the Council for the
United States and Italy, which he co-founded in 1983. His areas of expertise include transatlantic relations,
European integration and nuclear non-proliferation, with particular focus on nuclear science and technology. A
Post-Secular World? DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2011.571015 Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request
Permissions Published in: journal Survival, Volume 53, Issue 2 April 2011 , pages 117 - 130 Publication
Frequency: 6 issues per year Download PDF Download PDF (~357 KB) View Related Articles To cite this
Article: Merlini, Cesare 'A Post-Secular World?', Survival, 53:2, 117 – 130]
Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of
oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the
acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of
nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the vulnerability
of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and
democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive selfinterest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of
multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and
Iran or India and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration
might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular
rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes
such as unbridled nationalism.
Privates CP
Plan text: The United States Federal Governments should release geospatial data to the public and
private sectors.
Open source solves remote sensing
Jackson 2008 (Joab Jackson, Joab
Jackson
is
the
senior
technology
editor
for
Government
Computer
News)
http://gcn.com/articles/2008/07/28/open-source-remote-sensing.aspx
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has released into open source software for analyzing remote sensing data. According to the
company, Defense Department intelligence analysts and scientists use the software, called Opticks. By open sourcing the software,
Ball hopes to increase the demand for remote sensing analysis, as well as increase the number of features on the application. At
present, Opticks supports analysis for imagery, motion imagery, synthetic aperture radar, and multi-spectral and hyper-spectral remote
sensing data. "Ball Aerospace's Opticks demonstrates how government-sponsored code originally developed by a contractor can be
maximized by releasing it as open source," said John M. Weathersby, executive director of the Open Source Software Institute, in a
statement. "This creative business development effort is consistent with the forward-thinking strategy outlined in the Department of
Defense's
Open
Technology
Development
roadmap."
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*^*^*^*CASE*^*^*^*
Nuke Terror
Their Budge and Williamson evidence indicates that there are many other things that are involved in
solving important security concerns other than Remote sensing. Their plan only fiats one of them, means
that they can’t solve the advantage.
Prefer conventional weapons
Craig 11 [Campbell, professor of international relations at the University of Southampton Special Issue: Bringing Critical Realism
and Historical Materialism into Critical Terrorism Studies Atomic obsession: nuclear alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda Critical
Studies on Terrorism Volume 4, Issue 1, 2011, April, pages 115-124]
Let us address each of his claims, in reverse order. Mueller suggests that the risk of an act of major nuclear terrorism is
exceptionally small, along the lines of an asteroid hitting the earth. Drawing upon his powerful book against terrorism
alarmism, Overblown (2006), he shows that serious anti-Western terrorist groups are today widely scattered and
disorganized – precisely the wrong kind of arrangement for the sustained and centralized project of building an atomic
bomb. Looking for immediate results, terrorist groups are likely to go with what works today, rather than committing to a
long-term and likely futile project. He points out, as have other authors, that so-called ‘rogue’ nations, even if they obtain a
bomb, are never going to hand it over to terrorists: to do so would utterly negate everything they had worked so hard for. A
nation such as Iran that somehow decided to give its bomb to al-Qaeda (leaving aide their completely different objectives)
would not only be handing over a weapon that it had spent years and billions to build, and giving up the prestige and
deterrence the bomb supposedly confers, it would also be putting itself at acute risk of being on the receiving end of a
retaliatory strike once the terrorists did their work. By what rationale would any leader make such a move? The potential
costs would be astronomical, the benefits non-existent.
Their Budge and Williamson evidence talks about a terrorist attack on a car that’s transporting chemical
material down the highway would be bad. There is no way that the US would mistake this attack for
Russia.
No desire, no market, and locks check.
Mueller, Political Science at Ohio State, 11 [John, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State, The Truth About Al-Qaeda,
August 2, 2011, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68012/john-mueller/the-truth-about-al-qaeda?page=show]
Thus far terrorist groups seem to have exhibited only limited desire and even less progress in going atomic. This may be
because, after brief exploration of the possible routes, they, unlike generations of alarmists on the issue, have discovered
that the tremendous effort required is scarcely likely to be successful. It is highly improbable that a would-be atomic
terrorist would be given or sold a bomb by a generous like-minded nuclear state because the donor could not control its use
and because the ultimate source of the weapon might be discovered. Although there has been great worry about terrorists
illicitly stealing or purchasing a nuclear weapon, it seems likely that neither “loose nukes” nor a market in illicit nuclear
materials exists. Moreover, finished bombs have been outfitted with an array of locks and safety devices. There could be
dangers in the chaos that would emerge if a nuclear state were utterly to fail, collapsing in full disarray. However, even
under those conditions, nuclear weapons would likely remain under heavy guard by people who know that a purloined
bomb would most likely end up going off in their own territory, would still have locks, and could probably be followed and
hunted down by an alarmed international community. The most plausible route for terrorists would be to manufacture the
device themselves from purloined materials. This task requires that a considerable series of difficult hurdles be conquered
in sequence, including the effective recruitment of people who at once have great technical skills and will remain
completely devoted to the cause. In addition, a host of corrupted co-conspirators, many of them foreign, must remain utterly
reliable, international and local security services must be kept perpetually in the dark, and no curious outsider must get
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consequential wind of the project over the months or even years it takes to pull off. In addition, the financial costs of the
operation could easily become monumental. Moreover, the difficulties are likely to increase because of enhanced
protective and policing efforts by self-interested governments and because any foiled attempt would expose flaws in the
defense system, holes the defenders would then plug. The evidence of al-Qaeda’s desire to go atomic, and about its
progress in accomplishing this exceedingly difficult task, is remarkably skimpy, if not completely negligible. The scariest
stuff—a decade’s worth of loose nuke rumor—seems to have no substance whatever. For the most part, terrorists seem to
be heeding the advice found in an al-Qaeda laptop seized in Pakistan: “Make use of that which is available ... rather than
waste valuable time becoming despondent over that which is not within your reach.” In part because of current policies—
but also because of a wealth of other technical and organizational difficulties—the atomic terrorists’ task is already
monumental, and their likelihood of success is vanishingly small. Efforts to further enhance this monumentality, if costeffective and accompanied with only tolerable side effects, are generally desirable.
Their Budge and Williamson Evidence talks about an attack on airline security, their evidence doesn’t
give a reason why remote sensing would solve for it.
No nuclear threat- Russia’s weapons are useless
Lieber and Press ‘6 Keir is a professor of political science at Notre Dame and Daryl G. is an associate professor of political science at the University of
Pennsylvania (Foreign Affairs, “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy” March/April 2006)
EVEN AS the United States' nuclear forces have grown stronger since the end of the Cold War, Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal has
sharply deteriorated. Russia has 39 percent fewer long-range bombers, S8 percent fewer ICBMs, and 8o percent fewer SSBNS than
the Soviet Union fielded during its last days. The true extent of the Russian arsenal's decay, however, is much greater than these cuts
suggest. What nuclear forces Russia retains are hardly ready for use. Russia's strategic bombers, now located at only two bases and
thus vulnerable to a surprise attack, rarely conduct training exercises, and their warheads are stored off-base. Over 8o percent of
Russia's silo-based ICBMS have exceeded their original service lives, and plans to replace them with new missiles have been stymied
by failed tests and low rates of production. Russia's mobile ICBMS rarely patrol, and although they could fire their missiles from
inside their bases if given sufficient warning of an attack, it appears unlikely that they would have the time to do so. The third leg of
Russia's nuclear triad has weakened the most. Since 2000, Russia's SSBNS have conducted approximately two patrols per year, down
from 6o in 1990. (By contrast, the U.S. SSBN patrol rate today is about 40 per year.) Most of the time, all nine of Russia's ballistic
missile submarines are sitting in port, where they make easy targets. Moreover, submarines require well-trained crews to be effective.
Operating a ballistic missile submarine-and silently coordinating its operations with surface ships and attack submarines to evade an
enemy's forces-is not simple. Without frequent patrols, the skills of Russian submariners, like the submarines themselves, are
decaying. Revealingly, a 2004 test (attended by President Vladimir Putin) of several submarine-launched ballistic missiles was a total
fiasco: all either failed to launch or veered off course. The fact that there were similar failures in the summer and fall of 2005
completes this unflat tering picture of Russia's nuclear forces. Compounding these problems, Russia's early warning system is a mess.
Neither Soviet nor Russian satellites have ever been capa ble of reliably detecting missiles launched from U.S. submarines. (In a
recent public statement, a top Russian general described his country's early warning satellite constellation as "hopelessly out dated.")
Bioterror
Squo Solves – Remote Sensing Tech is already good enough – that’s their authors
Yang 02 (2002 Chaowei Phil Yang Professor of GIScience, George Mason University “UTILIZING REMOTE SENSED DATA IN
A QUICK RESPONSE SYSTEM” Menas Kafatos, Ruixin Yang, Chaowei Yang, Richard Gomez, & Zafer Boybeyi)
Remote sensing technology has been improving in the modern age. With LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) and hyperspectral
instruments through space-borne and airborne platforms, one can get high spatial and spectral resolution information of the Earth
surface. The information can be used to assess the damage of terrorist and other hazardous events and provide information for running
prediction models for response planning.
Bioweapons don’t cause extinction
A. They were used during WWII and didn’t result in massive human wipeouts
B. A bioweapon was used on a bus in Washington DC last year and made 13 people sick
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Bioterror risk is low—dispersal problems, tech barriers, risk fo back spread—experts agree
John Mueller, Professor, Political Science, Ohio State University, OVERBLOWN: HOW POLITICIANS AND
THE TERRORISM INDUSTRY INFLATE NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS, AND WHY WE BELIEVE
THEM, 2009, p. 21-22.
For the most destructive results, biological weapons need to be dispersed in very low-altitude aerosol clouds. Because
aerosols do not appreciably settle, pathogens like anthrax (which is not easy to spread or catch and is not contagious) would probably have
to be sprayed near nose level. Moreover, 90 percent of the microorganisms are likely to die during the process of
aerosolization, and their effectiveness could be reduced still further by sunlight, smog, humidity, and temperature changes .
Explosive methods of dispersion may destroy the organisms , and, except for anthrax spores, long-term storage of lethal
organisms in bombs or warheads is difficult: even if refrigerated, most of the organisms have a limited lifetime. The effects of such weapons can
take days or weeks to have full effect, during which time they can be countered with medical and civil defense measures.
And their impact is very difficult to predict; in combat situations they may spread back onto the attacker. In the judgment of two careful analysts,
delivering microbes and toxins over a wide area in the form most suitable for inflicting mass casualties—as an aerosol that
can be inhaled—requires a delivery system whose development "would outstrip the technical capabilities of all
but the most sophisticated terrorist" Even then effective dispersal could easily be disrupted by unfavorable
environmental and meteorological conditions." After assessing, and stressing, the difficulties a nonstate entity would find in obtaining,
handling, growing, storing, processing, and dispersing lethal pathogens effectively, biological weapons expert Milton Leitenberg compares his conclusions
with glib pronouncements in the press about how biological attacks can be pulled off by anyone with "a little training and a few glass jars," or how it
would be "about as difficult as producing beer." He sardonically concludes, "The less the commentator seems to know about biological warfare the easier
he seems to think the task is.""
Bioweapons won’t cause extinction – unlikely to spread and cause epidemics
Gregg Easterbrook, senior fellow at The New Republic, July 2003, Wired, “We’re All Gonna Die!”
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/doomsday.html?pg=2&topic=&topic_set=
3. Germ warfare!Like chemical agents, biological weapons have never lived up to their billing in popular culture. Consider
the 1995 medical thriller Outbreak, in which a highly contagious virus takes out entire towns. The reality is quite different.
Weaponized smallpox escaped from a Soviet laboratory in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, in 1971; three people died, no epidemic
followed. In 1979, weapons-grade anthrax got out of a Soviet facility in Sverdlovsk (now called Ekaterinburg); 68 died, no
epidemic. The loss of life was tragic, but no greater than could have been caused by a single conventional bomb. In 1989,
workers at a US government facility near Washington were accidentally exposed to Ebola virus. They walked around the
community and hung out with family and friends for several days before the mistake was discovered. No one died. The fact
is, evolution has spent millions of years conditioning mammals to resist germs. Consider the Black Plague. It was the worst
known pathogen in history, loose in a Middle Ages society of poor public health, awful sanitation, and no antibiotics. Yet it
didn’t kill off humanity. Most people who were caught in the epidemic survived. Any superbug introduced into today’s
Western world would encounter top-notch public health, excellent sanitation, and an array of medicines specifically
engineered to kill bioagents. Perhaps one day some aspiring Dr. Evil will invent a bug that bypasses the immune system.
Because it is possible some novel superdisease could be invented, or that existing pathogens like smallpox could be
genetically altered to make them more virulent (two-thirds of those who contract natural smallpox survive), biological
agents are a legitimate concern. They may turn increasingly troublesome as time passes and knowledge of biotechnology
becomes harder to control, allowing individuals or small groups to cook up nasty germs as readily as they can buy guns
today. But no superplague has ever come close to wiping out humanity before, and it seems unlikely to happen in the
future.
FEMA
If we need FEMA to maintain credibility, why didn’t this happen after Hurricane Katrina. Their
evidence indicates that credibility decreased so why didn’t their impacts happen?
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Their Walters evidence cites that the BP Gulf Oil Spill was another example of a failed response of the
American government that should have destroyed credibility – a reason why their impact should be non
unique
Single issues not key – perceptions change slowly.
Gray, International Politics at Reading, 11 [COLIN S. GRAY is Professor of International Poli- tics and Strategic Studies
at the University of Reading, England. He worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), and at Hudson
Institute (Croton-on-Hudson, NY) before founding the Na- tional Institute for Public Policy, a defense-oriented think tank in the
Washington, DC, area. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the Reagan administration on the President’s General Advisory Committee on
Arms SSI Monograph HARD POWER AND SOFT POWER: THE UTILITY OF MILITARY FORCE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF
POLICY IN THE 21ST CENTURY Colin S. Gray April 2011]
The error lies in the search for, and inevitable finding of, “golden keys” and “silver bullets” to resolve current versions of
en- during problems. Soft-power salesmen have a potent product-mix to sell, but they fail to appreciate the real- ity that
American soft power is a product essentially unalterable over a short span of years. As a country with a cultural or
civilizational brand that is unique and mainly rooted in deep historical, geographical, and ideational roots, America is not
at liberty to emu- late a major car manufacturer and advertise an exten- sive and varied model range of persuasive softpower profiles. Of course, some elements of soft power can be emphasized purposefully in tailored word and deed.
However, foreign perceptions of the United States are no more developed from a blank page than the American past can
be retooled and fine-tuned for contemporary advantage. Frustrating though it may be, a country cannot easily escape
legacies from its past.
Their NASA and US DOT evidence just talks about how Remote Sensing can solve for fire and make fire
propogation models – this means that they can’t solve for disasters like floods and Hurricanes – means
Remote sensing doesn’t solve for Credibility
Can’t substitute for hard power.
Kroenig, Government at Georgetown, et al. 10 [Matthew, Department of Government, Georgetown University Melissa
McAdam, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley Steven Weber, Information School, University of
California, Berkeley, Taking Soft Power Seriously, Comparative Strategy, Volume 29, Issue 5 November 2010 , pages 412 – 431]
Foreign policy actors have many reasons to experiment with soft power, not merely because its use can be less costly than
hard power. But, soft power comes with its own quite striking limitations. Our research suggests that soft power strategies
will be unlikely to succeed except under fairly restrictive conditions. It may very well be, then, that the U.S. foreign policy
elite is at risk of exaggerating the effectiveness of soft power (rather than underutilizing it) as a tool of foreign policy.
After all, international communication is fraught with difficulties, persuading people to change firmly held political views
is hard, and individual attitudes are often thought to have an insignificant role in determining international political
outcomes. Soft power, therefore, will probably be considered a niche foreign policy option useful for addressing a small
fraction of the problems on Washington's foreign policy agenda. Analysts who suggest that soft power can easily be
substituted for hard power or who maintain that soft power should provide an overarching guide to the formulation of U.S.
foreign policy are badly mistaken. It is not conducive to good policy to employ the idea of soft power as a way of arguing
against the use of military force, for example.
Their Hartfod Courant evidence doesn’t talk about how response to disasters can solve for soft power,
and it takes out their uniqueness for the impact because it says that credibility was destroyed after
Katrina
1. American soft power is unworkable – nations don’t believe in benevolent hegemony enough to
overwhelm their resentment and fear***
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Christopher Layne (Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M
University) 2007 “American Empire: A Debate” p 68
Doubtless, American
primacy has its dimension of benevolence, but a state as powerful as the United States can never be
benevolent enough to offset the fear that other states have of its unchecked power . In international politics, benevolent hegemons
are like unicorns—there is no such animal. Hegemons love themselves, but others mistrust and fear them—and for good reason.
In today's world, others dread both the overconcentration of geopolitical weight in America's favor and the purposes for
which it may be used. After all,"Nogreat power has a monopoly on virtue and, although some may have a greatdeal more virtue than others, virtue
imposed on others is not seen as such bythem. All great powers are capable of exercising a measure of self-restraint, butthey are tempted not to and the
choice to practice restraint is made easier by theexistence of countervailing power and the possibility of it being exercised." While Washington's selfproclaimed benevolence is inherently ephemeral, the hard fist of American power is tangible . Others must worry constantly that
ifU.S. intentions change, bad things may happen to them. In a one-superpower world, the overconcentration of power in America's
hands is an omnipresent challenge to other states's ecurity, and Washington's ability to reassure others of its benevolence is
limited by the very enormity of its power .
2. Self-correction --- move to multilateralism happening now
Economist ’07 (Kevin Kalaugher, “Still No.1: Wounded, tetchy and less effective than it should be, America is
still the power that counts,” 6-28, http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9407806)
If America were a stock, it would be a “buy”: an undervalued market leader, in need of new management. But that points to its last great
strength. More than any rival, America corrects itself. Under pressure from voters, Mr Bush has already rediscovered
some of the charms of multilateralism; he is talking about climate change; a Middle East peace initiative is
possible. Next year's presidential election offers a chance for renewal. Such corrections are not automatic: something (a
misadventure in Iran?) may yet compound the misery of Iraq in the same way Watergate followed Vietnam. But America recovered from the
1970s. It will bounce back stronger again.
3. Soft power cannot prevent conflict – empirically proven
Fen Hampsen et al, 1998 International Journal
Perhaps the
two best examples of the continued utility of military force are the Persian Gulf conflict of 1990-1 and the
coalition deployment to the same region, led by the United States (and supported by the United Nations), in early 1998 to ensure Iraq's
compliance with the 1991 ceasefire agreement. Both missions have occasioned much debate in the scholarly community, and deservedly so, but we take it
as axiomatic that for both sides on each occasion the role of military force was critical in the evolution -- and resolution -- of the crisis. In 1990-1, this
would appear to be self-evident, while in 1998 no less a commentator than Kofi Annan, in the wake of Iraq's decision to again permit weapons inspectors
access to its presidential palaces, dubbed the United States and Britain 'the perfect UN peacekeepers' for their show of force in support of UNSCOM. It is
important to note that in each case soft power proved singularly unable to affect the actions of a single, isolated, pariah state,
albeit one that possessed considerable military wherewithal and a modicum of regional legitimacy. It is certainly dangerous to generalize from the Iraqi
example, but one might at least question the applicability of soft power to powerful rogue states in bold defiance of international
law and international agreements.
Many things are more important to soft power than aff.
United Nations support
Shattuck ’07 (John, CEO – John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, CQ Testimony, 3-29, Lexis)
4. The U.S. decision to disengage from U.N. human rights institutions undermines its position as a human rights leader . For more than
sixty years the U.S. has been a world leader in building international institutions to promote human rights. Today, unfortunately, we seem to have renounced that
leadership by withdrawing from the new U.N. Human Rights Council and by refusing to participate in efforts to shape the new
I nternational C riminal C ourt. In both cases the U.S. now has no influence over the future of these two flawed institutions. In the case of the Human Rights Council,
the U.S. abandoned its support when it was unable to limit the Council's membership to countries with good human rights records, despite the fact that the Council
membership requirements adopted in the recent U.N. reforms are an improvement over those of the dysfunctional Human Rights Commission which it replaced. In
the case of the International Criminal Court, many structural changes need to be made in order for the U.S. to become a full participant. Nevertheless, in recent years
the U.S. has lost all leverage over the Court's development by withdrawing its signature from the treaty establishing it. In addition, an active U.S. campaign to
put pressure on governments not to join the Court has engendered international ill will and further undermined the capacity of the
U.S. to exercise human rights leadership.
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Turn – Taiwan
US soft power destroys Chinese soft power
Kurlantzick, 07 – Visiting scholar in the Carnegie Endowment’s China Program (Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm
Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World. p. 208-209)
But China's
growing soft power will threaten the United States as well: the emergence of China's soft power is already having a
strategic impact on US foreign policy. China could wield its influence in a growing clash over resources. Like China, the United States needs
continued access to oil and gas, since estimates suggest that America could be importing nearly 70 percent of its oil in two decades, up from just over 50 percent
today. Oil and gas do not trade on a completely free market, tend to be controlled by state-linked companies—and may be running out. Stores of easily accessible
petroleum, like the fields in Saudi Arabia, could be dwindling. Colin Campbell, the former chief geologist for Amoco, argues that 2006 may have been the peak
production year for oil, after which reserves and production will hit a long downward slope.19 With oil becoming scarcer, Latin American and West African and
Asian oil remain among the cheapest for the United States, and the easiest for American companies to refine and use. The United States cannot afford to lose
access to these reserves to any potential competitor. As we saw in Chapter 7, China has enjoyed success in winning access to oil and gas, and Beijing views
energy as a zero-sum game. "For China's leaders, energy security clearly is too important to be left to the markets," argues the Asia energy specialist Mikkal
Herberg, who believes competing US and Chinese demands for energy will eventually lead to a clash over resources. “The Chinese are seeking to
achieve assured sources of supply in Latin America through a strategy that focuses on securing the entire supply chain in critical industries,” believes R. Evan Ellis, a
Latin America specialist. “This strategy of ‘vertical integration’ involves using strategic purchases and investments to ensure an acceptable amount of leverage
over… all elements of the supply chain.”
Chinese soft power is critical to preventing a Taiwanese push for independence
Gill and Huang 06 (Bates holds the CSIS Freeman Chair in China, Yanzhong is an assistant professor at the
John Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Survival, “Sources and limits of Chinese
'soft power',” Volume Issue 2 June, pg 17-36,
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a747985000&fulltext=713240928)
A most intriguing example of China's soft power can be seen in its relations with Taiwan. In 2005, China launched a charm offensive
against the politicians and people in the island by inviting opposition party leaders to visit the mainland, extending tuition benefits to
Taiwanese studying at mainland universities, and, through a zero-tariff policy on imports of Taiwan's fruit, offering export incentive perks to
farmers in the south of Taiwan (traditionally a pro-Taiwan independence stronghold). This 'hearts-and-minds' policy not only aims to reduce the
perception of military threat from China, but also gives the Chinese government leverage to exercise influence in Taiwan's political
culture and society, and politically marginalise Taiwan's independence-oriented president, Chen Shui-bian.In part as a result of
Beijing's manoeuvres in recent years - and Chen's increasingly frustrated but worrisome responses - the possibility for Taiwan independence
seems more distant and difficult. Chen Shiubian has increasingly alienated American supporters in Washington who do not appreciate what they see as his
provocative political stance on cross-Strait issues. In the meantime, some 1 million, or about 5%, of the Taiwan population lives and works in China, and Taiwan
business has invested more than $100bn on the mainland.
Extinction
Hsiung 01 – Professor of Politics and International Law at NYU (James, 21st Century World Order and the
Asia Pacific, p. 359-360)
Admittedly, it is harmless for an analyst like Lind to be so oblivious of lessons from the past and of the reasons behind both the dogs barking and not barking. But
decision-makers cannot afford such luxury. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Senior Minister, issued a grave warning presumably directed at all government leaders,
including the United States, that the Taiwan powder keg could ignite a conflagration that will engulf the entire region. It might even embroil
the United States in a nuclear holocaust that nobody wants. Oftentimes, well-meaning analysts raise the question whether China, with its present military
capability and modest defense expenditures (about U.S. $15 billion annually), can or cannot take Taiwan by force. But this is the wrong question to pose. As the late
patriarch Deng Xiapoing put it, “We’d rather have it proven that we tried but failed [to stop it] even by force, than be accused [by our
disgruntled compatriots and posterity] of not trying to stop Taiwan from going independent.” Earlier, I raised the issue of stability within the U.S.China-Japan triad, precisely with the U.S.-Japan alliance in view. Apparently, many in Japan have apprehensions about the stability. Japanese Nobel laureate (for
literature) Ohe Kenzaburo, for instance, once told a pen pal that he was fearful of the outcome of a conflict between the United States and China over the question of
Taiwan. Because of its alliance relationship, Japan would be embroiled in a conflict that it did not choose and that might escalate into a
nuclear holocaust. From the ashes of such a nuclear conflict, he figured, some form of life may still be found in the combatant nuclear giants,
China and the United States. But, Kenaburo rued, there would be absolutely nothing left in Japan or Taiwan in the conflict’s wake. By
now, I hope it is clear why stability in the U.S.-China-Japan triadic relationship is a sine qua non for geopolitical peace in the Asia Pacific region.
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