Wake Forest Debate 1 / 49 Matt Struth SOLVENCY ANSWERS Wake Forest Debate 2 / 49 Matt Struth Say No Wake Forest Debate 3 / 49 Matt Struth 1NC Maduro will say noA. Chavismo nationalism Meacham, 13 -- CSIS Americas Program director [Carl, "The Kerry-Jaua Meeting: Resetting U.S.-Venezuela Relations?" CSIS, 6-21-13, csis.org/publication/kerry-jaua-meeting-resetting-us-venezuela-relations, accessed 7-20-13, mss] Q2: Does the Venezuelan government want good relations? A2: Despite recent discussions with the United States, it doesn’t seem to be the case. Earlier this year, the Venezuelan government suspended talks between the U.S. State Department and Venezuelan Foreign Ministry that had begun in late 2012, citing alleged U.S. meddling in Venezuela’s April election. The Maduro government has also largely followed the Chávez playbook, constantly accusing the United States of assassination plots, spying, and economic and political sabotage. While the Kerry-Jaua meeting may have made for nice headlines, it’s difficult to imagine that the Venezuelan government will not play the anti-U.S. card again, if needed. This week, Calixto Ortega—appointed to handle matters with the United States—will meet with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson to continue discussions and establish a new set of concrete goals to guide the relationship These good-faith gestures made by the Venezuelan government are neither new nor unheard of. Despite recent efforts, U.S. policymakers should temper any positive expectations, as a core basis of Chavismo is its anti-U.S. ideology. It’s of course difficult to improve relations with a government that consistently defines itself as vehemently against your foreign policy agenda. This suggests that Venezuela may be looking to reestablish a purely economic relationship—one that will eliminate U.S. sanctions. Still, even if certain positive steps are taken, history suggests that the Venezuela n government could quickly scuttle progress made, likely with the goal of Maduro shoring up support within his own ranks. forward. B. Backlash over Powers comments Neuman, 13 -- Andes Region correspondent (William, "Venezuela Stops Efforts to Improve U.S. Relations," NY Times, 7-20-13, www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/world/americas/venezuela-stops-effortsto-improve-us-relations.html?_r=2&) Venezuela announced late Friday that it was stopping the latest round of off-again-on-again efforts to improve relations with the United States in reaction to comments by the Obama administration’s nominee for United Nations ambassador. The nominee, Samantha Power, speaking before a Senate committee on Wednesday, said part of her role as ambassador would be to challenge a “crackdown on civil society” in several countries, including Venezuela. President Nicolás Maduro had already lashed out on Thursday at Ms. Power for her remarks, and late on Friday the Foreign Ministry said it was terminating efforts to improve relations with the United States. C. Snowden controversy RT, 13 ["Kerry vows to put the screws to Venezuela over Snowden – report," 7-19-13, rt.com/news/kerry-threatens-venezuela-snowden-308/, accessed 7-22-13, mss] Kerry vows to put the screws to Venezuela over Snowden – report US Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly promised his Venezuelan counterpart to close NATO airspace to the country’s flights and stop crucial oil product deliveries if Caracas grants asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Last Friday night, just hours after Venezuela agreed to provide political asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Kerry personally called Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua, a Spanish ABC media outlet cites a source familiar with the conversation as saying. Kerry reportedly threatened to ground any Venezuelan aircraft in America’s or any NATO country’s airspace if there is the slightest suspicion that Snowden is using the flight to get to Caracas. The media outlet's source said that the US’ top diplomat sent a clear signal that Venezuela’s Air Force One is not immune and President Nicolas Maduro could easily face the same fate as his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales, whose plane was grounded for inspection in Austria earlier this month in violation of all international diplomatic agreements. “Immunity is for the president, not the plane,” the ABC source cites Kerry’s personal message to President Maduro as saying. Closing all NATO member countries’ aerospace to Venezuelan flights means avoiding 26 countries in Europe and two in North America. Under this scenario, it would be safer for Snowden to fly across the Wake Forest Debate 4 / 49 Matt Struth Pacific from Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok instead of crossing the Atlantic. Kerry also reportedly promised to intensify the ongoing process of revoking US entry visas to Venezuelan officials and businessmen associated with the deceased President Hugo Chavez. Washington will also begin prosecuting prominent Venezuelan politicians on allegations of drug trafficking, money laundering and other criminal actions, Kerry allegedly said, and specifically mentioned some names in his conversation with the Venezuelan FM. He reportedly also said that Washington is well aware of Venezuela’s dependence on the US when it comes to refined oil products. Despite being one of the world’s largest oil producers, Venezuela requires more petrol and oil products than it can produce, buying around 500,000 barrels of gasoline every month, roughly another half million barrels of fuel for power plants, and some 350,000 barrels of MTBE (Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether) – the additive used for to increase octane in gasoline. The source added that the US Secretary of State bluntly warned that fuel supplies would be halted if President Maduro continues to reach out to the fugitive NSA contractor. Wake Forest Debate 5 / 49 Matt Struth 2NC Frontline Venezuela will say no- Hardliners will win out Meacham, 13 -- CSIS Americas Program director [Carl, "The Kerry-Jaua Meeting: Resetting U.S.-Venezuela Relations?" CSIS, 6-21-13, csis.org/publication/kerry-jaua-meeting-resetting-us-venezuela-relations, accessed 7-20-13, mss] Conclusion: In short, relations between the United States and Venezuela have a rocky track record that recent headlines cannot obscure. And while there are undoubtedly members of the Venezuelan government who want to improve relations, it’s difficult to see their argument winning over the more hardline Chavistas in the government, who would likely see any steps to building ties as betraying the cause. Anti-US conspiracy theories guarantee it Drezner, 13 -- Tufts University international politics professor [Daniel, "Why post-Chavez Venezuela won't be a U.S. ally anytime soon," Foreign Policy, 3-7-13, drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/07/why_post_chavez_venezeula_wont_be_a_us_ally_anytime_ soon, accessed 7-21-13, mss] So, with Chavez's passing, it would seem like a no-brainer for his successor to tamp down hostility with the United States. After all, Chavez's "Bolivarian" foreign policy was rather expensive -- energy subsidies to Cuba alone were equal to U.S. foreign aid to Israel, for example. With U.S. oil multinationals looking hopefully at Venezuela and Caracas in desperate need of foreign investment, could Chavez's successor re-align foreign relations closer to the U.S.A.? I'm not betting on it, however, for one simple reason: Venezuela might be the most primed country in the world for anti-American conspiracy theories. International relations theory doesn't talk a lot about conspiracy thinking, but I've read up a bit on it, and I'd say post-Chavez Venezuela is the perfect breeding ground. Indeed, the day of Chavez's death his vice president/anointed successor was already accusing the United States of giving Chavez his cancer. Besides that, here's a recipe for creating a political climate that is just itching to believe any wild-ass theory involving a malevolent United States: 1) Pick a country that possesses very high levels of national self-regard. 2) Make sure that the country's economic performance fails to match expectations. 3) Create political institutions within the country that are semiauthoritarian or authoritarian. 4) Select a nation with a past history of U.S. interventions in the domestic body politic. 5) Have the United States play a minor supporting role in a recent coup attempt. 6) Make sure the United States is closely allied with the enduring rival of the country in question. 7) Inculcate a long history of accusations of nutty, American-led conspiracies from the political elite. 8) Finally, create a political transition in which the new leader is desperate to appropriate any popular tropes used by the previous leader. Venezuela is the perfect breeding ground for populist, anti-American conspiracy theories. And once a conspiratorial, anti-American culture is fomented, it sets like concrete. Only genuine political reform in Venezuela will cure it, and I don't expect that anytime soon. Wake Forest Debate 6 / 49 Matt Struth A2 Econ Forces Engagement Econ is fine- no collapse coming Stranko, 13 -- Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association director of communication [James, Avenida America editor-in-chief, "The Venezuelan Economy: Three Myths and Three Truths," No Se Mancha, 3-7-13, semancha.com/2013/03/08/the-venezuelan-economy-three-myths-and-threetruths/, accessed 7-21-13, mss] is still dead. But as Cornelius Fleischhaker notes, the Venezuelan economy isn’t yet. Despite Chavez’s best businesses have adapted to increasingly hostile realities to keep doing business. Although political succession rumblings are reaching a fever pitch, most Venezuelans rich and poor Hugo Chavez attempts to reform Venezuela into a Bolivarian socialist state, the country’s have their mind squarely on the economy, and where it’s going in the absence of its post prolific actor over the past fourteen years. There are a number of ways to create a more business friendly Venezuela, but before we can right the wrongs, we ought to address the persistent myths that plague our understanding of the Venezuelan economy. I begin with three common believes about the Venezuelan economy that are, in fact, myth. 1) Venezuela has been in economic decline since Chavez took office. Despite persistently high inflation (running neck-and-neck with Argentina) over the past several years, real economic growth has puttered along at a slow pace, averaging 3.5 percent annually since Chavez assumed office. This figure betrays the vastly misallocated oil wealth the country has received, but no signs point to contraction. 2) All wealthy Venezuelans have left, and all big business too. Many wealthy Venezuelans, following in the footsteps of wealthy Cubans in the 1960s, sought returns abroad after the ascension of an anti-market leader. But there are still plenty of big business in Caracas, and lots of wealthy Venezuelans decided to ride out the crisis rather than flee to North America or Europe. Even the New York Times reports that, despite his public blusters, Chávez always ensured that trade valves between the US an Venezuela stayed open. While it must be said that many Venezuelans have gotten rich off “alignment” (read: corrupt deals) with the government. These “boliburgeses” have prospered in the vacuum of a true market economy. In this sense, Venezuela is not Cuba. It has a solid foundation and modern history of a market economy. That foundation has been battered, but it still exists. 3) The socialist model failed. According to the BBC’s report on Chavez’s death yesterday, the country now boasts the fairest income distribution in Latin America, as measured by the Gini coefficient index. In 2011, Venezuela’s Gini coefficient fell to 0.39. By way of comparison, Brazil’s was 0.52, in itself a historic low. So the question is not if it failed, but rather WHO it failed and who would have benefited from increased or steady inequality. Wake Forest Debate 7 / 49 Matt Struth OPPOSITION DA Wake Forest Debate 8 / 49 Matt Struth 1NC Democratic opposition will succeed now- plan undercuts them Christy, 13 -- Foreign Policy Initiative senior policy analyst [Patrick, "How Obama Is Sinking Venezuela's Opposition," 6-15-13, www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/06/15/how_obama_is_sinking_venezuelas_opposition_105239.ht ml, accessed 7-21-13, mss] For Venezuela's opposition, the Obama administration's eagerness to revive relations with Maduro is a punch to the gut. Pro-Maduro legislators in the National Assembly have banned opposition lawmakers from committee hearings and speaking on the assembly floor. Other outspoken critics of the regime face criminal charges, and government officials repeatedly vilify and slander Capriles. What's worse, if the United States grants or is perceived to grant legitimacy to the Maduro government, that could give further cover to the regime as it systematically undermines Venezuela's remaining institutions. The Obama administration's overtures to Maduro's government come as the region is increasingly skeptical of the Chavez successor's reign. Last month, Capriles met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in Bogota. Chile's Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging a total audit of all polling stations. And in recent weeks, opposition lawmakers led by María Corina Machado, a representative from the National Assembly of Venezuela, have held meetings in capitals around the region to educate foreign leaders about Maduro's illegitimate hold on power. Rather than accept Maduro's strongman tactics, the Obama administration should take a firm stand and make clear to Caracas that any steps to undermine the country's constitution or threaten the opposition will be detrimental to bilateral ties with the United States. The fact is that Washington holds all the cards. Venezuela's economy is in a free-fall, Maduro's popularity is plummeting, and various public scandals - especially those related to institutional corruption - could further erode public confidence in the current government. By resetting relations with the Maduro government now, the United States risks legitimizing the Chavez protégé's ill-gotten hold on power and undercutting the Venezuelan democratic opposition efforts to sustain and expand its popular support. It's time the Obama administration rethink this hasty reset with Maduro. Democratic opposition is key to ending narco-terrorism AND is a pre-req to cooperative relations- turns the case Schoen, 12 – Forbes contributor [Doug, "The Venezuelan Election Deserves Our Attention," Forbes, 921-13, www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2012/09/21/the-venezuelan-election-deserves-our-attention/2/, accessed 7-21-13, mss] There is a crucial election about to take place in Venezuela. Basic issues of freedom and economic liberty are at stake for the Venezuelan people. And with Venezuela being both our largest oil provider and a chief anti-American aggressor with alliances in Iran, Syria and Russia amongst others, this election is not only critical for us but much more so than policymakers in DC have acknowledged or realized. Democratic challenger Henrique Capriles could surely change the direction of the Venezuela. He is poised to serve as a much-needed positive force in shaping Venezuela’s future as a cooperative member of the international community if he is elected on October 7th. The head of Venezuela’s oil workers union, the United Federation of Oil Workers, said just yesterday that his members are not even entertaining the idea of a Chavez defeat. “It is impossible for Capriles to win this year…We the working class will not allow it.” But while some in the state run oil industry look to Chavez as a savior of their industry, he has been involved in a number of dangerous and unsavory pursuits over the years that bring a black cloud over his administration and its business. Chavez has been linked to major narcoterrorists, including Walid Makled who was designated a major drug kingpin by the Obama administration in 2009 and is a financial stalwart of Chavez’s administration. In fact, dozens of top-level figures in the Chavez government including ministers, judges and generals were on Makled’s payroll. Roger Noriega, former US Ambassador to the Organization of American States, delivered chilling testimony to the Congressional Subcommittee on he detailed Venezuela’s support of Hezbollah in Latin America. And it is well known that Chavez is actively working against American interests in Latin America while he bankrupts his country in pursuit of a radical socialist agenda. In contrast, challenger Capriles is a true democrat. A successful governor of the state of Miranda, he is a capitalist who is focused on de-politicizing Venezuela, a much needed change. He represents a new generation of the Venezuelan political class that supports America and wants to work in genuine partnership. As a practicing Roman Catholic and a child of the Counterterrorism wherein Wake Forest Debate 9 / 49 Matt Struth Holocaust, he is acutely aware of and concerned with issues of freedom and equity, both crucial areas for the future of Venezuela. Wake Forest Debate 10 / 49 Matt Struth UQ – PSUV Collapse Democratic opposition triumph coming now- PSUV infighting, economy, oil George, 13 -- Bertelsmann Foundation project manager [Samuel, "Venezuela After Chavez," 3-5-13, www.bfna.org/sites/default/files/BBrief%20%20Venezuela%20After%20Chavez%20(5%20March%202013).pdf, accessed 7-21-13, mss] These factors combine to suggest that the PSUV will win any presidential election held in the next four months. But their grip on power may be short lived , again for three reasons. 1. The PSUV is sharply fragmented and is unlikely to maintain its integrity. For years, Chávez maintained a heavy hand in day-to-day government activities. Now, his carefully manicured apparatus appears unsure how to act without him. Once described by party leader Alberto Müller Rojas as a “scorpions nest”, the PSUV without Chávez could quickly devolve into infighting. Two factions have already emerged. Vice President Maduro, recommended by Chávez as the next party leader, represents the more radical, ideological wing. National Assembly Speaker and Acting President (at least according to the constitution) Diosdado Cabello is seen as less doctrinaire than Chávez and carries more pull with the military than Maduro. Power struggles have already been occurring backstage in Caracas; now they will move to the fore. 2. The memory of Chávez will dull while the pain of an ailing economy will sharpen. The recent 32-percent currency devaluation will provide short-term relief, but it does not address the Venezuelan economy’s underlying problems. Inflation, more than 20 percent in 2012, will increase with the weaker bolivar, and the pass-through effect (the effect of more expensive imports on prices overall) will be strong. Venezuela’s heavy dependence on imports is the result of government mismanagement that has led to a collapse of economic activity beyond hydrocarbons. Even the all-important oil sector has suffered as the government has strangled PDVSA’s budget and diverted funds from investment and maintenance. A President Maduro would lack the political capital, mandate or desire required to attack the vested interests behind these inefficiencies. 3. The opposition will strengthen while the PSUV will be held accountable for worsening economic and social conditions. The opposition demonstrated patience throughout Chávez’s illness, and this strategy could pay off in the long run. Chávez’s demise was inevitable, and the opposition did not waste political capital attacking the legitimacy of a popular, dying president. Wake Forest Debate 11 / 49 Matt Struth Link – Plan Helps Maduro Engagement shores up Maduro Baverstock, 13 -- CSM contributor [Alasdair, "Venezuela's Maduro still waiting on Washington's recognition," 5-17-13, www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0517/Venezuela-s-Maduro-still-waiting-on-Washington-srecognition, accessed 7-21-13, mss] Others are less convinced by Maduro’s bluster, seeing a politician weakened by his lack of mandate at home. “He’d definitely like the US to recognize him,” says Gerardo Munck, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. “There’s nothing he can do to pressure the US, but to be seen as having been duly elected would put him in a far stronger position both at home and internationally.” Wake Forest Debate 12 / 49 Matt Struth Impact – T/ Case – Relations Capriles would boost relations with the US- solves the case Fox 13 (4-6-13, Venezuela's Capriles Wants Better Ties With U.S. If Elected President" Fox News Latino) latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/04/06/venezuela-capriles-wants-better-ties-with-us-ifelected-president/ Cutting off subsidized oil to Cuba, distancing his country from nations that disrespect human rights and shoring up the South American country's own troubled economy with the billions it now sends abroad to socialist friends are some of the thing that Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles has promised if elected. Henrique Capriles also told The A ssociated P ress in an interview that he will seek better ties with Washington — always strained under the late President Hugo Chávez — but will demand respect from U.S. leaders, who he says have neglected Latin America. And the challenger predicted more tough times ahead for oil-rich Venezuela if acting president and ruling party candidate Nicolás Maduro wins the April 14 election. He called Maduro incapable of governing this polarized nation and said its wealth of economic problems ultimate would force Maduro to resign or be forced out. Wake Forest Debate 13 / 49 Matt Struth Impact – T/ Case – Oil Democratic opposition will reform the oil sector WNV, 12 [What's Next Venezuela? "In Case You Missed It," 10-5-12, https://www.whatsnextvenezuela.com/tag/venezuelan-election/, accessed 7-21-13, mss] This Sunday’s Venezuelan election promises to have an impact far beyond the borders of Venezuela, defining not only the legacy of President Hugo Chávez, but also the future of his political movement in Latin America. It appears increasingly likely that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles can defeat Chávez, thanks to a strong finish to his campaign, while the normally vibrant Chávez has stumbled across the finish line. The supposed successes of Chávez’s policies have come under increased scrutiny lately, and evidence of massive government mismanagement and failed social programs is disillusioning Venezuelans. The country has given away money and oil to Cuba and Iran, among others, and these programs would likely be the first to go should Chávez lose. This is exciting investors, who are betting on a Capriles victory in hopes that he will rescue the oil industry and the country’s economy, dramatically increasing the value of its bonds. Regardless of the election’s outcome, the victor will face the difficult task of solving many deep-seated problems in the country, the result of years of waste and neglect. Wake Forest Debate 14 / 49 Matt Struth Impact – T/ Case – Terror Capriles is key to Colombia peace talks with FARC Cawthorne 12 (Andrew, reporter, “If elected, Capriles vows Venezuela will help with Colombia peace talks” Christian Science Monitor) http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1001/Ifelected-Capriles-vows-Venezuela-will-help-with-Colombia-peace-talks Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles pledged to help Colombia in its peace talks with rebels and distance government of neighboring Colombia is due to start talks with Marxist FARC guerrillas this month in Oslo to try to end five decades of conflict. Chavez's government, accused by Bogota of backing the rebels in the past, supports the talks. That has led to himself from Iran should he defeat President Hugo Chavez in an increasingly tight race ahead of Sunday's election. The speculation that an opposition victory in Venezuela on Oct. 7 could damage prospects for peace in Colombia. But Capriles denied that was the government led by us would accelerate the Colombia peace process . A progressive government in Venezuela will stop being a refuge for rebels, for armed groups," he told a news conference in Caracas on Monday. "We have a government that is an accomplice of the Colombian guerrillas. That will change." Capriles, who has mounted the strongest electoral challenge Chavez has faced during his 14 years in power, recently met Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in Bogota. The case. "A opposition candidate also said that if he won he would demand the freedom of some 30 Venezuelans kidnapped in Colombia, and end any direct contacts with the rebels so as to not confuse the negotiations. FARC will transfer nuclear material to terrorists—they’ll strike the US MacDonald 08 (Brad, columnist, May 2008, “Is Chávez Helping Terrorists Go Nuclear?”, The Trumpet) http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/5036.27868.104.0/latin-america/venezuela/is-chavez-helpingterrorists-go-nuclear Hugo Chávez has transformed Venezuela into a thriving hideout, breeding ground and launching pad for terrorism and the black market nuclear trade. Few see it, but this South American state is a large and most underreported threat to America’s national security. On March 26, Colombian officials seized 66 pounds of uranium from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group. The uranium was buried along a road in the countryside south of Bogota. Information leading to the discovery came from the laptop computer of Raúl Reyes, a top FARC leader killed by Colombian authorities March 1. Reports said the uranium was “impoverished,” or depleted, meaning it lacked the concentrated radioactive material needed for a dirty bomb. Authorities also gave assurances that FARC lacks the technology and resources to actually construct a nuclear bomb. The Western media heard those facts and breathed a sigh of relief, perceiving the discovery of FARC’s uranium cache to be an event of minor consequence. This view couldn’t be more wrong! The Most Dangerous Black Market That seizure marked the first time radioactive material has been linked to FARC. It raises some critical questions: Why is FARC in the major league of black-market uranium trade? Where did it get the uranium? And what was it planning on doing with it? So far, the most plausible explanation is that FARC planned to sell the uranium to raise money, since joint American-Colombian eradication efforts against FARC’s cocaine crops and operations are eating into its cash flow. That’s reasonable, though in reality the material was nearly worthless. But who would be interested in purchasing uranium, and how deep do FARC’s connections with that entity run? Matthew Bunn, senior research associate with Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom, said he found it interesting that “a very professional terrorist organization like FARC, with a good deal of experience in smuggling, apparently was interested in getting involved in buying and selling nuclear material for money. That suggests that someone who had serious nuclear material (unlike this material) and needed to move it from one country to another might have been able to make use of the farc’s capabilities” (Foreign Policy, March 28; emphasis mine throughout). Black-market activities are inherently dangerous, but few are more so than the illegal trade of nuclear materials and technology. The nature of the underground trade in uranium, particularly when it involves covert enrichment and construction of a nuclear weapon (the ultimate weapon of mass destruction), requires above all a rare willingness to risk everything for the cause, as well as expansive expertise and vast resources. The point is, 66 pounds of uranium didn’t accidentally fall into FARC’s lap. fARC is clearly—although we don’t know to what extent—involved in the international black-market trade of nuclear material. That’s alarming when you consider the known members of the black-market nuclear trade! Clearly, this Wake Forest Debate 15 / 49 Matt Struth seizure raises more questions than it answers. While many find assurance in the lack of answers, this is a naive approach. The truth is, these questions are extremely disconcerting—especially when considered against the growth of the South American terrorist network. Mountains of evidence have arisen in recent years showing that South America is a hideout and breeding ground for the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations , including al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. Pockets of South America—including areas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of which have governments hostile to the U.S.—have become launching pads from which the world’s most venomous anti-American entities, particularly radical Islam, could strike the United States. Wake Forest Debate 16 / 49 Matt Struth Impact – Oil Deals Capriles would cut monetary support to Cuba, Syria, and Iran Fox 13 (4-6-13, Venezuela's Capriles Wants Better Ties With U.S. If Elected President" Fox News Latino) latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/04/06/venezuela-capriles-wants-better-ties-with-us-ifelected-president/ Capriles vowed to stop financing other nations with cheap oil and to redirect Venezuela's oil riches toward solving its own poverty. One of his first acts as president, he said, would be to expel Cuban military advisers from Venezuela's armed forces. "We are giving to the Castro brothers' government ... nearly $4 billion a year," he said. "Because of that, the Castros love the possibility that this government remains." The government stresses that in exchange for oil, Cuba has dispatched thousands of doctors and nurses who provide free medical attention in poverty-stricken areas that historically lacked services. Capriles has said previously he'd send the doctors home. Capriles said he'd quickly chill ties with Iran and Syria that Chávez boosted. "We have to take a look at the affinity we have toward Iran, beyond our shared interest as oil producers. There is none," he said. "With the Syrian government, there is none." Venezuela has sent several shipments of diesel fuel to Syria's embattled regime. "My political orientation is for democracy, not these authoritarian governments where human rights are trampled upon," Capriles declared. The candidate said he wants better relations with Washington, but on an equal footing. Chávez frequently accused the United States of trying to unseat him, and Maduro has suggested it somehow injected Chávez with cancer. "I believe the United States has been erratic in its relationship with Latin America. It's made mistakes," Capriles said. Capriles would end ties with Cuba, North Korea, and Iran Thomson and De Lion 13 (John, former diplomat, journalist and analyst, and Norman Pino, former ambassador and frequent contributor to Venezuelan newspapers, 4-12-13, "Washington Times OP/ED: A Post-Chavez Solution for Venezuela — Capriles Promises to Throw off Crippling Links to Cuba" Washington Times) cubaconfidential.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/washington-times-oped-a-post-chavezsolution-for-venezuela-capriles-promises-to-throw-off-crippling-links-to-cuba/ During this brief but heated campaign, Mr. Capriles has emphasized plans and programs, plus Chavista failures. He denounces, and has committed to end, pervasive and despised Cuban involvement in Venezuelan life government, intelligence, military and medicine. Vowing to curtail the 100,000 barrel per day Cuban oil allocation, a proven wealth builder for Fidel Castro and friends, he rails against free and deeply discounted oil deals with countries ranging from Argentina, Bolivia and Cuba to North Korea. Mr. Capriles admires former Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s free-market commercial and social-welfare policies. He roundly criticizes the Chavez-Maduro regime’s broken promises, notably in education and public health, and promises to overhaul the complicated, economy-choking currencyexchange system. Wake Forest Debate 17 / 49 Matt Struth Impact – Russia Capriles would drive out Russia Watts and Lopez 12 (Jonathan and Virginia, staff writers, 9-30-12, "Hugo Chávez rival pledges seismic shift in foreign policy" The Guardian) www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/30/venezuela-chavezchallenger-election-pledges The challenger to Hugo Chávez in the Venezuelan presidential election has vowed a dramatic change in foreign policy if he is elected next Sunday, shifting his country away from China and Russia and reviewing crucial oil deals. Henrique Capriles, who has gained ground in recent polls, said he would halt arms purchases from Russia, rethink relations with Iran and revise deals to exploit one of the world's biggest recoverable oil resources in the Orinoco belt. In an interview during a campaign stop, Capriles said he would end the Chávez policy of promoting worldwide revolution and focus on Venezuela's needs. "The foreign policy of this government is driven by politics – to extend a revolution worldwide. My objective with regards to foreign relations is to benefit all Venezuelans," he said. This would mark a dramatic change. Under Chávez, Venezuela has consistently thumbed its nose at the US and moved closer to Russia, China, Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran. An example of the close friendship with Moscow came this week when Vladimir Putin presented Chávez with a Russian terrier puppy. Capriles did not mention Russian dogs, but said Russian guns would no longer be required. "We have spent more than $14bn (£8.66bn) on arms purchases from Russia," Capriles said. "I am not going to buy more weapons. I think the policy has been mistaken." The big question is what would happen to the oil industry in Venezuela, which vies with Saudi Arabia in claiming the biggest proven oil reserves in the world. Until now Russian and Chinese companies have struck the biggest deals for future exploitation. "We have to revise every deal. I think they are agreements that are not functioning," Capriles said. Capriles has said he will continue to work with Beijing – because "everyone deals with China" – but he appeared ready to distance Venezuela from Iran. "How have relations with Iran and Belarus benefited Venezuela? We are interested in countries that have democracies, that respect human rights, that we have an affinity with. What affinity do we have with Iran?" Wake Forest Debate 18 / 49 Matt Struth OIL ADV ANSWERS Wake Forest Debate 19 / 49 Matt Struth Oil 1NC Status quo solves- Venezuela drilling will further increase Harvest Natural Resources, 11 [HNR Inc is a petroleum exploration and production company that explores geological basins with proved petroleum reserves, “Venezuela: Petrodelta”, no date, but cites up until 2011, http://www.harvestnr.com/operations/venezuela.html] The nature of the high quality assets in Venezuela supports rapid conversion of unproved resource into proved reserves. At year-end 2010, combined proved and probable (2P) reserves net to Harvest from Petrodelta were 103.6 MMBOE, a 24% increase over year-end 2009. That increase could not have occurred without a prolific asset in which to drill.¶ ¶ Petrodelta?s self-funded 2011 capital budget of $224 million will be allocated to drilling and infrastructure development. Petrodelta?s current operations plan calls for running a two-rig drilling program to drill 28 new oil wells, two water injector wells, one gas injector well and to build pipelines and related facilities.¶ ¶ So far in 2011, the company has drilled four development wells, one each in Uracoa, Temblador and El Salto field, plus the first well in Isle?o field drilled since 1957. The Isle?o ISM-8 well is currently producing 1,800 BOPD of 15.5 API crude. With 220.6 MMBOE of proved, probable and possible reserves, Petrodelta has a well-defined and visible long-term growth path in sight. Chavez death causes foreign investment now White, Rowley ‘13(Garry White and Emma Rowley, Garry White is the Telegraph’s share tipster and editor of the Questor column, as well as its mining correspondent and Emma Rowley writes business news and features for the Telegraph, 3/11, the Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9920725/Death-of-Hugo-Chavez-propels-Venezuelanoil-production-into-the-spotlight.html) The move by the late firebrand Venezuelan leader also erased from his country the skills required for exploiting the country’s vast oil reserves. He should have let them stay – and taxed the companies heavily. However, oil executives should pause for thought before they book a flight to Caracas following Mr Chavez’s death last week. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, but oil output has slumped by almost a third because of Mr Chavez’s nationalisation of the industry. At the end of 2011, the country held 17.9pc of the world’s known oil reserves, compared with 16.1pc in Saudi Arabia and 11pc in Canada, according to BP’s statistical review of world energy. However, it only represented 3.5pc of global production compared with 13.2pc in Saudi Arabia. It is likely that oil output could rise, should there be an easing of the country’s antagonism to foreign investors. Some believe this could lead to a fall in the oil price and a consequent boost to the global economy. “The death of Hugo Chavez may see oil prices fall as they did during the 2002 coup,” Gerard Lane, an oil analyst at Shore Capital, said. “With greater foreign investment it is foreseeable that the 30pc fall in Venezuelan oil production could be reversed. No impact to shocks- empirically proven Jaffe ‘8 [ Amy Myers Jaffe is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, “ Opportunity, not War,” Survival | vol. 50 no. 4 | August–September 2008 | pp. 61–82 ] Wake Forest Debate 20 / 49 Matt Struth We’ve heard the argument before: scarcity of future oil supplies is a danger to the global international system and will create international conflict, death and destruction. In 1982, noted historian and oil-policy guru Daniel Yergin wrote that the energy question was ‘a question about the future of Western society’, noting that ‘stagnation and unemployment and depression tested democratic systems in the years between World War I and World War II’ and asserting that if there wasn’t sufficient oil to drive economic growth, the ‘possibilities are unpleasant to contemplate’.1 His words proved typical prose foreboding the top of a commodity cycle. A year later, oil prices began a four-year collapse to $12 a barrel. That oil is a cyclical industry is not in question. Since 1861, oil markets have experienced more than eight boom-and-bust cycles. In 1939, the US Department of the Interior announced that only 13 years of oil reserves remained in the United States. In more recent history, Middle East wars or revolutions produced oil price booms in 1956, 1973, 1979, 1990 and 2003. Each time, analysts rushed to warn of doomsday scenarios but markets responded and oil use was curtailed both by market forces and government intervention rather than by war and massive global instability. The question Nader Elhefnawy raises in ‘The Impending Oil Shock’ is whether this time will be different. Econ resilient E.I.U. ‘11 (Economist Intelligence Unit – Global Forecasting Service, 11/16/’11 (http://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articleType=gef&articleId=668596451&secID=7) The US economy, by any standard, remains weak, and consumer and business sentiment are close to 2009 lows. That said, the economy has been surprisingly resilient in the face of so many shocks. US real GDP expanded by a relatively robust 2.5% in the third quarter of 2011, twice the rate of the previous quarter. Consumer spending rose by 2.4%, which is impressive given that real incomes dropped during the quarter (the savings rate fell, which helps to explain the anomaly.) Historically, US consumers have been willing to spend even in difficult times. Before the 2008-09 slump, personal spending rose in every quarter between 1992 and 2007. That resilience is again in evidence: retail sales in September were at a seven-month high, and sales at chain stores have been strong. Business investment has been even more buoyant: it expanded in the third quarter by an impressive 16.3% at an annual rate, and spending by companies in September on conventional capital goods (that is, excluding defence and aircraft) grew by the most since March. This has been made possible, in part, by strong corporate profits. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, earnings for US companies in the S&P 500 rose by 24% year on year in the third quarter. All of this has occurred despite a debilitating fiscal debate in Washington, a sovereign debt downgrade by a major ratings agency and exceptional volatility in capital markets. This reinforces our view that the US economy, although weak, is not in danger of falling into a recession (absent a shock from the euro zone). US growth will, however, continue to be held back by a weak labour market—the unemployment rate has been at or above 9% for 28 of the last 30 months—and by a moribund housing market. Decline doesn’t cause war Barnett ‘ 9 (Thomas P.M Barnett, senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC, contributing editor/online columnist for Esquire, 8/25/’9 – “The New Rules: Security Remains Stable Amid Financial Crisis,” Aprodex, Asset Protection Index, http://www.aprodex.com/the-new-rules--securityremains-stable-amid-financial-crisis-398-bl.aspx) When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery -- surprisingly led by China and emerging markets - is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over the past year and realize how globalization's first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international security landscape.¶ None of the more than three-dozen ongoing conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the global recession. Indeed, the last new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006). Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external trigger (followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia and its two breakaway regions.¶ Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to Wake Forest Debate 21 / 49 Matt Struth one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global economic trends.¶ And with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement elsewhere around the planet has been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with pirates off Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our new Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces. Wake Forest Debate 22 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Investment Now Venezuela will open to foreign investors Gupta ‘12 (Girish Gupta, foreign correspondent and journalist, August 29, 2012, global post, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/venezuela/120828/chevron-venezuelan-oilinvestment ) CARACAS, Venezuela — Bosses at Chevron Corp may share in the three-day mourning declared by Venezuelan President the country’s recent oil blast at Amuay, which killed at least 48 people. The blast early Saturday morning was one of the world’s worst refinery explosions in 25 years, and the flames were only extinguished Tuesday. Many critics of Venezuela’s self-styled socialist government have blamed Chavez for a failure to maintain the complex. “This accident reflects a lack of investment, it should be a call of attention to authorities,” said Boris Segura, Latin America analyst at investment bank Nomura, based in New York. “In general, it speaks poorly about the state of infrastructure in Venezuela.” Hugo Chavez over Chavez’s death leads to foreign investors Vanderklippe ‘13(NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE, author for the Globe and Mail, 3/5, The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/latin-americanbusiness/chavezs-death-opens-door-to-venezuelas-oil-riches/article9324112/) For years, the torrents of oil flowing from Venezuela’s giant energy reserves have dwindled. From a peak of 3.5 million barrels per day, the country’s output has fallen to less than 2.5 million. Now, the death of Hugo Chavez offers the promise of domestic oil market changes that could roil the energy world and place substantial opportunities at the feet of Canadian oil companies whose expertise in heavy crude is directly applicable to Venezuela’s Orinoco oil fields. Venezuela, after all, boasts the world’s largest crude reserves. The country’s ability to exploit them has been constrained by a lack of investment in dwindling older fields and the regime’s hostile treatment of foreign capital. Observers caution that in the short term, the likelihood of substantial change is low, and even if policy shifts do come, they are unlikely to result in an energy transformation for many years. For now, the most likely outcome is that “everything will remain the same in terms of policies,” said Jorge Neher, Venezuelan-born partner with law firm Norton Rose who specializes in South American natural resource extraction. Yet the death of Mr. Chavez, the populist leader who tossed out international oil companies and proved a frequent irritant to the United States, may set in motion a series of long-term reforms that could slowly redraw the world’s energy map. Wake Forest Debate 23 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: No Shocks Impact Oil shocks don’t correlate with econ decline Rasmussen and Roitman ‘11 Rasmussen is an economist in the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department and Agustin Roitman is an economist at the International Monetary Fund.He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2010. Prior to joining the IMF, he held research positions at the Inter-American Development Bank in the Southern Cone and Research Departments. His main areas of expertise include international finance and open economy macroeconomics. His research centers on fiscal and monetary policy in emerging and developing countries., “Oil Shocks in a Global Perspective: Are they Really that Bad?”, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11194.pdf Conventional wisdom has it that oil shocks are bad for oil-importing countries. This is grounded in the experience of slumps in many advanced economies during the 1970s. It is also consistent with the large body of research on the impact of higher oil prices on the U.S. economy, although the magnitude and channels of the effect are still being debated. In this paper, we offer a global perspective on the macroeconomic impact of oil prices. In doing so, we are filling a void of research on the effects of oil prices on developing economies. Our findings indicate that oil prices tend to be surprisingly closely associated with good times for the global economy . Indeed, we find that the United States has been somewhat of an outlier in the way that it has been negatively affected by oil price increases. Across the world, oil price shock episodes have generally not been associated with a contemporaneous decline in output but, rather, with increases in both imports and exports. There is evidence of lagged negative effects on output, particularly for OECD economies, but the magnitude has typically been small. Controlling for global economic conditions, and thus abstracting from our For a given level of world GDP, we do find that oil prices have a negative effect on oil-importing countries and also that cross-country finding that oil price increases generally appear to be demand-driven, makes the impact of higher oil prices stand out more clearly. differences in the magnitude of the impact depend to a large extent on the relative magnitude of oil imports. The effect is still not Particularly large , however, with our estimates suggesting that a 25 percent increase in oil prices will cause a loss of real GDP in oil-importing countries of less than half of one percent , spread over 2–3 years. One likely explanation for this relatively modest impact is that part of the greater revenue accruing to oil exporters will be recycled in the form of imports or other international flows, thus contributing to keep up demand in oil-importing economies. We provide a model illustrating this effect and find supporting empirical evidence. The finding that the negative impact of higher oil prices has generally been quite small does not mean that the effect can be ignored. Some countries have clearly been negatively affected by high oil prices. Moreover, our results do not rule out more adverse effects from a future shock that is driven largely by lower oil supply than the more demand-driven increases in oil prices that have been the norm in the last two decades. In terms of policy lessons, our findings suggest that efforts 16to reduce dependence on oil could help reduce the exposure to oil price shocks and hence costs associated with macroeconomic volatility.13 At the same time, given a certain level of oil imports, developing economic linkages to oil exporters could also work as a natural shock absorber. Oil shocks lead to increased global GDP Rasmussen and Roitman ’11(Tobias Rasmussen, Senior Economist, Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF, Augustin Roitman, Economist, IMF, “Oil shocks around the world: Are they really that bad?”,8/25/2013, VOX, http://www.voxeu.org/article/oil-shocks-around-world-are-they-really-bad) Conventional wisdom has it that oil shocks are bad for oil-importing countries. This is grounded in the experience of slumps in many advanced economies during the 1970s. It is also consistent with the large body of research on the impact of higher oil prices on the US economy, although the magnitude and channels of the effect are still being debated. Our recent research indicates that oil prices tend to be surprisingly closely associated with good times for the global economy. Indeed, we find that the US has been somewhat of an outlier in the way that it has been negatively affected by oil price increases. Across the world, oil price shock episodes have generally not been associated with a contemporaneous decline in output but, rather, with increases in both imports and exports. There is evidence of lagged negative effects on output, particularly for OECD economies, but the magnitude has typically been small. Controlling for global economic conditions, and thus abstracting from our finding that oil price increases generally appear to be demand-driven, makes the impact of higher oil prices stand out more clearly. For a given level of world GDP, we do find that oil prices have a negative effect on oil-importing countries and also that cross-country differences in the magnitude of the impact depend to a large extent on the relative magnitude of oil imports. The effect is still not particularly large, however, with our estimates suggesting that a 25% increase in oil prices will typically cause a loss of real GDP in oil-importing countries of less than half of 1%, spread over 2 to 3 years. These findings suggest that the higher import demand in oil-exporting countries resulting from oil price increases has an important contemporaneous offsetting effect on economic activity in the rest of the world, and that the adverse consequences are mostly relatively mild and occur with a lag. Wake Forest Debate 24 / 49 Matt Struth Adaptation empirically resolves supply problems Kahn ‘11 (2/13/11, Jeremy, Boston Globe, “Crude reality”, http://articles.boston.com/2011-02-13/news/29336191_1_crude-oil-shocksmajor-oil-producers SW) Among those asking this tough question are two young professors, Eugene Gholz, at the University of Texas, and Daryl Press, at Dartmouth College. To find out what actually happens when the world’s petroleum supply is interrupted , the duo analyzed every major oil disruption since 1973. The results, published in a recent issue of the journal Strategic Studies, showed that in almost all cases, the ensuing rise in prices, while sometimes steep, was short-lived and had little lasting economic impact. When there have been prolonged price rises, they found the cause to be panic on the part of oil purchasers rather than a supply shortage. When oil runs short, in other words, the market is usually adept at filling the gap. One striking example was the height of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. If anything was likely to produce an oil shock, it was this: two major Persian Gulf producers directly targeting each other’s oil facilities. And indeed, prices surged 25 percent in the first months of the conflict. But within 18 months of the war’s start they had fallen back to their prewar levels, and they stayed there even though the fighting continued to rage for six more years. Surprisingly, during the 1984 “Tanker War” phase of that conflict — when Iraq tried to sink oil tankers carrying Iranian crude and Iran retaliated by targeting ships carrying oil from Iraq and its Persian Gulf allies — the price of oil continued to drop steadily. Gholz and Press found just one case after 1973 in which the market mechanisms failed: the 1979-1980 Iranian oil strike which followed the overthrow of the Shah, during which Saudi Arabia, perhaps hoping to appease Islamists within the country, also led OPEC to cut production, exacerbating the supply shortage. In their paper, Gholz and Press ultimately conclude that the market’s adaptive mechanisms function independently of the US military presence in the Persian Gulf, and that they largely protect the American economy from being damaged by oil shocks. “To the extent that the United States faces a national security challenge related to Persian Gulf oil, it is not ‘how to protect the oil we need’ but ‘how to assure consumers that there is nothing to fear,’ ” the two write. “That is a thorny policy problem, but it does not require large military deployments and costly military operations.” There’s no denying the importance of Middle Eastern oil to the US economy. Although only 15 percent of imported US oil comes directly from the Persian Gulf, the region is responsible for nearly a third of the world’s production and the majority of its known reserves. But the oil market is also elastic: Many key producing countries have spare capacity, so if oil is cut off from one country, others tend to increase their output rapidly to compensate. Today, regions outside the Middle East, such as the west coast of Africa, make up an increasingly important share of worldwide production. Private companies also hold large stockpiles of oil to smooth over shortages — amounting to a few billion barrels in the United States alone — as does the US government, with 700 million barrels in its strategic petroleum reserve. And the market can largely work around shipping disruptions by using alternative routes; though they are more expensive, transportation costs account for only tiny fraction of the price of oil. Prefer the consensus of new economic research Kahn ‘11 (Jeremy Kahn, journalist, “Crude Reality,” February 13, 2011, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/02/13/crude_reality/?page=full, ) Economists have a term for this disruption: an oil shock. The idea that such oil shocks will inevitably wreak havoc on the US economy has become deeply rooted in the American psyche, and in turn the United States has made ensuring the smooth flow of crude from the Middle East a central tenet of its foreign policy. Oil security is one of the primary reasons America has a long-term military presence in the region. Even aside from the Iraq and Afghan wars, we have equipment and forces positioned in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar; the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is permanently stationed in Bahrain. But a growing body of economic research suggests that this conventional view of oil shocks is wrong. The US economy is far less susceptible to interruptions in the oil supply than previously assumed, according to these studies. Scholars examining the recent history of oil disruptions have found the worldwide oil market to be remarkably adaptable and surprisingly quick at compensating for shortfalls. Economists Wake Forest Debate 25 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Econ Resilient US econ resilient Johnson ‘13 (Robert , CFA, director of economic analysis with Morningstar, Morningstar.com, “U.S. Economy Not So Fragile After All” – 1/19 – http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=581616) No, the U.S. Economy Has Not Been Fragile After All¶ Although most economists got at least some things right about the U.S. economy over the past two years, the one nearly universal error was the expectation that the economy was fragile. The U.S. economy has proven to be anything but fragile.¶ I believe this to be the single biggest error that economists have made over the last two years. During that time, the U.S. has survived the fallout from a major debt crisis in Europe, a divisive election, temporarily going over the fiscal cliff, gasoline prices that have been on a yo-yo, a tsunami in Japan, and Hurricane Sandy, which shut down New York and even the stock exchanges for a couple of days. These are not signs of a fragile economy. Econ resilient – fundamentals growing Stewart ‘13 (Hale Stewart spent 5 years as a bond broker in the late 1990s before returning to law school in the early 2000s. He is currently a tax lawyer in Houston, Texas. He has an LLM from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in domestic and international taxation where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, seeking alpha, “Is The U.S. Economy Moving Into A Higher Growth Phase? Part 1 - The Positive” – Feb 5th – http://seekingalpha.com/article/1158011-is-the-u-s-economy-moving-into-a-higher-growth-phase-part-1-the-positive?source=google_news) All three of the above sectors -- housing, autos and manufacturing -- are bedrock components of the economy. If all three are doing fairly well, the worst that can happen is slow growth. There is simply too much of a multiplier effect of the combined total for a recession to occur with the above three expanding. However, this is before we get to the latest and upcoming fiscal follies from the people in Washington. We'll touch on that in Part 2. Wake Forest Debate 26 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: No War Economic decline doesn’t cause war Jervis,’11 (Robert, Professor PolSci Columbia, December, “Force in Our Times” Survival, Vol 25 No 4, p 403-425) Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world generate new interests that would bring the members of the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example, perhaps linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a worsening of the current economic difficulties, which could itself produce greater nationalism, undermine democracy and bring back old-fashioned beggar-my-neighbor economic policies. While these dangers are real, it is hard to believe that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the members of the community to contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has proceeded to the point where it could not be reversed – states that were more internally interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody civil wars. Rather it is that even if the more extreme versions of free trade and economic liberalism become discredited, it is hard to see how without building on a preexisting high level of political conflict leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their countries could prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that problems will not only become severe, but that people will entertain the thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could note that this argument does not appear as outlandish as it did before the financial crisis, an optimist could reply (correctly, in my view) that the very fact that we have seen such a sharp economic down-turn without anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even if bad times bring about greater economic conflict, it will not make war thinkable. Multipolarity makes their arguments untrue—economic decline doesn’t cause war Thirlwell ‘10 —MPhil in economics from Oxford U, postgraduate qualifications in applied finance from Macquarie U, program director in International Economy for the Lowy Institute for International Policy (Mark, September 2010, “The Return of Geo-economics: Globalisation and National Security”, Lowy Institute for International Policy, google scholar,) Summing up the evidence, then, I would judge that while empirical support for the Pax Mercatoria is not conclusive, nevertheless it’s still strongly supportive of the general idea that international integration is good for peace, all else equal. Since there is also even stronger evidence that peace is good for trade, this raises the possibility of a nice virtuous circle: globalisation (trade) promotes peace, which in turn promotes more globalisation. In this kind of world, we should not worry too much about the big power shifts described in the previous section, since they are taking place against a backdrop of greater economic integration which should help smooth the whole process. ¶ Instead of ending this section on that optimistic note, however, it’s worth thinking about some reasons why the Pax Mercatoria might nevertheless turn out to be a poor, or at least overly optimistic, guide to our future.¶ The first is captured by that all important get-out-of-gaol-free card, ‘all else equal’. It’s quite possible that the peace-promoting effects of international commerce will end up being swamped by other factors, just as they were in 1914. ¶ Second, perhaps the theory itself is wrong. Certainly, a realist like John Mearsheimer would seem to have little time for the optimistic consequences of the rise of new powers implied by the theory. Here’s Mearsheimer on how the US should view China’s economic progress, for example:¶ ‘ . . . the United States has a profound interest in seeing Chinese economic growth slow considerably in the years ahead . . . A wealthy China would not be a status quo power but an aggressive state determined to achieve regional hegemony.’ 62¶ Such pessimistic (or are they tragic?) views of the world would also seem to run the risk of being self-fulfilling prophecies if they end up guiding actual policy. ¶ Finally, there is the risk that the shift to a multipolar world might indirectly undermine some of the supports needed to deliver globalisation. Here I am thinking about some simple variant on global economy needs a leader (or ‘hegemon’) that is both able and willing to provide the sorts of international public goods that are required for its smooth functioning: open markets (liberal or ‘free’ trade), a smoothly functioning monetary regime, liberal capital flows, and a lender of last resort function. 63 Charles Kindleberger argued that ‘the 1929 depression was so wide, so deep, and so long because the international economic system was rendered unstable by British inability and US unwillingness to assume responsibility for stabilizing it’, drawing on the failures of the Great Depression to make the original case for HST: ¶ ‘ . . . the international economic and monetary system needs leadership, a country that is prepared . . . to set standards of conduct for other countries and to seek to get others to follow them, to take on an undue share of the burdens of the system, and the idea of hegemonic stability theory (HST) – the proposition that the in particular to take on its support in adversity...’ 64¶ Kindleberger’s assessment appears to capture a rough empirical regularity: As Findlay and O’Rourke remind us, ‘periods of sustained expansion in world trade have tended to coincided with the infrastructure of law and order necessary to keep trade routes open being provided by a dominant “hegemon” or imperial power’. 65 Thus periods of globalisation have typically been associated with periods of hegemonic or imperial power, such as the Pax Mongolica, the Pax Britannica and, most recently, the Pax Americana (Figure 9). ¶ The risk, then, is that by reducing the economic clout of the United States, it is possible that the shift to a multipolar world economy might undermine either the willingness or Wake Forest Debate 27 / 49 Matt Struth the ability (or both) of Washington to continue to supply the international public goods needed to sustain a world economy. 66 That in turn could undermine the potential virtuous circle (relatively) smoothly functioning identified above. Wake Forest Debate 28 / 49 Matt Struth A2 Competitiveness No competitiveness Krugman [Paul, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994 “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 73, Issue 2, March/April http://www.jstor.org/stable/20045917 // accessed 7/22/13/NL] Guess what? Delors didn't confront the problems of either the welfare state or the EMS. He explained that the root cause of European unemployment was a lack of competitiveness with the United States and Japan and that the solution was a program of investment in infrastructure and high technology.It was a disappointing evasion, but not a surprising one. After all, the rhetoric of competitiveness--the view that, in the words of President Clinton, each nation is "like a big corporation competing in the global marketplace"--has become pervasive among opinion leaders throughout the world. People who believe themselves to be sophisticated about the subject take it for granted that the economic problem facing any modern nation is essentially one of competing on world markets--that the United States and Japan are competitors in the same sense that Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi--and are unaware that anyone might seriously question that proposition. Every few months a new best-sell-er warns the American public of the dire consequences of losing the "race" for the 21st century.[1] A whole industry of councils on competitiveness, "geo-economists" and managed trade theorists has sprung up in Washington. Many of these people, having diagnosed America's economic problems in much the same terms as Delors did Europe's, are now in the highest reaches of the Clinton administration formulating economic and trade policy for the United States. So Delors was using a language that was not only convenient but comfortable for him and a wide audience on both sides of the Atlantic.Unfortunately, his diagnosis was deeply misleading as a guide to what ails Europe, and similar diagnoses in the United States are equally misleading. The idea that a country's economic fortunes are largely determined by its success on world markets is a hypothesis, not a necessary truth; and as a practical, empirical matter, that hypothesis is flatly wrong. That is, it is simply not the case that the world's leading nations are to any important degree in economic competition with each other, or that any of their major economic problems can be attributed to failures to compete on world markets. The growing obsession in most advanced nations with international competitiveness should be seen, not as a wellfounded concern, but as a view held in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. And yet it is clearly a view that people very much want to hold--a desire to believe that is reflected in a remarkable tendency of those who preach the doctrine of competitiveness to support their case with careless, flawed arithmetic.This article makes three points. First, it argues that concerns about competitiveness are, as an empirical matter, almost completely unfounded. Second, it tries to explain why defining the economic problem as one of international competition is nonetheless so attractive to so many people. Finally, it argues that the obsession with competitiveness is not only wrong but dangerous, skewing domestic policies and threatening the international economic system. This last issue is, of course, the most consequential from the standpoint of public policy. Thinking in terms of competitiveness leads, directly and indirectly, to bad economic policies on a wide range of issues, domestic and foreign, whether it be in health care or trade. Wake Forest Debate 29 / 49 Matt Struth RELATIONS ANSWERS Wake Forest Debate 30 / 49 Matt Struth Relations 1NC Alt cause—Snowden Riechmann 7-15 (Deb, AP reporter, 7-15-13, “Snowden affair chills U.S.-Latin American ties” USA Today) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/15/snowden-affair-chills-us-latin-americanties/2517081/ America's "backyard," as Secretary of State John Kerry once referred to Latin America, is sprouting angry weeds as the scandal involving intelligence leaker Edward Snowden lays bare already thorny U.S. relations with Latin America. Taking the opportunity to snub their noses at the U.S., Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have already said they'd be willing to grant asylum for Snowden, who is wanted on espionage charges in the United States for revealing the scope of National Security Agency surveillance programs that spy on Americans and foreigners. Ecuador has said it would consider any request from him. Relations between the U.S. and these countries were already testy, and the Snowden affair is further complicating the Obama administration's effort to improve ties with friendlier nations in the region like Mexico and Brazil. Snowden hasn't been the only recent setback. Leaders in the region harshly criticized the U.S. earlier this week when a newspaper in Brazil, which was privy to some documents released by Snowden, reported that a U.S. spy program was widely targeting data in emails and telephone calls across Latin America. That revelation came just days after an uproar in Latin America over the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane over Europe amid suspicions, later proven untrue, that Snowden was aboard. And all this comes right after President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Kerry have all made recent treks to the region to bolster U.S. engagement in Latin America. "What the Snowden affair has done to the reinvigorated effort to re-engage with Latin America is to dump a pail of cold water on it," said Carl Meacham, a former senior Latin America adviser on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It won't stop trade deals, cooperation on energy, but it's going to be harder for the president to portray the image that 'We are here to work with you.' It's a step back." The U.S. has sought to downplay the fallout from the disclosure of information about its intelligence activities. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki acknowledged that the United States does gather foreign intelligence just like other nations. "I can tell you that we have spoken with Brazilian officials regarding these allegations," she said this week. "We plan to continue our dialogue with the Brazilians through normal diplomatic channels, but those are conversations that, of course, we would keep private." Psaki has also said that any country granting asylum to Snowden would create "grave difficulties in our bilateral relationship." While other nations may spy on their friends, the allegations have fueled anti-American sentiment already simmering in the region. Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador are led by populist leaders who have balked at any dominance by the U.S. in the Americas and pursued policies that often run counter to Washington's wishes. Venezuela refers to the United States simply as "The Empire." "What they're saying is 'See, the U.S. hasn't changed. It doesn't matter who is in the White House, the U.S. is the same. The U.S. is the big imperial power ... they are not treating us as equals. Look, they are even spying on us,'" said Meacham, who directs the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The flap over the rerouting of the Bolivian president's plane prompted a special session Tuesday of the Organization of American States' permanent council. Bolivian Interior Minister Carlos Romero delivered blistering remarks about the incident, calling it an "act of aggression" conducted "at the behest of the United States. Countries like Ecuador, which has cozied up to U.S. rivals Iran and China, joined the verbal slugfest against the U.S. Ecuador has sheltered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its embassy in London for more than a year and has given mixed signals about offering Snowden asylum. Latin America wants international standing and chafes at any attempt by the United States to downplay its stature, hence the ruffled feathers when Kerry referred to the region as "America's backyard." Latin America is now home to 600 million people. The U.S. looks to the region for oil and is heavily vested in bilateral trade agreements. Together, Mexico and Brazil are responsible for 65 percent of Latin America's production, and some experts suggest that they are destined to jump into fourth and fifth place on the list of the world's biggest economies, behind the U.S., India and China. Last year alone, trade between the U.S. and Mexico totaled nearly $500 billion, making it the United States' second-largest trading partner and Mexico could eventually overtake Canada for the No. 1 spot. The Snowden affair is not likely to unravel these strong U.S. connections to the region, but it is a roadblock to efforts to improve cooperation, said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy forum on Western Hemisphere affairs. "I don't think it's going to paralyze relations," Shifter said. "But I think it's a setback overall — even with countries that have been friendly." Arizona law block US-Latin American ties Steinberg ‘10 (James B., Deputy Secretary of State, former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Deputy National Security Adviser on the staff of the National Security Council, President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, affidavit filed in US v. Arizona, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA, Case 2:10-cv-01413NVW Document 6-1 Filed 07/06/10, http://www.scribd.com/doc/33977183/U-S-v-Arizona-Exh-1-to-Motion-for-Preliminary-InjunctionAffidavit-of-James-Steinberg) Wake Forest Debate 31 / 49 Matt Struth 55.If S.B. 1070, Arizona's attempt to set its own immigration policy in pursuit of "attrition through enforcement," were to go into effect, it would directly call into question the ability of the United States to speak with one voice at the international level on issues related to immigration and migration policy. Only the national government is in a position to accurately assess the impact of a policy such as S.B. 1070 on our overall foreign relations agenda and to balance the competing foreign relations considerations involved in the adoption and enforcement of such a law. When the United States incurs criticism of immigration law and policies adopted at the federal level, the United States is normally in a position to review the criticism and determine whether to defend the practices against attack or else to take appropriate action to modify its practices. The United States is also able to develop and implement immigration policy in anticipation of these and other foreign relations concerns. In this case, however, the policy being pursued has not been developed, nor would it be implemented, with sensitivity to the full range of foreign policy information and considerations available to the national government, and the United States is unable to calibrate its immigration and foreign policies to respond effectively to these claims. 56.If the several states were each allowed to pursue independent immigration enforcement policies such as the Arizona law, these serious concerns would be multiplied significantly, as the United States could be subjected to a cacophony of competing immigration enforcement priorities and agendas, with little regard for the sensitive diplomatic and foreign relations considerations that immigration policy addresses, and with an extreme adverse impact on the United States' ability to speak with one voice. 57.S.B. 1070 — and in particular the mandatory verification regime requirement — thus poses a risk of provoking retaliatory treatment against U.S. nationals by other states, and threatens ongoing adverse consequences for important and sensitive bilateral relationships with U.S. allies such as Mexico, for our regional relations in the western hemisphere, and for our global relations in regional and multilateral institutions. It is likely to hinder our ability to secure the cooperation of other states in efforts to promote U.S. interests internationally across a range of trade, security, tourism, and other interests unrelated to immigration. Finally, it is likely to undermine the United States' ability to engage effectively with the international community to promote the advancement and protection of human rights. Moreover, repairing such harm to international relations and U.S. stature in bilateral, regional and multilateral relationships after the fact can be extremely difficult. Arizona kills relations- assumes Latin America Steinberg ‘10 (James B., Deputy Secretary of State, former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Deputy National Security Adviser on the staff of the National Security Council, President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, affidavit filed in US v. Arizona, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA, Case 2:10-cv-01413NVW Document 6-1 Filed 07/06/10, http://www.scribd.com/doc/33977183/U-S-v-Arizona-Exh-1-to-Motion-for-Preliminary-InjunctionAffidavit-of-James-Steinberg) 40.Bolivia's President Morales, Ecuador's President Correa, El Salvador's President Funes and Guatemala's President Colom have also voiced public criticism of the Arizona law. Other governments, including that of Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and Nicaragua have issued statements criticizing the law. Additionally, the National Assemblies in Ecuador and Nicaragua, and the Central American Parliament based in Guatemala, have adopted critical resolutions or other statements. S.B. 1070 has also been raised with high level U.S. officials by various foreign states on a number of occasions in nonpublic settings. ( ) Alt cause – US drug policy. Shifter ‘12 (Michael is an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the Council's journal Foreign Affairs. He serves as the President of Inter-American Dialogue. “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,” April, IAD Policy Report, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf) Another chronic irritant is US drug policy, which most Latin Americans now believe makes their drug and crime problems worse. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while visiting Mexico, acknowledged that US anti-drug programs have not worked. Yet, despite growing calls and pressure from the region, the United States has shown little interest in exploring alternative approaches. Wake Forest Debate 32 / 49 Matt Struth ( ) Alt cause – Immigration. Shifter ‘12 (Michael is an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the Council's journal Foreign Affairs. He serves as the President of Inter-American Dialogue. “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,” April, IAD Policy Report, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf) In the main, hemispheric relations are amicable. Open conflict is rare and, happily, the sharp antagonisms that marred relations in the past have subsided. But the US-Latin America relationship would profit from more vitality and direction. Shared interests are not pursued as vigorously as they should be, and opportunities for more fruitful engagement are being missed. Well-developed ideas for reversing these disappointing trends are scarce. Some and effective cooperation. enduring problems stand squarely in the way of partnership The inability of Washington to reform its broken immigration system is a constant source of friction between the United States and nearly every other country in the Americas. Yet US officials rarely refer to immigration as a foreign policy issue. Domestic policy debates on this issue disregard the United States’ hemispheric agenda as well as the interests of other nations. No nuclear terrorism – tech barriers. Chapman ‘12 (Stephen, editorial writer for Chicago Tribune, “CHAPMAN: Nuclear terrorism unlikely,” May 22, http://www.oaoa.com/articles/chapman87719-nuclear-terrorism.html) A layperson may figure it’s only a matter of time before the unimaginable comes to pass. Harvard’s Graham Allison, in his book “Nuclear Terrorism,” concludes, “On the current course, nuclear terrorism is inevitable.” But remember: After Sept. 11, 2001, we all thought more attacks were a certainty. Yet al-Qaida and its ideological kin have proved unable to mount a second strike. Given their inability to do something simple — say, shoot up a shopping mall or set off a truck bomb — it’s reasonable to ask whether they have a chance at something much more ambitious. Far from being plausible, argued Ohio State University professor John Mueller in a presentation at the University of Chicago, “the likelihood that a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small.” The events required to make that happen comprise a multitude of Herculean tasks. First, a terrorist group has to get a bomb or fissile material, perhaps from Russia’s inventory of decommissioned warheads. If that were easy, one would have already gone missing. Besides, those devices are probably no longer a danger, since weapons that are not maintained quickly become what one expert calls “radioactive scrap metal .” If terrorists were able to steal a Pakistani bomb, they would still have to defeat the arming codes and other safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized use. As for Iran, no nuclear state has ever given a bomb to an ally — for reasons even the Iranians can grasp. Stealing some 100 pounds of bomb fuel would require help from rogue individuals inside some government who are prepared to jeopardize their own lives. Then comes the task of building a bomb. It’s not something you can gin up with spare parts and power tools in your garage. It requires millions of dollars, a safe haven and advanced equipment — plus people with specialized skills, lots of time and a willingness to die for the cause. Assuming the jihadists vault over those Himalayas, they would have to deliver the weapon onto American soil. Sure, drug smugglers bring in contraband all the time — but seeking their help would confront the plotters with possible exposure or extortion. This, like every other step in the entire process, means expanding the circle of people who know what’s going on, multiplying the chance someone will blab, back out or screw up. That has heartening implications. If al-Qaida embarks on the project, it has only a minuscule chance of seeing it bear fruit. Given the formidable odds, it probably won’t bother. None of this means we should stop trying to minimize the risk by securing nuclear stockpiles, monitoring terrorist communications and improving port screening. But it offers good reason to think that in this war, it appears, the worst eventuality is one that will never happen. No nuclear terror – counter to the goals of terror groups. Kapur ‘8 Wake Forest Debate 33 / 49 Matt Struth (S. Paul; Associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia. pg. 32) Before a terrorist group can attempt to use nuclear weapons, it must meet two basic requirements. First, the group must decide that it wishes to engage in nuclear terrorism. Analysts and policy makers often assume that terrorist groups necessarily want to do so (Carter 2004; U.S. Government 2002). However, it is not clear that terrorist organizations would necessarily covet nuclear devices. Although analysts often characterize terrorism as an irrational activity (Laqeuer I999: 4-5), extensive empirical evidence indicates that terrorist groups in fact behave rationally, adopting strategies designed to achieve particular ends (Crenshaw I995: 4; Pape 2003: 344). Thus whether terrorists would use nuclear weapons is contingent on whether doing so is likely to further their goals. Under what circumstances could nuclear weapons fail to promote terrorists' goals? For certain types of terrorist objectives, nuclear weapons could be too destructive. Large-scale devastation could negatively influence audiences important to the terrorist groups. Terrorists often rely on populations sympathetic to their cause for political, financial, and military support. The horrific destruction of a nuclear explosion could alienate segments of this audience. People who otherwise would sympathize with the terrorists may conclude that in using a nuclear device terrorists had gone too far and were no longer deserving of support. The catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons could also damage or destroy the very thing that the terrorist group most values. For example, if a terrorist organization were struggling with another group for control of their common homeland, the use of nuclear weapons against the enemy group would devastate the terrorists' own home territory. Using nuclear weapons would be extremely counterproductive for the terrorists in this scenario. Democracy promotion causes war—leaders need to use nationalist cries to rally the public together and they militarize quickly because the military often has too much influence Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder 95 (Mansfield is Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University Snyder is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, “Democratization and War,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 74, No. 3 //Bobby) DEMOCRATIZATION typically creates a syndrome of weak central authority, unstable domestic coalitions, and high-energy mass politics. It brings new social groups and classes onto the political stage. Political leaders, finding no way to reconcile incompatible interests, resort to shortsighted bargains or reckless gambles in order to maintain their governing coalitions. Elites need to gain mass allies to defend their weakened positions. Both the newly ambitious elites and the embattled old ruling groups often use appeals to nationalism to stay astride their unmanageable political coalitions. Needingpublic support, they rouse the masses with nationalist propaganda but find that their mass allies, once mobilized by passionate appeals, are difficult to control. So are the powerful remnants of the old order--the military, for example—which promote militarism because it strengthens them institutionally. This is particularly true because democratization weakens the central government's ability to keep policy coherent and consistent. Governing a society that is democratizing is like driving a car while throwing away the steering wheel, stepping on the gas, and fighting over which passenger will be in the driver's seat. The result, often, is war. Multiple empirics as to why democracy promotion fails N. Scott Cole September 2007 (Ph.D. Associate Professor of Political Science Comparative Politics, Hugo Chavez and President Bush's Credibility Gap: The Struggle against Us Democracy Promotion, International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique, Vol.28, No. 4, pp. 493-507, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20445108 //Bobby) To date, little evidence exists to demonstrate that President Bush has been able to export freedom. More democracies have not emerged as a result of his policies, and there are signs that authoritarian governments are gaining strength (De Mesquita and Downs, 2005). There have been "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine, which some say were assisted by the White House. But these successes are offset by the USA's failures in Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Egypt, China, Syria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Belarus. Add political uncertainties in Iraq and Afghanistan to this list and Bush's policy appears to be in trouble. This article argues that the credibility gap is one factor restricting the White House's ability to promote democracy. Wake Forest Debate 34 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Snowden Alt Cause Snowden wrecks relations Prensa Latina 7-15 (7-15-13, "Snowden Case Complicates US Policy Towards Latin America" www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1611371&Itemid=1 The revelations of U.S. former NSA agent Edward Snowden affects the U.S. foreign policy, particularly the relations with Latin America, specialists affirm. The so-called U.S. backyard, as once described by Secretary of State John Kerry, was outraged after learning the details of the activities of espionage agencies in the continent, an article of Stars and Stripes magazine underlines. This is happening after President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden recently expressed their intentions of improving relations with the nations of the region, the newspaper highlights. Carl Meacham, former advisor of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate, considers the Snowden case has come as a complete shock to the U.S. plans to strengthen relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Alt cause—imperialistic attitude Riechmann 7-15 (Deb, AP reporter, 7-15-13, “Snowden affair chills U.S.-Latin American ties” USA Today) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/15/snowden-affair-chills-us-latin-americanties/2517081/ Obama got off to a slow start with Latin America. The president spent little time on the region during his first term and uttered few, if any, words about the area during his re-election campaign, though he took more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote in winning a second term. In May, he went south to Mexico and also traveled to Costa Rica to meet with Central American leaders. Passing immigration reform would remove a major irritant in U.S.-Mexico relations and could prevent the U.S. from becoming more isolated in the region, but the U.S. was facing problems in the area before the Snowden affair. In Bolivia, Morales on May 1 acted on a long-time threat and expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development, saying it was trying to undermine the government — allegations the State Department said were baseless. Morales said Washington "still has a mentality of domination and submission" in the region, and he also harangued Kerry for offending the region when, in congressional testimony in April, he said the "Western Hemisphere is our backyard." Wake Forest Debate 35 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Arizona Alt Cause ( ) The Arizona law will spillover – shattering regional coop. Steinberg ‘10 (James B., Deputy Secretary of State, former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Deputy National Security Adviser on the staff of the National Security Council, President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, affidavit filed in US v. Arizona, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA, Case 2:10-cv-01413NVW Document 6-1 Filed 07/06/10, http://www.scribd.com/doc/33977183/U-S-v-Arizona-Exh-1-to-Motion-for-Preliminary-InjunctionAffidavit-of-James-Steinberg) 14.By contrast, by pursuing a singular policy of criminal enforcement-at-all- costs through, among other things, imposing an with what is effectively state criminalization of unlawful presence, S.B. 1070 is likely to provoke retaliatory treatment of U.S. nationals overseas, weaken public extraordinary mandatory verification regime coupled support among key domestic constituencies abroad for cooperating with the U.S, and endanger our ability to negotiate international arrangements and to seek bilateral, regional or multilateral support across a range of economic, human rights, security, and other non- immigration concerns, and be a source of ongoing criticism in international fora. Arizona's unprecedented effort to set its own, contrary immigration policy predictably conflicts with U.S. foreign policy interests and with the United States' ability to speak with one voice ( ) Federal government will be held accountable and The Arizona Law will kill coop. Steinberg ‘10 (James B., Deputy Secretary of State, former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Deputy National Security Adviser on the staff of the National Security Council, President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, affidavit filed in US v. Arizona, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA, Case 2:10-cv-01413NVW Document 6-1 Filed 07/06/10, http://www.scribd.com/doc/33977183/U-S-v-Arizona-Exh-1-to-Motion-for-Preliminary-InjunctionAffidavit-of-James-Steinberg) 32.As both a matter of international law and practice, the federal government is held accountable internationally for the actions of state and local authorities regarding our treatment of foreign nationals. International bodies and foreign governments do not typically distinguish between the conduct of the national government and the conduct of an individual state within a federal system. This is starkly evidenced by the United States' experience in cases where state and local government authorities have failed to comply with U.S. obligations under the VCCR to provide consular notification to all foreign nationals in U.S. custody. Failure to provide such notice by state officials has led to three suits by Paraguay, Germany and Mexico against the United States in the International Court of Justice, an advisory opinion sought by Mexico in the Inter- American Court of Human Rights, a petition against the United States in the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights, and bilateral complaints by numerous foreign governments. 33.The United States takes seriously allegations that it has failed to adhere to its international law obligations and foreign policy commitments and engages in these fora to address such claims. Although the government is fully prepared to defend U.S. practices against unjustified claims of human rights shortcomings, criticism from an international body over immigration human rights issues can directly undercut the credibility of U.S. efforts to advance human rights and can lead to significant diplomatic obstacles — both on immigration issues of bilateral concern and on other interests that might be the subject of diplomatic negotiations. As discussed below, in this context, S.B 1070's sweep into subjects left properly to federal direction and control subjects the United States to this criticism while denying the United States the tools to decide for itself whether and how to adjust such policies. The federal government should have to make its defenses or consider appropriate modifications only with regard to policies that are adopted through a considered process that reflects the interests of all the American people, not with regard to the views of one state. Wake Forest Debate 36 / 49 Matt Struth ( ) Arizona law hurts US coop in the region Steinberg ‘10 (James B., Deputy Secretary of State, former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Deputy National Security Adviser on the staff of the National Security Council, President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, affidavit filed in US v. Arizona, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA, Case 2:10-cv-01413NVW Document 6-1 Filed 07/06/10, http://www.scribd.com/doc/33977183/U-S-v-Arizona-Exh-1-to-Motion-for-Preliminary-InjunctionAffidavit-of-James-Steinberg) 1070 has unquestionably generated negative reaction that has damaged the public image of the United States and has thereby undermined the United States' ability to pursue various diplomatic objectives. The law has provoked numerous public criticisms by governments with which the United States maintains important and sensitive diplomatic relations. 37.In Mexico, S.B. 1070 has precipitated a sharply negative public perception of the attitude toward immigrants in Arizona (and potentially by extension elsewhere in the U.S.), which in turn has negatively affected diplomatic processes with Mexican government officials. The Mexican President, Mexican Cabinet Members, the Mexican Congress, and opinion makers in Mexico all have reacted strongly in response to the A. Impact on Bilateral Relationships 36.S.B. law. These voices have also expressed concern about the safety of Mexicans in Arizona. 38.During his recent visit to Washington, for example, Mexico's President Calder& pointedly criticized the law, both during his joint press conference with President Obama on May 19 and in his address to the United States Congress on May 20. Speaking to the Congress, he emphasized the need for comprehensive immigration reform and focused attention specifically on the Arizona law: I am convinced that comprehensive immigration reform is also crucial to secure our common border. However, I strongly disagree with the recently adopted law in Arizona. It is a law that not only ignores a reality that cannot be erased by decree but also introduces a terrible idea: using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement. And that is why I agree with President Obama, who said the new law "carries a great amount of risk when core values that we all care about are breached." I want to bridge the gap of feelings and emotions between our countries and our peoples. I believe in this. I believe in communications, I believe in cooperation, and we together must find a better way to face and fix this common problem. 39.President CalderOn's criticisms reflect how negatively S.B. 1070 has affected public attitudes in Mexico toward the United States. A recent poll in Mexico by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, for example, indicates that whereas before the adoption of the Arizona law 62 percent of those polled had a favorable attitude toward the United States and only 27 percent had an unfavorable attitude, following its adoption only 44 percent had a favorable attitude toward the U.S., while 48 had an unfavorable attitude. See The A rizona Effect on U.S. Favorability in Mexico, available at www.pewglobal.org . The poll demonstrates that an effort to establish a divergent immigration policy by a single state, which has not yet even gone into effect, nevertheless can significantly harm foreign attitudes toward the United States as a whole. Such effect in turn can seriously undermine support among important Mexican constituencies for Mexico's cooperation with the United States. Wake Forest Debate 37 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Drug Policy Alt Cause ( ) US Drug policy block US-Latin American relations Shifter ‘12 (Michael is an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the Council's journal Foreign Affairs. He serves as the President of Inter-American Dialogue. “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,” April, IAD Policy Report, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf) In the spirit of “shared responsibility,” often invoked by senior US policy officials, it is critical that the US government respond to from Latin American leaders for a serious review of drug policy. As the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy made clear, current measures addressing the drug problem are not working and alternatives need to be considered. That commission, led by three highly regarded former Latin American presidents—Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and César Gaviria of Colombia—rightly emphasized that drug problems and their contributions to criminal violence and widespread corruption threaten the rule of law in a number of countries. The commission’s recommendations—including the decriminalization of marijuana, greater emphasis on drugs as a public health problem, and increased support for harm reduction—should be taken seriously and should serve as a starting point for an honest US-Latin American dialogue on the drug question. More serious attention and resources directed at reducing consumption in the United States are essential. Since the commission’s report in 2009, even some sitting Latin American presidents, increasing calls including Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, and Guatemala’s Otto Pérez Molina, have called for collective pursuit of new drug policy options, including consideration of legalization. Although there is debate about the merits of alternative policies—and political obstacles in the region and, particularly, in the United States, remain strong—a serious discussion is urgently needed about how to be more effective in dealing with the drug problem. This sense of urgency is underscored by the alarming crime statistics reported in the region. According to the United Nations, Latin America has the highest rate of homicides per capita of any region in the world. Although the causes are many, the narcotics trade is a key contributor. Wake Forest Debate 38 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Terrorism Answers ( ) No nuclear terror – they’ll choose conventional weapons. Mueller ‘8 John Mueller, political science professor at Ohio State University, “The Atomic Terrorist: Assessing the Likelihood” Jan. 1 http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/APSACHGO.PDF Meanwhile, although there have been plenty of terrorist attacks in the world since 2001, all (thus far, at least) have relied on conventional destructive methods--there hasn't even been the occasional gas bomb. In effect the terrorists seem to be heeding the advice found in a memo on an al-Qaeda laptop seized in Pakistan in 2004: "Make use of that which is available...rather than waste valuable time becoming despondent over that which is not within your reach" (Whitlock 2007). That is: Keep it simple, stupid. In fact, it seems to be a general historical regularity that terrorists tend to prefer weapons that they know and understand, not new, exotic ones (Rapoport 1999, 51; Gilmore 1999, 37; Schneier 2003, 236). Indeed, the truly notable innovation for terrorists over the last few decades has not been in qualitative improvements in ordnance at all, but rather in a more effective method for delivering it: the suicide bomber (Pape 2005, Bloom 2005). ( ) US won’t use nuclear retaliation against non-state nuclear terror. Washington Post ‘7 (Thursday, August 2, 2007 – “Obama says no nuclear weapons to fight terror” – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080201375_pf.html) Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons "in any circumstance" to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, drawing criticism from Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democratic rivals."I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table." ( ) No miscalc impact – US-Russian safety systems check conflict. Morrison ‘7 (James Morrison, formerly served as an assistant foreign editor for the Washington Times. Mr. Morrison returned to the Foreign Desk in 1993 to launch the Embassy Row column, a diplomatic news column primarily focusing on foreign ambassadors in the United States and U.S. ambassadors abroad. The column is the only one of its kind in U.S. journalism. The Washington Times, September 25, 2007, Sentinels on Guard, lexis) Despite growing foreign-policy disputes, Moscow and Washington have prevented an accidental nuclear disaster with extensive communication links through Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers (NRRCs), Russian Ambassador Yuri Ushakov said in a review of 20 years of the program established under President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. "The NRRCs have proved their efficiency as an instrument of transparency and confidence-building," he said in a speech last week at the State Department. "Moreover, they have become a reliable mechanism designed to diminish and eliminate the very potential threat of an accidental nuclear disaster." Wake Forest Debate 39 / 49 Matt Struth ENVIRO ANSWERS Wake Forest Debate 40 / 49 Matt Struth Enviro 1NC Alt cause- Venezuela Waste leads to Environment Problems Marquez 6-11 Humberto Marquez, (Biodiverse Venezuela Flunking Basic Conservation, June 13, 2011) In the congested streets of Caracas, a concrete jungle set in a valley where five million people are crowded elbow to elbow, 2.3 million cars and one million motorbikes circulate, according to figures supplied by the mayors of the city's five municipalities.¶ 'We have no precise figures for pollution, but the country has over 300 large waste dumps open to the skies. Much of this waste is burned, and who knows what quantities of dioxins and furans are being produced?' said Álvarez.¶ Dioxins are stable chemical compounds that contain chlorine and are produced by burning. They are fat-soluble and pollute soils, sediments, the food chain and organic tissues. Furans are volatile liquids that cause cancer.¶ The 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), to which Venezuela and 172 other countries are party, set guidelines for programmes to minimise, if not eliminate, POP sources.¶ But Venezuela is lagging so far behind in these matters that 'of the 19,000 tonnes of waste produced daily, barely 10 to 20 percent is recycled: 85 to 90 percent of aluminium or iron, but only one percent of organic material, two percent of plastics and 20 percent of paper and cardboard,' Díaz said.¶ Improper management of solid wastes and residues has for years been at the top of the list of Venezuela's worst environmental problems in the Vitalis reports, until it was displaced as the main problem in 2010 by lengthy drought and major flooding.¶ The drought and flooding brought about emergencies and interruptions of the supply of electricity and drinking water, and caused damages to roads and housing. Some 140,000 people were affected by the disasters, leading to street protests and social crises.¶ This was climate change's debut, as it were, in Venezuelan society, and the ARA researchers expressed concern over the forecast that in spite of the unusually heavy rains in recent months, the country must prepare itself for a reduction of up to 25 percent in average annual rainfall.¶ Added to this is the predicted increase of 30 to 80 million tonnes per year in greenhouse gas emissions, if existing energy plans are implemented.¶ The state oil industry intends to raise crude production from the present level of 3.2 million barrels a day, according to official figures, to 5.8 million barrels a day in the second half of the decade. The government also plans to add a further 8,000 megawatts of thermallygenerated electricity, using fossil fuels, to the current nominal capacity of 21,000 megawatts. IADB projects hurt the environment R.A.N. ’08(Rainforest Action Network, “Groups Protest Inter-American Development Bank”, 4/4/2008, http://ran.org/groups-protest-inter-american-development-bank) MIAMI BEACH – Representatives from Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and several other environmental and social justice groups from the U.S. and South America held a rally today to protest the lending practices of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) outside the bank’s 49th annual meeting at the Miami Beach Convention Center. “As a major source of financing for economic and social development in Latin America, the IDB has a responsibility not to fund environmental destruction and human rights abuses,” said Andrea Samulon of Rainforest Action Network. “The IDB is shirking that duty, and its mechanism for accountability on these issues is practically nonexistent. The groups called on the bank to adopt needed environmental safeguards in its lending practices. One mega-project the IDB is currently financing is the Initiative for the Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Intended to establish roads and other industrial infrastructure throughout South America, including the Amazon rainforest, the mega-project will displace Indigenous communities and cause more deforestation at a time when the practice accounts for approximately 20 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the bank has already approved $45 million in loans and technical cooperation funds to finance agrofuel projects and is now considering another $3 billion for private sector loan projects. Studies have shown that agrofuel production can result in more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fossil fuels and has led to the displacement of millions of Indigenous peoples and small farmers around the world. The IDB has also failed to adopt the international benchmark of free, prior and informed consent for Indigenous communities that may be affected by its projects. Today’s protest was part of a coordinated effort throughout the meeting to push the IDB to reform its lending practices. Groups that endorsed and participated in the rally included: Amazon Watch, Friends of the Earth Brazil, International Rivers, National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, Center for Human Rights and the Environment (CEDHA), Derechos Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR), Asociacion Labor Civil, and Global Local Links. SUPPORTING STATEMENTS Juan Carballo, Center for Human Rights and the Environment (CEDHA): “The Inter-American Development Bank’s promotion of IIRSA, a series of megaprojects designed to foster regional integration of South America, does not comply with its institutional social and environmental policy. IIRSA represents a double standard, as evidenced by the IDB’s lack of transparency and exclusion of stakeholders most impacted by massive regional development.” Wake Forest Debate 41 / 49 Matt Struth Environmental improvements now – their evidence ignores long term trends Hayward ‘11 [Steven P, american author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He argues for libertarian and conservative viewpoints in his writings. He writes frequently on the topics of environmentalism, law, economics, and public policy.2011 Almanac of Environmental Trends¶ by Steven F. Hayward¶ April 2011¶ ISBN-13: 978-1-934276-17-4, http://www.pacificresearch.org/docLib/20110419_almanac2011.pdf] Quick: What’s the largest public-policy success story in American society over the last generation? The dramatic reduction in the crime rate, which has helped make major American cities livable again? Or welfare reform, which saw the nation’s welfare rolls fall by more than half since the early 1990s? Both of these accomplishments have received wide media attention. Yet the right answer might well be the environment. As Figure 1 displays, the reduction in air pollution is comparable in magnitude to the reduction in the welfare rolls, and greater than the reduction in the crime rate—both celebrated as major public-policy success stories of the last two decades. Aggregate emissions of the six “criteria” pollutants1 regulated under the Clean Air Act have fallen by 53 percent since 1970, while the proportion of the population receiving welfare assistance is down 48 percent from 1970, and the crime rate is only 6.4 percent below its 1970 level. (And as we shall see, this aggregate nationwide reduction in emissions greatly understates the actual improvement in ambient air quality in the areas with the worst levels of air pollution.) Measures for water quality , toxic -chemical exposure , soil erosion , forest growth , wetlands , and several other areas of environmental concern show similar positive trends , as this Almanac reports. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of the environment have been greatly exaggerated . Moreover, there is good reason to believe that these kinds of improvements will be experienced in the rest of the world over the course of this century. We’ll examine some of the early evidence that this is already starting to occur. The chief drivers of environmental improvement are economic growth, constantly increasing resource efficiency, technological innovation in pollution control, and the deepening of environmental values among the American public that have translated to changed behavior and consumer preferences. Government regulation has played a vital role, to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things regulation can be understood as a lagging indicator, often achieving results at needlessly high cost, and sometimes failing completely. Were it not for rising affluence and technological innovation, regulation would have much the same effect as King Canute commanding the tides. INTRODUCTION introduction 3 figure 1 a comparison of crime rate, Welfare, and air Pollution, 1970–2007 -60.0% -40.0% -20.0% 0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2007 % of Population on Welfare Crime Rate (per 100,000 population) Aggregate Emissions Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, EPA 4 Almanac of Environmental Trends The American public remains largely unaware of these trends. For most of the last 40 years, public opinion about the environment has been pessimistic, with large majorities—sometimes as high as 70 percent—telling pollsters that they think environmental quality in the United States is getting worse instead of better, and will continue to get worse in the future. One reason for this state of opinion is media coverage, which emphasizes bad news and crisis; another reason is environmental advocacy groups, for whom good news is bad news. As the cliche goes, you can’t sell many newspapers with headlines about airplanes landing safely, or about an oil tanker docking without a spill. Similarly, slow, long-term trends don’t make for good headline copy. INTRODUCTIONintroduction 5Improving Trends:Causes and ConsequencesMost environmental commentary dwells on the laws and regulations we have adoptedto achieve our goals, but it is essential to understand the more important role of technologyand economic growth in bringing about favorable environmental trends. Thebest way to see this is to look at some long-term trends in environmental quality thatpredate modern environmental legislation.To be sure, the earliest phases of the Industrial Revolution led to severe environmentaldegradation. But the inexorable process of technological innovation andthe drive for efficiency began to remedy much of this damage far earlier than iscommonly perceived. In addition, new technologies that we commonly regard as environmentally destructive often replaced older modes of human activity that were far worse by comparison. A good example is the introduction of coal for heating andenergy in Britain. No impact to the environment- hype Ridder ‘8 – PhD, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania (Ben, Biodiversity And Conservation, 17.4, “Questioning the ecosystem services argument for biodiversity conservation”) *ES = environmental services The low resilience assumption Advocates of the conservation of biodiversity tend not to acknowledge the distinction between resilient and sensitive ES. This ‘low resilience assumption’ gives rise to, and is reinforced by the almost ubiquitous claim within the conservation literature that ES depend on biodiversity. An extreme example of this claim is made by the Ehrlichs in Extinction. They state that “all [ecosystem services] will be threatened if the rate of extinctions continues to increase” then observe that attempts to artificially replicate natural processes “are no more than partially successful in most cases. Nature nearly always does it better. When society sacrifices natural services for some other gain… it must pay the costs of substitution” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1982, pp. 95–96). This assertion—that the only alternative to protecting every species is a world in which all ES have been substituted by artificial alternatives—is an extreme example of the ‘low resilience assumption’. Paul Ehrlich revisits this flawed logic in 1997 i nhis response (with four co-authors) to doubts expressed by Mark Sagoff regarding economic arguments for species conservation (Ehrlich et al. 1997, p. 101). The claim that ES depend on biodiversity is also notably present in the controversial Issues in Ecology paper on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Naeem et al. 1999) that sparked the debate mentioned in the introduction. This appears to reflect a general tendency among authors in this field (e.g., Hector et al. 2001; Lawler Wake Forest Debate 42 / 49 Matt Struth et al. 2002; Lyons et al. 2005). Although such authors may not actually articulate the low resilience assumption, presenting such claims in the absence of any clarification indicates its influence. That the low resilience assumption is largely false is apparent in the number of examples of species extinctions that have not brought about catastrophic ecosystem collapse and decline in ES, and in the generally limited ecosystem influence of species on the cusp of extinction. These issues have been raised by numerous authors, although given the absence of systematic attempts to verify propositions of this sort, the evidence assembled is usually anecdotal and we are forced to trust that an unbiased account of the situation has been presented. Fortunately a number of highly respected people have discussed this topic, not least being the prominent conservation biologist David Ehrenfeld. In 1978 he described the ‘conservation dilemma’, which “arises on the increasingly frequent occasions when we encounter a threatened part of Nature but can find no rational reason for keeping it” (Ehrenfeld 1981, p. 177). He continued with the following observation: Have there been permanent and significant ‘resource’ effects of the extinction, in the wild, of John Bartram’s great discovery, the beautiful tree Franklinia alatamaha, which had almost vanished from the earth when Bartram first set eyes upon it? Or a thousand species of tiny beetles that we never knew existed before or after their probable extermination? Can we even be certain than the eastern forests of the United States suffer the loss of their passenger pigeons and chestnuts in some tangible way that affects their vitality or permanence, their value to us? (p. 192) Later, at the first conference on biodiversity, Ehrenfeld (1988) reflected that have any conventional value missed… by no stretch at all” and that the of the imagination most species “do not seem to rarest species are “the ones least likely to be can we make them out to be vital cogs in the ecological mach ine” (p. 215). The appearance of comments within the environmental literature that are consistent with Ehrenfeld’s—and from authors whose academic standing is also worthy of respect—is uncommon but not unheard of (e.g., Tudge 1989; Ghilarov 1996; Sagoff 1997; Slobodkin 2001; Western 2001). The low resilience assumption is also undermined by the overwhelming tendency for the protection of specific endangered species to be justified by moral or aesthetic arguments, or a basic appeal to the necessity of conserving biodiversity, rather than by emphasising the actual ES these species provide or might be able to provide humanity. Often the only services that can be promoted in this regard relate to the ‘scientific’ or ‘cultural’ value of conserving a particular species, and the tourism revenue that might be associated with its continued existence. The preservation of such services is of an entirely different order compared with collapse of human civilization predicted by the more pessimistic environmental authors. The popularity of the low resilience assumption is in part explained by the increased rhetorical force of arguments that highlight the connections between the conservation of biodiversity, human survival and economic profit. However, it needs to be acknowledged by those who employ this approach that a number of negative implications are associated with any use of economic arguments to justify the conservation of biodiversity. Wake Forest Debate 43 / 49 Matt Struth EXT: Impact Defense This impact is flawed science and is empirically denied Campbell ‘11 (Hank, Science Writer for Science 2.0, “I Wouldn't Worry About The Latest Mass Extinction Scare,” March 8 th, http://www.science20.com/science_20/i_wouldnt_worry_about_latest_mass_extinction_scare-76989, You've seen it everywhere by now - Earth's sixth mass extinction: Is it almost here? and other articles discussing an article in Nature (471, 51–57 doi:10.1038/nature09678) claiming the end of the world is nigh. Hey, I like to live in important times. So do most people. And something so important it has only happened 5 times in 540 million years, well that is really special. But is it real? Anthony Barnosky, integrative biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and first author of the paper, claims that if currently threatened species, those officially classed as critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable, actually went extinct, and that rate of extinction continued, the sixth mass extinction could arrive in 3-22 centuries. Wait, what?? That's a lot of helping verbs confusing what should be a fairly clear issue, if it were clear. If you know anything about species and extinction, you have already read one paragraph of my overview and seen the flaws in their model. Taking a few extinct mammal species that we know about and then extrapolating that out to be extinction hysteria right now if we don't do something about global warming is not good science. Worse, an integrative biologist is saying evolution does not happen. Polar bears did not exist forever, they came into existence 150,000 years ago - because of the Ice Age. Greenpeace cofounder and ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore told a global warming skepticism site, “I quit my life-long subscription to National Geographic when they published a similar 'sixth mass extinction' article in February 1999. This [latest journal] Nature article just re-hashes this theme” and "The fact that the study did make it through peer-review indicates that the peer review process has become corrupted.” Well, how did it make it through peer review? Read this bizarre justification of their methodology; "If you look only at the critically endangered mammals-those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their generations--and assume that their time will run out and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly outside any range of normal and tells us that we are moving into the mass extinction realm." Well, greater extinctions occurred when Europeans visited the Americas and in a much shorter time. And since we don't know how many species there are now, or have ever been, if someone makes a model and claims tens of thousands of species are going extinct today, that sets off cultural alarms. It's not science, though. If only 1% of species have gone extinct in the groups we really know much about, that is hardly a time for panic, especially if some 99 percent of all species that have ever existed we don't know anything about because they...went extinct. And we did not. It won't keep some researchers, and the mass media, from pushing the panic button. Co-author Charles Marshall, also an integrative biologist at UC-Berkeley wants to keep the panic button fully engaged by emphasizing that the small number of recorded extinctions to date does not mean we are not in a crisis. "Just because the magnitude is low compared to the biggest mass extinctions we've seen in half a billion years doesn't mean they aren't significant." It's a double negative, bad logic and questionable science, though. Adaptation solves Thompson et al. ‘9 (Ian Thompson et al., Canadian Forest Service, Brendan Mackey, The Australian National University, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Steven McNulty, USDA Forest Service, Alex Mosseler, Canadian Forest Service, 2009, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity “Forest Resilience, Biodiversity, and Climate Change” Convention on Biological Diversity Concerns have been expressed that predicted cli- mate changes (IPCC 2007) may occur too quickly for species to adapt (Huntley 1991, Davis and Shaw 2001, Jump and Penuelas 2005), but genetically diverse species are capable of rapid evolution (Geber and Dawson 1993). Many species have adapted to rapid changes and have done so repeatedly over geo- logical time through dispersal and genetic changes based on the extant genetic diversity within local or regional gene pools, suggesting long-term genetic- based resilience to change. There is considerable evidence for adaptation in the geological and fossil record (Bernabo and Webb 1977, Webb 1981, Davis 1983, Huntley and Birks 1983, and review by Geber and Dawson 1993). Such adaptation has been demonstrated by forest plants during or following past glacial and interglacial episodes, which were characterized by relatively rapid climate change (Huntley and Webb 1988). Wake Forest Debate 44 / 49 Matt Struth The environment is resilient and indestructible Easterbrook ‘95 (Distinguished Fellow, Fullbright Foundation (Gregg, A Moment on Earth pg 25) IN THE AFTERMATH OF EVENTS SUCH AS LOVE CANAL OR THE Exxon Valdez oil spill, every reference to the environment is prefaced with the adjective "fragile." "Fragile environment" has become a welded phrase of the modern lexicon, like "aging hippie" or "fugitive financier." But the notion of a fragile environment is profoundly wrong. Individual animals, plants, and people are distressingly fragile. The environment that contains them is close to indestructible. The living environment of Earth has survived ice ages; bombardments of cosmic radiation more deadly than atomic fallout; solar radiation more powerful than the worst-case projection for ozone depletion; thousand-year periods of intense volcanism releasing global air pollution far worse than that made by any factory; reversals of the planet's magnetic poles; the rearrangement of continents; transformation of plains into mountain ranges and of seas into plains; fluctuations of ocean currents and the jet stream; 300-foot vacillations in sea levels; shortening and lengthening of the seasons caused by shifts in the planetary axis; collisions of asteroids and comets bearing far more force than man's nuclear arsenals; and the years without summer that followed these impacts. Yet hearts beat on, and petals unfold still. Were the environment fragile it would have expired many eons before the advent of the industrial affronts of the dreaming ape. Human assaults on the environment, though mischievous, are pinpricks compared to forces of the magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting. Wake Forest Debate 45 / 49 Matt Struth A2 Amazon No impact to Amazon Morano and Washburn 2k (Marc and Kent, Producers of American Investigator's "Amazon Rainforest: Clear-Cutting the Myths" “Shaky Science Behind Save-Rainforest Effort”, 6-26, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17543) Another familiar claim of the environmentalist community is that the Amazon constitutes the "lungs of the earth," supplying one-fifth of the world's oxygen. But, according to Antonio Donato Nobre of INPE, and other eco-scientists, the Amazon consumes as much oxygen as it produces, and Stott says it may actually be a net user of oxygen. "In fact, because the trees fall down and decay, rainforests actually take in slightly more oxygen than they give out," says Stott. "The idea of them soaking up carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen is a myth. It's only fast-growing young trees that actually take up carbon dioxide." Stott maintains that the tropical forests of the world are "basically irrelevant" when it comes to regulating or influencing global weather. He explains that the oceans have a much greater impact. "Most things that happen on land are mere blips to the system, basically insignificant," he says. Too many alt causes- conclusive study Lane 8 (Jim, “World Wildlife Fund Exonerates Ethanol on Amazonian Deforestation and Food Production”, Biofuels Digest, Lexis) May 27, 2008 (Biofuels Digest delivered by Newstex) -- The World Wildlife Fund has concluded, in a new study profiled on the BBC, that "ethanol production is not having a significant impact on food production, and that it is not contributing to deforestation in the Amazon." The report concludes that sugar cane ethanol has a positive impact on the environment. The report called for strict monitoring to protect remaining rainforest areas." In Brazil, the federal government announced a crackdown on illegal deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest. Biofuels producers have been accused of causing deforestation, however the authorities are targeting soy farmers, cattle ranchers and illegal timber operators in 36 pockets where increased deforestation has occurred. An emergency meeting of the Brazilian cabinet had been been called by President Luiz Inà cio Lula da Silva after a 50 percent jump in deforestation rates, following a steady threeyear decline. A German academic has analyzed the factors that are causing deforestation of the Amazon, and concluded that sugarcane ethanol production in south-central Brazil is not pushing cattle and soy farming into the Amazon region. Peter Zuurbier, Associate Professor and Director of the Wageningen UR Latin America Office, said that the problem is unclear land titles, unscrupulous timber companies, and poor soil conservation practices by cattle ranchers. He said that after illegal clear cutting by timber companies, the land is occupied by nomadic cattle herds that, over a period of 3 to 4 years, ruin the thin soil of the Amazon areas, which causes fertilizer-based soy farming to be brought into the area to improve productivity. Researchers say that Amazonian deforestation has increased in pace in 2007 and is likely to rise throughout 2008. Carlos Nobre, a scientist with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, said that 2,300 square miles of forest had been converted to farmland in the past four months, compared with 3,700 square miles in the 12 months ending last July. Wake Forest Debate 46 / 49 Matt Struth A2 Warming Can’t solve warming AP 9 (Associated Press, Six Degree Temperature Rise by 2100 is Inevitable: UNEP, September 24, http://www.speedyfit.co.uk/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=168) Earth's temperature is likely to jump six degrees between now and the end of the century even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update. Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming. The projections take into account 80 percent emission cuts from the U.S. and Europe by 2050, which are not sure things. The U.S. figure is based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but is running into resistance in the Senate, where debate has been delayed by health care reform efforts. Carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the main cause of global warming, trapping the sun's energy in the atmosphere. The world's average temperature has already risen 1.4 degrees since the 19th century. Much of projected rise in temperature is because of developing nations, which aren't talking much about cutting their emissions , scientists said at a United Nations press conference Thursday. China alone adds nearly 2 degrees to the projections. "We are headed toward very serious changes in our planet," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N.'s environment program, which issued the update on Thursday. The review looked at some 400 peer-reviewed papers on climate over the last three years. Even if the developed world cuts its emissions by 80 percent and the developing world cuts theirs in half by 2050, as some experts propose, the world is still facing a 3-degree increase by the end of the century, said Robert Corell, a prominent U.S. climate scientist who helped oversee the update. Corell said the most likely agreement out of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December still translates into a nearly 5-degree increase in world temperature by the end of the century. European leaders and the Obama White House have set a goal to limit warming to just a couple degrees. The U.N.'s environment program unveiled the update on peer-reviewed climate change science to tell diplomats how hot the planet is getting. The last big report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out more than two years ago and is based on science that is at least three to four years old, Steiner said. Global warming is speeding up, especially in the Arctic, and that means that some top-level science projections from 2007 are already out of date and overly optimistic. Corell, who headed an assessment of warming in the Arctic, said global warming "is accelerating in ways that we are not anticipating." Because Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting far faster than thought, it looks like the seas will rise twice as fast as projected just three years ago, Corell said. He said seas should rise about a foot every 20 to 25 years. Warming won’t cause extinction Barrett ‘7 professor of natural resource economics – Columbia University, (Scott, Why Cooperate? The Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods, introduction) First, climate change does not threaten the survival of the human species.5 If unchecked, it will cause other species is being depleted now due to other reasons). It will alter critical ecosystems (though this is also happening now, and for reasons unrelated to climate change). It will reduce land area as the seas rise, and in the process displace human populations. “Catastrophic” climate change is possible, but not certain. Moreover, and unlike an asteroid collision, large changes (such as sea level rise of, say, ten meters) will likely take centuries to unfold, giving societies time to adjust. “Abrupt” climate change is also possible, and will occur more rapidly, perhaps over a decade or two. However, abrupt climate change (such as a weakening in the North Atlantic circulation), though potentially very serious, is unlikely to be ruinous. Human-induced climate change is an experiment of planetary proportions, and we cannot be sur of its consequences. Even in a worse case scenario, however, global climate change is not the equivalent of the Earth being hit by mega-asteroid. Indeed, if it were as damaging as this, and if we were sure that it would be this harmful, then our incentive to address this threat would be overwhelming. The challenge would still be more to become extinction (though biodiversity difficult than asteroid defense, but we would have done much more about it by now. Wake Forest Debate 47 / 49 Matt Struth OFF-CASE LINKS Wake Forest Debate 48 / 49 Matt Struth China CP Solvency China solves better Gallagher et. al 2012 [Keven Gallagher, Amos Irwin, Katherine Koleski - Keven Gallagher is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University, Inter-American Dialogue; “The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America”; March 2012; http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/TheNewBanksinTown-FullTextnewversion.pdf //accessed 7/21/13/NL] China has only just started providing financing to Latin America, but in 2010 it already loaned more than the World Bank, IDB and US Ex-Im Bank combined (Table 2). Prior o 2008, China’s annual lending never exceeded $1 billion. But in 2008, loans ramped up to $6 billion. In 2009, lending tripled again to $18 billion, passing the World Bank’s $14 billion and IDB’s $15 billion. In 2010, lending doubled once more to $37 billion, well above loan levels of the World Bank ($14 billion) and IDB ($12 billion). China overtook the World Bank and IDB despite the fact that, from 2006 to 2010, both those banks had doubled their lending to the region. Since 2005, China Ex-Im Bank has out-financed US Ex-Im by a factor of almost four, $8.3 billion to $2.2 billion. That said, both China and US Ex-Im banks have historically concentrated on guarantees and insurance, and these direct loans comprise only a small part of their portfolios. China solves better Gallagher et. al 2012 [Keven Gallagher, Amos Irwin, Katherine Koleski - Keven Gallagher is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University, Inter-American Dialogue; “The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America”; March 2012; http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/TheNewBanksinTown-FullTextnewversion.pdf //accessed 7/21/13/NL] For Ecuador and Venezuela, the large influx of Chinese lending has served as a key source of foreign finance. The World Bank has almost no lending presence in these countries; since 2005, it has given two small loans to Ecuador and nothing to Venezuela. IDB’s lending to these countries was higher in both absolute and relative terms in 2009- 2010 than it was in 2006-2008. The increase in lending in 2009-2010 is significant, since Chinese lending over the same period exploded from zero to over 20 times IDB lending. IDB lending had been higher in 2005, but it fell years before China began lending to these countries. Viewed in this context, Chinese lending is adding to, rather than replacing, IDB lending Chinese and Western banks also differed in another way. China’s loans were much larger. The overwhelming majority of Chinese financing packages to LAC were $1 billion or greater, compared to 22 percent for the World Bank and 9 percent for IDB. Some 93 percent of the large World Bank and IDB loans went to Brazil and Mexico, with the remaining 7 percent for Argentina. Meanwhile, 68 percent of China’s large loans went to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela—countries where large loans from Western banks have been absent. Wake Forest Debate 49 / 49 Matt Struth Politics U.S. Government Hates the Venezuelan Government. Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2035-why-the-us-government-hates-venezuela 4 August 2009 The barrage of anti-Venezuela misinformation that began while Bush was in office has intensified in recent months. Not a week goes by without the U.S. The propaganda wheels are turning fast. mainstream media running at least one story about the "dictatorial" Venezuelan government. Historically, the U.S. government's A front page New York Times article on August 2, 2009 cited "new evidence" that the Venezuelan government "still" supports the FARC — a peasant-based guerrilla group that has fought the Colombian government for decades. This "new evidence" is a mere recycling of the last tactical attempt to link the Venezuelan government with the FARC: computers were supposedly confiscated from FARC leaders that showed innumerable ties to Venezuelan government officials. Of course anybody can write anything on a computer and say it came from somewhere foreign policy "coincidentally" matches the opinion of the media and vice versa. else. Evidence like this needs only a willing accomplice — the media — to legitimize it. The Venezuelan government denies the accusations. But even if Venezuela maintained a policy of openly supporting the FARC, it would be more justifiable than the U.S. policy of openly supporting the Colombian government. Colombia is the most-hated and repressive government in the western hemisphere, but the U.S. gives billions of dollars of financial, military and political aide. This despicable relationship has not ended under Obama, but has in fact strengthened. The recent announcement that the U.S. military would move potentially thousands of troops to Colombia, where they will access five Colombian military bases, has put Venezuela and the rest of Latin America on alert. The Obama administration has not explained the move publicly, though Latin Americans need no explanation. The continent has a long history of being exploited by U.S. corporations, who work in tandem with the U.S. government to oust "non-cooperative" governments, using countless tactics to meet their objectives including clandestine C.I.A. coups. The recent U.S.-backed military coup in Honduras sent shockwaves throughout the region, exposing the Obama administration for what it is: yet another government dedicated to the interests of the super-wealthy and corporations, who want their "investments" in Latin America to be protected from "populist" governments who redistribute wealth and land. U.S. corporations have felt their power slipping in the hemisphere for years, much of it due to the influence of Venezuela. This is because social movements in Venezuela have advanced further than anywhere else in the world — factories have been taken over and run by workers, community councils make local decisions democratically, land is being taken over by peasants, independent media is spreading, and the property of U.S. corporations has been taken over to be used for the needs of the average Venezuelan. Although the vast majority of these gains are due to the work of grassroots Venezuelans, the government has not only given approval to such actions, but often is responsible for suggesting the ideas.Venezuela's example has dramatically changed the political landscape in Latin America, inspiring millions. For the first time, governments and social movements alike feel empowered to oppose U.S. corporate dominance and instead are seeking to arrange their economies in ways that benefit the majority of people. In Venezuela these ideas are often referred to as 21st century socialism, and the rest of the hemisphere is clamoring to get on board. The battle of ideas between 21st century socialism and free-market capitalism has already been settled in the region, with capitalism facing utter defeat.Having lost in the realm of ideas, those supporting capitalism must compensate by other means. Barack Obama is a very outspoken devotee of capitalism, and has shown by his coup in Honduras — and also the military build-up in Colombia — that he will go to any length to prop-up U.S. corporations and rich investors in the region.There can be absolutely no doubt that Obama will seek to undermine the Venezuelan government by any means available, including the very real possibility of a proxy invasion through Colombia. None of these attempts to undermine the advances in Venezuela and other countries will benefit the peoples of Latin America or the United States, minus a tiny minority of the super wealthy. With this kind of understanding often comes organizing and action, with the ultimate aim to end U.S. economic and military intervention abroad, not only in Latin America, but the Middle East and beyond.