Case
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Intelligence Advantage
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1NC — Intelligence Advantage
They can’t solve for spy aircrafts and battlefield sensors
Irwin 12 [Sandra Irwin, “Too Much Information, Not Enough Intelligence,” National Defense,
May 2012, pg. http://tinyurl.com/7ty8gl8
The Defense Department over the last decade has built up an inventory of billions of dollars
worth of spy aircraft and battlefield sensors. Those systems create avalanches of data that
clog military information networks and overwhelm analysts.
Intelligence experts say the military is drowning in data but not able to convert that
information into intelligible reports that break it down and analyze it.
“The challenge for users of intelligence is that all the different types of information come in a
stove-piped manner,” says Michael W. Isherwood, a defense analyst and former Air Force
fighter pilot.
Intelligence feeds include electronic signals, satellite imagery, moving-target data and fullmotion video. “How do you integrate this into a clear picture?” Isherwood asks. “That is one of
the enduring challenges in the ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] arena for all
the services.”
The returnee threat is low
Zammit 15 – Researcher @ Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre [Andrew
Zammit (PhD candidate @ University of Melbourne)“Australian foreign fighters: Risks and
responses,” Lowy Institute for International Policy, April 2015
Despite the seriousness of the threat, it does not follow that most foreign fighters attempt
attacks on return. In fact, very few do. In his study of foreign fighters, Hegghammer found
that only up to one in nine jihadist foreign fighters from Western countries later became
involved in terror plots within the West, and that even this was likely to be an overestimate.18
Similarly, a study by Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn found that only a very small portion of
Western jihadist fighters returned to carry out attacks.19 This leaves governments with a
seemingly paradoxical problem: most foreign fighters do not prove a threat on return, but
those who do are highly dangerous and have been involved in a substantial proportion of the
domestic jihadist plots in the West, including the most serious attacks such as the 2005 London
bombings. This raises the question of what distinguishes the many returned foreign fighters who
do not pose a domestic threat from the few who do. Pg. 4-5
No Saudi-Iran war
Khashoggi 15 - US-educated Saudi journalist, columnist, author and the general manager and
editor-in-chief of Al Arab News Channel [Jamal Khashoggi, “Saudi Arabia and Iran heading to
war?,” Al Arabiya News, Monday, 8 June 2015, pg. http://tinyurl.com/pkajljf
Saudi Arabia does not want an open confrontation with Iran, realizing the high cost of such a
war. The same goes for Iran, which knows that the military budget, especially for the air force,
is not in its favor. Moreover, Riyadh has alliances with a number of Arab and Islamic countries
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willing to defend the Land of the Two Holy Mosques. Both countries have enough arms to
destroy each others’ capacities. It is a binary threat and an important deterrence.
Iran is a model of internal stability
Saremi 15 - Strategic analyst w/ a PhD in International Relations [Dr. Fariborz Saremi, “Is Iran
the Most Stable Country in Region?,” Counter Punch, January 30, 2015, pg.
http://tinyurl.com/pp6pywf
In the turbulent 35 years since the Islamic Republic of Iran emerged overnight following
revolution in that country, the balance of power in Middle East has shifted. For much of that
time Iran has been hampered by internal power struggles, the imposition of sanctions, and
from ostracization due to its links with terrorism. Today, however, Iran is emerging as a model
of stability given that several of its neighbors have fallen into utter turmoil. Some of them are
still suffering the back-swell from the Arab Spring, while others are under severe threat from
violent extremists such as ISIS. Finally, observers see a distinct possibility that Iran may move
towards meaningful rapprochement with its former enemies in the west.
TURN: ISIS threat will reset US-Iran relations
Mohseni 14 – Director of the Iran Project @ Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs and a Fellow for Iran Studies at the Kennedy School. [Payam
Mohseni, “Bad Move, ISIS: Why America and Iran Should Work Together,” The National Interest,
October 6, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ph83pjx
While a threat to U.S. interests, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) presents us with a
unique opportunity to “reset” the Middle East equation—to actively transform regional
relations, to abate the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and to forge a new working
relationship with Iran. As the United States moves to escalate its war against ISIS and forge a
coalition against the terrorist group, it is important that Iran be included in the process. After all,
U.S. and Iranian interests have increasingly converged in the Middle East with the emergence
of a common enemy, and no power in the region is better suited to taking on ISIS than Iran
and its affiliated Shi’a militias in Iraq.
Just as importantly, Iran will have to be a key part of any meaningful solution to regional
instability and any effort to help sustain a new unity government in Iraq. By formally
acknowledging the role it can play in the conflict, Iran can be guided into becoming a
constructive stakeholder in a more inclusive Middle East order—a goal that has become
increasingly salient as the possible success of the Iranian nuclear negotiations forebodes a
transformation of the Middle East status quo and Iran’s role in the region.
Despite its public statements, Iran has already signaled its willingness to cooperate on ISIS.
Iran’s decision to remove its support from former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki was not
primarily driven by fear or simply a response to the grave threat posed by ISIS—as commonly
perceived in the West—but rather a demonstration of its own flexibility and accommodation
with regional powers. Based on my conversations with the conservative elite in Tehran during
the summer, the Iranian leadership does not view ISIS as a serious threat to the country, but
rather an opportunity for further empowerment—not just for Iran, but for the larger Shi’a
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community and the “popular militias” in Iraq as they become entrenched as a consequence of
the conflict. Iran’s influence and leverage in Iraq has certainly expanded with the ISIS
offensive. By rapidly moving to support the Shi’a militias at the very beginning of the conflict,
Iran has effectively gained the support of the Iraqi Shi’a as they have been pushed toward Iran
as a source of protection. Iranian influence has also increased over the Sunni Kurds as it has
helped them establish a buffer zone on its Western frontier.
Iran’s decision to facilitate Maliki’s removal signals the leadership’s intent and willingness to
cooperate with regional countries and the United States in search of a political solution instead.
This intent is most clearly demonstrated by the prominent role played by Rear Admiral Ali
Shamkhani, the chairman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, when he traveled to Iraq
to broker an agreement on a new unity government. Shamkhani’s role is important for two
reasons. First, not only is he a moderate in the Iranian political spectrum—appointed last year
by President Rouhani—but he is also an Iranian of Arab origin who is believed to be held in high
esteem by the Saudi King. Both his appointment and his recent visit to Iraq signal Iran’s desire to
pursue rapprochement with the Saudis and abate sectarianism.
Second, Shamkhani’s role demonstrates that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards work within the
constitutional boundaries of the state—operating within, rather than outside, the Supreme
National Security Council to discuss and negotiate Iran’s role in Iraq. This development was
particularly striking, since the security files of Iraq and Syria belong to the Revolutionary Guards
and the position of the Guards has only strengthened with the escalation of the ISIS conflict. By
working within the Council, the Guards opened the space and possibility for greater foreign
cooperation, allowing the Iranian government to influence and coordinate with the Guards
based on government discussions with the Iraqis and external powers.
These positive signals, however, seem to contravene Iran’s growing declarations that it will not
engage U.S. efforts against ISIS. It also begs the question of why Iran would cooperate with the
United States or an Arab coalition if it perceives itself to be strengthened by the conflict and if it
considers ISIS to be a foreign conspiracy. Of course, it is not likely that Iran will work with the
United States openly, due to the historical relations between the two countries, but it may do so
within a regional framework that formalizes Iran’s role and protects its interests in the Middle
East. In other words, Iran is looking at the larger picture and vision it has for the future Middle
East beyond ISIS and will base its foreign policies on two driving considerations: Iran’s role in the
security architecture of the region, including in Syria, and the increasing sectarian nature of
conflicts and politics in the Middle East. If cooperation preserves Iran’s role in the region and
diminishes sectarian strife, Iran will cooperate. For Iran to do so explicitly and publicly will
depend on how it sees itself to be accepted and incorporated as part of this process—one
from which it sees itself largely excluded thus far.
By viewing ISIS as an opportunity to “reset” its working relation with Iran in the region, the
United States can help Iran become a constructive player in the conflict and weaken the
potential for it to act as a spoiler or destabilizing force. Moreover, it will allow the United
States to make effective use of Iranian power and the Shi’a militias in opposing ISIS, by far the
best regional means of military boots on the ground. To do so, the United States must not only
clarify its own vision for the Middle East, but also, just as importantly, persuade Saudi Arabia to
cooperate and work with the Iranians. Yes, engaging Iran and incorporating it as part of the
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Middle East order will be a daunting task fraught with its own risks, particularly at a time when
the nuclear negotiations are taking place. But not doing so will only further exacerbate the
ongoing conflict in a direction that will be worse not only for the entire Middle East, but for
U.S. interests as well.
Common ground prevents war
Duggan 15 – Professor of history @ Georgetown University, [Dr. Michael F. Duggan, “The
Persian Elephant in the Room: Revitalizing U.S.-Iran Relations After the Iran Nuclear Deal,”
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, April 9, 2015, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ofngsf8
Deep down every specialist of the Middle East with a grounding in history knows that in
dealing with Iran there are only a handful of options, and that all but one or two of them are
likely to produce constructive results. The others are likely to produce little more than
continued violence and instability in an already troubled region, and will do nothing to prevent
Iran from achieving its nuclear goals. It is therefore mystifying as to why the United States and
Israel have used rhetoric that will be impossible to back up without catastrophic consequences,
and which will inflame an already difficult situation. In terms of the United States’s general
treatment of Iran, it would seem that the options are fourfold. First, the United States could
keep up its economic sanctions in an attempt to generate Iranian compliance under threat of
further destabilizing the nation’s economy. The problem with this sort of approach—beyond
the very real violence it does to civilians—is that it will do nothing to derail Iran’s nuclear
program, and in fact signals the exact sort of hostility that continues to justify the desire for
and pursuit of such weapons in Iranian eyes. Some Americans think that because sanctions
worked in Libya (over a period of more than two decades and before a NATO air campaign), they
will also work in Iran. But Gadaffi’s Libya and present-day Iran are two fundamentally different
cases. Whereas Libya is a flat analog to Afghanistan, consisting of a number of mostly disunified
tribes with a territorial boundary drawn around them, Iran—historical Persia—is a proud
civilization with antecedents that date back to before the time of the Ancient Greeks and
Israelites. Iran is more like pre-WWII Japan in the sense that its people are unlikely to knuckle
under to the pressure of external sanctions and embargoes. Rather, it is quite possible that
they will unify, radicalize, and eventually fight. At the very least, continued U.S. sanctions will
push Iran closer to Russia. Iran’s relative social stability, its considerable natural resources, and
its potential for strengthened economic ties with Russia and China will allow it to safely endure
any sanctions imposed by the West.
A second option for the United States is to attack Iran outright. Over the past half-decade, some
American and Israeli leaders have talked openly about pursuing this course of action. Doing so,
however, would embroil the United States in a war with a nation with more than twice the
population of Iraq, almost four times its land area, a far more varied and difficult terrain, and
a much more capable military. Considering how its military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan
have gone to date, U.S. leadership should probably err on the side of nonmilitary options vis-àvis Iran first. Attacking Iran directly would only destabilize the wider region in a way that could
potentially spell the eventual end of Israel—and bankrupt the United States in the process.
The third option is for the United States to contrive some way to divide and/or isolate Iran, the
world’s dominant Shiite Muslim nation, from the rest of the (mostly Sunni) Islamic world.
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However, such a divide and conquer component to a grand strategy primarily focused on
economic sanctions would be completely obvious to the great majority of the world’s Muslims.
Moreover, the very real and menacing conflict between Sunni and Shia in the greater Muslim
world that threatens to escalate into a regional conflagration constitutes a further elephant in
the room of U.S. strategic planning. Such a strategy would also run afoul of the inconvenient
truth that Iranian-backed forces are currently shouldering a large portion of the ground war
against ISIS in Western Iraq, and are proving to be valuable assets there. Divide and conquer
strategies—using mutual hatreds to play enemies off each other—is a dirty and tricky game that
can easily blow up in the faces of those who initiate them (see the civil war in Ukraine).
This leaves only the fourth and most realistically promising approach to the situation: the
United States could try to find common ground with Iran and bury the hatchet. After all, it is in
the national interest of the United States to be on good terms with regional powers and soonto-be nuclear states, and there is a slight chance that positive relations may actually preclude
the latter. Without overstating things, Iran is now thedominant regional power of Southwest
Asia—and it was the United States’ removal of Iraq as a secular counterbalance that elevated
Iran to this status, or at least helped cement its claim. Moreover, the nuclear genie was let out
of the bottle when India, Israel, and Pakistan developed bombs of their own, and there is
nothing the United States can do to reverse the process. Finally, in 2001, Iran allowed the United
States passage through Iranian air space in order to launch the latter’s invasion of Afghanistan,
and it is time we acknowledged this good faith accommodation with renewed talks about the
general security of the region.
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Ext Zammit 15 – No Returnee threat
They will go quiet upon return
Zammit 15 – Researcher @ Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre [Andrew
Zammit (PhD candidate @ University of Melbourne)“Australian foreign fighters: Risks and
responses,” Lowy Institute for International Policy, April 2015
Some research indicates that those who train with jihadist groups are more likely to pose a
terrorist threat on return than those who actually fight on the frontlines. Van Zuijdewijn’s study
of Western jihadist foreign fighters involved in European terror plots found that two-thirds had
trained, while only one-third had actually engaged in combat. 32 A study by Jonathan GithensMazer on UK foreign fighters supports this. His research found that many jihadist combat
veterans often went quiet on return or actively discouraged others from becoming involved,
while some particularly dangerous returnees had not made it to the frontlines.33 There are
parallels with the involvement of former US military personnel in far-right extremist groups.
Research has found that they tended to have had short-lived and unsuccessful military careers,
suggesting that those most likely to turn to violent extremism once back home may be those
who feel they have more to prove. 34 By contrast, exposure to combat increases the likelihood
of a foreign fighter becoming disillusioned or indeed being injured or killed. Pg. 6
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Ext Serami 15 – Iran stable
It has a thriving economy. No internal backlash
Nair 15 – Founder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT) [Chandran Nair, “The
Futility and Immorality of Iran Sanctions,” Huffington Post, Posted: 07/09/2015 12:06 pm EDT,
pg. http://tinyurl.com/nwyfrdz
Contrary to what many have come to believe, U.S. sanctions on Iran are not as crippling as they
are made out to be. Unlike many of its neighbors who are almost entirely dependent on oil,
Iran is a diversified economy with a functioning manufacturing, agricultural and service
sector, albeit inefficient due to sanctions and inadequate investments. The World Bank
classifies it as an "upper middle income" country and despite sanctions Iran, with a GDP of
$415.3 billion, is still the second largest economy in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Average life expectancy (74 years) is almost as good as any in the developed world, and when
it comes to primary school enrollment, Iran is leagues ahead of its neighbors.
But, if anything, the Iranian people are resourceful and creative. They get around the problem
through ingenuity and enterprise. A thriving currency market in the bazaars of Isfahan allowed
me to exchange as much cash as I wanted for my travel and shopping, and sellers were happy to
accept the Hong Kong dollar, renminbi and the yen. Carpet merchants, hoteliers and even taxi
drivers are ever ready to swap foreign currencies for the riyal. Bank Melli Iran even issues prepaid "cash cards" that allow tourists to swipe transactions just as they would in Hong Kong or
Singapore.
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Ext Mohseni 15 – Turn: US-Iran Relations
ISIS threat will force US-Iran to work together
Mekhennet 14 [Souad Mekhennet, “ISIS is the best thing to happen to Iran-U.S. relations in
years,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/q3suo99
TEHRAN—Even here, nobody is happy about Iraq’s implosion. But Iranian officials are preparing
to make the best of it. In a raft of interviews this week with government officials, a consensus
has emerged: Iraq is a chance to make amends with the United States. It may even be the
beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Already, the question both here and in Washington is not “if” Tehran and Washington should
work together to combat the advance of the Islamist insurgency ISIS, but “how.” “We are
open to any constructive process here that could minimize the violence, hold Iraq together —
the integrity of the country — and eliminate the presence of outside terrorist forces that are
ripping it apart,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in Washington Monday. President Obama
added today that “Iran can play a constructive role.”
Iran is moving to cast itself as a U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism (despite its official
sponsorship of Hezbollah). In meetings here over the last week, part of the Bergedorf Round
Table — the session was called “Stability in the Middle East: Prospects for Cooperation between
Iran and the West” — Iranian officials repeatedly said things like this: “Like the U.S. and Europe,
we are fighting terrorism.” They also stressed common interests with the West. (My trip, like
the conference, was sponsored by the Körber Foundation, a nonpartisan group devoted to social
development.)
ISIS threat fuels US-Iran cooperation
Milani 14 – Professor of Politics and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and
Diplomatic Studies @ University of South Florida [Mohsen Milani, “This is What Détente Looks
Like,” Foreign Affairs, August 27, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/os9l9t9
Tehran and Washington find themselves on the same side in the fight against the Islamic State
of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), also called the Islamic State (IS), and there are already signs that they
have been cooperating against the extremist group’s advance through Iraq. Although there is
no guarantee that this will last for the duration of the war, such cooperation is clearly a positive
step.
The United States and Iran both view ISIS as a significant threat to their own interests. An ISIS
stronghold near the Iranian border would be a profound and immediate security threat to
Tehran. For one, the Sunni jihadists of ISIS are openly disdainful of the Shia faith, the sect of
Islam that the overwhelming majority of Iranians and the majority of Iraqis adhere to. The group
is already in a sectarian war in Syria and Iraq, and Tehran must assume that it eventually plans
on turning its attention to Iran.
Washington, for its part, has also concluded that ISIS poses a significant threat. If ISIS manages
to create a safe haven in Iraq, it could use the territory to plan operations against the West,
undermine Western allies in the region, and endanger oil shipments in the Persian Gulf. In the
meantime, the group’s war against the Iraqi state also poses a danger to U.S. interests. Over the
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past decade, Washington has paid a high price in blood and treasure to create a stable and
relatively friendly Iraq. The collapse of that state would be a humiliating defeat.
Although the United States and Iran have different visions for the future of Iraq, they share
three major strategic goals there: protecting Iraq’s territorial integrity; preventing a sectarian
civil war that could easily metastasize into the entire region; and defeating ISIS. There is also a
precedent of tactical cooperation in Iraq between Tehran and Washington: In 2001, the two
cooperated to dislodge the Taliban from Afghanistan.
ISIS threat is large enough to solidify cooperation with US and solves their IranSaudi war impact
Milani 14 – Professor of Politics and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and
Diplomatic Studies @ University of South Florida [Mohsen Milani, “This is What Détente Looks
Like,” Foreign Affairs, August 27, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/os9l9t9
Despite these difficulties, cooperation between Washington and Tehran is likely to deepen,
rather than ebb, in the weeks ahead. ISIS is a clear transnational threat that demands a
transnational solution. Iran has considerable experience fighting against ISIS in Syria and
Lebanon and can offer much assistance to those who seek to eradicate the threat posed by the
militant group. Indeed, the fight against ISIS may even produce the previously unthinkable:
cooperation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two countries that have more or less fought an
open proxy war for the past several years in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Now, both countries are
threatened by ISIS, which explains why Saudi Arabia openly welcomed Abadi’s nomination to
become prime minister.
Two weeks ago, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Policy and
National Security Committee, correctly stated that Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States are
the key players in Iraq. If Washington and Tehran manage to cooperate to stabilize in Iraq, it
would not only be good news for the Iraqis -- it could also pave the way for a final agreement in
the ongoing nuclear negotiations. In that sense, the two countries would have truly achieved
significant rapprochement, if not in the way that many observers originally anticipated.
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Ext Duggan 15 – Iran War Impact
Goes nuclear
Avery, 13 --- Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen (11/6/2013, John Scales Avery,
“An Attack On Iran Could Escalate Into Global Nuclear War,”
http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm)
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable
concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure groups in Washington continue to demand an
attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war, with catastrophic
consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should remember that
this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict.
There is a danger that an attack on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle
East, entirely destabilizing a region that is already deep in problems. The unstable government
of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary Pakistani government might enter the
war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the conflict. Russia and China,
firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East. Since much of the
world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach
unheard-of heights, with catastrophic effects on the global economy. In the dangerous
situation that could potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that nuclear
weapons would be used, either intentionally, or by accident or miscalculation. Recent
research has shown that besides making large areas of the world uninhabitable through longlasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global agriculture to such a
extent that a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result. Thus, nuclear
war is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of
the biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and
future of all the peoples of the world, US citizens included.
Iran war escalates
White 11, July/August 2011 (Jeffrey—defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, What Would War With Iran Look Like, National Interest, p. http://www.the-americaninterest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=982)
A U.S.-Iranian war would probably not be fought by the United States and Iran alone. Each
would have partners or allies, both willing and not-so-willing. Pre-conflict commitments,
longstanding relationships, the course of operations and other factors would place the United
States and Iran at the center of more or less structured coalitions of the marginally willing. A
Western coalition could consist of the United States and most of its traditional allies (but very
likely not Turkey, based on the evolution of Turkish politics) in addition to some Persian Gulf
states, Jordan and perhaps Egypt, depending on where its revolution takes it. Much would
depend on whether U.S. leaders could persuade others to go along, which would mean
convincing them that U.S. forces could shield them from Iranian and Iranian-proxy retaliation, or
at least substantially weaken its effects. Coalition warfare would present a number of challenges
to the U.S. government. Overall, it would lend legitimacy to the action, but it would also
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constrict U.S. freedom of action, perhaps by limiting the scope and intensity of military
operations. There would thus be tension between the desire for a small coalition of the capable
for operational and security purposes and a broader coalition that would include marginally
useful allies to maximize legitimacy. The U.S. administration would probably not welcome Israeli
participation. But if Israel were directly attacked by Iran or its allies, Washington would find it
difficult to keep Israel out—as it did during the 1991 Gulf War. That would complicate the U.S.
ability to manage its coalition, although it would not necessarily break it apart. Iranian
diplomacy and information operations would seek to exploit Israeli participation to the fullest.
Iran would have its own coalition. Hizballah in particular could act at Iran’s behest both by
attacking Israel directly and by using its asymmetric and irregular warfare capabilities to expand
the conflict and complicate the maintenance of the U.S. coalition. The escalation of the
Hizballah-Israel conflict could draw in Syria and Hamas; Hamas in particular could feel
compelled to respond to an Iranian request for assistance. Some or all of these satellite actors
might choose to leave Iran to its fate, especially if initial U.S. strikes seemed devastating to the
point of decisive. But their involvement would spread the conflict to the entire eastern
Mediterranean and perhaps beyond, complicating both U.S. military operations and coalition
diplomacy.
Extinction
Giribets 12 [Miguel Giribets, “If US Attacks Iran, Human Survival May Be at Risk (Part III),”
Argen Press, 10 January 2012, pg. http://watchingamerica.com/News/141596/if-us-attacks-iranhuman-survival-may-be-at-risk-part-iii/]
The dangers of global war are clear. On one side, hundreds of Russian technicians would die
working on Iranian nuclear facilities, to which Russia could not stand idly by. According to
Chossudovsky: "Were Iran to be the object of a "pre-emptive" aerial attack by allied forces, the
entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to China's Western frontier with Afghanistan and
Pakistan, would flare up, leading us potentially into a World War III scenario. The war would
also extend into Lebanon and Syria. It is highly unlikely that the bombings, if they were to be
implemented, would be circumscribed to Iran's nuclear facilities as claimed by US-NATO official
statements. What is more probable is an all out air attack on both military and civilian
infrastructure, transport systems, factories, public buildings.
"The issue of radioactive fallout and contamination, while casually dismissed by US-NATO
military analysts, would be devastating, potentially affecting a large area of the broader Middle
East (including Israel) and Central Asian region." As an example, a few years ago Burma moved
its capital Rangoon to Pyinmana, because it believed that the effects of nuclear radiation caused
by an attack on Iran would be less there. Radiation and nuclear winter could have
uncontrollable consequences for humans. Put plainly, the survival of the human race would
be put at stake if the U.S. attacks Iran.
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Iran prolif escalates – global prolif – nuke wars everywhere
Edelman, 11 — Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (Eric, “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran: The
Limits of Containment”, Foreign Affairs, 2011, proquest)
FROM ISLAMABAD TO RIYADH The reports of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic
Posture of the United States and the Commission on the Prevention ofWeapons of Mass
Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, as well as other analyses, have highlighted the risk that
a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger additional nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, even if
Israel does not declare its own nuclear arsenal.Notably, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia,Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates- all signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (npt)-have recently announced or initiated nuclear energy programs. Although some of
these states have legitimate economic rationales for pursuing nuclear power and although the
low-enriched fuel used for power reactors cannot be used in nuclear weapons, these moves
have been widely interpreted as hedges against a nuclear-armed Iran. The npt does not bar
states from developing the sensitive technology required to produce nuclear fuel on their own,
that is, the capability to enrich natural uranium and separate plutonium from spent nuclear
fuel.Yet enrichment and reprocessing can also be used to accumulate weapons-grade enriched
uranium and plutonium-the very loophole that Iran has apparently exploited in pursuing a
nuclear weapons capability. Developing nuclear weapons remains a slow, expensive, and
difficult process, even for states with considerable economic resources, and especially if other
nations try to constrain aspiring nuclear states' access to critical materials and
technology.Without external support, it is unlikely that any of these aspirants could develop a
nuclear weapons capability within a decade. There is, however, at least one state that could
receive significant outside support: Saudi Arabia. And if it did, proliferation could accelerate
throughout the region. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been geopolitical and ideological rivals.
Riyadh would face tremendous pressure to respond in some form to a nuclear-armed Iran, not
only to deter Iranian coercion and subversion but also to preserve its sense that Saudi Arabia is
the leading nation in the Muslim world. The Saudi government is already pursuing a nuclear
power capability, which could be the first step along a slow road to nuclear weapons
development. And concerns persist that it might be able to accelerate its progress by exploiting
its close ties to Pakistan. During the 1980s, in response to the use of missiles during the Iran-Iraq
War and their growing proliferation throughout the region, Saudi Arabia acquired several dozen
css-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles from China. The Pakistani government reportedly
brokered the deal, and it may have also offered to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear warheads for the
css-2s, which are not accurate enough to deliver conventional warheads effectively. There are
still rumors that Riyadh and Islamabad have had discussions involving nuclear weapons, nuclear
technology, or security guarantees. This "Islamabad option" could develop in one of several
different ways. Pakistan could sell operational nuclear weapons and delivery systems to Saudi
Arabia, or it could provide the Saudis with the infrastructure, material, and technical support
they need to produce nuclear weapons themselves within a matter of years, as opposed to a
decade or longer.Not only has Pakistan provided such support in the past, but it is currently
building two more heavy-water reactors for plutonium production and a second chemical
reprocessing facility to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. In other words, it might
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accumulate more fissile material than it needs to maintain even a substantially expanded
arsenal of its own. Alternatively, Pakistan might offer an extended deterrent guarantee to Saudi
Arabia and deploy nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and troops on Saudi territory, a practice
that the United States has employed for decades with its allies. This arrangement could be
particularly appealing to both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It would allow the Saudis to argue that
they are not violating the npt since they would not be acquiring their own nuclear weapons. And
an extended deterrent from Pakistan might be preferable to one from the United States
because stationing foreign Muslim forces on Saudi territory would not trigger the kind of
popular opposition that would accompany the deployment of U.S. troops. Pakistan, for its part,
would gain financial benefits and international clout by deploying nuclear weapons in Saudi
Arabia, as well as strategic depth against its chief rival, India. The Islamabad option raises a host
of difficult issues, perhaps the most worrisome being how India would respond. Would it target
Pakistan's weapons in Saudi Arabia with its own conventional or nuclear weapons? How would
this expanded nuclear competition influence stability during a crisis in either the Middle East or
South Asia? Regardless of India's reaction, any decision by the Saudi government to seek out
nuclear weapons, by whatever means, would be highly destabilizing. It would increase the
incentives of other nations in the Middle East to pursue nuclear weapons of their own. And it
could increase their ability to do so by eroding the remaining barriers to nuclear proliferation:
each additional state that acquires nuclear weapons weakens the nonproliferation regime, even
if its particular method of acquisition only circumvents, rather than violates, the npt. N-PLAYER
COMPETITION Were Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons, the Middle East would count
three nuclear-armed states, and perhaps more before long. It is unclear how such an n-player
competition would unfold because most analyses of nuclear deterrence are based on the U.S.Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. It seems likely, however, that the interaction among three or
more nuclear-armed powers would be more prone to miscalculation and escalation than a
bipolar competition. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union only needed
to concern themselves with an attack from the other.Multipolar systems are generally
considered to be less stable than bipolar systems because coalitions can shift quickly, upsetting
the balance of power and creating incentives for an attack. More important, emerging nuclear
powers in the Middle East might not take the costly steps necessary to preserve regional
stability and avoid a nuclear exchange. For nuclear-armed states, the bedrock of deterrence is
the knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch
an attack with the expectation that it can wipe out its opponents' forces and avoid a devastating
retaliation. However, emerging nuclear powers might not invest in expensive but survivable
capabilities such as hardened missile silos or submarinebased nuclear forces. Given this likely
vulnerability, the close proximity of states in the Middle East, and the very short flight times of
ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be compelled to "launch on
warning" of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their
governments might also delegate launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening
the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early warning systems were not
integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental
launch would increase further still. And without sophisticated early warning systems, a nuclear
attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming that the leadership
15
of a targeted state survived a first strike, it might not be able to accurately determine which
nation was responsible. And this uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to respond
quickly, would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong party,
potentially triggering a regional nuclear war. Most existing nuclear powers have taken steps to
protect their nuclear weapons from unauthorized use: from closely screening key personnel to
developing technical safety measures, such as permissive action links, which require special
codes before the weapons can be armed. Yet there is no guarantee that emerging nuclear
powers would be willing or able to implement these measures, creating a significant risk that
their governments might lose control over the weapons or nuclear material and that nonstate
actors could gain access to these items. Some states might seek to mitigate threats to their
nuclear arsenals; for instance, they might hide their weapons. In that case, however, a single
intelligence compromise could leave their weapons vulnerable to attack or theft.
16
Ext Duggan 15 – Iran Solves the Case
Only US-Iran cooperation can resolve the ISIS threat
Milani 15 – Professor of Politics and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and
Diplomatic Studies @ University of South Florida [Mohsen Milani, “What are the Prospects for
US-Iran Cooperation Against ISIS?,” Iran Matters, May 20, 2015, pg. http://tinyurl.com/q3jo3ac
As the situation stands now, the United States is faced with a dilemma: “If we don’t put boots
on the ground to fight ISIS, who will?” It is unlikely that Arab states like Saudi Arabia, other GCC
countries, Egypt, and Jordan will have the desire to muster an army to fight a force that is
primarily Sunni. The Iraqi Security Forces, despite U.S. training, have proved incapable of
single handedly defeating the jihadist threat. The Turkish military has the strength, but the
government is determined to overthrow the Assad regime and therefore is unlikely to engage
in any military operations against ISIS at this time. Nor does the Shi’a dominated government in
Iraq have any interest to invite Sunni armies to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs. The Kurdish
Peshmerga have the desire, willingness and the manpower to fight ISIS, but they cannot single
handedly defeat ISIS or expel them from Iraq.
Iran has the willingness and the determination to fight against ISIS by helping the Iraqi
government. Moreover, Iranian trained Iraqi militias have had a good record of fighting
against ISIS. Should there be a nuclear agreement between six global powers and Iran, there is a
reasonable possibility that the hostile relations between Iran and the U.S. can change and the
two countries can join together to undermine ISIS and address other areas of common
interest.
17
Turn – Leaks Decrease Coop
Turn: Leaks undermine intel cooperation
Walsh 15 - Professor of political science @ University of North Carolina - Charlotte. [James
Igoe Walsh, “How the latest leak hurts intelligence cooperation,” The Washington Post, February
25, 2015, pg. http://tinyurl.com/pleau7m
The leak is likely to have important implications for the willingness of intelligence agencies to
share information in the future. At its heart, intelligence sharing involves the exchange of not
simply information, but information that must be kept secret from others. States that share
secrets worry that their partners will divulge them, deliberately or inadvertently. The current
leak is the latest case, after Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, where an
intelligence “insider” has broken this promise of secrecy.
States’ reaction to this leak will have important consequences for their own security. Greater
limits on intelligence sharing might restrict states’ ability to counter transnational terrorist
groups and other threats to peace and stability. Leaks by insiders have fast become the
biggest challenge to the current intelligence sharing regime. To some extent, these leaks are a
public good. They have provided a lot of information about intrusions on civil liberties and
human rights by intelligence agencies around the world.
Intelligence agencies are likely to want to share less after this document leak. It makes sense to
share only with those whom you trust to keep information secret. Insider leaks may lead states
to update their assessments of the trustworthiness of their partners. But limiting sharing to
only the most trustworthy states imposes quite serious costs. Only a handful of countries have
foreign intelligence services of any size, and none comes close to matching the United States.
For smaller countries, this means there are relatively few partners who can provide intelligence
on a wide range of issues. After the Wikileaks and Snowden revelations, many commentators
suggested that foreign intelligence services would limit sharing with the United States, but it is
not clear that this has actually happened.
But cooperating with only the most trustworthy states is not the only way to share intelligence.
As I discuss in my book, “International Politics of Intelligence Sharing,” cooperating states can
construct institutions and practices that limit their vulnerability to exploitation by their partners.
The United States, for example, provides funding and technical support to the intelligence
agencies of a number of smaller states. This not only builds partner states’ capacity to develop
mutually useful intelligence, but also provides the United States with leverage it can use to
punish partners who violate sharing agreements.
This and earlier insider threats suggest it is becoming increasingly difficult for intelligence
services to keep their secrets secret. Although we do not yet know the motives of the leaker or
leakers in the South African case, many of the previous leakers were unhappy about their
governments’ willingness to aggressively exploit their growing capacity to monitor
communications, even when doing so threatens civil liberties.
18
1NC — Squo Solves
Status quo solves US-Saudi intelligence sharing
Hosenball et al. 4/10 (MARK HOSENBALL, PHIL STEWART AND WARREN STROBEL, 2015, Reuters, “Exclusive: U.S. expands
intelligence sharing with Saudis in Yemen operation,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/11/us-usa-saudi-yemen-exclusiveidUSKBN0N129W20150411)//RTF
The United States is expanding its intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia to provide more
information about potential targets in the kingdom's air campaign against Houthi militias in
Yemen, U.S. officials told Reuters. The stepped-up assistance comes as two weeks of relentless air
strikes by the Saudis and other Gulf Arab allies have largely failed to halt advances by the Iranlinked Houthi forces. The U.S. officials said the expanded assistance includes sensitive intelligence
data that will allow the Saudis to better review the kingdom's targets in fighting that has killed hundreds
and displaced tens of thousands since March. "We have opened up the aperture a bit wider with what we
are sharing with our Saudi partners," said one U.S. official. "We are helping them get a better sense
of the battlefield and the state of play with the Houthi forces. We are also helping identify 'no
strike' areas they should avoid" to minimize any civilian casualties, the official said. U.S. ally Saudi
Arabia is concerned that the violence could spill over the border it shares with Yemen, and is also worried about the influence of
Shi'ite Iran, which has denied Saudi allegations it has provided direct military support to the Houthis. The United States, whose fight
against al Qaeda militants in Yemen has been dealt a heavy setback by the Houthi takeover of the capital Sanaa and ousting of the
previous government, has avoided a direct role in the worsening conflict. It will still stop short of picking targets for the Saudis, said
the four U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But Washington has come under pressure to do more to assist the
alliance led by Saudi Arabia, which fears the Houthi advance is expanding the influence of arch foe Iran to its border. Saudi concerns
of growing Iranian influence have also been heightened by nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers that could result in a
deal by June 30 removing punishing sanctions on the country. A senior U.S. diplomat said earlier this week that Washington was
speeding up arms supplies and bolstering intelligence sharing with the Saudi-led alliance. The Pentagon has said it is beginning aerial
refueling of Arab coalition jets – although outside Yemeni airspace. Until
recent days, U.S. intelligence support
was limited to examining Saudi targeting information to try to affirm its accuracy, U.S. and Saudi
officials said. The U.S. role has now expanded in size and scope, involving more detailed “vetting”
of targeting information prepared by the Saudis, with a particular interest in helping the
Saudis to avoid civilian casualties, according to the U.S. officials. The White House and Pentagon would
not comment specifically when asked about expanded intelligence-sharing. "The United States is providing our partners with
necessary and timely intelligence to defend Saudi Arabia and respond to other efforts to support the legitimate government of
Yemen," said Alistair Baskey, a White House spokesman. LEGAL BARRIERS Aid groups have said the Saudi strikes, which began March
25, have caused many civilian deaths, including a March 30 attack on a Houthi-controlled refugee camp in northern Yemen that the
International Organization for Migration said killed 40 people. Senior Saudi officials have blamed such incidents on the Houthis
themselves. The Saudi-led air campaign is aimed at rolling back territorial gains by the Houthis and reinstalling Yemeni President
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled the country. While the White House announced U.S. intelligence support soon after the
operation began, American officials said that data sharing had been extremely minimal in the campaign's early days. That is partly
due to legal barriers, the officials said. While the United States has used lethal force against an al Qaeda offshoot in Yemen, it does
not consider itself at war with the Houthis. Some officials said the U.S. administration's analysis is that it lacks the ability under
international and U.S. law to collaborate with the Saudis in an offensive against the Houthis. Baskey said that U.S. actions were "fully
consistent with applicable domestic and international legal requirements." Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke in
general terms about the expanded cooperation during a Monday visit to Riyadh, without disclosing specifics. "Saudi Arabia is
sending a strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force," Blinken said. "As part of that
effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint
coordination planning cell in the Saudi operation center," he added. The United States has sent a 20-member military coordination
team to interact with the Gulf allies, led by Marine Major General Carl Mundy. Assigning a two-star general will facilitate interactions
with other high-ranking officials from other nations, U.S. officials said. The United States this week started daily air-to-air refueling
flights of fighter jets from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But even with its refueling flights, the United States is
exhibiting caution -- carrying out the flights outside Yemeni airspace and requesting financial reimbursement from allies. It is still
unclear how the United States plans to accelerate the delivery of bombs and guidance kits to its allies. One person familiar with the
matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States might accelerate shipments to the United Arab Emirates, which
could then also help resupply Saudi Arabia.
19
Squo solves- countries are already taking measures to mitigate the threat and
intel sharing is taking place
Zelin and Prohov 14 (Aaron and Jonathan, May 18th, Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at The Washington Institute
and the Rena and Sami David Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. He also runs the website
Jihadology.net. Jonathan Prohov is a research assistant at the Institute, “Proactive Measures: Countering the Returnee,”
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/proactive-measures-countering-the-returnee-threat)//RTF
Fears that foreign fighters traveling to Syria might return home once the conflict is over and
engage in terrorism have prompted an unprecedented level of proactive measures by
countries around the world. In the past, many countries only changed their laws after an attack occurred, but this time
around many states are trying to get ahead of the issue. Compared to the number of foreigners who fought against the United
States in Iraq or the Soviets in Afghanistan, the number of foreigners fighting in Syria has exceeded both of those cases -- and in less
than half the time. Around 9,000 individuals from more than 80 countries have joined the fight against the Asad regime, with the
majority coming from the Arab world and Western Europe. U.S. intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times in February that at
least 50 Americans had joined the fight in Syria, and FBI director James Comey recently stated that the number of Americans who
had either traveled to Syria or tried to do so had grown by a few dozen since the beginning of 2014. The United States was one of
the first to designate Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda's branch in Syria, as a terrorist organization. Some European Union (EU) countries, as
well as Canada, Australia, and Britain, have followed suit. The
United States has also used sting operations to
stop individuals from joining the fight. Australia has used laws already on the books that allow
it to revoke individuals' passports to prevent its citizens from going to fight in Syria in the first
place and to prevent those who have already gone from getting back into the country. In the
EU, the Netherlands has banned certain individuals from returning home, used ankle bracelets
to track those who have returned from Syria, and ruled that preparing to travel to Syria to
participate in jihad is a crime. In Germany, three different Salafist organizations have been
banned for providing recruitment networks for groups fighting in Syria, and one German
official has proposed setting up a network of telephone hotlines and counseling centers to
enable friends and relatives to report radicalized young men as a sort of early warning system.
Some EU countries have also discussed cutting off individuals' access to government benefits such as healthcare and other social
services if they've participated in the jihad in Syria. One way Britain
has tried to combat the recruitment of its
citizens is by removing recruitment material from the Internet. Between January and March
2014, Britain had 8,000 "takedowns" of online content -- a sudden and dramatic increase,
considering there were only 21,000 takedowns conducted over the previous four years
combined. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has also been putting money into a social
media program aimed at deterring British citizens from traveling to Syria to fight. In addition, the
British police recently announced that they will be partnering with charitable organizations in
a campaign to prevent young people from going to Syria. As reported by the New York Times, "Officers plan
to hand out leaflets at British ports warning of the risks of traveling to Syria, and officers plan to advise people who want to support
humanitarian efforts in Syria to avoid traveling there and to donate to nonprofit organizations instead." Just last week, the House of
Commons Home Affairs Committee issued a detailed report recommending a number of new policy initiatives aimed at dealing with
the returnee threat; these included revoking the passports of British citizens fighting in Syria, sending "spotters" to countries that
border Syria to identify British citizens at risk of crossing the border to fight (a program currently used to track soccer hooligans in
foreign countries), and coordinating with mental health practitioners to help returning fighters cope with the violence they've
experienced. And according to the New York Times, the House of Lords on Monday "passed legislation that allows the government
to strip terrorism suspects of their citizenship even if it renders them stateless." Britain's counterparts in France launched a new
counter-radicalization program in October 2013, and they recently announced an expansion of the program with 20 additional
measures, including a plan to stop minors from leaving France without parental consent; increased surveillance of Islamist websites
that recruit fighters; and, similar to the program proposed in Germany, a system to encourage parents to identify and report
suspicious behavior in their children. Smaller countries like Bosnia, Finland, and Azerbaijan are also considering strengthening their
anti-terrorism laws. Bosnia recently passed a law that imposes a sentence of up to ten years for any citizen who fights or recruits
others to fight in a conflict abroad. Finland's parliament has begun to debate strengthening their terrorism laws to include making it
a criminal offense to receive training to commit acts of terror. In Azerbaijan, an amendment has been introduced to increase
penalties for involvement in international terrorism, financing of terrorism, and using any form of media for extremist purposes.
20
Most countries in the Arab world are also concerned and are taking steps in anticipation of
potential problems. Saudi Arabia has done this before, opening a rehabilitation center in
Riyadh in 2007 for all Al Qaeda members serving prison sentences. Beyond opening additional
rehabilitation centers to serve those who fight in Syria, the Saudis have increased preventive measures in
several other ways: in early February 2014, the government issued a royal order declaring that
any citizen who fights in conflicts abroad will face between three and twenty years in jail. A
month later, the Saudis released a royal decree designating Jabhat al-Nusra and Al Qaeda in Iraq
(better known these days as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) as terrorist organizations. To help deter further
recruitment of Saudi citizens by groups in Syria, the Saudis also promoted a disillusioned returned Saudi fighter, Sulayman Sa'ud
Subai'i, on the television program Humumana ("Our Concerns"). In the show, Subai'i explained that the Syrian jihad is not as
glamorous as it is portrayed in the media and online and decried a number of offensive practices he saw various rebel groups in Syria
engaged in, including what he referred to as "the weaponization of takfir" among the different rebel groups. (Takfir is an Islamic
term that refers to the act of labelling another Muslim as a non-Muslim, which in this context then implies that one can now kill that
person.) In
Kuwait, where much of the financing for extremists in Syria has originated or been routed through, members of
parliament passed a bill in early April 2014 to combat money laundering and funding of terror
groups that carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Similarly, Turkey passed an
anti-terrorism finance law in February 2013 in order to maintain compliance as a member of
the Financial Action Task Force, a money-laundering watchdog organization comprised of 36 members. The new
law allows the state to freeze the financial assets of terrorists without a court order; however,
Turkey's enforcement of these laws remains very poor. More recently -- and perhaps more effectively -- Turkey also
changed its policy related to issuing tourist visas. Starting in mid-April 2014, tourists wanting to travel
to Turkey must obtain a visa ahead of time and cannot simply get one at the airport once they
arrive in Turkey. Turkey has also administratively authorized a no-entry list for over 3000
individuals based on information received from Interpol, other countries, and individuals'
families. In addition, the country has started building a fence along parts of its border with Syria. Major fighting along Jordan's
borders since the conflict in Syria began combined with the fact that a number of Jordanians have gone to fight in Syria
prompted Jordan to update its 2006 Anti-Terrorism Law: amendments include a clause that
criminalizes the act of joining or attempting to join jihadi groups abroad and recruiting or
attempting to recruit for these groups. The law also explicitly criminalizes using "information
technology, the Internet or any means of publication or media, or the creation of a website, to
facilitate terrorist acts or back groups that promote, support or fund terrorism." In Lebanon,
where violence has spiked tremendously due to the spillover effects of the Syrian conflict raging next door (including several
bombing incidents carried out by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups), laws have remained unchanged thanks to a 10-month period of
political deadlock that has prevented the formation of a government. Instead, law
enforcement personnel have
beefed up their domestic enforcement efforts, including dramatically increasing the number
of arrests and preemptively detonating cars they suspect of being rigged with explosives. Taking
a less bellicose approach, the Tunisian government has established a mechanism for individuals who
have gone to Syria but have not killed anyone to be integrated back into society through an
amnesty program. Ridha Sfar, a deputy minister in Tunisia's interior ministry, described it as "a forgiveness
and repentance law which was previously enacted in countries like Algeria and Italy," and said that the policy applied
to "[a]ny Tunisian who does not have blood on his hands." Morocco is also looking into a
reintegration process for those who do not pose a security risk. Currently, the Moroccan
government is using administrative powers to delay the issuance of passports to those it
suspects intend to travel to Syria to fight; however, this measure is unlikely to be successful
since of the Moroccans that have traveled to Syria, 81% were previously unknown to
Moroccan security forces. Broader multilateral approaches are also being taken to mitigate
21
this issue. In February 2014, the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) -- an international
organization created by the United States and Turkey in 2011 with 30 member countries and
partnerships with several other international organizations -- launched the "Foreign Terrorist
Fighters" Initiative. Led by the Netherlands and Morocco, the Initiative "will include two
expert meetings and the development of good practices that could be adopted by the GCTF at
the ministerial level." At the opening meeting, participants discussed the challenges posed by foreign
fighters and the ways different countries and organizations are already dealing with the issue.
For instance, some states have begun utilizing Interpol yellow notices -- designed to locate
missing persons -- to disseminate information about suspected foreign fighters. Only time will tell
how effective all of these policies will prove to be at mitigating the threat of foreign fighters returning home from Syria. The fact that
countries across the region and far beyond are already making such changes indicates the seriousness of the threat posed by the
proliferation of violence well beyond Syria's borders. Foreign fighters present such a complex problem that prospects for failure are
likely. Multilateral
counterterrorism mechanisms instituted after 9/11 mean that the United
States and the international community do not have to build capabilities and relationships
from scratch. Yet even as additional programs and policies are implemented and strengthened, the fact remains that it only
takes one successful attack for these policies to be deemed insufficient. Attacks have already occurred in the Middle East, where
security is precarious due to domestic instability, and attacks have quietly been thwarted in western countries as well. The
United States must remain vigilant at home and continue to take a leadership role abroad,
encouraging best practices and helping foreign governments craft policies to address the
threat. In particular, the United States needs to apply further pressure on certain key countries, such as Turkey, which is the main
point of entry into Syria for foreign fighters and whose borders are still notoriously easy for fighters to cross, and Kuwait, which
remains the "epicenter of fundraising for terrorist groups in Syria." Meanwhile, the source of the problem -- the Syrian conflict itself
-- has become what the Economist describes as a "bloody stalemate" with no end in sight.
22
2NC — Squo Solves
Status quo intel sharing solves
Nielsen 1/19 (Nikolaj, 2015, Danish-American journalist working for EUobserver in Brussels. He won a King Baudouin
Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010, “EU to increase intelligence sharing with Arab states,”
https://euobserver.com/foreign/127283)//RTF
The EU wants to step up security and intelligence co-operation with neighbouring countries to
counter terrorist threats. The plan is part of a broader effort discussed on Monday (19 January) by
EU foreign ministers to reduce the risk of militant attacks by getting national intelligence and
law enforcement agencies to share data and to communicate better with each other and their
counterparts in Turkey, north Africa, and Asia. An EU source said it could involve a future proposal by the EU’s
counter-terrorism chief Gilles de Kerchove to rebuild dismantled intelligence agencies in post-Arab spring countries, such as Tunisia.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told reporters in Brussels she wants "security attaches" posted
in EU delegations to help liaise with the host country’s authorities. She also wants to reach out to Arab-speaking populations by
"improving our capacity to speak Arabic, read Arabic" and "listen to the messages coming from the Arab world". Mogherini, in
a
separate meeting with Arab League secretary general Nabil El Arabi, agreed to work closer
together on counter-terrorism threat and announced that projects would be launched in the
coming weeks with Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, the Gulf countries and some African
nations. “We know very well that the first victims of terrorists and terrorist attacks are Muslims and Arab countries,” she said.
Monday’s meeting, marked by a sense of urgency, outlined plans with formal decisions set to be taken on 12 February. A
meeting in Brussels is also planned in the next few days with experts from the EU, US,
Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and UN agencies to figure out how to
cut the funding schemes that bankroll militant groups in Iraq and Syria. The aftermath of the Charlie
Hebdo murders, which left 17 dead, has seen national governments trying to fast track security measures provisionally announced
last October. These includes, among others, stepping up external border checks and blocking, with the help of Facebook, Google,
Twitter, and Microsoft, online content that glorifies the violence perpetrated by Islamic militants. But concerns are mounting that
additional security calls made by national governments, such as confiscating passports, pose a threat to civil liberties and may result
in unanticipated adverse affects.
Squo solves intel coop
Born 07 (Hans, October 6th, Senior Fellow, DCAF, Geneva, “International Intelligence Cooperation: The Need for Networking
accountability,” http://www.dcaf.ch/content/download/37081/529379/version/1/file/born-international-intelligence-cooperationnetworking-accountability-071006.pdf)//RTF
International intelligence cooperation takes many forms, from ad hoc information sharing to
the institutionalized exchange of intelligence between states. Cooperation may occur: Bilaterally; •
Multilaterally within specific arrangements for intelligence sharing such as the Club of Bern, UKUSA and the Alliance Base
Counterterrorist Intelligence Center near Paris;3 • Intelligence cooperation (or the lack thereof) takes place within the context of
international organizations such as NATO and the EU. There can be little doubt that states have for long shared intelligence.
However, the
events of 11 September 2001 and subsequent terrorist attacks in Bali, Beslan,
London and Madrid have driven states to cooperate more intensively and on a broader range
of issues than ever before. This increased cooperation has not only developed between
traditional international partners in the West, but has also extended to a range of states that
were not previously considered to be traditional allies in security matters – principally in the
Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. Cooperation with these non-traditional partners has generated
significant problems, largely because the collection and use of intelligence may not be subject to the same human rights safeguards
as applied in NATO member states. As many of you may be aware, international intelligence cooperation as part of the so-called
‘war on terror’ has generated a series of high profile controversies – to name just two examples – the alleged CIA secret detention
centres in Europe and the case of Maher Arar in Canada. These practices have been exposed through inquiries, however, the fact
these events took place is in part the result of a lack of accountability of intelligence cooperation, I will now discuss this
‘accountability gap’ more fully.
23
24
Alt Causes
Alt Causes to Intel Sharing:
1. Personal data
McGill and Gray 12 (Anna-Katherine Staser and David H, Summer, School of Graduate and Continuing Studies in Diplomacy
and Campbell University, “Challenges to International Counterterrorism Intelligence Sharing,”
http://globalsecuritystudies.com/McGill%20Intel%20Share.pdf)//RTF
Personal data is critical to counterterrorism efforts because it “often provide[s] the only
evidence of connections between members of terrorist groups and the types of activities that
they are conducting” (Bensehal 48). However, Europe has shown resistance to freely sharing this type
of information with its American counterparts since many of the US’s European allies have
much more stringent views on the protection of personal data. In the EU, there are safeguards at the
national and regional level that regulate the storage and sharing of personal data information. These laws are a product
of Europe’s historical experience with fascism and thus its sensitivity to the abuse of such
information as travel records or communications (Bensahel, 48). In “The Counterterror Coalitions: Europe,
NATO, and the European Union” Nora Bensahel explains “by contrast, the United States protects personal
information through legal precedents and procedures rather than [unified] legislation” which
the Europeans find insufficient (48). The EU’s concerns over the US’s protection of personal
data caused them to withhold information from the US and created a substantial challenge to
their combined counterterrorism efforts. Following 9/11 the heightened political will to overcome such issues
enabled the US and the EU to compromise on this issue but there are lingering limits to EU willingness to
share personal data with the US. In the wake of the attacks, the US and Europol signed an agreement to permit the
sharing of personal data. Although it increased operational effectiveness and intelligence sharing this agreement is limited to law
enforcement operations which excludes personal data found in commercial activities. Furthermore, provisions
in the
agreement state that “personal information can be used only for the specific investigation for
which it was requested” (Bensahel, 48). If the suspect is being investigated for murder and is discovered to have ties to a
smuggling ring the US must submit a separate request to use the murder information in the case regarding the smuggling activities.
2. Extraordinary Rendition
McGill and Gray 12 (Anna-Katherine Staser and David H, Summer, School of Graduate and Continuing Studies in Diplomacy
and Campbell University, “Challenges to International Counterterrorism Intelligence Sharing,”
http://globalsecuritystudies.com/McGill%20Intel%20Share.pdf)//RTF
The US and the EU have also had substantial disagreements on the treatment and punishment
of accused terrorists. This tension hinges on such issues as the use of the death penalty and
“extraordinary rendition”. Fortunately, the death penalty issue was resolved with the passage of an multilateral treaty on
extradition however the US has not fully recovered from the backlash of criticism and mistrust from
its practice of “extraordinary rendition”. Prior to a May 2002 summit, the US and EU were at a disagreement over
the death penalty. The EU’s aversion to capital punishment led it to not only hesitate from sharing information but deny requests for
extradition unless the US would guarantee that the individual in question would not face the death penalty. The 2002 summit did
however bring both the US and EU to at least agree in principle to a treaty on extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT)
and both parties ratified the treaties in 2003. The extradition treaty allowed for a blanket policy for European nations to “grant
extradition on the condition that the death penalty will not be imposed” and the MLAT provided enhanced capability to gather and
exchange information (Bensahel 49). The
CIA’s use of “extraordinary rendition”, the practice of
transporting a suspect to a third country for interrogation, has also stoked the ire of many
traditional allies. Critics charge that this tactic quite simply allows the CIA to sidestep
international laws and obligations by conducting interrogations in nations with poor human25
rights records. In 2003, an Italian magistrate formally indicted 13 CIA agents for allegedly kidnapping an Italian resident and
transporting him to a third country for interrogation. Ultimately 22 CIA agents and one US military officer were convicted in absentia
of crimes connected to the abduction (Stewart, 1). The
case not only heightened criticism of the US in Italy
but challenged U.S. strategic communications aimed at reducing anti-Americanism worldwide
(Reveron 462). According to Julianne Smith, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), “[extraordinary
rendition] makes it extremely difficult [for European governments] to
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S.” (Heller 1). In 2002 Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage testified
that increased counterterrorism collection and sharing “results not just from collective revulsion at the nature of the attacks, but
also the common recognition that such groups present a risk to any nation with an investment in the rule of law” (qtd in Reveron,
455). Indeed, increased political will on both ends has greatly improved intelligence sharing between the US and its allies. Yet, as
demonstrated in the previous section, bonding over the catastrophic events of 9/11 cannot settle all disputes even with the closest
of friends. It is even more difficult as commonalities and shared interests are limited at best, as is the case with many of the US’s
new allies. As will be discussed in the following section, extraordinary rendition is just one of the ways the US is currently challenged
by its relationships with new allies.
3. Anti-Americanism
McGill and Gray 12 (Anna-Katherine Staser and David H, Summer, School of Graduate and Continuing Studies in
Diplomacy and Campbell University, “Challenges to International Counterterrorism Intelligence Sharing,”
http://globalsecuritystudies.com/McGill%20Intel%20Share.pdf)//RTF
Non-traditional relationships with Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been
critical to the crackdown on terrorism financing and the ongoing operations against terrorists
and insurgents in both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Yet the domestic
populations of these nations put strains on cooperation with the US. In Saudi Arabia, the ultra
conservative Wahhabi culture prevented the Saudi royal family from taking decisive action
against terrorism facilitation within its boundaries years after it openly agreed to multilateral
anti-terrorism treaties. Though it would stand to reason that the Saudi royals had a vested interest in undermining groups
like al Qaeda who considered Saudi Arabia to be an apostate regime and therefore a target, it could not risk inciting
public outrage by cracking down on donations to these groups. The intermingling of naïve benevolence
toward seemingly legitimate charities, those hiding behind the veil of religious duty, and sympathy for al Qaeda’s cause against the
West made enforcement of counterterrorism measures in Saudi Arabia highly unlikely. It wasn’t until the 2003-2004 Riyadh terrorist
attacks did the Saudis jump into action. Since then they have been an extremely helpful ally for the US and yet domestic support for
Islamic extremists remain and will continue to cause strains for US-Saudi CT cooperation in the future. The US-Saudi relationship was
able to weather the storm of domestic anti-Americanism in large part to the long history of their alliance. Though traditional by no
means this arrangement hinged on the trade of oil for security and the US dependence on Saudi oil prevented it from abandoning its
relationship despite the feet dragging on CT issues. Had the Saudis not made an about face following the Riyadh attacks, it is
questionable if this relationship would have survived. The
US’s relationship with Pakistan, however, does not
enjoy the same benefits of a long-nurtured and ingrained alliance. Over the past half-century the
relationship has been marked with highs and lows and though the US is heavily reliant on
Pakistan for CT operations in Central Asia now, recent developments threaten to dismantle their alliance.
Pakistan is home to many Islamic radicals and militants including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, responsible for the
attempted Time Square bombing, and Lashkar-e Toiba, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. These extremist groups,
Lashkar-e Toiba in particular, enjoy a considerable amount of influence amongst the populace
and antiAmericanism is a cornerstone of the message it wishes to impart on the Pakistani
people. The recent crisis over the arrest Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor accused of killing two Pakistani men in Lahore,
highlights this tension and threatens Pakistani support of the war on terrorism as well as its own domestic stability. Upon the arrest
of Davis, the US demanded his release on the grounds of diplomatic immunity. The location of the shooting, the city of Lahore in the
Punjab region of Pakistan happens to be a hotbed of anti-American sentiment and a stronghold of many Pakistan based militant
groups. Despite American pressure, and possibly pressure from the government of Pakistan, the Lahore courts have denied Davis’s
diplomatic immunity. For the past month multiple demonstrations organized by extremists groups like Lashkar-e Toiba and Jammati-Islami have called for the execution of Davis and accused the Pakistani government of being “Washington’s agents” (Hindustan
Times). Demonstrators were also seen carrying signs with messages like “Friends of America are traitors” (Arnoldy 1). As a result of
the public outcry against US demands for Davis’s release the Government of Pakistan has officially stated that it will not make a
26
determination on Davis’s diplomatic immunity until March 14th. The US, in response, cancelled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
meeting with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and a trilateral meeting with Afghanistan and Pakistan officials in Washington (Crilly 1;
Arnoldy 1). Adding to the political pressure against the Government of Pakistan, President Obama himself spoke out on the matter
shortly after the crisis began to urge the Pakistanis to release Davis on the conditions of diplomatic immunity and to emphasize that
the case was a priority for the US government (Tapper & Farren 1). He further emphasized the importance of this matter by stating
that the arrest and detention of foreign diplomats is a violation of the Vienna Convention and sets a dangerous precedent. If the
Pakistanis chose to detain Davis they risk losing US aid and if Pakistan’s anti-American sentiments are further incited, and possibly
exploited by Pakistani extremist groups, the US may lose a key ally in its CT and counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and the
FATA.
27
1NC Turns Iran-Saudi
ISIS conflict key to Iran-Saudi bilateral relations—preserves broader stability in
Mideast—specifically resolves proxy wars. Even if that fails, ISIS doesn’t
collapse Iran.
Daily Star 14 Lebanese paper of record, 2014-09-06, “ISIS Brings Saudi Arabia and Iran
Closer,” http://www.aina.org/news/20140905213005.htm
Beirut -- The ISIS threat has brought Saudi Arabia and Iran closer together, and convinced the two
rivals of the need to cooperate in order to face an "existential and strategic" menace to their
countries, analysts and experts said. They also emphasized that Saudi-Iranian cooperation is crucial to confront the mounting threat
posed by ISIS. The jihadist group has sent shockwaves across the entire world over the past few months following its significant
military advances in Iraq and Syria, coupled with its brutal practices, namely the execution of its prisoners and the beheading of two
American journalists. A
long-awaited rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran is a key tool to
defuse sectarian tensions and long-simmering conflicts in the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq,
analysts said. "The ISIS threat has brought Iran and Saudi Arabia closer together and convinced them to engage in
diplomacy in order to resolve lingering issues," Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American
University of Beirut, told The Daily Star. "I think Saudi-Iranian cooperation is very important in the battle to defeat
ISIS. In order for them to successfully eliminate the ISIS threat, they need to agree on lingering regional issues,
such as the situation in Yemen, Iraq and Syria," he said. "For Saudi Arabia, ISIS poses an existential threat, while
ISIS poses a strategic threat for Iran in the region," Khashan added. " ISIS can have an appeal to a segment of the Saudi
population, but it does not have such an appeal within the Iranian population." Sami Nader, a professor of economics
and international relations at the Universite St. Joseph, echoed a similar view. "A Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is fundamental to
confront the Daesh threat in the region," Nader told The Daily Star, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. "For Saudi Arabia, ISIS poses
an existential threat, while the militant group poses a strategic threat for Iran." "Both countries have
shown a great
deal of pragmatism in the attempt to cooperate to face the Daesh threat," said Nader, also the director of the Levant
Institute for Strategic Affairs (LISA), a Beirut-based think-tank. " A Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is a master key
to defuse conflicts in the region , namely in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain." Nader said that strained SaudiIranian ties were going through "detente" that could lead to the beginning of a rapprochement. "For now, [the] détente is based
on a single subject, which is a common threat posed by ISIS.
Both countries are facing the Daesh threat . This is why
confrontation by their proxies in the region has calmed down ," he said. Signs of a thaw in
strained Saudi-Iranian relations emerged last month when Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein
Amir Abdollahian held an ice-breaking meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal in the Saudi
city Jeddah. Abdollahian described the talks, which also covered the ISIS threat, as "positive and constructive." "Both
sides emphasized the need to open a new page of political relations between the two countries," he said
the
after meeting Prince Saud. Abdollahian is expected to visit Beirut next week as part of a tour that will also take him to Syria to brief
officials in both countries on the new climate of understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a political source told The Daily Star.
Prince Saud has said he had invited his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to visit Saudi Arabia and was awaiting a reply. He
said Iran is a neighboring country which can contribute to stability in the region. Zarif said he was ready to visit Saudi Arabia and
welcome Prince Saud in Tehran. Speaking at a news conference in Tehran Aug. 31, Zarif, commenting on Abdollahian's talks in
Jeddah, said: " Iran is always eager to establish good relations with neighboring states and Saudi Arabia is the most important of
these states. It is an important country at the Islamic world level and enjoys a wide role and influence." He said Iran and Saudi Arabia
have "common interests and are facing common threats. "Extremism, violence and terrorism are the most important dangers facing
the Islamic world," he added. Since he was elected as Iran's president last year, Hassan Rouhani
has said he would
make it a top priority to mend frayed relations with Saudi Arabia. The imminent détente between Riyadh and
Tehran comes as U.S. President Barack Obama, with his NATO allies, is struggling to establish an international coalition to confront
the ISIS threat. The United States said Friday that it was forming a "core coalition" to battle ISIS militants in Iraq. Obama sought to
use a NATO summit in Wales to enlist allied support in fighting the Islamist militants, but it is unclear how many nations might join
28
the United States in the battle. A
Saudi-Iranian rapprochement would have ramifications across the
Middle East, potentially cooling political and military struggles in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain
and Yemen. Saudi Arabia has long been suspicious of Iran's influence in the region. Riyadh and other Gulf states have also been
apprehensive of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Saudi-Iranian relations have been further strained by policy differences, particularly
over the war in Syria, where the two countries support opposing sides. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors back rebels fighting to
topple President Bashar Assad's government, which is supported by Tehran. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran also support opposing
sides. While Saudi Arabia backs the Future Movement-led March 14 coalition, Iran supports the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance.
Speaker Nabih Berri and rival Lebanese politicians have said that improved Iranian-Saudi relations would result in breakthroughs in
Lebanon and the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Berri expressed hope that renewal
of talks between Saudi Arabia and
Iran would ward off terrorism threats facing the region. "I am counting on the Saudi-Iranian meeting to fight
off the danger facing the region," Berri was quoted as saying by lawmakers last week. Shafik Masri, a professor of international law
at the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut, agreed that a Saudi-Iranian détente is pivotal to confronting the
rapprochement has not materialized yet . But there are intentions driven
by an understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran," Masri told The Daily Star. " The Saudi-Iranian
ISIS threat. "A Saudi-Iranian
understanding is seeking to address
the region's problems, beginning with the
ISIS threat."
29
1NC Russia Relations
ISIS threat isn’t existential—but protracted fight rebuilds US-Russia relations—
overwhelms Ukraine
Naumkin and Kramer 14 Mark Kramer, Professor, Director of the Cold War Studies Program
at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Vitaly Naumkin, director of the
Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), editor-in-chief of Vostok
(ORIENS) journal, member of the Science Council at the Russian Foreign Ministry and the
Russian Security Council, “Will the ISIS threat help to reset US-Russia anti-terrorism
cooperation?” Aug 19, 2014, http://www.russia-direct.org/debates/will-isis-threat-help-resetus-russia-anti-terrorism-cooperation
The new round of limited airstrikes carried out by the U.S. against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) indicates that U.S.
President Barack Obama is very concerned about the increasingly unstable situation in northern Iraq. Likewise, UK Prime Minister
David Cameron makes no bones about his readiness and resolve to provide diplomatic and military aid to help prevent ISIS – which
he called a "monstrous organization" - from expanding further. Even though both Obama and Cameron are
hesitant about
may use “all the assets we have – our diplomacy,
our political relationships, our aid, the military prowess and expertise we have to help others ,”
as Cameron told BBC1's Breakfast program on Monday. Likewise, Russia is still trying to figure out what to do
about the potential threat that ISIS and religious radicalism pose for the region. On July 22, Russia’s
putting boots on the ground and sending their troops, they
Foreign Ministry expressed concerns about ISIS persecuting and oppressing representatives of religious minorities, including
Christians, forcing them to flee the country. It regarded “such aggressive and systematic actions” as “absolutely unacceptable and
criminal.” ISIS has become a sort of bogeyman for a reason. Its religious fanaticism, severe discipline and brutality can overshadow
even Al-Qaeda’s. Its military advance and expanding turf in Iraq is become more obvious, even though its
ambitions to
establish a caliphate throughout the Middle East and Europe looks like an exaggeration and a surreal
fantasy. In July, Russia’s Foreign Ministry called all the world’s stakeholders to do “their utmost”
to prevent the ethnic and religious hatred that may have very grave implications for the world. Yet this call seems
to be futile. On one hand, there is the increasing confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine and lingering distrust
toward the Kremlin, and on the other hand, skepticism about the true scale of the ISIS threat. Indeed, naysayers would posit that the
ISIS threat is highly exaggerated. Does ISIS really pose a threat to Russia and the U.S.? Can this Islamic organization
really succeeded in expanding its influence globally? Should the world really take seriously the declarations from ISIS about their
geopolitical ambitions and a global caliphate? “ISIS
is surely a major problem for Iraq, and its tactics and strategy are
that
doesn't mean it is a serious threat to the American homeland.” Yet some experts admit that despite the looming
abhorrent, such as its use of crucifixions and its genocidal attacks on the small Yazidi minority,” reads CNN’s website. “But
threat from ISIS, so far it is not included in Russia’s international agenda. Jack Goldstone, political expert and professor at George
Mason University, argues that Russia might not be interested in dealing with ISIS as much as NATO and the Persian Gulf countries
are. “While ISIS is both a threat to Russian interests and to Russian clients (Bashar Assad in Syria), Ukraine is far more important to
Russia,” he said. “So I do not expect Russia to change its behavior. It will focus on Ukraine first, and the Middle East second." Most
importantly, the sanctions war between Russia and the West triggered by the Ukrainian crisis might put at stake Russian-American
counter-terrorism cooperation. “Putting Russian security chiefs on the EU sanctions list formalizes the end of anti-terrorist
cooperation between Russia and the West,” wrote Carnegie Moscow Center’s Dmitri Trenin in his Facebook post on July 22.
the looming threat of ISIS and international terrorism for Russia, the U.S., and
Europe seems like it has the potential to bring them closer together and forget about (or at
Nevertheless,
least ignore) their differences over Ukraine . Although such a scenario is unlikely (at least while ISIS doesn’t
pose a more serious existential threat for all stakeholders), the question of how to minimize Russia-West
confrontation over Ukraine to deal with ISIS together remains open. Russia Direct interviewed experts to find out if ISIS poses a real
threat for Washington and Moscow and if they can overcome their differences over Ukraine and find ways to collaborate despite the
beginnings of a new Cold War? Mark Kramer, Professor, Director of the Cold War Studies Program at Harvard's Davis Center for
Russian and Eurasian Studies Despite severe tensions over Ukraine, the
United States and Russia still have
30
important common interests, which they can pursue cooperatively. In particular, the two
countries have a lot to gain by working together on some counter-terrorism issues, including efforts to
neutralize the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS). Because of glaring blunders committed by the Obama
administration in its dealings with Iraq, the brutal terrorists in the Islamic State were able to gain a foothold and spread their
influence. Obama's weak and indecisive response to the disaster in Syria has further strengthened the Islamic State and other radical
Islamist terrorists who are using Syria as a training ground. Russia has not made as many foolish blunders, but it has not done
enough to try to combat the Islamic State. U.S.-Russian cooperation against the Islamic State might inspire other countries to do
more, including counter-terrorism offensives that would take the fight to ISIS, seeking to destroy it. U.S.-Russian cooperation [in the
region] might prove difficult in some respects – the Russian authorities will want to solidify Bashar al-Assad's regime, whereas the
United States has sought to replace Assad – but these problems are not so severe that they will stymie cooperation altogether.
Cooperation against the Islamic State might have the further important benefit of getting U.S.
and Russian officials to begin to ease the confrontational stance they have taken against each
other. Tensions will persist for a long while to come, but the shrill rhetoric of recent months has been needlessly antagonistic.
Cooperation against radical Islamic terrorists might help to turn things around at least a bit. Vitaly
Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), editor-in-chief of Vostok (ORIENS)
journal, member of the Science Council at the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Security Council No doubt, putting Russian
security chiefs on the EU sanctions list further complicates Russia – West counter-terrorist
cooperation, but
cannot completely destroy it given the size of the threat emanating from terrorism and
religious extremism for both sides . One example: According to Guido Steinberg from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik,
Chechen jihadist fighters in Syria “represent a domestic security problem for Europe and Turkey” because many of them come from
the diaspora – Georgia, Turkey, and “dozens from Austria and France and rather fewer from Belgium, Scandinavia and Germany.”
What will be their agenda when they come back home and who are they going to fight against? Without meaningful cooperation,
we’ll be not able to deter this threat. Another example: ISIS leaders declare that they will be killing Americans everywhere in the
world. Doesn’t the U.S. need cooperation with all partners including Russia to obstruct terrorists from inflicting damage to U.S.
citizens inside and outside the U.S.? Russia, in turn, also needs international support in its struggle against terrorism and extremism.
I do believe that we
can overcome our disagreements over the Ukrainian crisis however serious they are
and at least preserve what is left from the cooperation between Russia and the West in the field of security, which is
becoming more and more indispensable for them in this era of hyper-globalization.
Relations prevent nuclear war—93% of the world’s arsenals
Shukla 5/21/15 Vikas is a reporter and value investor. He has an MBA in finance and a deep
interest in tech, science and politics. “How Russia And The US Can Avert A Nuclear War,”
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/04/russia-us-can-avert-a-nuclear-war/
While Russia and the U.S. agreed in 2010 to reduce their nuclear arsenal to about 1,500 warheads each, the two countries are
aggressively upgrading their nuclear weapons.
The U.S. and Russia together have 93% of the world's
nuclear stockpile. Ukraine crisis has brought down the relations between Moscow and
Washington to historic lows. Russia US Russia and the U.S. still practice Cold War-era nuclear doctrine In a column
published in The The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), the former US Marine Corps General James E. Cartwright and
former Russian Major General Vladimir Dvorkin said that a nuclear war was a serious and real
threat. They believe that rising tensions between the two countries, modern technologies, and Cold War-era nuclear
doctrines all point to the possibility of a nuclear war. Last month, reports surfaced that Russian President Vladimir Putin
had put nuclear warheads on alert during the Crimea crisis last year. Cartwright and Dvorkin say that the
Cold War-era nuclear doctrine is still practiced by the U.S. and Russia. It dictates three strategic
options: first strike, post-attack retaliation and launch on warning . Of them, launch on warning is the riskiest scenario. Under
this strategy, a country fires its nuclear missiles upon detecting the launch of enemy rockets . It relies
on ground radar and early-warning satellites for information about the launch of enemy missiles. Russia and U.S. should eliminate
launch on warning from their strategies Strategic missiles have a flight time of about 15-30 minutes, so the
target country
31
has only a few minutes to decide whether to launch after detection of an apparent attack. Due
to the emergence of cyber-warface, there is a significantly high potential for false alerts from early warning systems. So, there is a
likelihood of error and the opportunities for ill-considered decisions are quite real. Cartwright and Dvorkin said that the presidents of
Russia and the United States should discuss and eliminate the launch on warning option from their nuclear strategies. The two
countries should restart military-to-military talks, which were suspended due to the Ukraine
crisis, "to pursue this stand-down as an urgent priority." A joint decision on this will not affect either country's nuclear deterrence,
they said. Once the Russia-U.S. relations are restored, they can explore detailed verification
measures .
32
1NC Assad Tradeoff
Eliminating ISIS causes Assad fill-in—reestablishes his power
CNN 9/24/14 “Obama's Syria dilemma: Does hurting ISIS help al-Assad?”
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/24/world/meast/syria-isis-airstrikes-assad/index.html
The United States has inflicted damage on one enemy in Syria with the airstrikes it launched against ISIS. But it may also
be helping another foe: the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Rewind a year, and it was al-Assad's forces, not Islamic
militants, against which President Barack Obama was weighing military action. Those strikes never happened, due in large part to a
timely diplomatic intervention from Russia. Now, warplanes from the U.S. and Arab nations are pummeling the stronghold of ISIS, a
group that has gained global notoriety for its brutal tactics and ruthless treatment of people who don't follow its extremist version of
Islam. But ISIS, which controls broad areas of northern Syria and Iraq, has
also been racking up military victories
against al-Assad's troops. The Syrian regime may end up as "the real winner" from the
expanded campaign against ISIS , said CNN Political Commentator Peter Beinhart. First tweet of the Syrian airstrikes
First tweet of the Syrian airstrikes 01:08 PLAY VIDEO Who is Khorasan? Who is Khorasan? 03:02 PLAY VIDEO Iraqi PM: Happy Arab
nations joined U.S. Iraqi PM: Happy Arab nations joined U.S. 01:09 PLAY VIDEO The potential benefits to al-Assad from the airstrikes
"may be the most dangerous and morally troubling consequence of President Obama's decision to cross the Syrian border to fight
the Islamic State," The New York Times warned in an editorial Tuesday. To try to prevent that, the Obama administration has to
delicately navigate this minefield. Here are the challenges it faces: 1. Distance itself from al-Assad The White House has been at
pains to stress that the airstrikes took place without any cooperation with al-Assad's government, which has been fighting against
rebel groups for more than three years in a vicious conflict that has killed around 200,000 people. "I want to be very clear ... that we
did not coordinate with them, we did not provide them advance notice of the timing or of targets that the U.S. was going to strike. In
fact, we warned them to not pose a threat to our aircraft," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic
communications said Tuesday. The only contact, he said, was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power telling her
Syrian counterpart that direct action was to be taken. U.S. officials are also playing down the advantages of the airstrikes to the
Syrian regime, although not very convincingly. Map: Airstrikes in Syria EXPAND IMAGE "I wouldn't characterize the effects we had
last night as benefiting Assad," said Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2. Quickly bolster
moderate rebels The big question is that if the airstrikes weaken ISIS' grip on northern Syria, who will step in and take that territory.
In his address Tuesday, Obama
emphasized intensified U.S. efforts to train and equip more moderate Syrian
rebels as "the best counterweight" to both ISIS and al-Assad. But many analysts are skeptical that the rebels
will be in a position to make major inroads anytime soon. Congress only approved Obama's request to arm and
train "appropriately vetted" rebel groups last week. U.S., Arab nations attack ISIS in Syria 13 photos 01 isis airstrikes 092502 isis
airstrikes 092505 isis airstrikes03 isis airstrikes 092507 Syria attack obama 092302 syria attack 092303 syria attack 092305 syria
attack 092304 syria attack 092301 syria attack 092306 syria attack10 syria attack 092311 syria attack 0914 EXPAND GALLERY What
life is like inside ISIS stronghold What life is like inside ISIS stronghold 02:40 PLAY VIDEO What weapons are U.S. using? What
weapons are U.S. using? 01:23 PLAY VIDEO Pentagon: ISIS fight will take years Pentagon: ISIS fight will take years 04:23 PLAY VIDEO
Turning those groups into a force that can take on ISIS' feared fighters and al-Assad's military will take time. But the strikes against
ISIS are happening now. 3. Manage a fragmented opposition Experts say that the rebels fighting for the Western-backed Free Syrian
Army (FSA) lack a unified leadership. "Syria is a fragmented country, and most of these militias have a very town-centric
quality. They're based on clan structures and regional structures," Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at
the University of Oklahoma, said in an interview with WBEZ earlier this month. "None of them have really developed a national
scope, except for the Islamist ones, like al Qaeda and ISIS," he said. The sheer number of different militias across Syria -- estimated in
the hundreds -- runs the risk of turning Syria into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms. "If you just give them money without unifying
them, you're going to get Somalia," said Landis. 4. Juggle unaligned objectives Keeping
the rebels on board with
American military objectives is also fraught with difficulty. The initial reaction from Syrian activists to the
airstrikes Tuesday was a sense of relief that the U.S. had taken action against ISIS, CNN's Arwa Damon reported. But that was before
it emerged that the strikes had also hit members of the al-Nusra Front, a terrorist organization that was nonetheless among the
rebel groups resisting ISIS. That news, along with reports of civilian casualties, soured the mood among the activists, Damon
reported, with apprehension growing on the ground about what intentions of the U.S. and its allies have for Syria. The focus on
defeating ISIS may also be hard to stomach for many rebels. "We have to remember, the FSA wants to destroy Assad, not ISIS,"
Landis said. "They will destroy ISIS if America makes it contingent -- they don't like ISIS. But their goal, from the beginning, has been
to fulfill this revolution. If
their only object is to kill ISIS, many of them feel the revolution will be
dead."
33
Fall of Assad is coming in the squo—that destroys Hezbollah power projection
and influence
Yacoubian 11 “Hezbollah After Assad,” Aug 20, 2014, Mona Yacoubian serves as Deputy
Assistant Administrator for the Middle East Bureau
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2011-12-01/hezbollah-after-assad
Hezbollah faces a moment of reckoning. The increasingly likely demise of Bashar al-Assad’s
regime in Damascus would deprive the militant Lebanese Shia organization of one of its main
patrons and could constrain its ability to play an active role in regional politics. Moreover, by offering
up unbridled support for Syria, Hezbollah has placed itself at odds with the popular revolts that are
unseating autocratic rulers across the Arab world, undermining the narratives of resistance
and justice for the oppressed that it has long espoused. Facing the loss of a key ally and with its credibility
compromised, an off-balance Hezbollah could turn inward, deepening its involvement in Lebanese politics in order to
consolidate its power. Together with Iran, Hezbollah stands to lose the most from the fall of the Syrian regime. Over the years, the
organization and the Assad regime have nurtured strong ties due to their often overlapping interests in Lebanon, a proxy arena for
Western confrontation with Iran and Syria. The relationship deepened following Syria’s 2005 withdrawal from Lebanon, which
forced Damascus to rely more heavily on Hezbollah to extend its influence in the country. Assad
has reportedly supplied
Hezbollah with training and access to sophisticated weapons systems, including long-range
Scud missiles, on Syrian soil. Beyond its bilateral ties to Hezbollah, Damascus has also served as an important conduit for
Iranian arms and played a bridging role between the Persian power and its Lebanese acolytes. Bound together by their shared
hostility toward Israel, these three allies, together with Hamas, have formed a so-called axis of resistance to serve as a
counterweight to more moderate forces in the region. Although Hezbollah’s relationship with Iran would endure without Assad, the
alliance would lose an important center of gravity. Moreover, the instability in Syria has deepened sectarian divisions in Lebanon,
which could further challenge Hezbollah. Lebanon’s Sunnis overwhelmingly support the Syrian opposition and have publicly
demonstrated their outrage at Damascus’ repression; the ruling March 8 bloc, comprising Hezbollah, the Shia party Amal, and their
Christian allies, has sided with Assad. Rival pro- and anti-Syrian rallies regularly occur in Beirut and in the northern city of Tripoli,
where Sunni-Alawi clashes in June left several dead and required the Lebanese army to quell the violence. Although Hezbollah’s
military predominance in Lebanon minimizes the prospects for renewed civil war, a surge in sectarian violence would significantly
undermine its position. Hezbollah’s steadfast support for Assad has already dealt its credibility a severe blow, in Lebanon and across
the region. Its pro-regime declarations stand in marked contrast to the group’s boisterous encouragement of every other popular
uprising during the Arab Spring. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, was once a hero across the Arab world but now
appears increasingly tone deaf as he struggles to defend Damascus against a growing chorus of Arab and Muslim condemnation.
Established media outlets, such as al Jazeera, as well as Arab youth using social media sites, charge Nasrallah with hypocrisy and
double standards. The revolt against Assad has put Iran and Hezbollah on the wrong side of Arab history, and has compromised their
mantle as champions of the oppressed. No matter what happens in Syria, Hezbollah will retain its preeminent military and political
role in Lebanon. But
the likely end of the Assad regime poses an existential dilemma for the
organization, accentuating the divide between its regional objectives of resisting the West and
Israel and its local role in Lebanon as the representative of a once marginalized Shia
community. The organization may need to recalibrate its priorities, choosing either to double down on its military objectives or
evolve into a wholly political force and further develop as a grassroots movement with a vast political and social network. If
Hezbollah goes with the first option, it would likely move quickly to consolidate its control over Lebanon, possibly using military
force. Such a move might be precipitated by emboldened Sunni aggression toward Hezbollah or by other circumstances that
threaten the organization and its weapons. But Hezbollah’s probable triumph in an armed struggle would be a pyrrhic victory,
dramatically undermining its popular credibility in Lebanon and leaving the country highly unstable. Hezbollah
might also
choose to direct its militancy toward Israel. This could come as part of a broader struggle
between Israel and Iran or as a result of escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is not likely to intentionally provoke another war with Israel; both sides have acknowledged that a third Israel-Lebanon
war would be far more brutal, and encompass far more territory, than the one in 2006. But if either Israel or Hezbollah miscalculated
and provoked a conflict, Hezbollah would be at a strategic disadvantage without a Syrian supply line and safe haven. War with Israel
could rejuvenate Hezbollah’s resistance narrative, particularly if Israel used excessive force that produced massive civilian casualties.
But Hezbollah would pay a significant price internally, particularly with its war-weary Shia constituency.
34
AT Hurts Privacy
The program itself is incredibly reasonable and has built in safeguards to
prevent widespread paranoia and civil liberties violations
USDA, 2014, (“USDA Insider Threat Program,” Office of Homeland Security and Emergency
Coordination (OHSEC), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, June 30, 2014,
http://www.ocio.usda.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2012/DR%204600003%20Insider%20Threat.htm)//erg
The purpose of this directive is to set forth the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) roles and
responsibilities for an Insider Threat Program, as directed by Executive Order (EO) 13587 dated
October 7, 2011, titled, Structural Reforms to Improve the Security of Classified Networks and Responsible Sharing and Safeguarding
of Classified Information and the National Insider Threat Policy and the Minimum Standards issued in November 2012. 2.
BACKGROUND The Secretary of Agriculture, under EO 13587, is mandated
to develop and implement an Insider
Threat Program with the primary mission to prevent, deter and detect compromises of
classified information by malicious insiders. Although EO 13587 applies only to the safeguarding
and sharing of classified national security information , the National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF)
recognizes that an agency may possess information that it considers sensitive but that is not classified. As stated in the NITTF’s Guide
to Accompany the National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards, issued in November 2013, the policies and standards
under EO 13587 can be applied generally to protect the sensitive but unclassified environment. The National Insider Threat Policy
and Minimum Standards require that the USDA addresses key components to be implemented: a. Establish
a program for
deterring, detecting, and mitigating insider threat;, security, information assurance, and other
relevant functions and resources to identify and counter the insider threat; b. Establish an
integrated capability to monitor and audit information for insider threat detection and
mitigation. Critical program requirements include but are not limited to: (1) monitoring user activity on classified
computer networks controlled by the Federal Government; (2) evaluation of personnel security
information; (3) employee awareness training of the insider threat and employees' reporting
responsibilities; and (4) gathering information for a centralized analysis, reporting, and
response capability. c. Develop and implement sharing policies and procedures whereby the organization's insider threat
program accesses, shares, and integrates information and data derived from offices across the organization, including security,
information assurance, and human resources offices. d. Designate a senior official(s) with authority to provide management,
accountability, and oversight of the organization's insider threat program and make resource recommendations to the appropriate
agency official. e.
Consult with records management, legal counsel, and civil liberties and privacy officials
to ensure any legal, privacy, civil rights , or civil liberties issues (including use of personally identifiable information)
are appropriately addressed. f. Promulgate additional department and agency guidance, if needed, to reflect unique mission
requirements, but not inhibit meeting the minimum standards issued by the NITTF pursuant to this policy. g. Perform selfassessments of compliance with insider threat policies and standards; the results of which shall be reported to the Senior
Information Sharing and Safeguarding Steering Committee (hereinafter Steering Committee). h. Enable independent assessments, in
accordance with Section 2.1 (d) of Executive Order 13587, of compliance with established insider threat policy and standards by
providing information and access to personnel of the NITTF.
They exaggerate—the program itself protects liberties
FAS No Date, (“National Insider Threat Policy,”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/obama/insider.pdf)//erg
35
Executive Order 13587 directs United States Government executive branch departments and
agencies (departments and agencies) to establish, implement, monitor, and report on the
effectiveness of insider threat programs to protect classified national security information (as
defined in Executive Order 13526; hereinafter classified information), and requires the development ofan executive branch program
for the deterrence, detection, and mitigation of insider threats, including the safeguarding o f classified information from
exploitation, compromise, or other unauthorized disclosure. Executive Order 12968 promulgates classified information access
eligibility policy and establishes a uniform Federal personnel security program for employees considered for initial or continued
access to classified information. Consistent with Executive Orders 13587 and 12968, this policy is applicable to all executive branch
departments and agencies with access to classified information, or that operate or access classified computer networks; all
employees with access to classified information, including classified computer networks (and
including contractors and others who access classified information, or operate or access classified computer networks controlled by
the federal government); and all classified information on those networks. This policy
leverages existing federal
laws, statutes, authorities, policies, programs, systems, architectures and resources in order to
counter the threat of those insiders who may use their authorized access to compromise
classified information. Insider threat programs shall employ risk management principles, tailored to meet
the distinct needs, mission, and systems of individual agencies, and shall include appropriate
protections for privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.
The Insider Threat Program has checks built into it to balance b/w preserving
civil liberties and national security—protects whistleblowers, privacy and rights
NCSC, ’14, (“National Insider Threat Task Force Mission Fact Sheet,” NCSC, Aug 15, 2014,
http://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Task_Force_Fact_Sheet.pdf)//erg
Is this insider threat emphasis going to infringe on anyone’s civil rights? Insider
threat programs are developed and
operated in coordination with an agency’s records management office, legal counsel, and civil liberties and
privacy officials to build in protections against infringing upon employees’ civil liberties/civil
rights, privacy or whistleblower protections. Departments and agencies are required to
provide training in these areas to program personnel, as well as the general workforce.
Department and agency heads also have a responsibility to ensure these protections are maintained through oversight of their
insider threat programs. Insider
threat programs target anomalous activities, not individuals.
Additionally, government employees who handle classified information understand that, to hold a security clearance,
they accept additional oversight of their workplace activities. Employees sign authorizations
for the conduct of investigations to obtain and retain security clearances and there are warning banners on computers
and in certain areas of facilities that alert people that they have less expectation of privacy.
What harm can someone do to our government based on the unauthorized release of classified information? When classified
information is divulged in an unauthorized manner outside the confines of the U.S. Government (USG) national security structure,
that information can create situations that are harmful to U.S. interests and, in some cases,
could be life-threatening . Classified information in the wrong hands can provide a unique and potentially
dangerous advantage to those states and non-state actors whose interests are opposed to
those of the United States. For example, the unauthorized release of classified information could: provide details
about weapons systems we rely on to defend our country; expose our overseas intelligence
operations and personnel; and identify critical vulnerabilities in the U.S. national
infrastructure which, if exploited, could damage internal U.S. defense, transportation, health,
financial, and/or communications capabilities.
36
The Insider Threat programs protects employees’ best interests
NCSC, ’14, (“National Insider Threat Task Force Mission Fact Sheet,” NCSC, Aug 15, 2014,
http://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Task_Force_Fact_Sheet.pdf)//erg
Do all insider threats involve malicious individuals? It
is critically important to recognize that an individual
may have no malicious intent, but is in need of help. We have invested a tremendous amount in our national
security workforce and it is in everyone’s best interests to help someone who may wrongly feel he
or she has no other option than to commit an egregious act – such as espionage,
unauthorized disclosure, suicide, workplace violence, or sabotage. Intervention prior to the
act can save an employee’s career, save lives and protect national security information. There are
also unwitting insiders who can be exploited by others. Our adversaries have become increasingly
sophisticated in targeting U.S. interests, and an individual may be deceived into advancing our
adversaries’ objectives without knowingly doing so. Is every agency required to implement the new minimum
standards? Yes, taken together, the E.O. and the national policy mandate that every executive branch agency with access to
there is a
recognition of differing levels of risk—and, therefore, differing levels of protection required —
classified information establish an insider threat program in line withstandardsandguidancefromtheNITTF. However,
based on such things as size of cleared population, extent of access to classified computer systems, and amount of classified
information maintained by the D/A. The national insider threat policy directs heads of D/As to
developtheirprogramsusingriskmanagementprinciples. TheNITTFisworkingwithD/As,as well as the Classified Information Sharing and
Safeguarding Office in the office of the Program Manager--Information Sharing Executive, to assess the extent of applicability of the
minimum standards to each of the 70+ executive branch D/As with access to classified information based on associated risk.
Observation and behavioral analysis don’t produce modern day Salem
Winkler and Manke, ’14, (Ira, Irari Report, Secure Mentem, Internet Security Advisors
Group and Samantha, Executive Vice President of Secure Mentem,” How to create awareness of
the insider threat,” CSO, Apr 15, 2014, http://www.csoonline.com/article/2142603/securityleadership/how-to-create-awareness-of-the-insider-threat.html)//erg
You must however avoid manifesting a modern day Salem. The focus of your guidance should be telling
employees to look for behaviors that are clear violations of policies and procedures. Examples
include observing people looking through other people’s desks, asking for passwords, being in
areas that they do not belong, and attempting to access other people’s computer accounts.
There are also financial and other wrongdoings related to job roles and industry sector. A more delicate, but just as important,
aspect of awareness is for people to be comfortable reporting uncomfortable feelings. This is admittedly vague, but uncomfortable
feelings have resulted in catching malicious insiders in a variety of incidents. In one case we are personally familiar with, an
employee felt uncomfortable that one of her coworkers was speaking Chinese a lot on the
telephone at work, and they did not work with any Chinese people. The woman reported the
incident and an FBI investigation uncovered that the employee in question was funneling
information to Chinese intelligence operatives. Everyone violates policies and procedures at some point in time,
without malicious intent. However, people need to know that some of the most harmful incidents were stopped
because of observant employees. Again though, the focus is on reporting of incidents, and not of the individuals
committing the violations. This is important for a wide variety of reasons. The action that employees need to take is to simply report
the questionable incidents to Human Resources, their management or the security team. However, you
need to remember
to allow for anonymous reporting and have strong measures in place to protect the identity of
the employee reporting the incident. Reporting another employee can clearly result in negative consequences for all
37
involved. The anonymity is critical even if it potentially means that it is impossible to gather criminal evidence. The
goal is to
detect incidents and stop the loss. Most organizations should already have an established incident reporting structure.
Those that do not should consult with the legal and human resources departments to create one. Clearly, when trying to motivate
employees to inform the organization about the violations of other employees, you should get the Human Resources and Legal
departments involved in at least approving the awareness materials that are distributed. They very likely will be able to provide
guidance on how to best implement other aspects of the program as well. [Insider threats and how they can be mitigated]
Snowden's activities triggered an interest in organizations to examine what technological controls that they can put in place to stop
their own Snowden. Yet much like NSA realized that Snowden’s
coworkers should have detected his crimes,
all organizations must proactively strengthen their non-technical security measures, including
especially awareness. Snowden’s coworkers should have been able to more effectively detect his actions than any technical
countermeasure could have. Therefore, companies that are truly interested in preventing the insider
threat should focus on making their employees the primary detectors of insider abuse . The
insider threat is too important a subject to shy away from, no matter how sensitive the implications may be. Unfortunately,
history has shown us that the risk is too great.
Agencies are focusing on collecting electronic data—no “workplace”
impact/overwhelmed filers
Davenport, ’14, (Christian, has served as an editor on the Metro desk and as a reporter
covering military affairs, Post author, “Federal agencies embrace new technology and strategies
to find the enemy within,” Washington Post, March 7, 2014,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/federal-agencies-embrace-newtechnology-and-strategies-to-find-the-enemy-within/2014/03/07/22ce335e-9d87-11e3-9ba6800d1192d08b_story.html)//erg
After years of focusing on outside threats,
the federal government and its contractors are turning inward,
aiming a range of new technologies and counterintelligence strategies at their own employees
to root out spies, terrorists or leakers. Agencies are now monitoring their computer networks
with unprecedented scrutiny, in some cases down to the keystroke, and tracking employee behavior for
signs of deviation from routine. At the Pentagon, new rules are being written requiring contractors to institute
programs against “insider threats,” a remarkable cultural change in which even workers with the highest security clearances face
increased surveillance. The “if you see something, say something” mind-set of the post-9/11 world has fully arrived in the workplace,
with new urgency following high-profile leaks such as the revelations of former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden. “People’s sensitivity to this has changed substantially,” said Lynn Dugle, president of a Raytheon business unit that
markets an insider threat detection system called SureView. “I can tell you five years ago, when we were talking to agencies or
companies about insider threat, we would normally be talking to (chief information officers) who were under budget stress. . . . And
that was a very tough sell. Now we see boards of directors and CEOs really understanding what the threat can mean to them, and
the risk it poses to them.” In
response to the breach by former Army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley
Manning, President Obama in 2011 issued an executive order that established a National
Insider Threat Task Force and required all federal agencies that handle classified material to institute programs designed
to seek out saboteurs and spies. While corporate security has long been part of Beltway culture, the heightened focus and the
emergence of new monitoring technology touched off a burgeoning industry. In addition to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin has
developed an insider-threat detection service, as have several start-ups in the Washington area. Even Booz Allen Hamilton, which
faced national embarrassment when Snowden, one of its employees, walked off with some of the country’s most guarded secrets,
counsels its clients on how to detect rogue employees. A recent job posting said the company was looking for an “insider threat
analyst,” which required a security clearance and more than five years of experience in counterintelligence. The posting spread on
the Web and sparked ridicule over the notion that the company that employed Snowden was now looking to help turn the historic
breach into a profitable lesson learned. Raytheon’s SureView program allows agencies to create all sorts of internal alerts indicating
when something may be amiss. A company could, for example, program the software to detect whenever a file containing the words
“top secret” or “proprietary” is downloaded, e-mailed or moved from one location on the system to another. Once
that wire
is tripped, an alert almost immediately pops up on a security analyst’s monitor, along with a
38
digital recording of the employee’s screen. All the employee’s actions — the cursor scrolling over to open the
secure file, the file being copied and renamed — can be watched and replayed, even in slow motion. It’s the cyber equivalent of the
security camera that records robbers sticking up a convenience store. Lockheed Martin provides a service called Wisdom, which acts
as “your eyes and ears on the Web,” according to a company official. At its broadest use, the
service can monitor
mountains of data on the Web — Facebook, Twitter, news sites or blogs — to help predict everything from a
foreign coup or riot to political elections. But it can also be turned inward, at employees’ online habits, to
predict who within the organization might go rogue. Counterintelligence officials use Wisdom to
“evaluate employee behavior patterns, flagging individuals who exhibit high risk
characteristics,” the company says in a brochure. “I like to think of it as a digital intuition that is being
developed,” said Jason O’Connor, Lockheed’s vice president for analysis and mission solutions. A trade-off for companies The
market is much broader than the defense and intelligence industries. It extends to hospitals, which need to protect patients’
information; retailers, which hold customers’ credit card numbers; and financial institutions. Some worry that the programs are an
overreaction to a relatively rare threat that will do more to hinder the free flow of information than to deter crime, while creating
repressive working environments. Despite the soon-to-come federal mandate, many defense contractors have “already
implemented fairly imposing controls to minimize the unauthorized use of data,” said Loren Thompson, a defense industry
consultant who has worked with Lockheed Martin and other contractors. But he warned that this “clearly is a trade-off in which
values like efficiency and collaboration will be sacrificed in order to reduce the likelihood of internal wrongdoers from succeeding.”
After Sept. 11, many agencies were criticized for not sharing sensitive information that could
have prevented the attacks, so steps were taken to consolidate data within the government.
Thompson fears the current climate of worry about Snowden-like leaks could lead to a return to the old habits, with key information
once again compartmentalized. “Insider threats are a real problem, but mandating a particular standard for all contractors will cost
huge amounts of money and quite possibly result in the wrong steps being taken,” he said. In addition to the cases that have made
headlines worldwide, there are an untold number of incidents in the broader corporate world where insiders wreak havoc — from
the systems administrator at what was then UBS Paine Webber who planted a “logic bomb” on the company’s network, to the
Chinese national who was convicted of stealing trade secrets from Ford Motor Co.
Tech systems protect against privacy violations while monitoring sensitive
databases
Davenport, ’14, (Christian, has served as an editor on the Metro desk and as a reporter
covering military affairs, Post author, “Federal agencies embrace new technology and strategies
to find the enemy within,” Washington Post, March 7, 2014,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/federal-agencies-embrace-newtechnology-and-strategies-to-find-the-enemy-within/2014/03/07/22ce335e-9d87-11e3-9ba6800d1192d08b_story.html)//erg
‘Looking at the patterns’ Chris Kauffman, the founder and chief executive of Personam, a McLean company that focuses entirely on
insider threats, said
programs can “assess insider threatening behaviors without breaching the
employee’s privacy.” “There’s always the concern of the Orwellian overseers watching
everything we’re doing. But we’re very sensitive to that,” he said. “We evaluate the activities and
the transactions over the networks. Which Web sites they go to, which file servers they go to. But what we don’t do is
absorb the content of that data. We don’t read e-mails or chats or texts. Or even the content of the Web sites they
go to. We’re looking at the patterns they use.” MITRE, a not-for-profit research and development company, did a study
in 2009 where it asked some of its own employees to try to access sensitive information on its own network. In addition to assessing
the network’s strength, the company wanted to “study evasiveness,” said Deanna Caputo, MITRE’s principal behavioral psychologist.
“We wanted to see what good guys gone bad would look like.” Working under a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects
39
Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm, Georgia Tech computer scientists have worked to develop software that can detect a rogue
employee even before he or she has broken bad. “When a soldier in good mental health becomes homicidal or a government
employee abuses access privileges to share classified information, we often wonder why no one saw it coming,” said a Georgia Tech
news release. All this corporate scrutiny doesn’t necessarily bother groups that advocate for privacy protections. When it comes to
using a government or corporate network, employees often do not have expectations of privacy, especially if they are dealing with
classified information, said Ginger McCall, an associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “ I
think there is
an important distinction between monitoring a person’s personal e-mails and monitoring
access to sensitive databases ,” she said. And since so much information about ordinary Americans
is contained on government and corporate databases, there are benefits to making sure they
are protected and under constant surveillance. “We would want to know if someone at the FBI
is accessing a database on a person when they shouldn’t be,” she said. Michael Crouse, Raytheon’s director
of insider threat strategies, said such programs help agencies “trust but verify.” “We trust our privileged users,” he said. “But what
we’re seeing is that you can verify that they are doing the work that is assigned to their role.” It’s sort of like a big factory, he said,
“where the foreman is looking down on the factory floor making sure everyone is doing their job.”
40
Groupthink Advantage
41
1NC — Groupthink Advantage
No nuclear war
Shukla 15 - Vikas is a reporter and value investor. He has an MBA in finance and a deep
interest in tech, science and politics (Vikas, “Russia-US Tension Over Ukraine Won’t Lead To
Nuclear War”, valuewalk.com, May 15, 2015, http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/05/russia-ustension-nuclear-war/) JC
In February, Russia was rated among the most unfavorable countries by Americans in a Gallup
poll. Tensions between the U.S. and Russia have escalated over the Ukraine crisis. The United
States as accused Russia of backing separatists in eastern Ukraine. But there is no threat of a
nuclear war between Moscow and Washington, says a senior U.S. State Department official.
In an interview with Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, Rose Gottemoeller, the Under Secretary
of State for Arms Control and International Security for the US State Department, said that the
White House did not believe the Ukrainian conflict would trigger a nuclear crisis. Though the
two countries have different opinions regarding the Ukraine crisis, neither Russia nor the U.S.
desire to use nuclear weapons to back up their arguments.
Gottemoeller told the Russian newspaper that the two countries have a "stable relationship"
on nuclear issues. The State Department official added that the two countries have taken a
series of steps over the past few decades to reduce their nuclear arsenal. Gottemoeller's
statement comes as many other security experts have proclaimed that Russia and the U.S. are
heading towards a nuclear war.
Obama resists groupthink
Hughes 14 [Brian Hughes, “Obama warns against 'groupthink' in government,” Washington
Examiner, 9/24/14 6:26 PM, pg. http://tinyurl.com/oq3q6mm
President Obama at a government transparency meeting at the United Nations General
Assembly Wednesday advised fellow world leaders to heed the criticisms of their citizens to
avoid “groupthink” in government.
“All governments think they’re doing what’s right and don’t like criticism,” Obama said at the
Open Government Partnership Event in New York City. “It’s shocking to say that all not criticism
from civil society is always fair. But, as leaders, making our governments more open does mean
that as a consequence of that criticism, there’s self-reflection. It means that questions were
asked that might not have otherwise been answered, and that groupthink doesn’t develop
inside a government.”
Turn: Political resolve key to deterring Russia
Stephens 14 - Columnist on politics, global affairs and economics @ Financial Times [Philip
Stephens, “Europe needs a cold war lesson in deterrence,” Financial Times, July 24, 2014 5:51
pm, pg. http://tinyurl.com/nr69amw
There is nothing to be gained from another cold war, even if it is evident that Vladimir Putin
wants to tear up the post-communist settlement in Europe. There are, however, lessons to be
42
rescued from the decades-long confrontation with the Soviet Union. One of them is about
deterrence. Politicians sedated by hopes of a world organised around international
collaboration will have to wake up again to the dynamics of great power rivalry.
Francis Fukuyama was half right in declaring the end of history. Capitalism reigns supreme, but
rising states such as China and declining ones such as Russia have found a new political model.
Authoritarian capitalism, as the Harvard scholar Michael Ignatieff called it in this summer’s
Ditchley Foundation annual lecture, presents them with an alternative to liberal democracy. As
for a rules-based global system, these states prefer to dine à la carte. They take what they like
and reject what is inconvenient.
Europeans have been slow to recognise the world as it is rather than as they imagined. The
reaction to Russia’s march into Ukraine has made this painfully obvious. The reflex has been to
seek to defuse the crisis. On one level this is admirable – war did not solve much in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The snag is that ceding ground to Mr Putin does not amount to de-escalation. To
the contrary, weakness stokes the Russian president’s expansionism.
The west’s priority – and the downing by Russian-backed insurgents of Malaysia Airlines flight
MH17 provides an opportunity – should be to recover the concept of deterrence. Not the
nuclear deterrence of mutually assured destruction but the traditional understanding that
political resolve and a readiness to deploy force can apply a brake. The mistake many
Europeans have made – and, to a lesser degree, Barack Obama’s White House has done the
same – is to confuse deterrence with escalation. I cannot count the times I have heard
politicians and policy makers say they must tread carefully for fear of provoking Mr Putin.
Some of these protestations are self-serving – what these people really mean is that they do not
want to jeopardise economic relationships. But there seems also to be a genuine
misunderstanding about the purpose of deterrence. Imposing sanctions on Moscow will not of
itself persuade Mr Putin to pull out of Ukraine. It might persuade him to think twice before
marching his army into other Russian-speaking territories.
To be effective, deterrence has above all to be credible. The potential adversary has to believe
that aggression will provoke proportionate retaliation, whether economic or, as a last resort,
military. The sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU have been anything but credible.
Washington has gone further, but not far enough to signal serious intent. What Mr Putin has
seen of a divided west tells him it is bluffing. He will take sanctions seriously when he sees that
those threatening them are ready to bear the costs.
Turn: Perceived decline in our readiness to fight encourages Russian aggression
and escalation
Olson 14 – Reporter for Stars and Stripes [Wyatt Olson, “Military’s reduced readiness seen as
emboldening China, Russia,” Stars and Stripes, Published: May 20, 2014, pg.
http://tinyurl.com/n6vq7zr
“The U.S. certainly retains an ability to project an awful lot of air and sea power for more
limited contingencies — and do so very quickly,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at
the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
43
And even if U.S. forces did become embroiled in Pacific confrontations such as those unfolding
in Vietnam and the Philippines, they aren’t the kind of interventions that demand huge followup forces, he said.
Cordesman cautioned against equating these kinds of skirmishes with a potential outbreak of
hostilities on the Korean peninsula because the U.S. is prepared and willing to match escalation
there, he said.
“You’re not going to go to general war over an [exclusive economic zone] or a reef somewhere
in the Pacific,” he said.
Still, Cordesman admitted, irrational behavior and miscalculations by adversaries can quickly
lead to escalation and “the need for putting many more follow-on forces in the field over time.”
Some experts say that flagging readiness — real or perceived — actually invites escalation by
weakening America’s “deterrent effect” as China and Russia continue beefing up their Pacific
forces.
In congressional testimony, top-ranking military chiefs have already warned that readiness is
deteriorating, partly because of cuts from last year’s sequester at a time the military is
struggling to refit and retrain after a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, testified before a Senate
subcommittee in March that he was concerned about the readiness of “follow-on forces” that
would be required should the peninsula enter crisis.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. John Amos told the same committee last fall that budget cuts
leave “fewer forces, arriving less-trained, arriving later in the fight.”
Reduced readiness cuts two ways, said Todd Harrison, a defense expert with the nonpartisan
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C.
“I think this reduction in readiness that we’re looking at will reduce our confidence in the
ability of our military to intervene successfully if called upon,” he said. “That may weaken the
deterrent effect on potential adversaries, but it could also create a situation where we selfdeter.”
Dakota Wood, a defense expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.,
said that America’s current budget and readiness woes do not go unnoticed by China and
Russia.
“There’s this deterrent value in being strongly forward, being strongly postured and having the
perception that not only are your forces ready for action, but that the government in the U.S. is
willing to press that case if it comes to it.
“When it comes to China, we are seeing increasing aggressiveness in trying to push forward
their territorial claims in the East and South China Seas.
“China is likely viewing this as a window of opportunity to aggressively press its claims in
these waters, and the U.S. is not well postured to come to the assistance of friends and allies in
the region.”
Wood described this “pattern of conduct” as “taking small bites of an apple,” which over time
will consume it.
“So each one of these little actions is below the threshold that would invite a large-scale
conventional military response,” he said. “But they’re willing and able to take these small bites
because they know the U.S., by this series of incidents, is unwilling to press the case.”
44
Terrence K. Kelly director of the Strategy and Resources Program at the RAND Corporation,
said that individual skirmishes such as these might seem insignificant. But over time countries
such as China and Russia can achieve their goals by “nibbling away” with “subresponse-level”
aggression, Kelly said.
“It’s probably calculated to slowly over time achieve an effect that won’t elicit a military
response from the U.S. or its allies,” he said.
Cordesman said, however, that even a modest U.S. intervention could lead to unintended
escalation.
“The problem is that the United States responding — even if it solves one small, short-term
problem — may lead to the other side responding in ways that again produce a steady
pattern of escalation,” Cordesman said.
45
Ext Shukla – No US Russia war
No war over Ukraine – expert consensus proves
Koplowitz 15 - graduated from the SUNY-Albany, where he received a bachelor's degree in
political science and minored in journalism. And he reports on crime and breaking news events
for International Business Times ( Howard, “US And Russia Going To War? Ukraine Crisis May
Lead To Military Conflict, Mikhail Gorbachev Warns, Others Not So Sure”, ibtimes.com, January
29, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.com/us-russia-going-war-ukraine-crisis-may-lead-militaryconflict-mikhail-gorbachev-warns-1798992) JC
While Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991,
warned of war, most academics surveyed in a snap poll released Sunday don’t envision the
U.S. and Russia going to war in the next decade. On a scale of zero to 10, with zero meaning
no likelihood of going to war and 10 meaning high likelihood, a plurality of scholars -- 23
percent -- rated the chance at 2. Nearly 20 percent rated the chances as a 3, another 20 percent
as a 1 and about 12 percent said there was zero chance, according to the poll conducted by the
Teaching, Research and International Policy Project at the Institute for the Theory and Practice
of International Relations at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Only .14 percent of
scholars rated the chances of war at a 10.
A plurality of scholars also disagreed that the U.S. and Russia were heading back toward a
new cold war. More than 48 percent, or 273 scholars, said that was the case, while 38 percent
said the two countries are heading back toward a cold war and about 13 percent weren’t sure.
The U.S won’t go to war over Ukraine – multiple warrants prove
Peck 14 - contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine, a writer for the War is Boring
defense blog and of course a contributor at Forbes ( Michael, “7 Reasons Why America Will
Never Go To War Over Ukraine”, forbes.com, March 5, 2014,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2014/03/05/7-reasons-why-america-will-never-goto-war-over-ukraine/) JC
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing
for the Ukraine crisis. Regardless of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of
Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of Ukraine, the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war
with Russia.
This has nothing to do with whether Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan
would face the same constraints. The U.S. may threaten to impose economic sanctions, but
here is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:
Russia is a nuclear superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads,
according to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose
nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial damage, Russia could totally devastate the U.S. as
well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming they even work, are not
designed to stop a massive Russian strike.
For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought.
Their proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs. The one time
46
that U.S. and Soviet forces almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither
Obama nor Putin is crazy enough to want to repeat that.
Russia has a powerful army. While the Russian military is a shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is
still a formidable force. The Russian army has about 300,000 men and 2,500 tanks (with another
18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance 2014″ from the International
Institute for Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships,
including 25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s coast.
U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not perform impressively during the
2008 Russo-Georgia War. American troops would enjoy better training, communications,
drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest Russian fighter jets, such as the
T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military
is not composed of lightly armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in
2003. With advanced weapons like T-80 tanks, supersonic AT-15 Springer anti-tank missiles,
BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft missiles, Russian
forces pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses.
Ukraine is closer to Russia. The distance between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance
between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much easier for Russia to send troops and
supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air.
The U.S. military is tired. After nearly 13 years of war, America’s armed forces need a
breather. Equipment is worn out from long service in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are
worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there are still about 40,000 troops still
fighting in Afghanistan.
The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S. could easily dispatch air power to Ukraine
if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush and its
hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or
defend Ukraine, there is just the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary
Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the 82nd Airborne
Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone, the Marines would have sail past
Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel
overland through Poland into Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades
from the U.S. would be logistically difficult, and more important, could take months to
organize.
The American people are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the American public on
yet another war, especially some complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville
Chamberlain’s words during the 1938 Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible,
fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here
because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.”
America‘s allies are tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan,
and has little to show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show
for it. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the Western European public marching in the streets
to demand the liberation of Crimea, especially considering the region’s sputtering economy,
which might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural gas. As for military capabilities,
47
the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And
Germans fighting Russians again? Let’s not even go there.
48
Ext Hughes 14 – No Obama groupthink
Their internal link is theoretically flawed
Badie 10 — Dina Badie, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Studies at Centre
College KY and Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut, expert in international relations and
security and American foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia, 2010 (“Groupthink, Iraq, and
the War on Terror: Explaining US Policy Shift toward Iraq,” Foreign Policy Analysis Journal p.277296, 2010, Available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.17438594.2010.00113.x/pdf , accessed 7/7/15, J.L.)
Janis's work on groupthink incited much interest and criticism. The original formulation failed
to position groupthink within the socio-psychological literature, resulting in an incomplete
explanation of its emergence and its mechanism. Longley and G Pruitt (1980) recognized this
lack of determinacy. They argue that some of Janis's "symptoms" were in fact antecedents and
that a causal link could not be established between groupthink and its preconditions. Longley
and Pruitt recognized that groups eventually bring an end to the deliberative process in order
to make a decision; a lack of deliberation does not in itself indicate the presence of
groupthink. They instead argue that the timing of the end to deliberation depends on the
nature of the decision, whether a major foreign policy or a routine task. Other critics of
groupthink sought to offer alternative explanations to small group dynamics that extended
"beyond groupthink." Hoyt and Garrison (1997) recognize that within the context of small
groups, individuals can "manipulate" the decision-making process on several levels.
Manipulation can take place in the traditional sense whereby individuals can alter procedural
norms, but can also take the form of structural manipulation through deliberate inclusion and
exclusion of individuals (1997:252). Additionally, individuals can manipulate the deliberative
process through direct influence; the success of individual manipulation is determined by the
individual's likeability, acceptance of his/her authority, perception of expertise, or recognition of
the efficacy of the strategy (1997:258). As Hoyt and Garrison propose, the effects of
manipulation may, in some cases, offer an alternative to groupthink.
Group think theory is flawed — lack of studies
Griffin 91 — Em Griffin, professor in the Communication department at Wheaton College,
author of “A First Look,” 1991 (“CRITIQUE: AVOIDING UNCRITICAL ACCEPTANCE OF
GROUPTHINK,” A First Look at Communication Theory First Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1991, available
online at http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/dl/free/0073010189/228
359/groupthink2.html , accessed 7/10/15) JL
Janis calls for greater critical assessment of proposals lest they be adopted for reasons other
than merit. Since his description of groupthink has received great popular approval—perhaps
because we’re fascinated with colossal failure, it seems only fair to note that efforts to validate
the theory have been sparse and not particularly successful.
Most students of groupthink pick a high-profile case of decision making where things went
terribly wrong and then use Janis’s model as a cookie cutter to analyze the disaster—much as
I’ve done with the Challenger and New Era. They seem to take the existence of groupthink for
granted and employ the theory to warn against future folly or suggest ways to avoid it. This
49
kind of retrospective analysis is great for theory construction, but provides no comparative
basis for accepting or rejecting the theory. For example, is the lack of evidence that NASA
managers formed a cohesive in-group when they approved the Challenger launch a good reason
to drop or revise the theory? Or does my report of extensive "due diligence" of New Era
invalidate the claim that groupthink was a reason so many people fell for the fraud?
Janis thought it made sense to test the groupthink hypothesis in the laboratory prior to trying
to prove it in the field.19 His suggestion is curious, however, because a minimal test of his
theory that controls for the antecedent conditions shown on the left side of Figure 18.2 would
require over 7000 willing participants.20 As it is, the few reported groupthink experiments
have tended to focus on cohesiveness—a quality that’s hard to create in the laboratory. The
results are mixed at best. Janis’s quantitative study of nineteen international crises is
problematic as well. When he and two co-authors linked positive outcomes with high-quality
decision-making procedures during international crises, they never assessed the cohesiveness
of the groups in charge.21
50
Ext Olson 14 – Readiness prevents war
US readiness is key to halt Russian attacks on Ukraine. The entire architecture
of European security is at risk
Stephens 14 – Associate editor of the Financial Times [Philip Stephens (Fulbright Fellow and
winner of the 2002 David Watt Prize for outstanding political journalism), “Europe needs a cold
war lesson in deterrence,” Financial Times, July 24, 2014 5:51 pm, pg. http://tinyurl.com/prfj6kq
Europeans have been slow to recognise the world as it is rather than as they imagined. The
reaction to Russia’s march into Ukraine has made this painfully obvious. The reflex has been to
seek to defuse the crisis. On one level this is admirable – war did not solve much in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The snag is that ceding ground to Mr Putin does not amount to de-escalation. To
the contrary, weakness stokes the Russian president’s expansionism.
The west’s priority – and the downing by Russian-backed insurgents of Malaysia Airlines flight
MH17 provides an opportunity – should be to recover the concept of deterrence. Not the
nuclear deterrence of mutually assured destruction but the traditional understanding that
political resolve and a readiness to deploy force can apply a brake. The mistake many
Europeans have made – and, to a lesser degree, Barack Obama’s White House has done the
same – is to confuse deterrence with escalation. I cannot count the times I have heard
politicians and policy makers say they must tread carefully for fear of provoking Mr Putin.
Some of these protestations are self-serving – what these people really mean is that they do not
want to jeopardise economic relationships. But there seems also to be a genuine
misunderstanding about the purpose of deterrence. Imposing sanctions on Moscow will not of
itself persuade Mr Putin to pull out of Ukraine. It might persuade him to think twice before
marching his army into other Russian-speaking territories.
To be effective, deterrence has above all to be credible. The potential adversary has to believe
that aggression will provoke proportionate retaliation, whether economic or, as a last resort,
military. The sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU have been anything but credible.
Washington has gone further, but not far enough to signal serious intent. What Mr Putin has
seen of a divided west tells him it is bluffing. He will take sanctions seriously when he sees that
those threatening them are ready to bear the costs.
European hesitation has ceded to the Kremlin control of the public debate. The annexation of
Crimea overturned the cardinal pillar of European security since 1945: states cannot extend
their territory by force of arms. As such, Russia’s action represents a profound threat to the
security of the continent. Yet to listen to the discussion in some European capitals is to wonder
if Mr Putin is not among the victims.
Nato has a chance to remedy this when its leaders hold a summit in Newport, Wales, in
September. The gathering had been intended as a stocktaking exercise after the alliance’s
planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. The imperative now is to restore NATO as a solid
guardian of the post-1945 security order.
Many of the things the alliance needs to do are practical. They are set out persuasively in a
report published this week by the think-tank Chatham House. Nato needs to find ways of
working in groupings smaller than the full membership of 28. The alliance should extend the
51
interoperability of forces and improve planning and burden-sharing. Governments badly need to
re-explain to their electorates why Nato is vital for their security. Jihadis are not the only threat.
The big danger, though, lies in the credibility deficit. Seen from Moscow, Nato looks like two-tier
alliance. No one doubts its resolve to defend, say, Germany, but does the Article 5 guarantee of
collective security apply equally to the states that joined after the collapse of communism?
Would the US – or Britain, France, or Italy – really resist if Mr Putin turned his attention to
“protecting” the Russian-speaking people of the Baltics? If the answer is no, the alliance is
worthless.
The best way to make sure the commitment is never tested is to make it credible. That can be
done by stationing sufficient “tripwire” forces in the east to persuade Mr Putin that a robust
response to aggression would be unavoidable.
The heavy lifting, as ever, will have to be done by the US. Europe has depended since 1945 on
Washington’s security guarantee and events in Ukraine suggest that is not about to change.
But Europeans cannot forever be reluctant partners in their own defence. The way to avoid war
is to deter aggressors.
52
No Groupthink
Organization electronic detection protocols check and prevent groupthink
Lewellen et al ’13, (Todd Lewellen, George J. Silowash, Daniel Costa, “Insider Threat Control:
Using Plagiarism Detection Algorithms to Prevent Data Exfiltration in Near Real Time,” Software
Engineering Institute, October 2013,
http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/asset_files/TechnicalNote/2013_004_001_64688.pdf)//erg
We define a malicious insider as a current or former employee, contractor, or business partner
with all three of the following attributes: • has or had authorized access to an organization’s
network, system, or data • intentionally exceeded or misused that access • negatively affected the
confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the organization’s information or information systems Malicious
insiders are able to act within an organization by taking advantage of weaknesses they find in
systems. Organizations must be aware of such weaknesses and how an insider may exploit them. Organizations must
also be aware of the many ways in which weaknesses are introduced. For example, an organization may
have relaxed or nonexistent acceptable-use policies for internet access. In other cases, a lack of situational awareness introduces
weaknesses that malicious insiders can exploit. Additionally, an organization that allows its employees to use web-based services,
such as email, increases the potential for data leakage. Establishing proper auditing policies and technical controls, as discussed in
this technical note, mitigates some of these risks. Our research has revealed that most
malicious insider crimes fit
into one of three categories: information technology sabotage, theft of intellectual property
(IP), and fraud. This technical note focuses on the theft of information using web-based services, in particular, email accessed
through a web browser using the HTTP protocol and encrypted with SSL. The tools and techniques presented in this
technical note represent only a subset of practices an organization could implement to mitigate insider
threats. For example, organizations may wish to deploy commercially available software to prevent
data loss. These tools and methods can be used by organizations of any size. We intentionally
selected open source and public-domain tools since they are freely available to the public. 2.1
TheMan-in-The-Middle(MiTM)Proxy This report builds on the previously published technical note, Detecting and
Preventing Data Exfiltration Through Encrypted Web Sessions via Traffic Inspection [Silowash 2012]. Those wishing to implement the
capabilities discussed in this report will need to be familiar with the prior technical note and will need to have configured their
environment accordingly. This technical note will leverage the existing work by implementing an additional ICAP server to perform
additional content scanning of attachments and text entered into web pages to determine if IP is being exfiltrated. 2.2
TheInspectionProcess In the prior technical note, Detecting and Preventing Data Exfiltration Through Encrypted Web
Sessions via Traffic Inspection, a Squid proxy server, C-ICAP, and ClamAV are used to inspect CMU/SEI-2013-TN-008 | 2 both clear
text and encrypted web sessions for the presence of documents that may contain keywords or
are tagged with hidden metadata [Silowash 2012]. Expanding on this, the CERT® Insider Threat Center
developed an additional tool for inspecting documents. This tool leverages the GreasySpoon ICAP server1 and
Apache Lucene2. According to the Apache Software Foundation, “Apache LuceneTM is a high-performance, full-featured text search
engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially
cross-platform” [Apache 2012]. The CERT
Insider Threat Center developed an agent that resides on the
GreasySpoon ICAP server. This agent is written in Java and monitors a given directory of IP. When a new file is created,
updated, or deleted, the agent reads the file and updates Lucene’s index. When a user uploads a document to a web-based service
such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Facebook, or pastes text into an online form, the document or text is compared to the indexed library
of IP. If
the document or text matches any of the IP above an organizationally defined
threshold, the connection is blocked. Because Squid allows for the simultaneous use of multiple ICAP servers, this
approach can be used with the document tagging and keyword detection capabilities discussed in the prior technical note.
53
AT Russia Scenario
The US is gearing up to fight Russia now – the aff cant resolve this
Bandow 6/24 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan,
“Washington Confronts Russia over Ukraine: Yet Europeans Won’t Protect Themselves from Vladimir Putin,”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/washington-confronts-russia-over-ukraine-yet-europeans-wont-protect)//RTF
Europe is at risk, we are told. Russia’s assault on Ukraine threatens the post-Cold War order. Moscow may follow up with
similar attacks on Moldova and even such NATO members as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. But no one in Europe seems
to care. Even the countries supposedly in Vladimir Putin’s gun sites aren’t much concerned. No one is bolstering their military.
And the European people oppose taking any military risks to help their neighbors. Unfortunately, the Ukraine crisis is
likely to continue for some time. The allies hope sanctions will bring Moscow to heel, but the Pew Research Center
found that 88 percent of Russians backed Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy, the highest number since Pew started polling in 2003. At
least Putin, though no friend of the West, is no fool. He recently opined:
“only an insane person and only in a
dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO.” But if Putin changes his mind,
the Europeans don’t plan on defending themselves. Instead, virtually everyone expects
America to save them, if necessary. Washington is being played for a sucker as usual. Defense Secretary Ashton
Carter is visiting Europe this week. On Monday while observing exercises by NATO’s new rapid response force he
announced that the U.S. will contribute aircraft, weapons, and personnel to the “Very High
Readiness Joint Task Force.” Americans will provide intelligence, logistics, reconnaissance, and
surveillance support. That’s not all. Separately, the Obama administration plans to pre-position tanks
and other equipment for a combat brigade in seven nations in Eastern Europe. James Stavidis, a
former NATO commander, now dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts, said this “provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery
allies.” Carter explained that Washington
was acting “because the United States is deeply committed
to the defense of Europe, as we have for decades.” America is more committed to Europe than are
Europeans. “We are moving forward together, with new capabilities,” he said. What does he mean by “we”? Washington again
will do the heavy lifting. “You can nearly hear the sigh of relief in Europe,” said Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, in learning that the U.S. again would bail out its allies. The Europeans scrimp on the military while funding
their generous welfare state. They promise Washington whatever it desires—to increase outlays, hit the two percent of GDP level,
improve international coordination, and more. Then they will go back to doing what they do best, depend on America. “ Washington
is being played for a sucker as usual.” NATO always stood for North America and the Others. During the Cold War the allied states
shamelessly took a very cheap ride on the U.S. That made sense in the immediate aftermath of World War II, but by the 1960s
Europe had recovered and should have spent amounts commensurate with the Soviet threat. However, Europeans correctly gauged
that Washington wouldn’t leave, despite periodically upbraiding them for their meager efforts. Cato Institute forum on future of
NATO The problem has gotten worse in recent years.
The U.S. accounts for three-quarters of NATO outlays
even though Europe has a larger GDP than America. Because of European cutbacks, overall outlays are down
1.5 percent this year. Of 28 members only the U.S., Britain, and Greece—mostly because of its confrontation with fellow alliance
member Turkey—typically broke the officially recommended level of two percent of GDP. Estonia has become a member of that
exclusive club, but not Latvia and Lithuania, despite being on the front line. After frenetically demanding that the U.S. do more,
Poland only hit that mark this year. But several members have been cutting outlays, despite the continent’s embarrassing showing
against Libya (running out of missiles, for instance) and limited capacity to aid the Baltics (little more than nil) let alone defend a
nation like Ukraine. Of the five largest European defense budgets, only France’s will increase. Those of Canada, Germany, Great
Britain, and Italy will continue to decline. None of these countries will hit the recommended two percent of GDP level in 2015. Only
Britain and France exceed 1.5 percent. Canada barely makes one percent. (At the G-7 Summit President Barack Obama essentially
begged the British to spend more; London has responded by considering whether reclassifying intelligence and foreign aid outlays as
“military” would allow Britain to technically meet the standard.) Those NATO members spending more this year—Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Netherlands, Norway, and Romania—collectively have outlays only half that of Britain. Cooperation is poor even
among those most at risk. Add Poland to the three Baltic and five Nordic states and the group enjoys a GDP about a third larger than
that of Russia. However, their military outlays are only about 40 percent of Moscow’s. Moreover, complains Edward Lucas of the
Center for European Policy Analysis, they “are divided” and suffer from “strategic incoherence.” Never mind the events of the last
year. Ukraine has not served as Thomas Jefferson’s famed “fire bell in the night,” despite the supposedly terrible threat posed to the
peace and stability of Europe. “It is much more business as usual,” said British defense analyst Ian Kearns. As of 2013 the Europeans
devoted just 3.6 percent of their governments’ budgets to the military, compared to a fifth of U.S. government spending. America’s
54
per capita military outlays are five times that of the alliance’s Cold War members and eight times that of those states which joined
later. “Total military spending by NATO’s European members was less in real terms in 2014 than in 1997—and there are 12 more
member states in NATO today,” observed my Cato Institute colleague Chris Preble. The issue is more than just money. From
the
onset of the crisis with Russia a number of American analysts have proposed deploying U.S.
forces to Ukraine, treating the latter as if it was a NATO ally. No Europeans have volunteered to follow.
The U.S. House has approved legislation to arm Kiev’s forces, and a similar measure is being
pushed by ever warlike Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain. Most European
governments have resisted the idea. “Make no mistake: we will defend our allies,” declared Carter. But will the Europeans defend
anyone, even themselves? A new poll suggests not. The Pew Foundation recently surveyed eight leading NATO countries: If Russia
got into a conflict with another member of NATO, should your country use military force in the victim’s defense? A majority of
French, Germans, and Italians said no. (The Germans were particularly emphatic, with 58 percent rejecting war. German support for
NATO has dropped by 18 percent in just six years.) Only pluralities said yes in Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. (Yet Poland is
insisting that everyone else defend it!) The highest European support level was in Britain, at 49 percent. Only in America, naturally,
and Canada did a majority say yes (56 and 53 percent, respectively). Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said “it will
take a serious effort by the alliance to convince its public of the need to prepare for, deter and, if necessary, respond to a Russian
attack.” Yet why should they take action as long as they believe they can count on Washington to save them? According to Pew,
two-thirds of Europeans were convinced the Americans would come rushing over to do what they would not do for themselves. It’s
time to change that. Judy Dempsey of Carnegie Europe asked why Washington allowed itself to be used in this way: “Europe is
prosperous. It should be confident enough both to take care of its own security and to contribute to a greater role in burden
sharing.” It will not do so as long as U.S. policymakers insist that Americans do the job instead. The Cold War is over. Moscow is an
unpleasant regional actor, not a global threat. Europe has a much larger GDP and population than Russia and even with its current
anemic level of military outlays devotes more to defense. The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt, with far greater unfunded
liabilities than the Europeans, despite Greece’s travails. Instead of pouring more resources into NATO, Washington should be
disengaging militarily, turning leadership of the alliance and responsibility for defending the continent over to Europe. Americans
shouldn’t be expected to protect their rich cousins even if the latter were devoted to protecting each other. That the Europeans
expect the U.S. to do their job is yet another reason for Americans to say no more.
The impact’s inevitable- congress already wants to arm Ukraine
Wong 15 (Kristina, 2/5/15, The Hill, “Lawmakers to Obama: Arm Ukraine now,” http://thehill.com/policy/defense/231874senators-to-obama-arm-ukraine-now)//RTF
The White House came under bipartisan pressure from both sides of the Capitol to provide
weapons to Ukraine Thursday. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Armed Services
Committee made a big push on the issue, while a bipartisan group of House members called
for the same course of action in a letter. "The United States must act with urgency to provide
defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Armed Services
Committee. "Russia's invasion of sovereign territory of Ukraine, which has continued unabated in
the face of political and economic sanctions, is the gravest threat to European security in
decades," he said. In an unusual display of bipartisan agreement, McCain was joined at the press
conference by the committee's ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Sens. James Inhofe
(R-Okla.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.),
Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Dan Sullivan (RAlaska). Meanwhile, the group of House lawmakers said that the administration needed to provide
weapons to Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression. "We are calling on the
Administration to increase its support for Ukraine. Tighter sanctions and greater humanitarian
assistance should be part of that support, but now, more than ever, the U.S. must supply
Ukraine with the means to defend itself," they said in their letter. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.),
ranking member on the House Intelligence committee, was the lead signatory on the letter.
He was joined by more than 30 Republicans and Democrats. The U.S. and Western allies slapped economic
sanctions on Moscow after it invaded Ukraine and annexed its peninsula of Crimea last March, but the country has continued to arm
and train pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine. Secretary
of State John Kerry said while visiting Ukraine on
55
Thursday that President Obama is "reviewing all his options." "Among those options obviously
is the possibility of providing defensive systems to Ukraine," he said, according to the
Associated Press. However, he added, "We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia's behavior."
The White House has so far turned down Ukraine's requests for weapons out of fear it would further provoke Russia, but has
provided nearly $122 million in non-lethal military equipment to Ukrainian forces, such as blankets, body armor and meal packets.
The senators said the time has come to provide weapons as well, given gains by rebels in
recent weeks and Russian President Vladimir Putin's violation of a ceasefire agreement.
"Blankets don't do very well against tanks," said McCain. Providing arms "will raise the risk and costs Russia must incur to continue
its offensive," he said. McCain said that since April, Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine have killed 5,358 Ukrainian forces,
wounded 12,235 others and killed 224 civilians. Reed
said Ukrainian forces have fought courageously. "We
must help Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression," he said. "We cannot let
Vladimir Putin get away with invading another sovereign country. ... This is what we should
do, lethal assistance," Nelson added. "We should always be on the side of struggling democracies," Graham said.
"Helping a friend somewhere makes friends of America everywhere feel better." Blumenthal called Putin "a thug." "He
has not responded to sanctions. Sanctions are not working," he said. "He is the schoolyard bully," added
Ayotte. "I am so glad we've come together on a bipartisan basis to do this." Donnelly calle
Ukraine a "friend" of the United States and said providing arms "is the least that we can do."
Meanwhile, the letter from the House members urged the administration to provide "a
substantial amount of military assistance as soon as possible in 2015," and in the following
years. That assistance should include non-lethal aid such as counterbattery radars, drones, electronic counter-measures against
Russian drones, secure communications capabilities, armored Humvees and medical equipment, they said. Lethal aid should include
light anti-armor missiles, "given the large numbers of armored vehicles that the Russians have deployed in Donetsk and Luhansk and
the abysmal condition of the Ukrainian military’s light anti-armor weapons," the letter said. The letter was also signed by Reps. Steny
Hoyer (D-Md), Michael Burgess (R-Texas), Gerry Connolly (D-Va), Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Eliot Engel (DN.Y.), Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), David Jolly (R-Fla.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Mike
Kelly (R-Penn.), John Larson (D-Conn.), Sander Levin (D-Mich.), Daniel Lipinsky (D-Ill.), Thomas Marino (R-Penn.), Michael McCaul (RTexas), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Tim Murphy (R-Penn.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.), Ted Poe
(R-Texas), Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.), Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), John Shimkus (R-Ill.), Adam
Smith (D-Wash.), Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), and Michael Turner (R-Ohio). The non-voting member from Guam, Del. Madeleine Bordallo
(D), also signed. "We know that a resolution to the Ukrainian crisis will ultimate require a diplomatic, not military, solution," the
letter said. "But Russia is feeling emboldened, and Ukraine is economically stretched to its breaking point. It is time to provide the
Ukrainiain government with the tools to keep the separatists at bay and to make the conflict too costly for their Russians patrons to
continue." Separately, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) urged President Obama in a letter
Thursday to fully implement a law passed last year, which requires him to report to Congress by Feb. 15 on plans to provide
weapons to Ukraine. “We hope the administration will submit a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee later this month
that clearly states your readiness to supply appropriate lethal assistance to the Ukrainian government and provides details of the
specific weapons to be delivered,” said Corker, a co-author of the bill.
Republican Congress makes the impact inevitable
Jensen 14 (Donald, November 18th, resident fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations in the Nitze School of International
Studies at Johns Hopkins University, “Republican Congress to Push Harder Russia Line,” http://imrussia.org/en/analysis/world/2085republican-congress-to-push-harder-russia-line)//RTF
The United States’ recent midterm elections tipped the balance of power away from president
Barack Obama and will greatly complicate his remaining two years in office, not just in terms of domestic policy, but foreign
policy as well. Riding a wave of popular discontent, the Republican Party gained eight seats (which could increase by one after
Louisiana holds a runoff in December). The GOP also increased its majority in the House of Representatives and performed well in
state races. The
Republican capture of the Senate will force Obama to scale back his legislative
agenda and limit his ambitions to either executive actions that do not require legislative
approval, or issues that have bipartisan support. But the Republicans, hoping to win the White House in 2016,
will also be under pressure to show the electorate that they are capable of governing after drawing scorn for shutting down the
government last year and allegedly demonizing the president. The president’s supporters and the national media, in turn, are also
guilty of exaggeration: they are fond of caricaturing the GOP as being held hostage to an “extremist” Tea Party base. Many of these
56
critics expect (and hope) that Republican unity will be difficult to achieve. The day after the midterm elections, President Obama
promised to work with Republicans, but warned that he was also prepared to make more use of his executive powers. Foreign policy
is rarely a primary concern of U.S. voters. Indeed, surveys suggest that those who went to the polls this November were primarily
concerned with the state of the economy, partisan gridlock in Washington, and Obama’s leadership. In September, according to a
Pew Research Center poll, 64 percent of respondents said foreign policy would be an important factor in their midterm election
vote. In an October poll, by a margin of 43 to 37 percent, voters believed Republicans would do a better job of handing foreign
affairs than Democrats. It appears such sentiments have much to do with the public’s view that Obama has demonstrated poor
leadership on international issues. “Setting aside individual debates about individual policy choices,” David Rothkopf recently wrote
for Foreign Policy, “the
public wants America and its leaders to appear strong.” In recent weeks, the
opinions of the Washington elite on how to deal with Russia, like public sentiment more
generally, have been marked by an uneasy balance. Earlier this year, views were divided. One point of view
maintained that Russia’s meddling in Ukraine was mostly a defensive action against the threat of NATO enlargement and Ukraine’s
disintegration; the other accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of directly challenging Europe’s political and security structures
and Western values, and argued that he needed to be countered. The shoot-down of Malaysian Flight MH17 in July and subsequent
abundant evidence of Russia’s extensive military involvement in the incident yielded a consensus behind the latter view. Yet there
remained disagreements over how far Putin would go and how the U.S. should push back. The Obama Administration expressed
warm words of support for Ukraine, but was strongly against arming Kiev. It argued that doing so would provoke Russia into greater
intervention; that Ukraine’s armed forces could not “absorb” high-tech equipment; that there exists no military solution to the crisis;
and that Ukraine would be better able to withstand Russian aggression if it focused on political and economic reform. In
Congress, however, where sympathy for Ukraine was strong (and bipartisan), there was firm
support for providing arms. This debate took place, as Standard Bank analyst Tim Ash wrote in October, amid widespread
uncertainty about what Putin would do next and general agreement that Western sanctions on Russia are working. Although they
may have done little to directly discourage Russian military activity, sanctions have extracted a heavy price from Russia and the elites
around Putin. Two bills that would provide Ukraine with defensive but lethal weapons are likely to be taken up by the new
Republican Senate majority, despite the president’s wishes. With
a GOP majority in both houses of Congress—
including in the crucial Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees—Republican
leaders are now likely to step up the pressure on the weakened president, already a lame
duck, to be tougher on Russia and provide weapons to Ukraine. Senator John McCain, the incoming
chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said in an interview on November 5 that he has already discussed a
new national security agenda with fellow Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Burr, who are
likely to be chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, respectively. McCain promised to raise the issue of military assistance. Two bills
that would provide Ukraine with defensive but lethal weapons are likely to be taken up by the new Republican Senate majority,
despite the president’s wishes. The first of these bills, the Ukraine Security Assistance Act of 2014, would help Ukraine “neutralize
the military-support advantage that separatist rebels are using to target civilian and military aircraft in in eastern Ukraine” and
would authorize President Obama to “provide adequate and necessary assistance to protect Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty.”
The second, the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, calls for military and security assistance to Ukraine, designates it as a “major
non-NATO ally” (MNNA), and imposes further sanctions on the Russian Federation. MNNA is a designation given by the United
States government to close allies (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, and South Korea) who have strategic working relationships
with U.S. armed forces but are not members of NATO. While the MNNA status does not automatically establish a mutual defense
pact with the United States, it does confer a variety of military and financial advantages that otherwise are not obtainable by nonNATO countries. Moreover, codifying U.S. sanctions against Russia into legislation would make it far more difficult to end them than
is currently the case, thereby immunizing the sanctions against actions by the White House. It is unclear whether Obama will veto
either bill should they pass. The
White House’s rationale that arming Kiev would provoke Moscow
grows ever weaker, as Russia has stepped up its military support of the eastern breakaway
republics in recent days. An Obama veto would also put him at odds with powerful congressional leaders in both parties,
now emboldened by the elections to take a tougher line on an issue that appears secondary to the rest of the president’s agenda. In
the past, Obama has stood his ground in the face of congressional opposition when he
believed he was right, but according to sources in Congress, he has not yet indicated what he
would do if a Ukraine bill were to reach his desk. Putin’s intentions, as ever, remain uncertain. On the one hand,
the Kremlin has little incentive to escalate its military presence in Ukraine, regardless of any military assistance the U.S. might
provide Ukraine (though such aid would certainly give Putin pause). Russian public opinion does not support an invasion: Kremlin
57
authorities made great efforts during the fighting of August and September to restrict media coverage of Russian military casualties.
The economic costs of rebuilding the Ukrainian east or funding additional sustained major military operations are likely prohibitive,
given the downturn in the Russian economy. On the other hand, Putin’s current stepped-up support for separatist forces, in violation
of the Minsk agreement and despite Western threats, suggests that he could go further no matter the economic cost or Western
reaction. For example, he could carry out a quick strike to establish a land bridge to Crimea. The Obama Administration also
continues to seek Russian cooperation on Iran and the Middle East, showing Putin there are limits to Washington’s willingness to
push back over Ukraine. In the end, therefore, the dispute in Washington over military assistance to Ukraine may have more to do
with the power struggle between Congress and the administration than the realities of the military situation on the ground.
Republicans are pushing for it
Coca 6/24 (Onan, 2015, writing for Eagles Rising, “John McCain says It's "Shameful" Not to Send Arms to Ukraine!,”
http://eaglerising.com/20010/john-mccain-says-its-shameful-not-to-send-arms-to-ukraine/#TKxhbSzXdKLiqT4d.99)//RTF
GOP Sen. John
McCain spoke at a Saturday press conference during his trip to Ukraine and
lambasted the U.S. for refusing to provide weapons to Ukrainian forces. According to McCain,
Ukraine has shown repeatedly that it’s willing to fight for freedom, making it shameful to
deny the country much-needed military assistance against well-armed separatists in the
eastern region, The Associated Press reports. For McCain, the 300 paratroopers sent as advisers in April aren’t sufficient.
A lack of weapons only cedes more ground to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs to
pull Ukraine away from NATO and other western countries, he says. Observers allege that the reason
separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk are able to keep fighting is because Russian support lurks behind the scenes. Putin steadfastly
denies any and all such accusations. “This is
shameful that we will not provide [the Ukrainians] with
weapons to defend themselves. They are fighting with 20th-century weapons against Russia’s
21st-century weapons. That’s not a fair fight,” McCain said, after meeting with Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko and other officials. Since Russia annexed Crimea last year, McCain has been one of the
most vocal proponents of shipping military gear to Ukraine. “We need to give long-term
military assistance… because God knows what Vladimir Putin will do next,” McCain said in
March 2014. Accompanying McCain was Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who argued that
sending weapons is a necessity, as Putin has repeatedly refused de-escalation attempts. The
National Defense Authorization Act includes $300 million for military assistance to Ukraine,
but the defense budget bill still needs to make it through Congress and the White House first.
Recent back-and-forth disputes between the Republican-dominated legislature and the Obama administration threaten the bill’s
passage. Russia meanwhile opposes any attempt from the U.S. to send military assistance, saying that any military aid will out
increase instability. Putin has also warned Israel in April not to sell weapons. Shortly after the press conference, Lithuania’s
ambassador to Ukraine, Marius Yanukonis, said that Lithuania is preparing to ship arms to Ukrainian forces, in an effort to persuade
other NATO member countries to follow suit.
A bill providing military support’s already passed the senate
AP 6/20 (Associated Press, 2015, “US Senator McCain slams European stance on Ukraine,”
http://news.yahoo.com/us-senator-mccain-slams-european-stance-ukraine172844262.html)//RTF
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Sen. John McCain has said during a visit to Ukraine that it is shameful that
Washington's European allies have not done more to assist Ukrainian forces in their quest to
defeat Russian-backed separatists in the east. McCain was part of a delegation of U.S.
senators that met Saturday with senior Ukrainian officials, including President Petro Poroshenko, after
visiting troops and volunteers working on the front line. The U.S. Senate this week approved a
bill that includes provisions to supply Ukraine with $300 million worth of defensive military
equipment. Approval from Congress and the White House is still pending. European countries have
favored a diplomatic settlement as a way out of the conflict. Russia condemns U.S. military aid to Ukraine and says it will foment
instability.
58
59
Solvency
60
Noncompliance
The Navy needs their ITP program – they wont stop
Lombardo 13
(Tony -Staff writer, SECNAV launches plan to battle 'insider threats', Sep. 7, 2013,
http://archive.navytimes.com/article/20130907/NEWS/309070005/SECNAV-launches-planbattle-insider-threats-, JZG)
The Navy has a new plan to confront “insider threats” in the Navy and Marine Corps, and it
will involve more scrutiny, better training and a team of top leaders to oversee its
implementation. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus issued an instruction in August that creates the
Department of the Navy Insider Threat Program. The goal is to prevent cases like the data
leaks by Army Pfc. Bradley Manning and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and
violence like Army Maj. Nidal Hasan’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. “With this instruction, Secretary
Mabus has given the Department of the Navy its marching orders,” said Vice Adm. Michael Rogers, head
of Fleet Cyber Command. “We need to do all we can to be aware of the threat, and take those actions
necessary to reduce that threat.” As head of the Navy’s cybersecurity arm, Rogers’ team of cyber warriors plays a
critical role in fighting insider threats. But Rogers insists the threat is an “all hands” issue. “All who serve within
the Navy — active, reserve, officer, enlisted, civilian employees and contract support personnel — are put at risk by this threat, and
all can help diminish that threat,” said Rogers, who responded to Navy Times’ questions via email.
61
Counterplans
62
Reform ITP CP
63
1NC
CP Text: The United States federal government should update the ITP program
to include a common definition of what an insider threat is and realign insider
threat training to focus toward preventing threats.
Common definitions solves cohesion
Porter 14 -Master in Security Studies
(Michael Lawrence, COMBATING INSIDER THREATS: AN ANALYSIS OF CURRENT UNITED STATES
INSIDER THREAT POLICIES AND NECESSARY IMPROVEMENTS, May 2014,
http://repositories.tdl.org/asu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346.1/30135/PORTER-THESIS2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, JZG)
The first improvement that is needed is the establishment of a common definition of an
insider threat. Currently, there are over 15 different definitions as outlined in the NCIX’s Official Terms &
Definitions of Interest List122. Such a broad list of definitions leaves many questions in the minds of
the different IC agencies as to what an insider threat is, and who has jurisdiction regarding
collection, analysis, and apprehension. Most importantly, the definition in the 2012 National Policy lacks any sort of
tie to a foreign nexus123. This vague language creates confusion as to who has jurisdiction over
potential insiders. According to the policy definition, CI would have been responsible for identifying and handling any threat,
to include domestic law enforcement cases. The problem is that if these threats are American citizens, not
working for extremist organizations or foreign nations, then CI does not have jurisdiction as
assigned in EO 12333 . This current lack of specificity can cause confusion when it comes to
handling insider threats, because over utilization of CI and LE on areas outside of their jurisdiction leaves them both overexerted and stretched thin125. Furthermore, establishing a definition will be difficult with as many different and divergent
definitions as we already have throughout the government. As was mentioned, consensus
is important and right now
there is none. Changing this will require the NITTF to build common ground and push past the differences. The important thing
to remember is that words have meanings and, as the 2009 NIS states, insider threats are the priority for CI126. An open-ended
definition will tax a stressed organization. Specificity allows work to be spread across the spectrum of CI and Law Enforcement cases
and thus increase the amount of success. Chapter
1 of this paper outlined the author’s definition of an
insider threat as “an individual with placement and access to critical infrastructures, military
units, and the government and their supporting agencies who have allegedly turned against
and targeted their parent organization, thus aiding a foreign power or international terrorist
organization.” This definition is based on a conglomeration of multiple different definitions
used across the IC. It encompasses all of the critical elements of the threat and leaves no question
in the minds of the different agencies as to who has jurisdiction. Simply adopting a new definition does not
mean that “jurisdiction battles” will be solved. Inherent to any definition is the constant need for cooperation amongst the different
organizations of CI and in the case of uncertainty, to allow for joint investigations and the sharing of potentially valuable information
between the different disciplines127 Evaluation will be more than just the success or failure of a standard definition. The definition
itself will be tied to a broader evaluation of the National Threat Policy. Accordingly, the ITAG and the JITTF would be primarily
responsible for the evaluation of current policies. In order to do this, an evaluation of classified and unclassified reporting and
investigations, at the national level, will identify increases in reporting, opening of investigations, opening of joint investigations,
prosecutions, and operations conducted. An increase in these numbers would be a strong indication that programs are working, at
least in the short-term. This data would be compiled and presented by the NCIX to the DNI and policy makers as an indicator of the
change that is occurring with new policies. Granted this information would not be shown to all policy makers, but there are
representatives in Congress and the White House that would be privy to this information, and that serve as representatives for the
broader policy community128.
64
Adding threat prevention training solves
Porter 14 -Master in Security Studies
(Michael Lawrence, COMBATING INSIDER THREATS: AN ANALYSIS OF CURRENT UNITED STATES
INSIDER THREAT POLICIES AND NECESSARY IMPROVEMENTS, May 2014,
http://repositories.tdl.org/asu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346.1/30135/PORTER-THESIS2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, JZG)
The second improvement needed is that the CI Community should realign insider threat
training to focus toward preventing threats, not simply identifying them. The National Insider Threat
Policy includes a set of “Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs.” These minimum standards
are the current guidelines promulgated by the executive branch, the NCIX, and the JITTF regarding Insider
Threat Programs129. The programs’ standards have addressed many of the issues relating to insider
threats except one key issue: prevention. The minimum standards read more like a list of training for identification
of a current threat, and less like a set of preventative measures. Identifying threats is useful, but the problem
with insider threats is that they are often unidentifiable; more is needed in the form of
prevention. The major problem with passing changes such as these is, once again, the problem of time. As previously stated,
policy makers like to see fast results. Preventative measures will not get nearly the same results as fast as identification. Focusing
training on identification can give quantifiable numbers to policy makers about how successful a program has been by catching bad
guys. One can hope that politics is not all that is at play when it comes to determining how these programs are organized, but these
changes will need to be made quickly because the longer they wait the longer the system goes without preventative measures. Not
much needs to be added to current CI training, but an understanding of the basic threat
psychology, as addressed in Chapter 2, should be a part of the Minimum Standards. A key element of
this “preventative measure” is the provision of information regarding where developing
threats can seek assistance, how coworkers can report suspected problems for assistance, and
how supervisors can refer to assistance. These insights would be crucial both for impacting the
potential downward spiral and the apprehension of an individual. The one major outlet that exists is in
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). As stated in EO 12968, all individuals working for agencies with access to classified
information are eligible to use EAPs for “assistance concerning issues that may affect their eligibility for access to classified
information, such as financial matters, mental health, or substance abuse.” Essentially EAPs are counseling services for those in the
IC who need an extra support structure to get personal help130. The problem is that often there is a stigma placed on anyone for
using these services. The proper use of these programs is crucial for serving this preventative measure and should be included in
training as a healthy outlet free of judgment or damage to one’s career. One thing that the Spy cycle and the Radicalization cycle
both underscored was that in the earliest stages of the development of an insider threat, there was a need for help. The spy found
that help in the solace of a foreign intelligence service, while the future violent extremist found it in the support network of an
international terrorist organization. By focusing training on identification at the later stages of development, we are skipping an
important step in the progression of an insider threat. Ignoring the early stages does nothing to prevent those potential future
threats sitting on the edge of right and wrong from making bad choices. By
adding to the current training a focus of
earlier detection then the potential to remove the future insiders from their support structure
and offer them a healthy outlet is possible. Additionally, teaching this training to everyone
will turn personnel into sensors for future threats, not just current ones131
65
2NC
Reform to the ITP is necessary
Porter 14 -Master in Security Studies
(Michael Lawrence, COMBATING INSIDER THREATS: AN ANALYSIS OF CURRENT UNITED STATES
INSIDER THREAT POLICIES AND NECESSARY IMPROVEMENTS, May 2014,
http://repositories.tdl.org/asu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346.1/30135/PORTER-THESIS2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, JZG)
Chapter 4: The Reform Process Given the many insider threat-related challenges the CI Community
faces, the United States has done a great deal to confront this dangerous enemy . Nonetheless, the CI
Community must make additional changes due to weaknesses in the current legislative
processes, organizational interactions, and other issues involved in this effort 99. As addressed in Chapter 3, the
structure of the CI Community has adapted over the years, but the sad reality is that these changes happened largely as a result of
failures in the system and kneejerk reactions designed to address specific instances of failure100. Even then, the changes that do
occur often do not come easily and are the result of extensive reform processes throughout the IC. The
ever-present threat
posed by insiders means that the US CI Community must routinely evaluate the process it
operates under and look to better itself. Our CI specialists must address a range of persistent vulnerabilities to help
strengthen the American security apparatus. The problem is that substantive reform is often very difficult to accomplish in the IC,
and subsequently the CI Community, for two reasons. First, intelligence reform is usually more politically motivated than it is
focused on, and motivated by, the need for substantive change101. Second, since the IC is a tool of the policy makers, who
ultimately oversee these organizations, this often means that the people making decisions for the IC have little to no real
understanding of the Intelligence process102. As Chapter 3 demonstrated, there were multiple reforms over the past 20 years that
have helped mold the CI Community into an organization that could fight the insider threat. These changes however, were not the
result of planned reform, they were reactionary movements to larger community failures that allowed insiders like Ames, Hanssen,
and Hassan to exist. Politicians do not like huge failures for political reasons, so large high-profile events act as ”motivation” for
change, and to show their constituents that they are making things better103
66
DOD CP
67
1NC
CP Text: The Department of Defense should enact new efficiency standards and
guidelines for their insider threat program.
Reform through the GAO standards solves efficiency and insider threats
Pomerleau 15
(Mark, DOD coming up short on insider threat safeguards, GAO says, Jun 04, 2015,
http://defensesystems.com/Articles/2015/06/04/DOD-insider-threat-gaps-GAO.aspx?Page=1,
JZG)
While certain components of DOD’s insider-threat implementation program have been
incorporated, other major standards have been neglected, according to a Government Accountability
Office report. Specifically, the department has not analyzed gaps or incorporated risk assessments
into the program. Going back to 2000, DOD issued an integrated process team report to guard against insider threats to
information systems. This issue came to a head in 2010 following massive disclosures of classified information by then-Army soldier
Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. (The report refers to leaks by Manning and Edward Snowden, though not by name.) Congress in
2011 called for DOD to establish an insider threat program while the White House issued an executive order establishing an
interagency task force, known as the National Insider Threat Task Force. A 2012 presidential memorandum directed agencies to
create insider threat programs by May 2013 and identified six minimum standards for the programs: (1) designation of senior
official(s); (2) information integration, analysis, and response; (3) insider-threat program personnel; (4) access to information; (5)
monitoring user activity on networks; and (6) employee training and awareness. GAO stated that DOD and the six selected DOD
components it reviewed have begun incorporating the minimum standards, they have not done so consistently. GAO’s report, which
was originally issued in a classified setting in April, notes that around that same time, DOD made a particular point to highlight the
need to mitigate insider threats in its newly updated Cyber Strategy, which said DOD was pursuing security against insider threats
“through continuous network monitoring, improved cybersecurity training for the workforce, and improved methods for identifying,
reporting, and tracking suspicious behavior.” The report continued: “Mitigating
the insider threat requires good
leadership and accountability throughout the workforce. Beyond implementing policies and
protocols, leaders will strive to create a culture of awareness to anticipate, detect, and
respond to insider threats before they have an impact.” Although DOD is required to complete a continuing
analysis of gaps in security measures, DOD officials reported in 2014 that this survey had been suspended due to financial and
personnel limitations. “This survey would have allowed DOD to define existing insider-threat program capabilities; identify gaps in
security measures; and advocate for the technology, policies, and processes necessary to increase capabilities in the future,” GAO
wrote. Without that information, “the department will not know whether their capabilities for insider-threat detection and analysis
are adequate and fully address the statutory requirements.” GAO
starkly pointed out that it found DOD had not
incorporated risk assessment s into insider threat programs. Risk assessments, GAO pointed
out, “provide a basis for establishing appropriate policies and selecting cost-effective
techniques to implement these policies. Risk assessments generally include the tasks of
identifying threats and vulnerabilities, and determining consequences.” Despite the fact that some
DOD officials said insider threats are included in other risk assessments, these assessments are “technical in nature and focus on the
vulnerabilities of individual systems” and “do not provide insider-threat program officials with complete information to make
informed risk and resource decisions about how to align cybersecurity protections.” Further compounding this issue, GAO
continued, is that officials in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence do not view the results of the National
Security Agency assessments or Command Cyber Readiness Inspection reports, meaning a “senior-level official does not know which
specific types of risk the department is incurring.” Aside from the two major flaws mentioned at the outset, GAO
also picked
up on a lack of guidance from the top level of DOD. “DOD officials stated that they would need supplemental
planning guidance that helps them identify actions, such as the key elements, beyond the minimum standards that they should take
to enhance their insider-threat programs,” according to the report. “The
current DOD directive does not contain
additional guidance for implementing key elements of an insider-threat program beyond the
68
minimum standards.” A draft implementation plan provides guidance on minimum standards but not recommended
elements. DOD was expected to release a supplemental guidance in January 2015.
69
2NC
The insider threat program has a ton of data now – new guidelines and
effectiveness measures are critical to success
Tucker 7-19
(Patrick -Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked
Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014).
Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about
emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American
Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere, “To Prevent Insider
Threats, DOD Must First Define ‘Normal’”, JULY 19, 2015,
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/07/insider-threat-prevention-complicatedautomated/118099/, JZG)
Imagine your job is to anticipate when that sort of thing might occur by using digital data
produced by and about soldiers like Hasan. The task before you is enormous. There were
around 65,000 people personnel stationed at Fort Hood at the time of Hasan’s rampage. If you were to scan
every piece of electronic communication between those soldiers, and their contacts, for hints of future violence, your graph would
include 14,950,000
different nodes—people, devices, and other communication points—and up to
4,680,000,000 messages, according to a paper published after the incident by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, or DARPA. Nevertheless, predicting such insider attacks on the basis of digital clues is
something the Defense Department is committed to doing. Following the 2011 leak of classified
documents by Army Pvt. First Class Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, President Obama signed Executive Order 13587,
establishing the National Insider Threat Task Force. The Defense Department and the Task Force have since taken
various steps to predict and prevent insider attacks. But the ultimate goal — a continuous and automated understanding of every
potential threat posed by everyone with any connection to the defense establishment — remains elusive. DOD
is working to
meet one of the Task Force’s key recommendations: establish a center to coordinate its
insider threat efforts, codify best practices, and monitor the most important cases . This Defense
Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center, or DITMAC, slated to reach initial capability this fall, is meant to be able to analyze
and fuse insider threat data that it gets from different components. Full operational capability will come in 2018 or 2019. Insider
threat detection, as specified by DOD requirements, will also become standard for any defense contractor with top-secret clearance,
according to forthcoming changes in the National Industrial Security Program Operational Manual. Key
to DoD’s these
efforts is what’s called continuous evaluation, a method to continuously monitor personnel with important
clearances or access for changes that Department believes could make them insider threats, like credit problems, family issues,
arrests, etc. But DoD would like to be able to subject all personnel to that sort of examination. A recent quarterly report of the
Insider Threat program suggested that 225,000 personnel would be subject to continuous evaluation by one of the CE pilot
programs by the end of 2015, and 1 million by 2017. But, as recent GAO reports make clear, progress has been uneven. The
DoD
CE program will automatically and continuously check records using data from the
government, commercial sources to insure to look for warning signs. “As it matures, the CE
capability will continuously ingest and filter data as it becomes available and provide …
relevant information to appropriate security entities for action,” Mark Nehmer, who is leading that effort
as the DITMAC team’s deputy chief for implementation, told Defense One in an email. That means developing software
to detect threat signals, bad credit, unusual travel, arms purchases, etc. the second that that information
becomes available. The usefulness of continuous evaluation will depend on DOD’s ability to tell
normal behavior from abnormal on a department-wide scale and do so automatically. A few years
ago, DARPA funded a program called Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales, or ADAMS. The goal was to “create, adapt and apply
70
technology to the problem of anomaly characterization and detection in massive data sets…The focus is on malevolent insiders that
started out as ‘good guys.’ The specific goal of ADAMS is to detect anomalous behaviors before or shortly after they turn.” That set
the stage for many current research efforts. “We’re
working through a number of different efforts right
now, behavioral analytics, to actually try and figure out [for] all of these different known
insider threats that we’ve seen, what the characteristics have been of those individuals, what
are the behaviors that they’ve exhibited,” said Nehmer. “Where were they in their work life? Where were they in
their social life? We’re doing as deep a dive as we can get on individuals that have actually exhibited insider threat behavior,”
Nehmer said at a recent Defense One event. That seems straightforward enough — but it presents a technical challenge as big as big
data. Consider Hasan, on whom the Army had an abundance of data. They knew that he had become withdrawn after receiving
abuse from other soldiers and that he wanted out of the military. In the summer of 2009, they knew that Hasan had begun to buy
non-issue guns. The military looks for those behaviors among many others, as indicators of potential insider attacks. This 2011 guide
to characterizing so-called “indicators of potential insider attackers lists a few of them. “Socially withdraws on some occasions,”
“strange habits,” and “lacks positive identity with unit or country” are Category I indicators that could apply to every American
teenager. The Category III indicators include “takes unusual travel,” “Exhibits sudden interest in partner nation headquarters or
individual living quarters,” and “Stores or collects ammunition or other items that could be used to injure or kill multiple personnel.”
But these clues can present themselves too late. The
thing about “normal behavior” is that its definition
depends entirely on context. Normal for one person in one job is abnormal for another. “There is
no normal across a department,” says Nehmer, “There is no normal across a command … We’ve been doing some machine learning
in the department and they’ve been looking at what normal behavior looks like by a single position. You go to a particular
component, you go to a sub unit in that component, and then you look at a position. We know what that should look like. That’s
where we’ve done the homework.” “For instance, say you have someone who is an administrative assistant. And this assistant is
spending a lot of time looking at foreign military websites. And they’re downloading things off the Internet and sending emails to a
foreign email address. So someone looks into that and finds that the person is actually putting together travel for one of the flags
[flag officers], in that particular country.” Nehmer says that that sort of behavior should be automatically flagged by a user activity
monitoring, or UAM, system, prompting a closer inspection by a human analyst within the insider’s component. It shouldn’t
necessarily trigger high institutional concern. Developing software to automatically flag and possibly mitigate concerns as they come
up will involve training programs on massive amounts of anonymized data related to emails, texts, and messages. As
continuous evaluation rolls out, a higher level of surveillance is going to become the norm
across the Defense Department. Patricia Larsen, co-director of the National Insider Threat Task Force, said that
while continuous evaluation might feel intrusive for DOD employees, it doesn’t actually
represent a fundamental change from types of screening and vetting procedures that the
Department undertakes now. Analysts looking for insider threats today can use a tool called
the Automated Continuous Evaluation System, or ACES, to run queries about an individual
across different databases. It’s Google for instant background checks, not truly automatic. “ACES has been running for 20
years,” Larsen said. “So we have been looking at you as a person. But it’s been a slow, methodical and sometimes painstaking way of
doing it. What we’re saying is that there’s a lot of information about you that’s already out there. We want to put it together in one
place so we can short-circuit the information gathering point and get to the analysis of you faster and be able to look at you more
proactively.” Carrie Wibben, director security policy and oversight division for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
(Intelligence) likened the new level of scrutiny to a routine lie-detector test. “I don’t like that,” she said, “but I feel better knowing
that everyone alongside me had to go through the same polygraphic examinations that I had.” Of course, continuous evaluation will
be a great deal more intrusive than a one-time polygraph session. It will, among other things, collect every DOD worker’s public
posts on social media along with all other communication that the Department can legally collect. Such data could be used, as far as
possible, to monitor not just credit and life changes but each individual’s current emotional state. “A machine could monitor that
and get a contextual feel for a person’s mood. I think that’s in the future. But we have to sift through the volumes that we’re talking
about and you have to get a baseline for people,” said Nehmer. Deriving a sense of mood or sentiment from textual clues, perhaps in
real time, is a fast-growing area of machine learning research. Consider this paper by Chris Poulin in which he and his fellow
researchers tried to use subtle language clues harvested from social media to predict which veterans might attempt suicide. They
found indicators that allowed them to predict with better than than 65% accuracy. Then there’s another worry: the data that’s left
off the table. Asked how her office was looking into deep web or dark web content for insider threat indicators, Wibben answered,
“We’re not looking to that at all. We have to stay within the bounds of the [Standard Form 86] consent form, so things that
individuals put out there publicly, that’s what we’re looking at right now. If you protect it behind a password, we’re not looking at
it… at least not on the background investigation, continuous evaluation side.” All the data that DOD can obtain, legally but at no
small inconvenience to those who soldiers who create it, may still not be enough to prevent future insider attacks from taking place.
71
All Agencies are in ITP
The DOD is part of XO 13587
NCSC.gov No Date
(NATIONAL INSIDER THREAT TASK FORCE MISSION FACT SHEET,
http://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Task_Force_Fact_Sheet.pdf, JZG)
Who runs the task force, and which agencies are involved? Under Executive Order (E.O.) 13587, the
National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF) is co-chaired by the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of
National Intelligence (DNI). They, in turn, designated the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National
Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) to co-direct the daily activities of the NITTF. The NITTF comprises employees and contractors
from a variety of federal departments and agencies (D/A), and its work impacts more than 70 federal D/As that handle classified
material. Currently, the following departments and agencies have representatives on the NITTF: FBI, Office of the National
Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Veterans Administration (VA), and Department of Justice
(DOJ). The NITTF responds directly to the Senior Information Sharing and Safeguarding Steering Committee, which was also
established under E.O. 13587. The Steering
Committee comprises representatives from largely
Intelligence Community agencies with extensive access to classified networks and materials, including the
Departments of State, Energy, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, ODNI,
ONCIX, NSA, DIA, the Program Manager--Information Sharing Environment, Office of
Management and Budget, the National Security Council Staff, and the Information Security
Oversight Office.
All agencies are included
NCSC.gov No Date
(NATIONAL INSIDER THREAT TASK FORCE MISSION FACT SHEET,
http://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Task_Force_Fact_Sheet.pdf, JZG)
Is every agency required to implement the new minimum standards? Yes, taken together, the
E.O. and the national policy mandate that every executive branch agency with access to
classified information establish an insider threat program in line with standards and guidance
from the NITTF. However, there is a recognition of differing levels of risk—and, therefore, differing levels of protection
required—based on such things as size of cleared population, extent of access to classified computer systems, and amount of
classified information maintained by the D/A. The national insider threat policy directs heads of D/As to develop their programs
using risk management principles. The NITTF is working with D/As, as well as the Classified Information Sharing and Safeguarding
Office in the office of the Program Manager--Information Sharing Executive, to assess the extent of applicability of the minimum
standards to each of the 70+ executive branch D/As with access to classified information based on associated risk.
72
Coast Guard CP
73
1NC
CP Text: The Coast Guard should implement reforms to its insider threat
program.
Coast Guard insider threat prevention needs to be reformed to solve
McDermott 15
(Ryan -Editor in the Government Publishing Group at FierceMarkets, G: Coast Guard taking steps
to reduce insider threats, but more needs to be done, April 9, 2015,
http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/ig-coast-guard-taking-steps-reduce-insiderthreats-more-needs-be-done/2015-04-09, JZG)
Although the Coast Guard has taken steps to reduce insider threats, there's still more to do,
including training Coast Guard employees about insider threat awareness, says a March 27 Homeland
Security Department inspector general report. The IG reviewed the efforts of the Coast Guard's progress toward protecting its
information technology assets from threats posed by its employees, especially those with trusted or elevated access to sensitive but
unclassified information systems or data. Coast Guard has generally been doing a good job, the report (pdf) says.
The service established an Insider Threat Working Group designed to implement a program focused on the insider risk and has
established the Cyber Security Operations Center to monitor and respond to potential insider threat risks. They also implemented a
process to verify that system administrators have the appropriate level of access to information technology systems and networks to
perform their assigned duties. But Coast
Guard still needs to implement software to protect against the
unauthorized removal of sensitive information through the use of removable media devices,
such as flash drives, and email accounts. Coast Guard also should implement stronger physical
security controls to protect Coast Guard's information technology assets from possible loss,
theft, destruction or malicious actions, the IG says. Employees at the Coast Guard all need better
threat security awareness training, says the report. Coast Guard agreed with all of the IG's recommendations.
74
2NC
Coast guard reform is needed – prevents terrorism and allows for an effective
coast guard
Kimery 15
(Anthony, Insider Threats Continue To Pose Risks To USCG, IG Audit Found 04/07/2015,
http://www.hstoday.us/briefings/daily-news-analysis/single-article/insider-threats-continue-topose-risks-to-uscg-ig-audit-found/b03b06fe2027f79bc68b50d296f5864e.html, JZG)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) concluded in a 29-page audit report that
while the US Coast Guard (USCG) has taken steps to address the risk of insider threats to its
information systems and data, is still needs to take additional steps to further address the
risks posed by so-called “trusted insiders” inside the Coast Guard. “An internal breach by a trusted
employee could impact [the Coast Guard’s] ability to protect the nation’s maritime interests
and environment,” the IG disclosed. Specifically, the IG said the Coast Guard needs to implement
software to protect against the unauthorized removal of sensitive information through the
use of removable media devices and email accounts; implementing stronger physical security
controls to protect USCG’s information technology assets from possible loss, theft, destruction
or malicious actions; and providing insider threat security awareness training for all Coast
Guard employees. According to the IG’s audit report, the Coast Guard “has taken some steps to address the risk of insider
threats to its information systems and data, such as establishing an Insider Threat Working Group that’s designed to implement a
holistic program focused on the insider risk.” “In addition,” the IG stated, “USCG implemented a process to verify that system
administrators have the appropriate level of access to information technology systems and networks to perform their assigned
duties. Further, USCG established the Cyber Security Operations Center to monitor and respond to potential insider threat risks or
incidents against USCG information systems and networks.” The Coast
Guard concurred with all three of the
IG’s recommendations, which, “if implemented, should strengthen USCG’s management of the
threat posed by trusted insiders,” the IG stated. In its audit of Coast Guard efforts to address the risk posed by trusted
insiders, the IG determined the USCG “has taken some steps to address the risk of insider threats,” but that it also discovered
“additional steps [that] are needed to further reduce the risk of insider threats to information technology assets.” The IG said it’s
testing “revealed potential vulnerabilities in technical and physical security controls that could allow for: The unauthorized data
removal from USCG information systems; and The loss, theft or destruction of information technology assets. “In addition,” the IG
stated, “insider threat security awareness training is needed for USCG employees. The IG’s audit report stated, “ Trusted
insiders could be given elevated access to mission-critical assets, including personnel,
facilities, information, equipment, networks or systems. Potential threats can include damage
to the United States through espionage, terrorism and unauthorized disclosure of national
security information.” Continuing, the IG said, “Trusted insiders may also be aware of weaknesses in organizational
policies and procedures, as well as physical and technical vulnerabilities in computer networks and information systems.” And
“this institutional knowledge poses a continual risk to the organization,” the IG’s audit said, emphasizing that, “In
the wrong
hands, insiders use this knowledge to facilitate malicious attacks on their own or collude with
external attackers to carry out such attacks.” According to Coast Guard officials interviewed at length by the IG,
“a malicious insider could do the most harm to the USCG mission by: Compromising sensitive
and classified information; Damaging operational infrastructure and resources; and Causing
loss of life through workplace violence.
75
ADAMS CP
76
1NC - Solvency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency should substantially increase
its funding for the Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales program.
ADAMS is still in its infancy—but success makes the ITP more effective—
destroys false positives
Keating 13 Joshua E. Keating is an associate editor at Foreign Policy. JUNE 13, 2013, “Type ‘S’
for Suspicious,” http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/13/type-s-for-suspicious/
Government-funded trolls. Decoy documents. Software that identifies you by how you type. Those are just a few of the methods the
Pentagon has pursued in order to find the next Edward Snowden before he leaks. The small problem, military-backed researchers
every spot-the-leaker solution creates almost as many headaches as it’s
supposed to resolve . With more than 1.4 million Americans holding top-secret clearance throughout a complex network of
tell Foreign Policy, is that
military, government, and private agencies, rooting out the next Snowden or Bradley Manning is a daunting task. But even before
last week’s National Security Agency (NSA) revelations, the government was funding research to see whether there are telltale signs
in the mountains of data that can help detect internal threats in advance. In the months following the WikiLeaks revelations, the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — the U.S. military’s far-out tech arm — put out a number of requests for
research on methods to detect suspicious behavior in large datasets as a way to root out rogue actors like Manning (or in more
extreme cases, ones like Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.) The most ambitious of these is known as Anomaly Detection at
Multiple Scales (ADAMS), a program that as an October 2010 research request put it, is meant "to create, adapt and apply
technology to the problem of anomaly characterization and detection in massive data sets." The
hope is that ADAMS
would develop computers that could analyze a large set of user-generated data — the emails
and data requests passing through an NSA office in Honolulu for instance — and learn to
detect abnormal behavior in the system. The tricky part of this kind of analysis is not so much
training a computer to detect aberrant behavior — there’s plenty of that going around on any large network — it’s training a
computer what to ignore. "I like to use the example of learning to recognize the difference between reindeer and elk,"
wrote Oregon State University computer scientist Tom Dietterich, who worked on developing anomaly detection methods for
ADAMS, in an email to Foreign Policy. "If all I need to do is tell these species apart, I can focus on the size [of] their antlers and
whether the antlers have velvety fur, and I don’t need to consider color. But if I only focus on these features, I won’t notice that
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is anomalous, because I’m ignoring color (and noses, for that matter). So in
an anomaly
detection system, it is important to consider any attribute (or behavior) that might possibly be
relevant rather than trying to focus on a very few specific characteristics." Over the past three years,
DARPA has shelled out millions of dollars on efforts to learn how to root out Rudolphs from the rest of the reindeer and find out
exactly what these red noses look like. This includes a $9 million award to Georgia Tech to coordinate research on developing
anomaly detection algorithms. You can peruse much of the research funded through ADAMS online. For instance, a proposal by the
New York-based firm Allure Security Technology, founded by a Columbia University computer science professor, calls for seeding
government systems with "honeypot servers" and decoy documents meant to entice potential leakers to subversives. The files
would alert administrators when accessed and allow the system to develop models for suspicious behavior. The company cheekily
refers to this technique as "fog computing." Another ADAMS-funded paper by Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Kevin
Killourhy looks at systems to "distinguish people based on their typing." For instance, Killourhy explains, when three typists are
asked to type the password ".tie5Roanl," the three users can be easily identified by how long they hold down the "t" key. The paper
suggests such technologies "could revolutionize insider-threat detection," though unfortunately even the
best systems can have an error rate of up to 63 percent, and detection can apparently be thrown off if the person just isn’t a very
good typist. (Note to prospective whistle-blowers: Try two-finger typing.) Under the fairly obtuse title "Non-Negative Residual Matrix
Factorization with Application to Graph Anomaly Detection," two DARPA-supported IBM researchers attempted to identify the kind
of behaviors that might indicate suspicious behavior in a large network. These included "a connection between two nodes which
belong to two remotely connected communities," such as an author publishing a paper on a topic not normally associated with his
or her research; "port-scanning like behavior," which is when a particular IP address is receiving information from an unusually high
number of other addresses; and "collusion," such as a "group of users who always give good ratings to another group of users in
order to artificially boost the reputation of the target group." The thinking has gone somewhat beyond the theoretical level. At a
conference in May, researchers from defense firm SAIC presented results from the PRODIGAL (Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats
Using Graph Analysis and Learning) research team — part of the overall ADAMS initiative — which tested a series of anomaly
77
detection methods on an organization of approximately 5,500 users over the course of two months. "Red teams" were inserted into
the data simulating characters such as a "saboteur," an intellectual property thief, and a "rager" — someone prone to "strong,
vociferous, abusive, and threatening language in email/Webmail/instant messages." The detection methods varied widely in
effectiveness. Such
systems are clearly not yet up to the task of identifying a leaker before he or
she strikes, and Dietterich, the Oregon State computer scientist, was cautious when asked whether they ever would be.
"Anything I would say here would just be speculation, and artificial intelligence researchers have learned the painful lesson that we
are very bad at predicting when, if, or how the methods we develop will be useful," he stated. ADAMS
may still be in the
trial stage, but "insider threat" detection was clearly a major priority for the U.S. government even before last week. In October
2011, for instance, President Barack Obama signed an executive order calling for the creation of an interagency Insider Threat Task
Force charged with the "safeguarding of classified information from exploitation, compromise, or other unauthorized disclosure."
78
1NC – PTX Net Benefit
Black budget means no link to politics
Wired 12 02.15.12, “SEE FOR YOURSELF: THE PENTAGON’S $51 BILLION ‘BLACK’ BUDGET”
http://www.wired.com/2012/02/pentagons-black-budget/
Because it’s not easy saying we have the complete number. The Pentagon likes to play a little hide and seek with
its black budget. Projects with code names like the Navy’s “RETRACT JUNIPER” and “LINK PLUMERIA” are simple enough to
find in the research development, testing and evaluation budget (.pdf). As are many of the Army’s “TRACTOR” projects: “TRACTOR
NAIL,” “TRACTOR CAGE,” and so on. But then comes along a project like “TRACTOR DESK” hiding in one of the Army’s eight research
budget documents, while others find their way to the operations and maintenance and procurement budgets. These projects are
also where to go when searching for what’s getting cut. Something called the “Classified Program USD(P),” formerly valued around a
respectable $100 million, had its budget reduced to zero. “TRACTOR JUTE” is on life support and “COBRA JUDY” had the sting taken
out of it. Most other projects saw lesser cuts, however, and others like “RETRACT MAPLE” even saw minor gains. This is also while
the researcher at Darpa only received a slight trim. The Pentagon budget also sheds light on the shadowy world of special operations
forces and their “new normal” requirements in Afghanistan “and other locations” like the Horn of Africa. According to SOCOM’s
operation and maintenance budget, an estimated 11,500 special forces personnel are expected to be in Afghanistan next year, a
drop from the 12,321 (or so) commandos financed for this year. SOCOM is also getting a $796 million shave, but some budget
wizardry should make up the difference. According to the budget, $889 million was shuffled from SOCOM’s overseas spending to
“baseline” budgets with titles like “contract services” and “contractor logistics support.” Yet, “The overall amount of troops and
missions within [Afghanistan] are projected to increase,” it says. This means the special forces will “require additional resources to
reposition personnel and equipment as well as increase the number of missions executed,” says the report (.pdf). Though to put it in
perspective, the
Pentagon is still spending more on classified projects than most nations spend on
their entire military forces in year. And that’s just the beginning. The budget for the Military Intelligence Program was
released this week, adding another $19.2 billion — down from a record $27 billion in 2010. That also doesn’t include the budget for
the National Intelligence Program, which oversees spy agencies like the CIA. Their budget hasn’t been released yet but prior budgets
have shown it to hover in the $50 billion range. So we could be talking about $120 billion or more in black accounts. There’s also a
slight problem. The
Pentagon has another “classified” budget line with the money to show for it,
but the dollar-amounts don’t match the individual projects. In other words, the exact amount
the Pentagon spends on its black projects may, in fact, be a mystery even to itself.
79
2NC - Solvency
ADAMS key to effective data analysis
Hemsoth 12 Nicole Hemsoth, Co-Editor at The Platform, August 15, 2012, “How DARPA Does
Big Data,” http://www.datanami.com/2012/08/15/how_darpa_does_big_data/
DARPA, like other government agencies worldwide, is struggling to keep up with its lava flow of hot
military intellignce data. Research and public sector organizations have become experts at finding new ways to create
data, so the challenge has been keeping up with it—effectively running fast enough to stay just ahead of the heat with the hopes of
being able to understand its source before the stream hardens and becomes static, useless. As many are already aware, these
challenges were at the heart of the U.S. government’s recent big data drive, where funding was doled out to address barriers to
making use of the flood of intelligence, research and military data. This week we wanted to take a step back and look at how a
defense-oriented intelligence and research organization is trying to capture, handle and make the best use of its data flows by
highlighting select projects. Without further delay, let’s begin with the first big intel data project– NEXT — Who Needs Precogs
When You Have ADAMS? >> Who Needs Precogs When You Have ADAMS? It’s a sad but relatively commonplace surprise when a
solider or government agent whom others might have thought to be in good mental health suddenly begins making bad decisions—
either to the detriment of national security or those around him. When this happens, the first reaction is often one of awe, “how
could something like this happen—how couldn’t someone know that there was a problem before it got to such a point?” In other
words, in the case of a government that has some of the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering and analysis capabilities, how
could anything slip through the cracks? DARPA is seeking to snag this problem by understanding operative and soldier patterns via
network activity and large volumes of data with a $35 million project that has been underway since late 2010. According to DARPA,
the Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS) program has
been designed to “create, adapt and apply
technology to anomaly characterization and detection in massive data sets.” The agency says that
triggers in the large data would tip them off to possible “insider threats” in which “malevolent (or possibly inadvertent) actions by a
trusted individual are detected against a background of everyday network activity.” DARPA says that the importance of anomaly
detection is cemented in the “fact that anomalies in data translate to significant, and often critical actionable information.” They
claim that operators in the counter-intelligence community are the target end users for ADAMS insider threat detection technology.
While there are not many details about the actual algorithms or systems used to handle this information, when the project was first
announced the agency was seeking an “automated and integrated modeling, correlation, exploitation, prediction, and resource
management” system to handle the needs. Researchers from Georgia Tech are among those who are helping DARPA with its insider
threat detection project. Under the leadership of computer scientist Dr. David Bader, the team has been in the midst of a $9 million,
2-year project to create a suite of algorithms that can scan for such anomalies across a diverse pool of data, including email, text
messages, file transfers and other forms of data. To develop new approaches for identifying “insider threats” before an incident
occurs, Georgia Tech researchers will have access to massive data sets collected from operational environments where individuals
have explicitly agreed to be monitored. The information will include electronically recorded activities, such as computer logins,
emails, instant messages and file transfers. The ADAMS
system will be capable of pulling these terabytes of
data together and using novel algorithms to quickly analyze the information to discover
anomalies. “We need to bring together high-performance computing, algorithms and systems on an unprecedented scale
because we’re collecting a massive amount of information in real time for a long period of time,” explained Bader. “We are
further challenged because we are capturing the information at different rates — keystroke
information is collected at very rapid rates and other information, such as file transfers, is
collected at slower rates.”
80
2NC – S False Positives
CP solves false positives—that’s the internal link to Intel—perception solves
groupthink
Defense Systems 11 Henry Kenyon, contributing writer for Defense Systems, Nov 17, 2011,
“DARPA program seeks early detection of insider threats,”
http://defensesystems.com/articles/2011/11/17/darpa-anomaly-detection-at-multiplescales.aspx
Usually the pattern of events that leads to a person becoming an insider threat is only discovered after the fact. Now a team of
researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Army Research Office is
developing
a set of algorithms to detect anomalous activity before the damage is done. DARPA’s Anomaly
Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS) program seeks to create a software-based approach to track a
person's online work activity — everything from e-mail messages to instant messages, file
access, and Web traffic — to detect anomalous behavior, explained David Bader, the project’s co-principal
investigator and a professor at the Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering and the Georgia Tech Research
Institute. The project is led by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and includes researchers from Oregon State
University, the University of Massachusetts, and Carnegie Mellon University. The project also seeks to determine how trusted
insiders become radicalized; but doing so requires sifting
through terabytes of data. This is a big challenge,
one that requires powerful algorithms running on high performance computers, Bader said. One
of the ADAMS program's predictive aspects will be to find and flag suspicious behavior before
a security breach occurs. “Our system tries to find these individuals who have gone down that slippery slope, but before
they’ve done any crime or anything illegal,” he said. ADAMS will collect data and put the pieces together for
analysts by highlighting potential threats. Researchers want the system to boil down the number of anomalies to a
short list for an analyst to investigate. “Today an analyst is overwhelmed with thousands of anomalies per day,” said Bader. The
team is taking a different approach from traditional methods that use pattern matching and
profiling by working on algorithms to identify suspicious user activities through change detection. Because an anomaly is
an unexplained event in the context of a person's work routine, the algorithms being
developed for ADAMS will allow analysts to understand a user’s behavior. “Unlike pattern
matching , which has many false positives , we’re using a different approach to understand
humans within an organization,” he said.
81
2NC – No Link PTX
DARPA is getting a lot more money—it can shift it to ADAMS
UPI 14 “Proposed 2015 budget means more funding for DARPA,”March 6, 2014,
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2014/03/06/Proposed-2015-budgetmeans-more-funding-for-DARPA/36881394141291/
WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says the Defense
Department's proposed 2015 budget will restore more of its financial resources . Those resources, it
said, will allow promising "investments in new technology-driven ideas for the United States."
"We (the United States) are faced with huge uncertainties and shifting threats, but we also have unparalleled opportunities to
advance technologies in a way that can provide the nation with dramatic new capabilities," said DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar. The
proposed Defense Department budget is part of President Barack Obama's budget request to Congress. DARPA
will receive
$2.915 billion in funding for 2015 if the current budget request is passed. The fiscal year 2014
appropriation was $2.779 billion, which restored $199 million in previously cut funding. DARPA said it lost 20 percent in real terms
between fiscal 2009-2013. The
new amount would "enable DARPA to invest more in vital areas that
will improve U.S. national security by rethinking complex military systems, capitalizing on
information at scale, and advancing biology as technology," Prabhakar said in a release. "It also would
allow DARPA to restore funding for its basic research portfolio so that we can continue to
create new technologies in support of future capabilities."
82
Disadvantages
83
Terrorism
84
1NC — Terrorism
Leaks risk terrorism
Clapper 15 - Director of National Intelligence [James R. Clapper, Worldwide Threat Assessment
of the US Intelligence Community, Senate Armed Services Committee, February 26, 2015
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
We assess that the leading state intelligence threats to US interests in 2015 will continue to be
Russia and China, based on their capabilities, intent, and broad operational scopes. Other
states in South Asia, the Near East, and East Asia will pose increasingly sophisticated local and
regional intelligence threats to US interests. For example, Iran’s intelligence and security
services continue to view the United States as a primary threat and have stated publicly that
they monitor and counter US activities in the region.
Penetrating the US national decisionmaking apparatus and Intelligence Community will
remain primary objectives for foreign intelligence entities. Additionally, the targeting of
national security information and proprietary information from US companies and research
institutions dealing with defense, energy, finance, dual-use technology, and other areas will be a
persistent threat to US interests.
Non-state entities, including transnational organized criminals and terrorists, will continue to
employ human, technical, and cyber intelligence capabilities that present a significant
counterintelligence challenge. Like state intelligence services, these non-state entities recruit
sources and perform physical and technical surveillance to facilitate their illegal activities and
avoid detection and capture.
The internationalization of critical US supply chains and service infrastructure, including for the
ICT, civil infrastructure, and national security sectors, increases the potential for subversion. This
threat includes individuals, small groups of “hacktivists,” commercial firms, and state
intelligence services.
Trusted insiders who disclose sensitive US Government information without authorization will
remain a significant threat in 2015. The technical sophistication and availability of information
technology that can be used for nefarious purposes exacerbates this threat. Pg. 2
85
Politics
86
1NC — Politics Link
Massive congressional opposition to eliminating the Insider Threat Program.
National Defense Authorization Act proves
Aftergood 14 - Directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. [Steven Aftergood, “Congress
Tells DoD to Report on Leaks, Insider Threats,” Federation of American Scientist, Posted on Dec.08, 2014,
pg. http://tinyurl.com/o4tq4y9
For the next two years, Congress wants to receive quarterly reports from the Department of
Defense on how the Pentagon is responding to leaks of classified information. The reporting
requirement was included in the pending National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015 (Sec.
1052).
“Compromises of classified information cause indiscriminate and long-lasting damage to
United States national security and often have a direct impact on the safety of warfighters,” the
Act states.
“In 2010, hundreds of thousands of classified documents were illegally copied and disclosed
across the Internet,” it says, presumably referring to the WikiLeaks disclosures of that year.
“In 2013, nearly 1,700,000 files were downloaded from United States Government information
systems, threatening the national security of the United States and placing the lives of United
States personnel at extreme risk,” the Act states, in a presumed reference to the Snowden
disclosures. “The majority of the information compromised relates to the capabilities,
operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures of the Armed Forces of the United States, and is
the single greatest quantitative compromise in the history of the United States.”
The Secretary of Defense will be required to report on changes in policy and resource allocations
that are adopted in response to significant compromises of classified information.
The defense authorization act does not address irregularities in the classification system, such as
overclassification or failure to timely declassify information.
It does call for additional reporting on the Department of Defense “insider threat” program
(Sec. 1628), and on “the adoption of an interim capability to continuously evaluate the
security status of the employees and contractors of the Department who have been
determined eligible for and granted access to classified information.”
By definition, this continuous evaluation approach does not focus on suspicious individuals or
activities, but rather is designed to monitor all security-cleared personnel.
87
2NC/1NR — Politics Links
Bipartisan support for the insider threat program
Sasso 13
(Brendan, Senators back NSA bill, target ‘insider threats’, 11/06/13,
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/189416-senate-panel-advances-surveillance-funding, JZG)
The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced legislation to reauthorize funding for the
National Security Agency and surveillance programs. The bill includes new funding for technology to
combat "insider threats" and leaks of classified information. The committee approved the
legislation in a 13-2 vote late Tuesday. The approval of the annual funding measure comes after leaks by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden earlier this year revealed controversial details about the scope of the government's secret surveillance
programs. The
bill would empower the director of national intelligence to make improvements to
the government's process for investigating people with security clearances , such as Snowden.
Intelligence officials say the Snowden leaks have damaged the ability of the U.S. to spy on terrorists and thwart attacks. The bill
would create new protections for "legitimate" whistle-blowers to bring their concerns to Congress or agency leaders, the committee
said. The measure would also make the NSA director and inspector general subject to Senate confirmation. "We recognize that
budget reductions and sequestration are impacting our intelligence agencies, and Congress has a responsibility to ensure the
[director of national intelligence] and other intelligence leaders have the resources and flexibility they need to protect the nation,”
committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. The exact level of funding for the surveillance programs is
classified. According to documents leaked by Snowden to The Washington Post, the "black budget" for intelligence operations in
2013 was $52.6 billion, including $10.8 billion for the NSA alone. The funding reauthorization bill now heads to the Senate floor. The
House Intelligence Committee has yet to move companion legislation.
Both houses support the ITP
Abbott 13
(Maxwell, PR Watch, Bills in Congress Crack Down on Whistleblowers, 21 December 2013,
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20777-bills-in-congress-crackdown-onwhistleblowers#, JZG)
President Obama was elected on a platform that included promises for increased transparency and openness in government.
Despite this rhetoric, Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any administration in history and overseen the massive
growth of the NSA's surveillance apparatus. In November, the
Senate (S. 1681) and House (H.R. 3381) Intelligence
Committees each released their own version of the "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2014." This was an opportunity for Congressional leadership to address one of the defining issues of our time and either take a stand
for increased transparency or continue down an Orwellian path of pervasive secrecy. A review of each chamber's proposed
legislation demonstrates that "1984" is the future. Stopping "Insider Threats" The
bills contain provisions which will
intensify efforts to stop whistleblowers or "insider threats," no doubt inspired by Edward Snowden
and his release of sensitive NSA documents. The House version of the funding bill provides
$75 million of increased funding specifically for classified information protection. According to Tom Devine, Legal
Director of the Government Accountability Project, "the 'insider threat' program is a cover for a witch hunt of whistleblowers."
The media and both parties support being tough on whistleblowers
Hanrahan 15 —John Hanrahan is a former executive director of The Fund for Investigative
Journalism and reporter for The Washington Post, The Washington Star, UPI and other news
organizations. He also has extensive experience as a legal investigator. Hanrahan is the author of
Government by Contract and co-author of Lost Frontier: The Marketing of Alaska. 6-25-2015
("War on Whistleblowers, After Obama,"consortium news, 6-25-2015, Available Online at
88
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/25/war-on-whistleblowers-after-obama/, Accessed 7-142015)
And here’s another thing: With leaders of both political parties having either kept silent or
cheered on the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers, who in
high position in Congress would have one shred of moral authority or credibility to challenge a
future president’s excesses under the Espionage Act? On the question of keeping American
citizens in the dark and of punishing whistleblowers who dare to enlighten them, we truly
have bipartisan authoritarianism.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013. (From a video posted
by WikiLeaks)
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013. (From a video posted
by WikiLeaks)
And then a third thing: Don’t count much on major U.S. news media for any meaningful
oversight of, and opposition to, the treatment of whistleblowers under future presidents. The
mainstream press and big-name journalists — with some intermittent, notable exceptions such
as these two New York Times editorials and this Newark Star-Ledger editorial — have largely
ignored the jail-the-whistleblowers policies of the Obama administration.
Or, worse, as we’ve reported before, some of the most prominent names in the media joined
elected and appointed government officials in calling for harsh penalties for Edward Snowden,
Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and others whom they claim (without proof)
to have endangered U.S. national security by providing classified information to the news
media.
With his Justice Department having produced three times as many Espionage Act indictments
for classified document disclosure as all other administrations combined since the passage of
that legislation back in 1917, Obama has opened the door for his successors to continue — and
even expand — the assault on national security state whistleblowers who act in the public
interest.
Would any of the announced presidential candidates close that door after Obama leaves office
in January 2017? Again, as with leading journalists and members of Congress, don’t count on it.
It’s an open question as to whether any future president could be more aggressive than Obama
in going after whistleblowers. But based on the vengeful views of many of the large crop of
Republican candidates and on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s tough statements on
Edward Snowden’s NSA spying disclosures, prospects are not good for a sharp departure from
the whistleblower crackdown of the last six years. Clinton and leading Republican candidates
take the hard line that Snowden committed a serious crime and must be punished for it, with
no chance of leniency.
Obama is all in on the war on whistleblowers [then some flip flop link in the
other ptx file]
Chapman 15 —Chapman is president and founder of the American Small Business League, 430-2015 ("Congress should investigate the war on government whistleblowers," 4-30-2015,
Available Online at http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/the-administration/240592congress-should-investigate-the-war-on-government, Accessed 7-14-2015)
89
I searched the phrase “Obama’s war on whistleblowers” the other day and was stunned at the
number of stories that popped up on the Internet. The Obama administration’s
unprecedented war on whistleblowers and the administration’s historic lack of transparency
has been reported all around the world.
Academy award winning director Robert Greenwald’s documentary, The War on
Whistleblowers, chronicles the nightmare four individuals endured to expose unsafe weapons
systems at the Pentagon and illegal activities by federal agencies.
Congress should hold hearings on why federal employees and private citizens that have exposed
blatant wrong doing by federal contractors and illegal behavior by federal agencies continue to
be harassed and persecuted.
Individuals that report fraud and illegal activities by federal agencies are still having their careers
ruined and in some cases facing federal prosecution and even harassment by the IRS.
If you uncover a government contractor that has cheated the federal government you can
receive millions in rewards under the False Claims Act. I think the same principal should apply
for uncovering fraud within the federal government. If a federal employee or private citizen
exposes fraud within the federal government they should be assisted and protected not
persecuted and prosecuted.
have won dozens of legal battles with the federal government under the Freedom of
Information Act. My research prompted the first GAO investigation into fraud in federal small
business contracting programs. Now the House Small Business Committee has unanimously
adopted an amendment to request yet another GAO investigation into fraud in federal small
business contracting programs based on my research. Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.) drafted the
amendment to uncover why Fortune 500 firms continue to land billions in federal small business
contracts year after year. The federal government should support and protect private citizens
like myself that expose fraud and abuse within the government, but unfortunately that has not
been my experience.
I recently won a major Freedom of Information Act case against the Pentagon. Federal District
Court Judge William Alsup described me as being in a “David and Goliath” battle with “big
government.” In talking about the Pentagon’s efforts to withhold information Judge Alsup
stated, “and here is the United States covering it up.” In a subsequent hearing he accused the
Pentagon of “trying to suppress the evidence.” Is the United States Department of Justice
helping me to uncover abuse and mismanagement at the Pentagon? No, the Department of
Justice is representing the Pentagon and essentially helping them withhold evidence of possible
fraud and abuse in the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program (CSPTP).
It seems like I’m doing the job the Justice Department and the SBA Office of Inspector General
should be doing. Shouldn’t they be doing all the work I have done to expose fraud and abuse in
federal small business contracting and subcontracting programs?
Looking at the way whistleblowers have been treated recently I’m concerned that I’m more
likely to get a retaliatory IRS audit and/or prosecution by the Department of Justice than any
kind of protection or assistance from the federal government.
90
Flip flopping when it comes to Executive Orders drains Political Capital —
immigration proves
Brown 14 —Carrie Budoff Brown is the editor of POLITICO Europe. , 7-25-2014 ("Obama's
immigration flip flop," POLITICO, 7-25-2014, Available Online at
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/barack-obama-immigration-rhetoric-then-vs-now109352.html, Accessed 7-14-2015)
Obama’s pledge to use his executive powers by the end of the summer marked both a
dramatic reversal in rhetoric and a major strategic shift on immigration. The president is no
longer emphasizing his own powerlessness but rather his determination “to fix as much of our
immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.”
The administration is examining how far it can go, legally and politically, to protect millions of
undocumented immigrants from deportation. Despite the flow of young Central American
children across the southwestern border, Obama remains committed to taking significant
action, according to senior advisers and advocates who have attended recent meetings with
White House officials.
In other words, Obama has signaled that he intends to do exactly what he’s long said he’s
unable to do.
“I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress
chooses to do nothing,” Obama said last month in his Rose Garden announcement. “And in this
situation, the failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for
our economy, and it’s bad for our future.”
Even immigrant rights advocates, who were on the receiving end of the White House denials for
years, were surprised by his abrupt and enthusiastic move toward executive action in June after
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ruled out a legislative overhaul of immigration this year.
Activists had gotten so fed up in recent months that some tagged the president as the
“deporter-in-chief” and demanded that he shift immediately from a legislative strategy to an
administrative one.
“The way they talked about it was, ‘There’s nothing we can do, only Congress can solve it, we
don’t have the authority,’” said Lorella Praeli, director of advocacy and policy for United We
Dream. “That is very different from what they are saying today. It is completely different.”
The shift could be used by critics as an example of Obama saying one thing and doing
something else, another “evolution,” in White House parlance, on a hot-button social issue.
Some Republicans see it as fertile ground for advancing their midterm election strategy, which
focuses on raising questions about the president’s credibility and competence.
“It brings into question, when he commits to other things, whether he will keep that
commitment,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who worked closely with Obama on passing a
Senate immigration overhaul bill last year. “Things in this town, to a large degree, are done on
people’s commitments.”
Executive Orders divide Democrats and unite the GOP against Obama.
Kraushaar 14 —Josh Kraushaar is the political editor for National Journal, and pens the
weekly "Against the Grain" column. Kraushaar has been managing editor for politics at National
Journal, and as executive editor and editor-in-chief of The Hotline. In addition to his
91
management of The Hotline, Kraushaar plays a critical role in shaping National Journal's overall
political coverage. He was a political correspondent for PoliticoKraushaar has also served as the
editor of House Race Hotline. Kraushaar has appeared as a political analyst on television and
radio, including FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, National Public Radio and C-SPAN., 11-18-2014
("Obama's Agenda Threatens to Divide the Democratic Party," nationaljournal, 11-18-2014,
Available Online at http://www.nationaljournal.com/against-the-grain/obama-s-agendathreatens-to-divide-the-democratic-party-20141118, Accessed 7-14-2015)
President Obama's biggest problem over the next two years may not be coming from
recalcitrant Republicans, but from members of his own party blanching at his activist agenda
over the final two years of his presidency. While the midterm election results suggested
widespread dissatisfaction with the president's policies, Obama nonetheless is planning to press
forward on several polarizing decisions in his final two years. It could help advance his legacy,
but come at the expense of the Democratic Party's long-term health.
Three of the administration's biggest agenda items—threatening a veto of bipartisan legislation
authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, and
issuing an executive order legalizing millions of illegal immigrants—divide Democrats, and
unite Republicans. If the president moves forward with all of them, it would aggravate fissures
in an increasingly-divided Democratic Party. And it would put Hillary Clinton, his party's
expected 2016 standard-bearer, in an uncomfortable position even before she announces her
candidacy. She's already avoided taking stances, if not outright rejecting the direction Obama is
heading during his final two years in office.
The dirty secret in Washington is that while Obama (rightly) blamed Republicans for holding
positions to the right of the American electorate, the president is pursuing policies that are
equally as far to the left.
Approving construction of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline may not be the most
consequential legislation, but it is symbolic of the lengths the administration has gone to avoid a
postelection bipartisan accomplishment. Embattled Sen. Mary Landrieu, on the ballot next
month in a Louisiana Senate runoff, has been furiously lobbying colleagues to approve the
pipeline, and won support from 14 Democrats in an unsuccessful vote Tuesday. A new USA
Today poll of adults, conducted last week, found strong support for it—60 percent backing
construction of the Keystone pipeline, with only 25 percent opposed. This month, the Pew
Research Center found even 44 percent of Democrats supporting it, with 46 percent opposed.
When Republicans take control of the Senate in January, it's expected to pass with at least 63
votes.
A president looking to change the tone in Washington would be well-served to find common
ground on an issue that members of both parties agree on. But instead, he dismissed its jobcreating benefits and left his spokesman, Josh Earnest, to hint at a veto last week. The project
has now been delayed for six years. Given that energy issues played a consequential role in
Senate contests from Colorado to Kentucky—and are dooming the prospects of an otherwisereliable ally in Landrieu—the administration's stubbornness on the issue is baffling. If it's only a
symbolic issue, why not use it to build some confidence-building capital with Republicans on
other more significant goals?
Blame environmental activists, who make up a small slice of the Democratic electorate but an
outsize share of influence, for the gridlock. The president is either being held hostage by his
92
base, or is in sync ideologically with their interests. Either way, it's remarkably similar to the
problems Republican congressional leaders faced with their rank-and-file—a conflict that led to
the deeply unpopular government shutdown. (And as I wrote in last week's column, there are
clear signs that the incoming Republican-controlled House and Senate are more pragmatic than
their predecessors, making the president's leftward lurch before the next Congress is even
sworn in a case of awful timing.)
Public opinion is more closely divided on immigration reform. Majorities sympathize with the
ends but not the means of the administration's intent to issue an executive order legalizing
millions of undocumented immigrants. There's a reason that the president avoided
intervening in the middle of the midterm campaign, a telltale acknowledgement that a
unilateral decision was a major political loser. The latest round of polling backs that up.
Among all adults surveyed in a new USA Today poll, a 46 percent plurality want the president
to wait for the GOP Congress to act on immigration, while 42 percent support the president's
desire to act now. If the sample was of registered voters, the margin would be even greater.
Within the White House, the prevailing political support for the sweeping executive action is
twofold: Win back enthusiasm from Hispanic voters, and bait Republicans into opposing the
move in the most self-defeating way possible. It's a risky political decision, one that downplays
the fact that the White House is running against public opinion on the issue and spending the
little political capital Obama has left in doing so. There's hardly a guarantee that Hispanics would
respond to the executive order by turning out for Hillary Clinton, and it could spark a backlash
from blue-collar voters migrating away from the party. Over one-quarter of Democrats
oppose unilateral action on immigration, a significant enough minority to cause the party
future problems. In the meantime, it risks foreclosing other opportunities for working with the
GOP Congress on trade, tax reform, or even a scaled-back version of immigration reform in the
future. Again, Obama is playing to the base over reaching out to the middle.
Unknown cost of Executive Orders cause fights and drain PC
Gregory Korte, 15 —Gregory Korte is a White House reporter for USA TODAY, focusing on
executive power and the presidency, 3-21-2015 ("How much do executive orders cost? No one
knows," USA TODAY, 3-21-2015, Available Online at
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/21/cost-of-obama-executiveorders/25024489/, Accessed 7-14-2015)
Public opinion is more closely divided on immigration reform. Majorities sympathize with the
ends but not the means of the administration's intent to issue an executive order legalizing
millions of undocumented immigrants. There's a reason that the president avoided intervening
in the middle of the midterm campaign, a telltale acknowledgement that a unilateral decision
was a major political loser. The latest round of polling backs that up. Among all adults surveyed
in a new USA Today poll, a 46 percent plurality want the president to wait for the GOP Congress
to act on immigration, while 42 percent support the president's desire to act now. If the sample
was of registered voters, the margin would be even greater.
Within the White House, the prevailing political support for the sweeping executive action is
twofold: Win back enthusiasm from Hispanic voters, and bait Republicans into opposing the
move in the most self-defeating way possible. It's a risky political decision, one that
93
downplays the fact that the White House is running against public opinion on the issue and
spending the little political capital Obama has left in doing so. There's hardly a guarantee that
Hispanics would respond to the executive order by turning out for Hillary Clinton, and it could
spark a backlash from blue-collar voters migrating away from the party. Over one-quarter of
Democrats oppose unilateral action on immigration, a significant enough minority to cause
the party future problems. In the meantime, it risks foreclosing other opportunities for working
with the GOP Congress on trade, tax reform, or even a scaled-back version of immigration
reform in the future. Again, Obama is playing to the base over reaching out to the middle.
When President Obama issued an executive order granting civilian federal employees a 1%
pay raise last December, the White House did not tell Congress how much those raises would
cost.
Instead, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan said in a
report that the order "is not anticipated to increase discretionary obligations and outlays
overall."
To Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., that statement is "ludicrous."
As Congress and the White House battle over whether Obama has the executive authority to
halt deportation, delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act or negotiate a nuclear deal
with Iran, another skirmish has opened up over the question of how much Obama's executive
orders cost.
The answer: No one knows.
Crenshaw, the chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee that controls the White
House budget, is trying to fix that. He inserted a provision into the spending bill passed by
Congress last year, requiring OMB to issue a statement on the budgetary impact of each
executive order.
But 10 executive orders later, Congress has no more insight into their cost. OMB has declared
six to have a "de minimus," or trivial, effect on costs or revenues, and four are expected to
increase spending by an unknown amount.
For example, an executive order signed Thursday, requiring agencies to cut their greenhouse
gas emissions by 40%, contains the same boilerplate language as the pay raise. "This executive
order is not anticipated to increase discretionary obligations and outlays overall." But it also
suggests long-term cost savings through decreased energy and water use.
Congress continues to support Insider Threat
Aftergood 14 — Steven Aftergood directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy.("Congress
Tells DoD to Report on Leaks, Insider Threats," Federation Of American Scientists, 12-8-2014,
Available Online at https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/12/dod-leaks-report/, Accessed 7-162015)
For the next two years, Congress wants to receive quarterly reports from the Department of
Defense on how the Pentagon is responding to leaks of classified information. The reporting
requirement was included in the pending National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015 (Sec.
1052).
94
“Compromises of classified information cause indiscriminate and long-lasting damage to
United States national security and often have a direct impact on the safety of warfighters,”
the Act states.
“In 2010, hundreds of thousands of classified documents were illegally copied and disclosed
across the Internet,” it says, presumably referring to the WikiLeaks disclosures of that year.
“In 2013, nearly 1,700,000 files were downloaded from United States Government
information systems, threatening the national security of the United States and placing the
lives of United States personnel at extreme risk,” the Act states, in a presumed reference to
the Snowden disclosures. “The majority of the information compromised relates to the
capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures of the Armed Forces of the United
States, and is the single greatest quantitative compromise in the history of the United States.”
The Secretary of Defense will be required to report on changes in policy and resource
allocations that are adopted in response to significant compromises of classified information.
The defense authorization act does not address irregularities in the classification system, such as
overclassification or failure to timely declassify information.
It does call for additional reporting on the Department of Defense “insider threat” program
(Sec. 1628), and on “the adoption of an interim capability to continuously evaluate the security
status of the employees and contractors of the Department who have been determined eligible
for and granted access to classified information.”
95
Insider Threat DA
96
UQ/Links
The NITTF is vital for national security but still preserves an environment of
productivity and trust
NCSC, ’14, (“National Insider Threat Task Force Mission Fact Sheet,” NCSC, Aug 15, 2014,
http://www.ncsc.gov/nittf/docs/National_Insider_Threat_Task_Force_Fact_Sheet.pdf)//erg
Why was the NITTF established? The National Insider Threat Task Force was established after the WikiLeaks release of thousands of
classified documents through the global media and internet. Its
mission is to deter, detect and mitigate actions
by employees who may represent a threat to national security by developing a national
insider threat program with supporting policy, standards, guidance and training. Who runs the task
force, and which agencies are involved? Under Executive Order (E.O.) 13587, the National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF) is cochairedbytheU.S.AttorneyGeneralandtheDirectorofNationalIntelligence(DNI). They,in turn, designated the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and the National
Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) to co-direct the daily
activities of the NITTF. The NITTF comprises employees and contractors from a variety of federal departments and agencies
(D/A), and its work impacts more than 70 federal D/As that handle classified material. Currently, the following
departments and agencies have representatives on the NITTF: FBI, Office of the National
Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Veterans
Administration (VA), and Department of Justice (DOJ). The NITTF responds directly to the Senior Information
Sharing and Safeguarding Steering Committee, which was also established under E.O. 13587. The Steering Committee comprises
representatives from largely Intelligence Community agencies with extensive access to classified networks and materials, including
the Departments of State, Energy, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, ODNI, ONCIX, NSA, DIA, the Program Manager-Information Sharing Environment, Office of Management and Budget, the National Security Council Staff, and the Information
Security Oversight Office. What is an insider threat? It is a threat posed to U.S. national security by someone who misuses or betrays,
wittingly or unwittingly, his or her authorized access to any U.S. Government resource.
This threat can include damage
through espionage, terrorism, sabotage, unauthorized disclosure of national security
information, or through the loss or degradation of departmental resources or capabilities. 
How does the task force operate? The NITTF has drawn together expertise from across the government
in the areas of security, counterintelligence, and information assurance to develop the policies
and standards necessary for individual D/As to implement insider threat programs . Part of the
NITTF effort involves hosting training and providing D/As with assistance to better educate their workforce
to recognize potential insider threat activity, without creating an atmosphere of distrust . The
NITTF conducts assessments of the adequacy of insider threat programs within individual D/As. Through its interface with individual
D/As, the NITTF identifies and circulates best practices for detecting, deterring and mitigating emerging threats, and continues to
assist D/As in troubleshooting issues. How do you detect an insider threat? Detection
of potentially malicious
behavior involves authorized insider threat personnel gathering information from many
sources and analyzing that information for clues or behavior of concern. A single indicator
may say little; however, if taken together with other indicators, a pattern of concerning
behavior may arise that can add up to someone who could pose a threat . It is important to
consider relevant information from multiple sources to determine if an employee’s behavior deserves closer
scrutiny, or whether a matter should be formally brought to the attention of an investigative or administrative entity, such as the FBI
or an agency’s Inspector General. It is also possible that the individual has no malicious intent, but is in need of help. In either case,
the individual may pose a threat to national security, and the situation requires further inquiry.
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DOD insider threat prevention is getting better now- new tech and behavioral
analysis solve threats
Pomerleau 15
(Mark, Jul 16, 2015, DOD trying behavioral analytics as a way to thwart insider threats,
http://defensesystems.com/Articles/2015/07/16/DOD-IC-behavioral-analytics-insiderthreats.aspx?Page=3, JZG)
The thought of a data breach such as the one that hit the Office of Personnel Management is truly frightening to
government officials and the public at large. The sensitive personal data of tens of millions of federal employees that has
been lifted recently not only puts individuals at risk, but compromises certain operational practices of the U.S. military/intelligence
complex. But while these incidents are disturbing, they are also to be expected. “To grab the equivalent in the Chinese system, I
would not have thought twice,” former CIA and NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden (ret.) said recently about the OPM hacks thought to
be perpetrated by China. “I would not have asked permission...This is not ‘shame on China.’ This is ‘shame on us’ for not protecting
that kind of information.” And while the U.S. works to exploit intelligence gaps and deficiencies of adversaries and protect its own
data from similar attacks, one
other trend that has blindsided the defense and intelligence
communities can’t be overlooked—leaks from the inside. The insider threat has posed
significant challenges, from the trove of millions of documents unearthed by former contractor
Edward Snowden to the documents released by former Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning. “The insider threat is not new.
But what is changing is that threat landscape,” Patricia Larsen, co-director of the National Insider
Threat Task Force of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said this week during a panel
discussion in Arlington, Va., hosted by Defense One. Larsen noted that in the not-so-distant past, these types
of breaches were much harder to pull off. One had to stand at a copier, copy several pages, and meet someone
somewhere. “Now, somebody sitting at the comfort of their desk can go to a website…and find their
secure drop page and upload a classified document or something sensitive, still be anonymous and have
that published in tomorrow’s Washington Post…That is a whole different paradigm,” she warned. For Larsen,
however, the part of the solution for mitigating potential threats also poses a risk if one is
capable of getting into the system. “In the past, it was very hard to get a lot of information
about you as a person in one place,” she said. “Now, it is so much easier to pull the entire 360 of an individual using
technology and using all the data we’ve collected on you. That is a great, great asset for any insider threat
program. It’s also a liability because that same individual can access a ton of information
sitting from the comfort of their own workstation as well.” The Defense Department is trying a
few different technological approaches to mitigating the insider threat, through various beta
programs and behavioral analytics. One such effort is the creation of the DOD Insider Threat
Management and Analysis Center, or DITMAC, which would “enable information sharing
collaboration analysis and risk management across the Department of Defense components to
address current and emerging threats to DOD personnel and missions,” said Mark Nehmer, deputy chief
of implementation for DITMAC. In 2013, then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel outlined the establishment of DITMAC as one of
four key recommendations following the Navy Yard shooting. Over the past year, DITMAC
has worked “to really
gather and fuse relative information from different data sources within the department,” said
Carrie Wibben, director of Security Policy Operations Directorate at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense. Information
Management Enterprise System Application, or IMESA, is another approach being used to vet
individuals with regard to workplace violence, Wibben said. IMESA is also useful for evaluating the identity of
individuals by comparing Common Access Cards with information in internal and external databases to ensure that individuals are
who they say they are. DOD
also is working with behavioral analytics, Nehmer said, to compile the
indicators, characteristics and behaviors associated with insider threats, including “ how they’ve
written, where were they in social media, where were they in their work life, where were they in their personal life that we know of
that we can find – as deep a dive as we can get on the individuals that we know have actually committed insider threat behaviors.”
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But despite the push of what Nehmer called this “human science,” he said he’s not sure when DOD will be able to establish verifiable
metrics for identifying insider threats. The other component to the behavioral issue is tying it to authorizing users within the
network. “Authentication goes back to identity. It says you’re credentialed to get in. But what if you steal the credentials? Well now
you’re authorized, you have the authority to be there but you still shouldn’t,” Christine Heckart, CMO of Brocade, a data storage and
networking solutions firm, said in an interview in June. “So, we’ve got to look beyond identity, beyond the normal sources of
authentication to behavior. The network can understand and take a benchmark on all kinds of behavioral based analytics. What is
the norm? And the minute you start deviating from that norm, you can say ‘alright, there might be a problem.’” Heckart
explained that in real time, the network can respond by either stopping traffic and calling for
more analytics or shutting down operations until a human authorizes the activity. “Once we
add behavioral-based analytics and tools to the identity and credentialed based system,
you’ve got additional layers,” of security protection, she said. Expanded use of multi-factor authentication is
something that many security experts and Federal CIO Tony Scott have called for, especially after recent high-profile security
breaches. Going forward, one challenge regarding analyzing online behavior, however, is context. Computers and humans have not
figured out a way to determine context of social media postings to determine the tone, be it serious or sarcastic, though, this is only
one component of a multi-pronged risk assessment.
Litany of reasons the program is good
Amjad and Gelles, ’15, (Adnan, partner, Cyber Risk Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP and
Michael, director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, “9 Building Blocks of Insider Threat Mitigation
Programs,” CIO Journal, March 23, 2015, http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2015/03/23/9-buildingblocks-of-insider-threat-mitigation-programs/)//erg
A definition of insider threats. Few organizations have a specific internal working definition of insider threats because they’ve
traditionally paid more attention to preventing external attacks. Yet defining what constitutes an insider threat is an essential first
step in formulating a mitigation program; it helps to inform the program’s size, structure, scope, and alignment with business risk
priorities. Broadly speaking, an insider threat can be defined as an employee, contractor, or vendor that either maliciously or due to
complacency or ignorance uses privileged access in a way that results in malfeasance, whether fraud, espionage, sabotage, data
theft, or workplace violence. A risk assessment. It’s important
to prioritize the critical assets requiring extra
protection—for example, facilities, source code, and customer information—and determine
the organization’s tolerance for loss of or damage to those assets. Identify the top threats that
could affect your business and consider vulnerabilities from a technology and process
perspective: What weaknesses or loopholes could an insider abuse? How could an employee exploit or damage a facility,
product, process, or fellow employees without ever using a computer system? Tailor the development of the insider threat
mitigation program to address those specific needs and threats, and take into account the organization’s culture—in other words,
the specific measures it may or may not be willing to take (such as monitoring employees, blocking Web mail, or restricting the use
of USB drives) to protect critical assets while sustaining the way it has traditionally operated and done business. Broad-based
support. An insider threat mitigation program should have one owner but comprise a broad set of invested stakeholders. It should
also have top leadership support. Consider establishing a cross-disciplinary insider threat working group with stakeholders from a
variety of functions that may include HR, risk, legal, finance, IT, and research and development (R&D). These stakeholders can serve
as change agents and cement buy-in from their respective functions. The working group should assist in addressing common
concerns, such as privacy and legal issues, and support the development of messaging tailored to executives, managers, and the
broader employee population. Technology. Identity
and access management systems, compliant provision
systems, data loss prevention systems, digital rights management systems, and encryption are
just a few of the technologies companies can implement to help monitor and prevent unauthorized access and
restrict employees’ ability to download, print, or transmit certain data assets. People-centric policies
and training. While technology is an essential component of detecting and preventing insider
threats, insider threats are fundamentally a people issue that involves a peoplecentric solution.
Consequently, an insider threat mitigation program should define the behavioral expectations of
the workforce through clear and consistently enforced policies that also articulate the
consequences for violating them. Policy areas might include segregation of duties, social media, processes for reporting
incidents, and bring your own device. The program should also include customized security training based on employees’ physical
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and network access levels, privilege rights, and job responsibilities. Audits and verification.
Establishing routine and
random reviews of privileged and critical functions such as IT, finance, and R&D can also help
identify potential insider threats. Continually monitor systems that employees in those functions access and the data
they download. Organizations should trust their workforce, but balance that trust with verification to avoid unfettered access and
single points of failure. Behavioral analysis. Case
studies analyzed by the CERT Division of the Software Engineering
shown that insider threats are seldom impulsive acts. Instead,
the analyses indicate that insiders move on a continuum from idea to action. Along the way, they often
display observable behaviors that can serve as risk indicators or otherwise signal malicious
intent: They may begin coming in late to work, staying at the office after hours, violating policies, or trying to access systems or
facilities they don’t typically use. Therefore, effective detection of insider threats should include
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University³ have
behavioral-based techniques that consider how people operate in the office and on the network, and
build baselines of normal behavior to help identify anomalies. Analytics. Correlating precursors
or potential risk indicators can give organizations insights into micro and macro trends
regarding the high-risk behaviors exhibited across the organization. An advanced analytics platform that
correlates data from a variety of tools can help organizations identify potential insider threats
to investigate. Analytics can also shed light on processes and policies that the organization should either strengthen or
implement; these processes can often enhance efficiency and productivity.
Status quo solves—the program is becoming more targeted and effective—it’s
necessary for security
Dillard, ’14, (John, President of Big Sky, application of evidence-based management science to
security and insider threats, “Changes To National Insider Threat Policy: Is Your Agency
Prepared?” Big Sky, 2014, http://www.bigskyassociates.com/blog/bid/370857/Changes-ToNational-Insider-Threat-Policy-Is-Your-Agency-Prepared)//erg
Until recently, national insider threat policy wasn’t measuring if your agency’s insider threat detection program actually identified
insider threats. The only measure was that you had a program that met certain standards. However,
all of that is changing
fast , especially for agencies under the Department of Defense. (Other agencies likely need to follow suit,
more below.) Because of major insider threat incidents like THE WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
SHOOTING and Edward Snowden’s information leaks, federal law now mandates that your
agency not only have an insider threat detection program, but that your internal
organizational security meet specific functioning standards. In order to understand what action steps your
agency needs to take today, we need to take a step back to review the evolving story of national insider threat policy. Memorandum
For National Insider Threat Policy In November 2012, President Obama issued a MEMORANDUM FOR ALL AGENCIES UNDER HIS
JURISDICTION entitled, “The National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs.”
The policy requires all executive departments and agencies that access classified information to establish insider threat detection
programs. The required
programs must adhere to minimum standards for personnel security,
threat and risk analysis, law enforcement, information sharing, network monitoring and
training and awareness. Each agency and department must conduct quarterly self-assessments on insider threat
compliance and report the results to the National Insider Threat Task Force, which oversees the policy implementation.
Memorandum Failure Points As with most far-reaching national policies, many of the memorandum’s requirements aren’t specific in
expressing what insider threat compliance involves. Usually, it
is up to the agencies themselves to determine
compliance. For example, the mandatory self-assessments use metrics known as Key Information Sharing and
Safeguarding Indicators (KISSI). These are essentially “yes or no” questions that assess whether an agency has an
insider threat detection program. There are about fifty of these questions in the assessment, including: Do we have an implemented
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insider threat program? Do we have an insider threat policy? Do we monitor user activities for insider threat indicators? Do we
conduct briefings for travel to countries with high-risk security threats and vulnerabilities? KISSI assessments are useful for a highlevel view of an agency’s insider threat compliance, but they don’t measure the effectiveness of the program. Instead, metrics
should CALCULATE THE VALUE OF DIFFERENT EFFORTS IN PREVENTING INSIDER THREATS and should require nuanced discussion in
their answers. For example, after noting that your agency employs network monitoring tools, you should also ask: What kinds of
network monitoring tools are employed? How much do they cost? What aspects of user behavior do they monitor? How effectively
do they detect anomalous or suspicious behavior? With the Snowden affair and Navy Yard shooting occurring after the November
2012 memorandum was issued, the failure points of the policy became clearer. As a result, federal policy focused more intently on
the effectiveness of insider threat detection programs. A Shift Toward Effectiveness: The 2014 NDA Act The
best example
this shift toward insider threat detection effectiveness is the 2014 National Defense
Authorization (NDA) Act. This law mandates the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and the Director of
the Office of Management and Budget develop a strategy to modernize personnel security for the
Department of Defense and reduce insider threats and espionage. The President and Congress also
demanded that these updated processes be evaluated with specific metrics. By assessing the effectiveness of the
Defense Department’s insider threat detection program, the new law could be much more
applicable in deterring and detecting potential threats. Implications For Other Federal Agencies While the
NDA Act focuses primarily on Defense Department personnel, the law also emphasizes the importance of
sharing information between different agencies – including those not under the Department of Defense.
Specifically, it calls for the electronic integration of information systems between every agency
deemed necessary for complete insider threat assessment and deterrence. If your agency is included
in that information sharing or system integration, then you need to prepare your agency for full compliance with the NDA Act and its
insider threat detection implications. The NDA Act shows that
Congress and the President aren’t satisfied with
agency self-built and self-assessed insider threat programs – instead, they’re raising the bar. While
that might initially only include the Department of Defense and a handful of connected groups, every agency should plan for the
NDA’s jurisdiction to widen if its initial requirements are successful. Even if your agency doesn’t fall under the initial jurisdiction of
the new law, start preparing today for more accountable insider threat detection metrics. And since NDA requirements don’t come
with an explicit budget increase, plan to COMPLETE YOUR UPGRADES WITH LITTLE OR NO BUDGET BOOST.
Insider threat program secures DoD programs that combat terrorism and crime
Work, ’14, (Robert O., Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The DoD Insider Threat Program,”
NUMBER 5205.16, September 30, 2014,
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/520516p.pdf)//erg
1. PURPOSE. In
accordance with sections 113 and 131 through 137 of Title 10, United States Code (U.S.C.) (Reference (a));
Presidential Memorandum (Reference (b)); Executive Orders (E.O.s) 12333, 13526, and 13587 (References (c), (d), and (e));
section 922 of Public Law 112- 81 (Reference (f)); National Security Directive 42 (Reference (g)), and Committee on National Security
Systems Directive 504 (Reference (h)), this directive: a. Establishes
policy and assigns responsibilities within
DoD to develop and maintain an insider threat program to comply with the requirements and
minimum standards to prevent, deter, detect, and mitigate actions by malicious insiders who
represent a threat to national security or DoD personnel, facilities, operations, and resources.
b. Identifies appropriate training, education, and awareness initiatives that may be made
available to DoD personnel and contractors in accordance with Reference (b). c. Ensures appropriate DoD
policies, including but not limited to counterintelligence (CI), cybersecurity, security, civilian
and military personnel management, workplace violence, emergency management, law
enforcement (LE), and antiterrorism (AT) risk management, are evaluated and modified to
effectively address insider threats to DoD. d. Cancels Secretary of Defense Memorandum (Reference (i)). e.
Incorporates and cancels Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum (Reference (j)). 2. APPLICABILITY. This directive: a. Applies to:
(1) OSD, the Military Departments, the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff, the Combatant
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Commands, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, the Defense Agencies, the DoD Field Activities, and all
other organizational entities within DoD (referred to collectively in this directive as the “DoD Components”). (2) Contractors and
other non-DoD entities that have authorized access to DoD resources as required by their contract or agreement. (3) Individuals who
volunteer and donate their services to the DoD Components, including non-appropriated fund instrumentalities, pursuant to DoD
Instruction (DoDI) 1100.21 (Reference (k)). b. Will not alter or supersede: (1) The existing authorities and policies of the Director of
National Intelligence regarding the protection of sensitive compartmented information and special access programs for intelligence
as directed by Reference (c) and other laws and regulations. (2) Existing statutes, E.O.s, and DoD policy issuances governing access to
or dissemination of LE, LE sensitive, or classified LE information. (3) Existing suspicious activity reporting and dissemination
requirements as outlined in DoDI 2000.26 (Reference (l)). 3. POLICY. It is DoD policy that: a.
DoD will implement the
National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat
Programs in accordance with References (b), (e), (f), and (h). b. The threat that an insider will use their authorized access to do
harm to the security of the United States requires the integration and synchronization of programs across the Department. This
threat can include damage to the United States through espionage, terrorism, unauthorized
disclosure of national security information, or through the loss or degradation of resources or
capabilities.
Insider Threat Program allows for reasonable monitoring in vital national
security departments
Work, ’14, (Robert O., Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The DoD Insider Threat Program,”
NUMBER 5205.16, September 30, 2014,
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/520516p.pdf)//erg
Through an integrated capability to monitor and audit information for insider threat detection
and mitigation, the DoD Insider Threat Program will gather, integrate, review, assess, and
respond to information derived from CI, security, cybersecurity, civilian and military personnel
management, workplace violence, AT risk management, LE, the monitoring of user activity on
DoD information networks, and other sources as necessary and appropriate to identify,
mitigate, and counter insider threats. d. Appropriate training, education, and awareness of the insider threat will be
provided to DoD military and civilian personnel, DoD contractors, and volunteers who have access to DoD resources. DoDD 5205.16,
September 30, 2014 2 e. The collection, use, maintenance, and dissemination of information critical to the success of
DoD
efforts to counter insider threats must comply with all applicable laws and DoD policy
issuances, including those regarding whistleblower, civil liberties, and privacy protections . (1)
Personally identifiable information (PII) for U.S. persons must be handled in accordance with section 552a of Title 5, U.S.C. (also
known as “The Privacy Act of 1974” (Reference (m))), DoD Directive (DoDD) 5400.11 (Reference (n)), and DoD 5400.11-R (Reference
(o)). (2) Defense Intelligence Components will handle U.S. persons’ PII in accordance with DoD 5240.1-R (Reference (p)). (3) Activities
related to the insider threat program, including information sharing and collection, will comply with DoDI 1000.29 (Reference (q)).
(4) Information
on individuals and organizations not affiliated with the DoD will not be
collected unless allowed pursuant to DoDD 5200.27 (Reference (r)). (5) Personally identifiable health
information must be handled in accordance with Public Law 104-191 (Reference (s)), parts 160, 162, and
164 of Title 45, Code of Federal Regulations (Reference (t)), DoDI 6490.04 (Reference (u)), DoDI 6490.08 (Reference (v)), DoD
6025.18-R (Reference (w)), and DoD 8580.02-R (Reference (x)). 4. RESPONSIBILITIES. See Enclosure 2. 5. INFORMATION
COLLECTIONS REQUIREMENTS. The DoD Insider Threat Program annual progress report and quarterly Key Information Sharing and
Safeguarding Indicators questionnaire self-assessment compliance reports, referred to in paragraphs 1e, 5d, 5e, 6e, 6f, 8g, 11f and
11h of Enclosure 2 of this directive, have been assigned report control symbol DD- CIO(A,Q)2561 in accordance with the procedures
in Volume 1 of DoD Manual 8910.01 (Reference (y)).
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Shift to more effective board/oversight is key—avoids paranoia and bad work
environment
Bunn, ’13, (Chris, Manager of IS Decisions, “Insider Threat Program. From Paranoia to
Protection,” IS Decisions, 2013, http://www.isdecisions.com/blog/it-security/insider-threatprogram-from-paranoia-to-protetion/)//erg
The Unreported Insider Threat Insider cases are numerous and spin all industries. It’s said that 3 out of 4 cases are
unreported! As you can see reputation is perhaps the biggest risk of all. Organizations don’t want to tell or don’t even know. This shouldn’t
however be about the business of fear. It calls for a Risk Management approach. Understand
the risk and balance it. This however, requires top level strategic oversight for any enterprise .
Risk Management is
and must be, a problem for the board.
Are the board always considered when an organization attempts to
manage these risks? From our own research involving 500 IT decision makers, the insider threat is not a top security priority, even for IT professionals.
This however could be changing. The belief is that the Target Breach
could well be a turning point. The breach resulted in the first
CEO to lose their job because of an insider security breach and possibly five other directors to follow. This is significant. Every board should now be
thinking this is not going to happen to me. we need to address this problem. The latest news however suggests that the retailer’s chief executive and
board may not get a complete picture on the company’s security, if the CISO does not report directly to them. Proactive Steps to Mitigate the Risk
Today’s reality is there are proactive steps to mitigate the risk. But organizations and individuals
are guilty of not having the time, so end up creating bigger gaps. One typical example is when employees who
have left the organization still have access to the network. The thinking suggests if your organization is not doing the basics – forget about any more
complex behavior analysis to alert high risks or any big data tools. Building an Insider Threat Program Building an
Insider Threat Program
moves an organization from paranoia to protection . Not only is this a sensible thing to do but a US Mandate
means organizations must develop an Insider Threat Program if dealing with a federal
government. It also applies to worldwide companies that are dealing with the US government. To help the CERT Insider Threat Centre has been
serving as a trusted broker to assist the community in the short term and through ongoing research since 2001. The foundation of their work is a
database of more than 1000 insider threat cases, government records and information from criminals themselves, which helps characterize the nature
of the insider threat problem and offers dynamic indicators of insider threat risk. They also identify and experiment with administrative and technical
controls for insider threat mitigation. The
CERT Insider Threat Program helps organizations consider or start
making themselves more secure and more immune to reputation and financial damage. In the UK,
The CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure) and PA Consulting published new guidance (HoMER) to help organizations reduce
employee risk. HoMER (Holistic Management of Employee Risk) offers a range of practical measures to help organizations reduce the risk from their
employees. The
risk ranges from oversight such as sharing passwords to opportunistic behavior
including theft and fraud. Moving from paranoia to protection Moving from paranoia to protection means
involving a sophisticated tool set, staff and manager’s awareness and an efficient process. At IS
Decisions, our solution UserLock is a unique and proven technology tool that helps organizations mitigate the risk
of insider threat by securing users access to the shared Windows network. Whether we’re dealing with
careless or malicious activity both involve authenticated users who have access and rights. Organizations are recognizing the
need to better manage and secure network access for authenticated users to reduce the risk
of security breaches. FileAudit helps organizations proactively track, alert and report on all
access (and access attempts) to files and folders. It helps protect an organizations most sensitive information
stored on Windows Servers.
Team methods and co-worker cooperation can detect threats and eliminate
dark corners that make attacks possible
Catrantzos, ’10, (Nick, Adjunct Professor, Homeland Security & Author of Managing the
Insider Threat: No Dark Corners, “Tackling the Insider Threat,” CRISP REPORT, ASIS Foundation,
2010, http://www.popcenter.org/library/crisp/insider-threat.pdf)//erg
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All a hostile insider needs to carry out an attack are access to a worthy target, an open door,
and a dark corner from which to study and strike. Insider threat studies abound, and the malicious insider phenomenon
remains statistically rare yet potentially devastating to any institution with critical assets to defend. Accepted wisdom offers
conventional security advice: preemployment background investigations, random audits, tighter access controls, more invasive
monitoring through procedural or technological innovations. This
report combines a review of the insider threat
literature with the findings of a Delphi study to arrive at a new approach to defeating the kind
of trust betrayer intent on carrying out an attack that is fatal to the organization. While the Delphi
research itself began with substantially the same views and counsel as prevailing wisdom represented in the literature, it ended
altogether somewhere else. Certain pivot points in the research revealed that a reasonably prepared infiltrator poses a greater
threat than a disgruntled career employee—at least if the focus is on adversaries bent on bringing an institution to its knees, rather
than on exacting revenge against bosses or carrying out nuisance-level attacks against the employer. Research
findings also
highlighted flaws in traditional defenses, including background investigations that identify neither the prepared
infiltrator nor the future disgruntled careerist. Findings even suggested random audits are seldom truly
random and pose only a surmountable hurdle to a worthy adversary. Moreover, ineffective
exercise of employer prerogatives like probationary periods appears underexploited as an
insider threat defense. Into this context, a new approach emerged. This approach is about
engaging co-workers on the team level to take a hand in their own protection . It calls into protective
service the vast majority of employees consigned to the sidelines and sometimes referred to as the weakest link in insider defense.
Instead, with
a shift in emphasis toward more productive countermeasures, the proposed
alternative brings these people off the sidelines and onto the front lines, making them the
first line of defense. No Dark Corners extends to private spaces and institutions the seminal theories of proprietary
interest and ownership that “Defensible Space” and “Fixing Broken Windows” demonstrated for public housing and community
environments. In defending against insider threats, this
approach proposes less emphasis on the laser of
specialized monitoring by corporate sentinels. Instead, it promotes using the flashlight of
open team engagement as a method of implementing layered defenses , particularly on the front lines
of detection and intervention, where critical operations take place.
Snowden could have been detected with the program—insiders are dangerous
but detectable
McNamera, ’13, (Paul, “Snowden used sys admin role to collect passwords: Reuters,”
Network World, Nov 8, 2013,
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2225752/security/snowden-used-sys-admin-role-tocollect-passwords--reuters.html)//erg
Reuters is reporting this morning that former
NSA contractor Edward Snowden "persuaded" some two
dozen colleagues at a Hawaii government facility to give him their login credentials by claiming it was
necessary for him to do his job as systems administrator. From that Reuters report: A handful of agency
employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified, questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source
close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks. Snowden
may have persuaded
between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to give him
their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a
computer systems administrator, a second source said. The revelation is the latest to indicate that inadequate security
measures at the NSA played a significant role in the worst breach of classified data in the super-secret eavesdropping agency's 61year history. It's not clear whether "removed from their assignments" means fired or not, but, if true, his damaging the careers of
coworkers will add another dimension to the debate about whether Snowden is a whistleblower or a traitor. What
is clear has
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long been understood, though: There is no greater security threat than a "trusted" insider
with access.
Behavioral analysis within the program stops attacks
Winkler and Manke, ’14, (Ira, Irari Report, Secure Mentem, Internet Security Advisors
Group and Samantha, Executive Vice President of Secure Mentem,” How to create awareness of
the insider threat,” CSO, Apr 15, 2014, http://www.csoonline.com/article/2142603/securityleadership/how-to-create-awareness-of-the-insider-threat.html)//erg
One of the results of Edward Snowden's data leak is that companies are now concerned about the insider threat more than they
ever were before. He demonstrates that a
single person inside an organization can devastate the
organization. While technology should have caught Snowden, there is also the realization that his coworkers and
managers should have noticed indications of unusual activities. The question then becomes how do
you train employees to tactfully recognize the signs of a malicious insider, without creating
widespread distrust within an organization. Back when I worked at NSA, one of my coworkers pointed out two documents
that both describe a fellow employee who was 1) always interested in what their coworkers are doing, 2) volunteers for extra
assignments, 3) always works late, and 4) never takes a vacation. One of the documents was from human resources on how to get
promoted. The other was from the security department describing how to tell if your coworker is a spy. MORE ON CSO: 10 ways to
prep for – and ace – a security job interview Clearly NSA
employees failed to determine which side of the
spectrum Snowden fell on, while employees at his past employer, the CIA, accurately
determined his predisposition to expose classified information. Snowden demonstrates that even within
organizations that should know better, detecting a malicious insider is hit or miss. How then is an organization outside of the
Intelligence Community supposed to make their employees aware of the concern, especially without inspiring a witchhunt? The
problem is real. Malicious insiders have wreaked havoc in organizations of all types. While the IT world
focuses on stories of rogue administrators, insiders in all roles carry out thefts and other malicious actions. While some wrongdoers
are very clever and are able to cover their actions very well, the reality is that just about all malicious insiders show indications of
their intent. This is relevant to awareness programs as their coworkers are in the best position to see those indications.
Balancing concerns of tact and awareness is delicate, but it must be done to maintain order.
Generally, there are three requirements for awareness to be effective: 1) Understanding of the problem, 2) Knowledge of what
actions to take, and 3) Motivation to take the appropriate actions. Generally understanding the problem should create motivation,
but an effective awareness program must specifically ensure that it addresses both concerns .
You can be aware an issue exists, while not being motivated to do anything about it. The easy part of addressing the insider threat is
that there
are now many examples to help get the message across. People like Snowden and
Chelsea Manning are clear examples that it only takes one person to cause a lot of damage. While these individuals have
become household names, it is better to use examples from your own company or industry. While some companies understandably
do not like to highlight their own incidents, they can anonymize the cases. The message is actually simple, insiders are a big threat
and do not ignore signs of questionable behaviors. The message tagline could be the organizational equivalent of, “If you see
something, say something.” The message should highlight to be on the lookout for violations of policies and procedures. It is also
critical to remind employees that it is people, just like themselves, who have stopped major insider crimes. [Why companies need to
check their handling of internal threats]
Insider Threat program utilizes patterns and best data studies
Moore, ’14, (Andrew P, CERT Insider Threat Team Research Leader, “Designing Insider Threat
Programs,” SEI, September 29, 2014, http://blog.sei.cmu.edu/post.cfm/designing-insiderthread-programs-272)//erg
Insider threat is the threat to organization’s critical assets posed by trusted individuals - including employees, contractors, and
business partners - authorized to use the organization’s information technology systems. Insider
threat programs within
an organization help to manage the risks due to these threats through specific prevention,
detection, and response practices and technologies. The National Industrial Security Program
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Operating Manual (NISPOM), which provides baseline standards for the protection of classified information, is
considering proposed changes that would require contractors that engage with federal
agencies, which process or access classified information, to establish insider threat programs.
The proposed changes to the NISPOM were preceded by Executive Order 13587, Structural Reforms to Improve the Security of
Classified Networks and the Responsible Sharing and Safeguarding of Classified Information. Signed by President Obama in
September 2011, Executive Order 13587 requires federal agencies that operate or access classified computer networks to
implement insider threat detection and prevention programs. Since the passage of Executive Order 13587, the following key
resources have been developed: The National Insider Threat Task Force developed minimum standards for implementing insider
threat programs. These standards include a set of questions to help organizations conduct insider threat self-assessments. The
Intelligence and National Security Alliance conducted research to determine the capabilities of existing insider threat programs The
Intelligence Community Analyst-Private Sector Partnership Program developed a roadmap for insider threat programs. CERT’s
insider threat program training and certificate programs are based on the above resources as
well as CERT’s own Insider Threat Workshop, common sense guidelines for mitigating insider threats, and in-depth
experience and insights from helping organizations establish computer security incident response teams. As described in this blog
post, researchers from the Insider Threat Center at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute are also
developing an approach based on organizational patterns to help agencies and contractors systematically improve the capability of
insider threat programs to protect against and mitigate attacks. A Pattern-based Approach to Insider Threat This post is the latest
installment in an ongoing series describing our research to create and validate
an insider threat mitigation pattern
language to help organizations prevent, detect, and respond to insider threats. As described in a
previous post, our research is based upon our database of more than 700 insider threat cases and
interviews with the United States Secret Service, victims’ organizations, and convicted felons. From that database, we identified 26
patterns that capture reusable solutions to recurring problems associated with insider threat. Insider threat mitigation patterns are
organizational patterns that involve the full scope of enterprise architecture concerns, including people, processes, technology, and
facilities. This broad scope is necessary because insiders often have authorized access—both online and physical—to organizational
systems. Our approach acknowledges inter-relationships between organizational structures, such as policy, training, and employee
and policy agreements, and draws upon those inter-relationships to describe the patterns themselves. The following is a high-level
outline of a pattern for disabling access after an insider leaves an organization for other employment, an older version of which was
published at the 2013 PLOP Workshop: Title: Eliminate Methods of Access after Departure Intent: To avoid insider theft of
information or sabotage of information technology after departure Context: An insider is departing an organization for employment
elsewhere and you have a comprehensive record of access paths the insider has for accessing the organization’s systems Problem:
Insiders who depart an organization under problematic circumstances may become angry to the point of wanting to steal
information from the organization or compromise the integrity of the organization’s information or information systems. Active
access paths into the organization’s systems after departure provide the opportunity to do that. Solution: Disable accounts that you
know about upon departure, and prepare to monitor suspicious remote access after departure for signs of unauthorized access
attempts Related Patterns: Monitor Activity after Departure For organizations and agencies establishing insider threat programs, our
approach specifies what processes are important and stresses the need for consistent enforcement what policies are important how
those processes and policies are implemented both by humans and technology what technology is needed to support all of that
There will undoubtedly be great variation in insider threat programs, depending on the risks faced by individual organizations. We
therefore use capability development scenarios to designate
paths through the mitigation pattern language
with the goal of mitigating a specific insider threat behavior. The mitigation pattern outlined
above will be used in a capability development scenario described below. Such capability development
scenarios serve to guide insider threat program designers as they try to ensure their programs are resilient against insider threats to
their critical assets. An Example Capability Development Scenario In a forthcoming report on this topic, we will outline several
capability development scenarios (CDSs). One scenario involves mitigating theft of intellectual property when an employee resigns
or is fired from the organization: Through our analysis of our insider threat database, we observed that 70 percent of insiders who
stole intellectual property from an employer did so within 60 days of their termination from an organization. This CDS urges that
both parties must agree at employee hiring regarding the ownership of intellectual property as well as the consequences if the
agreement is breached. Upon termination, whether voluntary or forced, the organization should disable insider’s accesses. During
the exit interview, the organization must review existing agreements regarding IP. The CDS advocates that an employer monitor
insider actions 60 days prior to termination and for 60 days after termination. Suspicious behaviors including uncharacteristically
large downloads of intellectual property should be handled either by the human resources or legal departments or a combination of
both. As specified by the associated path through the mitigation pattern language, this CDS advocates that organizations Screen
Employees Agree on IP Ownership Periodically Raise Security Awareness Log Employee Actions Increase Monitoring Due to an
Employee’s Pending Departure Reconfirm Employee Agreements on Departure Eliminate Methods of Access after Departure
Monitor Activity after Departure In summary,
mitigating theft of IP at departure involves ensuring that the
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organization increases their monitoring of any insider with access to critical assets for specific
suspicious behaviors when the insider resigns or is terminated. In addition, the insider must agree to and
be reminded that they can’t take organization-owned IP with them. Future Work in Insider Threat Continuing our efforts
to help federal agencies and contractors develop insider threat programs, per executive order
13587, we are now seeking active government partners to apply and refine our approach. We also are continuing our research
into fundamental patterns of insider threat mitigation to make sure that they remain well grounded and
validated scientifically. Looking ahead, we plan next to investigate insider social networks and the
role they play in contributing to insider threat. In particular, we plan to examine how those social networks
change over time to determine whether we can distinguish the social networks of malicious and non-malicious insiders. As part of
this research, we are collaborating with Dr. Kathleen Carley, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software
Research in the School of Computer Science.
The insider threat program sets extensive threat mitigation standards—
employees could unintentionally aid an external organization—detection and
monitoring are key
Amjad and Gelles, ’15, (Adnan, partner, Cyber Risk Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP and
Michael, director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, “9 Building Blocks of Insider Threat Mitigation
Programs,” CIO Journal, March 23, 2015, http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2015/03/23/9-buildingblocks-of-insider-threat-mitigation-programs/)//erg
You can’t blame organizations that focus their cyber risk mitigation programs primarily, if not exclusively, on external threats. After
all, external actors, including hostile nation-states and criminal organizations, are alleged to have been behind some of the most
damaging and high-profile cyber attacks of the past two years. But, often enough, those
external actors are assisted
by an employee or third party associated with the targeted organization. An employee or
contractor, either ignorant of or flippant toward company policies or specific security threats, may
unwittingly download malware onto a corporate network, giving attackers access to intellectual
property (IP), employee social security numbers, patients’ protected health information, or customer credit card data. On other
occasions, employees and contractors aren’t innocent. When they leave a company, some may feel entitled to
walk off with IP they helped to develop, even though the IP legally belongs to the organization. And even if they’re not stealing
sensitive information for personal or financial gain, plenty get a voyeuristic thrill from accessing data and records that literally aren’t
their business. According to a survey conducted on behalf of Raytheon, 65 percent of respondents indicated curiosity, not job
necessity, compels users with privileged access to peek (or worse) at sensitive or confidential data.¹ Given the many ways insiders
may threaten their organizations’ security, it’s no wonder nearly nine out of 10 IT professionals polled on behalf of data security
provider Vormetric believe their organizations are vulnerable to insider threats.² And almost as many IT professionals surveyed
appear to have trouble addressing the risks insiders can pose. According to the Raytheon survey, 88
percent of
respondents are concerned about insider threats but have difficulty identifying specific threatening actions, and
69 percent said their security tools don’t provide enough context to determine insiders’ intent. A well-designed and
executed insider threat mitigation program that considers how individuals conduct
themselves in both virtual and physical environments and that includes policies, training,
technology, behavioral analysis, and a broad set of stakeholders can help organizations
detect, prevent, and respond to insider threats. Here are nine crucial components to consider when
implementing a systematic insider threat mitigation program.
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They are wrong—they get rid of key detection procedures. Behavioral analysis
and awareness is key to catch threats
Garlipp, ’14, (Matthew, Associate at Grant Thornton LLP, “HOW CAN YOU COMBAT INSIDER
THREATS?” Gov Loop, December 3, 2014, https://www.govloop.com/can-combat-insiderthreats/)//erg
Insider threats can have severe consequences, with victim organizations facing significant costs and
damages. According to the FBI, the average cost per incident is $412,000, with victims losing an average of $15 million
a year. Although most agencies primarily focus on external cyber threats, it is crucial to also prepare and combat
insider threats. The U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) defines an insider threat as: A current or former employee,
contractor, or other business partner who has or had authorized access to an organization’s network, system, or data and
intentionally exceeded or misused that access in a manner that negatively affected the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the
organization’s information or information systems. Insider threats are not necessarily hackers and they often don’t start with
malicious intent. Usually a trigger event — such as a denied vacation or being bypassed for a raise or promotion — initiates the
threat. What’s more striking, the CERT Division of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University found that
90 percent of IT saboteurs were system administrators. Despite this, most security tools are designed with hackers in mind, but
they’re not always the real threat. For a more overarching, office-wide approach, Patrick Reidy, former chief information security
officer at the FBI, offers three pieces of advice regarding insider threats: A
good insider threat program should
focus on deterrence, not detection. An employee’s work environment, regardless of job function,
should discourage insiders by crowdsourcing security and deploying data-centric, not systemcentric, security. By creating a data-centric approach, organizations can monitor how data moves across an agency and block
certain actions from occurring. This gives a more holistic view of data, rather than just simply
monitoring a workstation or specific network systems. This helps create an environment
where it is difficult to become an “insider.” Avoid the data overload problem. In security efforts, do not get
overwhelmed with data. Reidy proposes that only two sources of data are needed: HR data to better understand employees and
workplace or personnel issues and system logs to track what is being printed or downloaded via USB, CD or DVD. D etection
of
insider threats must use behavior-based techniques . Detecting insider threats is very hard, like looking for “a
needle in a stack of needles,” Reidy said. By using behavioral analytics, agencies can build a baseline of behavior
and look for red flags — anomalies that differentiate potential insiders from innocuous employees. The CERT Division of SEI
also provides 10 best practices to prevent and combat insider threats: Institute periodic enterprise-wide risk
assessments and security awareness training for all employees. Implement strict password and account
management policies and practices. Log, monitor and audit employee online actions, especially unusually large queries, downloads,
print jobs or e-mails, or other suspicious behavior. Use extra caution with system administrators and privileged users. Collect and
save data for use in investigations. Implement secure backup and recovery processes. Clearly document insider threat controls.
Provide an Employee Assistance Program or other recourse for employees experiencing personal problems. Deactivate computer
access and change passwords for all accounts upon termination, including external accounts. Train management on the patterns of
behavior that could indicate an IT sabotage attack. Insider
threats present potentially catastrophic risks for
all organizations, no matter what sector. But preparation, awareness, training, periodic assessments
and the implementation of security measures and strategies can decrease an organization’s
vulnerability.
The program provides key oversight that gets rid of dark corners—prevents
cascading failure of critical infrastructure—peer vigilance key
Catrantzos, ’10, (Nick, Adjunct Professor, Homeland Security & Author of Managing the
Insider Threat: No Dark Corners, “Tackling the Insider Threat,” CRISP REPORT, ASIS Foundation,
2010, http://www.popcenter.org/library/crisp/insider-threat.pdf)//erg
108
All a hostile insider needs to carry out an attack are access to a worthy target, an open door,
and a dark corner from which to plot and maneuver. Any adversary seeking to strike a
devastating blow against any institution need look no further. Public and private sector institutions and
critical infrastructures number among the many worthy targets, as would any organization with critical assets to be defended. The
potential for loss does not always stop at the door of one target, however. Not
only are some targets like
infrastructure irreplaceable, their damage or destruction may lead to cascading failures of
other, interdependent components, from banking and finance to emergency responders, from
transportation and logistics to food and agriculture. All depend on electricity or water or communications–the
double-edged sword of living in an interconnected world. The open door comes from a traditional culture of
openness and few restrictions to movement or assets in the average workplace. This openness
flourishes because local government agencies and investor-owned organizations alike must answer to demanding stockholders,
ratepayers, and various regulatory agencies. Even when these organizations have critical assets to protect, when it comes to their
public customers, they cannot be perceived as having something to hide. In this environment ,
defenses against
infiltrators or any type of insider threat require a cultural shift . The challenge is to close the door to
infiltrators while leaving it open to legitimate workers and business. Even if an infiltrator sets sights on a worthy target and exploits
weak defenses ,
he or she still needs a dark corner free of oversight in order to gather pre-strike
intelligence and then initiate an attack without risk of timely intervention and defeat. The
best way to defeat such an attack is to remove the dark corners.
Our society’s reliance on technology and
specialists to solve problems can marginalize the average employee, excluding him or her from playing a useful and necessary role in
insider defense. Employees should be recognized as the first line of defense, bringing them onto the front lines with a No Dark
Corners approach. Consequently, in
addressing the insider threat, we must reconsider our usual efforts
to penetrate with the intensity and focus of a laser what we should instead be illuminating
with a flashlight. No matter how deep the laser drills, it points to only a fragment of the entire picture. Caught in the laser’s
beam, a clever insider can mask or explain away hostile activities with relative ease. The same malicious insider,
however, cannot deceive alert peers whose combined, wider gaze acts as a flashlight making
enemy action visible before it is too late to intervene.
The new approach offers open team and employee
engagement as a method of implementing layered defenses, particularly on the front lines of detection and intervention, where
critical operations take place. The
insider threat remains as alive as it is statistically rare, despite generations
of study. Infiltrators continue to pose a risk to critical infrastructure and other institutions . There
are no easy answers. No Dark Corners shows promise, however, as an approach to overcome gaps in traditional defenses. By going
beyond corporate sentinels to engage stakeholders in their own protection, this approach offers the victory of ownership over
surprise.
Counter measures against insider threats are critical for preventing crime and
terrorist attacks
Catrantzos, ’10, (Nick, Adjunct Professor, Homeland Security & Author of Managing the
Insider Threat: No Dark Corners, “Tackling the Insider Threat,” CRISP REPORT, ASIS Foundation,
2010, http://www.popcenter.org/library/crisp/insider-threat.pdf)//erg
The insider threat is an Achilles heel for critical infrastructure protection and the protection of any
enterprise or institution targeted for destruction by adversaries. While risk and vulnerability assessments
skyrocketed in the aftermath of 9/11, as reflected in the federal subsidies promoting them, the security focus
centered largely on the vulnerability of large populations to attack (Masse, O’Neil, & Rollins, 2007, pp. 5–
7). In this context, adversaries were characterized as traditional attackers working as outsiders who generally approach their targets
head on with brute force–precisely in the manner of the 9/11 hijackers. The
insider threat, in this context, has
109
been generally relegated to secondary status. One possible reason is that there is a dearth of statistically
significant data on hostile insiders. As a review of the current literature indicates, trust betrayal—whether in espionage or other
fields— remains statistically rare (Shaw & Fischer, 2005, p. 34; Parker & Wiskoff, 1991, p. 4).1 When analyzed further, the insider
threat has been subordinated to cyber security studies centering on hackers and disgruntled employees, ex-employees, or
consultants (Brackney & Anderson, 2004; Cappelli, Moore, Trzeciak, & Shimeall, 2009; Leach, 2009). While such studies have
supplied value and drawn attention to the problem, they 1 Shaw and Fischer, looking at espionage as a subset of trust betrayal,
argued that such trust betrayal appeared relatively rare, while betrayals by cyber insiders might be poised to be more frequent,
hence more amenable to profiling and categorizing by subtype. have offered few solutions other than to advise continuing scrutiny.
Data compiled to date suggest that the vast majority of insider cyber attacks have been either fraud-driven or moderate in scope
and impact. In other words, such
attacks remain less than devastating to the targeted employer–the
modern, electronic equivalent of embezzlement or vandalism (Kowalski, Cappelli, & Moore, 2008, pp. 24–
26). Similarly, such studies preserve their narrow focus by excluding cases of espionage, while
at the same time avowing that the threat remains real and advising ordinary, more-of-thesame solutions like layered defense (Capelli, Moore, Trzeciak, & Shimeall, pp. 6–8). Consequently, it is difficult
for security practitioners to derive new insights from cyber- centric insider threat
investigations. The net result is that today’s insider threat remains substantially as it did yesterday:
often studied retroactively, yet seldom yielding practical tools, tactics, or recommendations that would serve a defender in
countering the threat. The overall aim of this study is to
identify countermeasures that defenders can use to
prevent terrorist attacks via trust betrayers and thereby reduce the vulnerability of critical
infrastructure and institutions. The journey to this destination involves applying lessons of experts from other, more
mature arenas of defense from insider threats, such as workplace violence, line management, corporate security, and counterespionage. In the course of following this path, the study also explores one answer to the question, “If current indicators and
countermeasures fall short, what should we do differently?”
Insider threats are real—staff awareness is key to detection
Greitzer, et al ’08, (Frank L., a chief scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Labo- ratory,
Andrew P. Moore is a senior member of the technical staff of CERT at the Soft- ware Engineering
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Dawn M. Cappelli is senior member of the technical
staff, Dee H. Andrews, Lynn A. Carroll, Thomas D. Hull is a graduate fellow with the Oak Ridge
Institute for Sci- ence and Education, “Combating the insider Cyber threat,” 2008,
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a498605.pdf)//erg
(Summary.pdf ), reveal that current
or former employees and contrac- tors are the second greatest cybersecurity threat, exceeded only by hackers, and that the number of security incidents has increased
geometrically in recent years. The insider threat is manifested when human behavior departs
from com- pliance with established policies, regardless of whether it results from malice or a disregard for security policies . The types of crimes and abuse associated with insider threats are significant ; the
most se- rious include espionage, sabotage, terrorism, embezzlement, extor- tion, bribery, and corruption. Ma- licious
activities include an even broader range of exploits, such as copyright violations, negligent use
of classified data, fraud, unauthor- ized access to sensitive informa- tion, and illicit
communications with unauthorized recipients. The “insider” is an individual currently or at
one time authorized to access an organization’s infor­ mation system, data, or network; such
authorization implies a de- gree of trust in the individual. The insider threat refers to harmful acts that trusted
insiders might carry out; for example, something that causes harm to the organization, or an unauthorized act that benefits the
individual. A 1997 US Depart- ment of Defense (DoD) Inspec- tor General report1 found that 87 percent of identified intruders into
DoD information systems were ei- ther employees or others internal to the organization. More gener- ally, recent studies of
cybercrime (such as the 2004 through 2006 E-Crime Watch Surveys; www.cert. org/archive/) in both government and commercial
110
sectors reveal that although the proportion of insid- er events is declining (31 percent in 2004 and 27 percent in 2006), the financial
impact and operat- ing losses due to insider intrusions are increasing. Of those compa- nies experiencing security events, the
majority (55 percent) report at least one insider event (up from 39 percent in 2005). In this article, we’ll
focus on the need
for effective training to raise staff awareness about insider threats and the need for organizations to adopt a more effective approach to identifying potential risks and then taking
proactive steps to mitigate them.
Insider threats are real and dangerous—full vigilance is key
Spitzner, ’03, (Lance, internationally recognized leader in the field of cyber threat research
and security training and awareness, “Honeypots: Catching the Insider Threat,” Honeypot
Technologies Inc, 2003, http://craigchamberlain.com/library/insider/Honeypots%20%20%20Catching%20the%20Insider%20Threat.pdf)//erg
Before we can discuss how honeypots, specifically Honeynets and honeytokens, can catch the insider threat, we need to first define
Our goal is to detect, identify, and confirm insider threats. This
means leveraging honeypots to not only indicate that we have an insider, but also confirm
their actions, and potentially learn their motives and resources. What makes our goal difficult
is the threat we face, the sophisticated insider. What we mean by this is someone who is technically
skilled, highly motivated, and has access to extensive resources. For example, this threat may be an
what our goal is, and the threat we face.
employee working for a large corporation, but in reality they are employed by a competitor to engage in corporate espionage. A
second example is highly skilled, disgruntled employee motivated to cause a great deal of damage before they are fired. A third
example could
be a spy working for a foreign country. Regardless of who the insider is, we are
dealing with a highly dangerous threat, one that is extremely difficult to detect. They have
access to critical information; they know the structure of the organization. They are most likely after information, not
systems. As a result, there may be few attacks and their access to information may even be authorized. It is what they do with that
information that comprises the threat. It is our goal to detect and capture the activity of this threat. For the purposes of this paper,
we will take the lessons learned from the ARDA Cyber Indications and Warning workshop. In this workshop, we focused on past
spies in the Intelligence community. Examples of such spies include Aldrich Ames, Robert Hansen, and Anna Montes. These
individuals were all highly trusted individuals with extensive and critical knowledge to their respective organizations. However, as
insiders they were able to cause extreme harm to their organizations, and over long periods of time without being detected.
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Internal Link Turns Groupthink
Combatting the insider threat avoids groupthink
Catrantzos, ’10, (Nick, Adjunct Professor, Homeland Security & Author of Managing the
Insider Threat: No Dark Corners, “Tackling the Insider Threat,” CRISP REPORT, ASIS Foundation,
2010, http://www.popcenter.org/library/crisp/insider-threat.pdf)//erg
The Delphi process is iterative yet anonymous, and required a significant commitment on the part of respondents, including
responses that took the form of explanatory narratives. In
order to obtain meaningful insights rather than just
confirming the author’s opinions, this study sought out practitioners who each have over 20 years of
experience in responsible charge in their respective fields and were willing to voluntarily
participate in what would otherwise constitute billable hours. This undertaking required the fullest stretch of the author’s
network and availing of professional courtesy. Despite 31 years of industry experience and an address book with some 2,024 entries,
the author rated himself fortunate to be able to assemble a dozen professionals who contributed their career thoughts throughout
the Delphi process. Note that the Delphi method isolates respondents from each other, rather than gathering them together in a
focus group .
This technique defends against groupthink and offers equal deference to the
introverted whose voices might otherwise go unheard in the presence of more vocal and
extroverted participants gathered together in the same room. In order to increase respondent numbers,
the research would have risked a corresponding lowering of the bar in experience and insight of experts. Neophytes are in greater
supply, as are graduate students who would be more receptive to providing iterative responses. However, such a response pool
would necessarily rob the process of the kind of wisdom and “deep smarts” that come only through broad, practical experience over
time (Leonard & Swap, 2004). In Delphi research, the smallest number of respondents should not fall under 10, hence this study
settled on 12—in case of any losses from one round of questions to the next. In practice, informed analysts have gone on record to
state that “the sample size varies... from 4 to 171 ‘experts.’ One quickly concludes that there is no ‘typical’ Delphi; rather that the
method is modified to suit the circumstances and research question (Skulmoski, G. J., Harman, F. T., & Krahn, J., 2007, p. 5).” Other
analysts, applying the Delphi method to policy issues, found useful sample sizes varying from 10 to 50 experts (Linstone, H., & Turoff,
M., 2002, p. 82). The Delphi research effort itself extended from January through April 2009 and consisted of three iterative rounds
of questions and feedback. Recruitment
of experts and gathering of their signed, informed consent
forms, in satisfaction of the requirements of the Institutional Review Board of the Naval Postgraduate School, took
place between the months of November 2008 to January 2009.
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Russia Containment DA
113
1NC
Deterring Russia in Europe is k2 curb Russian expansionism
O’Hanlon 7/12 (Michael, 2015, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, “We Need to Get Serious About Russia, Now,”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/we-need-to-get-tough-with-russia-now-120002.html#ixzz3gOxGu49h)//RTF
We are at a crucial juncture in the conflict over Ukraine and the West’s relationship with
Russia. Obama’s restraint has been wise at one level, but Washington’s tendency has been to
move this issue to the back burner and hope it stays there. Yet there is little reason to think that it will—and
also little reason to believe that a new U.S. president in 18 months, who will probably be harder-line in dealing with Vladimir Putin
than Barack Obama has been, will be able to fix the situation either. As
Gen. Joseph Dunford, the incoming Joint
Chiefs chairman, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing last
week: “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United
States, I would have to point to Russia. … If you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming,”
Meanwhile the current crisis over Greece and the Eurozone—which is not likely to end soon, if
ever—is only likely to further undermine Europe’s resolve and induce it to turn inward,
allowing Putin to breathe easier. Or at least, the Russian president might get that impression. So the United
States and its NATO allies need to get serious about the situation now, and complement their
existing policy approach with new ideas—some of them to show resolve and firmness towards
Putin and Russia, others to offer him a way out of this crisis should he wish to take such a path. But this is not a time
for drift; the longer the Kremlin senses irresolution in the West, the more it is likely to assume
that its new “order” in the east is a fait accompli. There is also a risk it could become yet more
aggressive, even towards the NATO-member Baltic states, in some way. The context of the situation
was well summarized in a recent poll, released June 10, that the Pew Research Center conducted over the previous several months.
It underscored that the West has a number of strengths in dealing with Putin—but also a number of serious vulnerabilities that will
not get better just by ignoring them. The survey, led by Bruce Stokes and Katie Simmons, found that majorities of citizens in a
number of key NATO states would not favor the use of force to protect another alliance member in the event of Russian aggression
against them. That would seem, on its face, to ignore Article V of the NATO alliance’s founding charter, the Washington Treaty of
1949, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, and should be treated accordingly. This may appear to some as
tantamount to an invitation to renewed Russian aggression. It seems to raise the scenario of Vladimir Putin again employing his
patriotic cyber attackers and “little green men,” not just in Crimea but perhaps in Latvia or Estonia—former republics in the Soviet
Union turned independent nations and, since 2004, members of NATO. Each also has significant populations of Russian speakers
that Putin can claim want to be reunited with the motherland; each is too far east for NATO easily to mount a military defense in any
case. Are such parts of the Western alliance, and perhaps other countries like Poland, now vulnerable to Russian aggression? In fact,
it would be a mistake to reach this conclusion based on the Pew survey or any other recent polling. While
there are indeed
some troubling findings in the Pew results, on balance what emerges is the picture of an
alliance that still provides the West with considerable cohesion, and considerable leverage, in
addressing the problem of Putin. Before trying to make sense of the poll results, it is important to summarize not just
the headline-dominating findings noted above, but several other key results from Pew: The NATO publics have negative views of
Russia and Putin. They seem to have little doubt of who is primarily responsible for the crisis in relations of the last two years, dating
to the immediate aftermath of the Sochi Olympics when protests in Ukraine forced out the country’s previous leader, President
Yanukovich. Five of eight NATO countries surveyed (the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) oppose sending weapons to Ukraine
to defend itself in the current crisis. NATO countries remain more than willing to employ sanctions against Russia over its behavior.
This was true in every alliance member-state that was polled, including Germany, the most pro-Russia NATO state that was included
in the polling. Indeed, although just 38 percent of Germans favored a military response in the event of a hypothetical Russian attack
against another NATO member, they remained in favor of sanctions against Russia. Only 29 percent favored a loosening of the
current sanctions, unless Russia’s behavior were to change. This helps explain why the EU just reauthorized sanctions against Russia,
with even Greece in support. Putin remains extremely popular in Russia, with favorability ratings approaching 90 percent; Russians
currently blame the West, and falling oil prices, for their current economic woes, and not their own government or its policies.
Forebodingly, most
Russians believe that eastern Ukraine, where the current fighting rages,
should not remain part of Ukraine but should either become independent or join their
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country. Two more key points are crucial to remember. First, the type of hypothetical Russian attack against a NATO country that
formed the premise for the Pew question about Article V was not clearly specified. Perhaps respondents were in some sense
wondering if a takedown of several Latvian or Estonian computer networks really needed to be met with NATO tanks? For most
western publics, the advisability of a major military response might well, understandably enough, depend in detail on the nature of
the perceived Russian attack as well as the other options available to the alliance. Second, and relatedly, it is important to remember
that Article V does NOT demand an automatic, unconditional military response by each alliance member. It says, rather, that an
attack on one should lead to a response by all—involving whatever means the individual states determine. This ambiguity may risk
complicating deterrence, to be sure—but it worked during the Cold War and, if NATO leaders are sufficiently clear in their dealings
with Putin, it can and should work now. These results collectively suggest the following path ahead: The
United States and
other NATO member states should adopt the Pentagon’s recent proposal to station modest
amounts of equipment in the easternmost NATO countries—a proposal that is harder to
oppose at this juncture given Putin’s continued stirring up of the conflict. Ideally, equipment from NOT
ONLY America BUT also other NATO countries would be part of the initiative. The sanctions tool remains powerful and should still be
employed. As they pursue Russian compliance with the so-called Minsk accords, which Moscow agreed to this past winter, and
which would allow autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern provinces in return for verifiable Russian withdrawal from those same regions
and an end to hostility by separatists, western policymakers can and should keep up the economic pressure. A grand solution should
also be proposed to Moscow. As a complement to the Minsk concept and the continuation of economic sanctions, the West should
offer a proposal for a new Central European security architecture for non-NATO states that Russia would be asked and expected to
co-guarantee, if it wishes that countries like Ukraine permanently forgo pursuit of NATO membership. This should not weaken
Ukraine’s formal sovereignty; no long-term “Hong Kong handover” solution is needed. But all would understand that Ukraine would
not formally join the West in geostrategic terms, though it certainly could accept western help out of its current economic malaise
once the right policy foundation was established. So far Putin has managed to convince Russians that their economic predicament is
not his fault, but over time, he may not be able to maintain the charade. The Pew poll suggests that Western publics are firmly
united behind this sanctions-based approach—and that modern democracies, while wary about the use of force, are a far cry from
the paper tigers their critics sometimes purport them to be. But our policies are far from adequate to the task at hand and need to
be improved now—before the situation escalates further and reduces our room for maneuver, and before the 2016 U.S. presidential
race reduces Washington’s room for maneuver as well.
Expansion risks war and nuclear use
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
II. The gamble: Putin's plan to make Russia great again Should
the warnings prove right, and a major war
break out in Europe between Russia and the West, then the story of that war, if anyone is still around to tell it, will begin
with Russian President Vladimir Putin trying to solve a problem. That problem is this: Putin's Russia
is weak. It can no longer stand toe to toe with the US. It no longer has Europe divided in a
stalemate; rather, it sees the continent as dominated by an ever-encroaching anti-Russian
alliance. In the Russian view, the country's weakness leaves it at imminent risk, vulnerable to a hostile West bent on subjugating
or outright destroying Russia as it did to Iraq and Libya. This is made more urgent for Putin by his political
problems at home. In 2012, during his reelection, popular protests and accusations of fraud
weakened his sense of political legitimacy. The problem worsened with Russia's 2014
economic collapse; Putin's implicit bargain with the Russian people had been that he would deliver economic growth and
they would let him erode basic rights. Without the economy, what did he have to offer them? Putin's answer has been to
assert Russian power beyond its actual strength — and, in the process, to recast himself as a
national hero guarding against foreign enemies. Without a world-power-class military or
economy at his disposal, he is instead wielding confusion and uncertainty — which Soviet
leaders rightly avoided as existential dangers — as weapons against the West. Unable to
overtly control Eastern Europe, he has fomented risks and crises in there, sponsoring
separatists in Ukraine and conducting dangerous military activity along NATO airspace and
coastal borders, giving Russia more leverage there. Reasserting a Russian sphere of influence
over Eastern Europe, he apparently believes, will finally give Russia security from the hostile
West — and make Russia a great power once more. Knowing his military is outmatched
115
against the Americans, he is blurring the distinction between war and peace, deploying tactics
that exist in, and thus widen, the gray between: militia violence, propaganda, cyberattacks,
under a new rubric the Russian military sometimes calls "hybrid war." "This was the theory of the Kaiser before World War I: The
more threatening you are, the more people will submit to your will. Putin’s
going to threaten and threaten and
hope that NATO bends. But the long run of international relations suggests that it goes the
other way." Unable to cross America's red lines, Putin is doing his best to muddy them — and,
to deter the Americans, muddying his own. Turning otherwise routine diplomatic and military incidents into games
of high-stakes chicken favors Russia, he believes, as the West will ultimately yield to his superior will. To solve the problem of
Russia's conventional military weakness, he
has dramatically lowered the threshold for when he would
use nuclear weapons, hoping to terrify the West such that it will bend to avoid conflic t. In public
speeches, over and over, he references those weapons and his willingness to use them. He has enshrined, in Russia's
official nuclear doctrine, a dangerous idea no Soviet leader ever adopted: that a nuclear war
could be winnable. Putin, having recast himself at home as a national hero standing up to foreign enemies, is more popular
than ever. Russia has once more become a shadow hanging over Eastern Europe, feared and only rarely bowed to, but always taken
seriously. Many Western Europeans, asked in a poll whether they would defend their own Eastern European allies from a Russian
invasion, said no. Russia's
aggression, born of both a desire to reengineer a European order that it
views as hostile and a sense of existential weakness that justifies drastic measures, makes it
far more willing to accept the dangers of war. As RAND's F. Stephen Larrabee wrote in one of
the increasingly urgent warnings that some analysts are issuing, "The Russia that the United
States faces today is more assertive and more unpredictable — and thus, in many ways, more
dangerous — than the Russia that the United States confronted during the latter part of the
Cold War." Joseph Nye, the dean of Harvard University's school of government and one of America's most respected
international relations scholars, pointed out that Russia's weakness-masking aggression was yet
another disturbing parallel to the buildup to World War I. "Russia seems doomed to continue its decline —
an outcome that should be no cause for celebration in the West," Nye wrote in a recent column. "States in decline — think
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 — tend to become less risk-averse and thus much
more dangerous."
Nuclear war in Europe with Russia is possible and on the brink
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
It was in August 2014 that the real danger began, and that we heard the first warnings of war. That month,
unmarked Russian troops covertly invaded eastern Ukraine, where the separatist conflict had
grown out of its control. The Russian air force began harassing the neighboring Baltic states of
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which are members of NATO. The US pledged that it would
uphold its commitment to defend those countries as if they were American soil, and later
staged military exercises a few hundred yards from Russia's border. Both sides came to
believe that the other had more drastic intentions. Moscow is convinced the West is bent on
isolating, subjugating, or outright destroying Russia. One in three Russians now believe the US may invade.
Western nations worry, with reason, that Russia could use the threat of war, or provoke an
actual conflict, to fracture NATO and its commitment to defend Eastern Europe. This would break
the status quo order that has peacefully unified Europe under Western leadership, and kept out Russian influence, for 25 years.
Fearing the worst of one another, the US and Russia have pledged to go to war, if necessary,
to defend their interests in the Eastern European borderlands. They have positioned military forces and
conducted chest-thumping exercises, hoping to scare one another down. Putin, warning repeatedly that he would
use nuclear weapons in a conflict, began forward-deploying nuclear-capable missiles and
116
bombers. Europe today looks disturbingly similar to the Europe of just over 100 years ago, on
the eve of World War I. It is a tangle of military commitments and defense pledges, some of them unclear and thus easier
to trigger. Its leaders have given vague signals for what would and would not lead to war. Its political tensions have
become military buildups. Its nations are teetering on an unstable balance of power, barely
held together by a Cold War–era alliance that no longer quite applies. If you take a walk around
Washington or a Western European capital today, there is no feeling of looming catastrophe. The threats are too complex, with
many moving pieces and overlapping layers of risk adding up to a larger danger that is less obvious. People can be forgiven for not
seeing the cloud hanging over them, for feeling that all is well — even as in Eastern Europe they are digging in for war. But this
complacency is itself part of the problem, making the threat more difficult to foresee, to manage, or, potentially, to avert. There
is a growing chorus of political analysts, arms control experts, and government officials who
are sounding the alarm, trying to call the world's attention to its drift toward disaster. The
prospect of a major war, even a nuclear war, in Europe has become thinkable, they warn,
even plausible. What they describe is a threat that combines many of the hair-trigger dangers and world-ending stakes of the
Cold War with the volatility and false calm that preceded World War I — a comparison I heard with disturbing frequency. They
described a number of ways that an unwanted but nonetheless major
war, like that of 1914, could break out in
the Eastern European borderlands. The stakes, they say, could not be higher: the post–World War
II peace in Europe, the lives of thousands or millions of Eastern Europeans, or even, in a worstcase scenario that is remote but real, the nuclear devastation of the planet.
117
2NC – Containment Key
Hardline responses to Russia deter expansion
Aleksashenko 5/28 (Sergei, 2015, nonresident senior fellow in Global Economy and Development @ Brookings, Former
deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia and former chairman of Merrill Lynch Russia, “Stop calling Russia weak,”
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/05/29-russia-not-weak-aleksashenko)//RTF
Twelve weeks have passed since the second Minsk agreement was signed, and the military
situation in Eastern Ukraine has quieted. While this is a positive development, we cannot declare the
crisis over. Unfortunately, it seems most likely that another territory with non-specified status will emerge
in Europe, opening the door for yet another frozen conflict in the region. In the short run, the
current situation in Ukraine is in some sense understood on all sides: Ukraine is able to concentrate on its reform agenda efforts;
Russia can keep Donbass hostage and maintain its ability to destabilize Ukraine at any moment; Europe
can relax a bit as
the threat of military spillover subsides; and the United States hopes to just forget about the
whole headache. But that approach would be a major strategic mistake for the U.S. and Europe. In
the wake of the 2008 Georgian war, the West made the grave error of letting down its guard.
Going this direction again means undermining European and American principles. At the same time, it undermines
our very global security system, which rejects the use of force as an instrument of conflict resolution and forcible
changes of the state borders via military intervention. By accepting the status quo in Ukraine, the West
suggests to the world that it will not prevent Putin from imposing his narrative across Russian
borders. More broadly, it risks demonstrating that it is the rule of force—not of law—that reigns in
the world today. Tacitly supporting a return to business as usual in Ukraine makes life easier for the U.S. and Europe. But
the West’s reliance on traditional methods of diplomacy is a mistake in dealing with Putin,
who has clearly decided to employ nontraditional forms of international relations. The West
needs a nontraditional response to Russia’s nontraditional foreign policy. If leaders in Europe and the
U.S. believe Putin is weak—as Valeriano and Maness propose—they should demonstrate that fact to the world and to the Russian
president himself. We have yet to see that kind of clear demonstration.
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2NC – Expansionism Bad
Russian expansion into the Baltic states causes war
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
IV. How it would happen: The Baltics scenario In
September of last year, President Obama traveled to Estonia, a
nation of 1.3 million people that most Americans have never heard of, and pledged that the United States would if necessary go to war with Russia to
defend it. Estonia,
along with Latvia and Lithuania — together known as the Baltic states — are at
the far edge of Eastern Europe, along Russia's border. They were formerly part of the Soviet Union. And they are where
many Western analysts fear World War III is likeliest to start. These small countries are "the most likely front line of
any future crisis," according to Stephen Saideman, an international relations professor at Carleton University. Allison and Simes,
in their essay warning of war, called the Baltics "the Achilles’ heel of the NATO alliance." A full
quarter of Estonia's population is ethnically Russian. Clustered on the border with Russia, this
minority is served by the same Russian state media that helped stir up separatist violence
among Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. But unlike Ukraine, the Baltic states are all
members of NATO, whose charter states that an attack on one member is an attack on them
all. Whereas a Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted Western sanctions, a Russian invasion of Estonia would legally
obligate the US and most of Europe to declare war on Moscow. "We'll be here for Estonia. We will be here for
Latvia. We will be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again," Obama pledged in his
September speech in Estonia. Less than 48 hours after Obama's address, Russian agents blanketed an Estonia-Russia border crossing with tear gas,
stormed across, and kidnapped an Estonian state security officer, Eston Kohver, who specialized in counterintelligence. Kohver has been held illegally in
a Russian prison for nine months now. It was something like an act of geopolitical trolling: aggressive enough to assert Russian dominion over Estonia,
but not so aggressive as to be considered a formal act of war that would trigger a Western counterattack. And it was one of several signs that Putin's
Russia is asserting a right to meddle in these former Soviet territories. The
Russian military has already begun pressing
the Baltic states. Russian warships were spotted in Latvian waters 40 times in 2014. Russian
military flights over the Baltics are now routine, often with the planes switching off their
transponders, which makes them harder to spot and increases the chances of an accident.
Military activity in the region had reached Cold War levels. NATO, fearing the worst, is
increasing military exercises in the Baltics. The US is installing heavy equipment. And in February,
the US military paraded through the Russian-majority Estonian city of Narva, a few hundred
yards from Russia's borders. It's a textbook example of what political scientists call the security
dilemma: Each side sees its actions as defensive and the other side's as offensive. Each
responds to the other's perceived provocations by escalating further, a self-reinforcing cycle
that can all too easily lead to war. It is considered, for example, a major contributor to the outbreak of World War I. That it is
entirely foreseeable does little to reduce the risk. Even if Russia in fact has no designs on the Baltics, its bluffing and posturing has already created the
conditions for an unwanted war. In early April, for example, a Russian fighter jet crossed into the Baltic Sea and "buzzed" a US military plane, missing it
by only 20 feet. It was one of several recent near-misses that, according to a think tank called the European Leadership Institute, have had a "high
probability of causing casualties or a direct military confrontation between Russia and Western states." Meanwhile, Russia
has been flying
its nuclear-capable strategic bombers along NATO airspace, often with the planes'
transponders switched off, making an accident or misperception more likely. As if that weren't
dangerous enough, the bombers — hulking, decades-old Tupolev Tu-95 models — have become prone to accidents such as engine fires. What if a Tu-95
went down unexpectedly, say, off the coast of Norway? What if it was carrying nuclear warheads, or it went down during a moment of high tension?
Such incidents can lead to misunderstandings, and such misunderstandings can lead to war. By late April, when NATO officials gathered at the security
conference in Estonia's capital of Tallinn, the severity of the danger had become unmistakable. As Ahmed Rashid wrote from the conference: Baltic
presidents and NATO officials were unusually blunt in describing the extent to which the security architecture in Eastern Europe has collapsed, how
Russia poses the gravest threat to peace since World War II, and how the conflict in Ukraine and the loss of the Crimea has left the Baltic states on the
front line of an increasingly hostile standoff. Amid these tensions, the thought of a plane crash leading to war seems scarily plausible. It is not just
Western officials who fear such an incident could spark war. Fyodor Lukyanov, the prominent Russian analyst who is considered close to the
government, worried that the NATO military exercises in the Baltics meant to deter Russia were also contributing to the problem. "Russia reacts to that
because Russia perceives it as a hostile approach to the Russian border," he explained. "And it’s a vicious circle." It is easy to imagine, Lukyanov said,
any number of ways that the powder keg could explode. " Without
any intention to create the big conflict, it might
119
happen," he said. "One step, another step, and reciprocity can become very dangerous. Say a
Russian aircraft comes very close to an area that NATO believes is prohibited while Russia
believes it’s not prohibited, and then British aircraft respond. It might be manageable, and in
most cases of course it will be, but who knows."
120
2NC – NATO Scenario
If NATO doesn’t intervene, it’ll be destroyed
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
V. How it would happen: A plot to break NATO It was Andrei
Piontkovsky, a Russian political analyst and
frequent Kremlin critic, who first suggested the theory, last August, that Putin's plan for the
Baltics was more sophisticated, and more calculated, than anybody realized. Piontkovsky was trying
to answer a question that Western analysts and policymakers had been puzzling over since Russian provocations began in the Baltics
last fall: What does Putin want? Unlike in Ukraine, with which Russia has a long shared history, there is little demand among the
Russian public for intervention in the Baltic states. They are of modest strategic value. And the risks of Russia's aggression there are
potentially catastrophic. Why bother? His
is a theory that is now taken much more seriously by Western
policymakers — and appears more plausible all the time. Putin hopes to spark a conflict in the
Baltics, Piontkovsky wrote, so as to force Western European leaders into an impossible choice: Fulfill
their NATO obligation to defend the Baltics and counterattack, even if it means fighting World
War III over a tiny post-Soviet republic most Europeans couldn't care less about — or do
nothing. The implications of doing nothing, Piontkovsky pointed out, would extend far beyond the Baltics. It
would lay bare NATO's mutual defense provision as a lie, effectively dissolving the military
alliance, ending a quarter-century of Europe's security unification under Western leadership,
and leaving Eastern Europe once more vulnerable to Russian domination. In this way, Putin
could do what Soviet leaders never came close to: defeat NATO. "This is his most cherished
objective," Piontkovsky told me when we talked in his kitchen, in a leafy Moscow neighborhood across the river from Gorky Park.
"It's an enormous temptation. He may retreat at any stage, but the temptation is enormous,
to destroy NATO. ... The risk is big, yes? But the prize is enormous." "To destroy NATO, to
demonstrate that Article V does not work, the Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia are the
best place for this," he said. "It's happening now, every day. Intrusions into the airspace, psychological pressure, the
propaganda on TV." He suggested that Putin, rather than rolling Russian tanks across the border, would perhaps seed
unmarked Russian special forces into, say, the Russian-majority city of Narva in Estonia, where
they would organize localized violence or a phony independence referendum. A handful of
such unacknowledged forces, whom Putin referred to as "little green men" after they
appeared in Crimea, would perhaps be dressed as local volunteers or a far-right gang; they
might be joined by vigilantes, as they were in eastern Ukraine. They would almost certainly be aided by a
wave of Russian propaganda, making it harder for outsiders to differentiate unmarked Russian troops from civilian volunteers, to
determine who was fighting where and had started what. Such
an intervention would force NATO into an
impossible choice: Are you really going to open fire on some hoodlums stirring up trouble in
Estonia, knowing they might actually be unmarked Russian troops? Would you risk the first
major European war since 1945, all to eject some unmarked Russian troops from the Estonian
town of Narva? Putin, Piontkovsky believes, is gambling that the answer is no. That NATO would not
intervene, thus effectively abandoning its commitment to defend its Eastern European
member states. Piontkovsky's scenario, once considered extreme, is now widely seen by Western
security experts and policymakers as plausible. At the end of 2014, the military intelligence service of Denmark, a
member of NATO, issued a formal paper warning of precisely that: Russia may attempt to test NATO’s cohesion by engaging in
military intimidation of the Baltic countries, for instance with a threatening military build-up close to the borders of these countries
and simultaneous attempts of political pressure, destabilization and possibly infiltration. Russia could launch such an intimidation
campaign in connection with a serious crisis in the post-Soviet space or another international crisis in which Russia confronts the
United States and NATO. "The
concern is that what Putin wants to do is break NATO, and the best
121
way to do that would be to poach on the Baltics," Saideman, the political scientist, told me on a call from a
European security conference where he said the scenario was being taken very seriously. "And if Germany doesn’t
respond to incursions in the Baltics, if France doesn’t respond and it’s just an American
operation, then it will lead to the breaking of NATO, is the theory," he said. "That’s the biggest concern."
Saideman described a variation on this scenario that I heard from others as well: that Putin might attempt to seize
some small sliver of the Baltics quickly and bloodlessly. This would make it politically easier
for Western European leaders to do nothing — how to rally your nation to war if hardly
anyone has even been killed? — and harder to counterattack, knowing it would require a fullscale invasion. "I think they’re very serious about this," Saideman said. "There’s a real
concern."
Either Russian expansion causes war or it fractures NATO
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
VI. How it would happen: The fog of hybrid war In
early 2015, Pew pollsters asked citizens of several NATO
states the exact question that analysts and policymakers from Washington to Moscow are
gaming out: "If Russia got into a serious military conflict with one of its neighboring countries
that is our NATO ally, do you think our country should or should not use military force to
defend that country?" The numbers from Western Europe were alarming: Among Germans,
only 38 percent said yes; 58 percent said no. If it were up to German voters — and to at least
some extent, it is — NATO would effectively surrender the Baltics to Russia in a conflict. This poll
is even worse than it looks. It assumes that Russia would launch an overt military invasion of the Baltics. What would
actually happen is something far murkier, and far more likely to leverage European hesitation:
the playbook from Ukraine, where Russia deployed its newly developed concepts of
postmodern "hybrid war," designed to blur the distinction between war and not-war, to make
it as difficult as possible to differentiate grassroots unrest or vigilante cyberattacks from
Russian military aggression. Putin may already be laying the groundwork. In March of 2014, shortly
after Russia had annexed Crimea, Putin gave a speech there pledging to protect Russians even
outside of Russia, which many took as a gesture to the substantial Russian minorities in the
Baltics. "That kind of misperception situation is definitely possible, and that’s how wars start"
Then, in October, Putin warned that "open manifestations of neo-Nazism" had "become
commonplace in Latvia and other Baltic states" — repeating the language that he and Russian
state media had earlier used to frighten Russian speakers in Ukraine into taking up arms. This
April, several Russian outlets issued spurious reports that Latvia was planning to forcibly relocate ethnic Russians into Nazi-style
ghettos — an echo of similar scaremongering Russian propaganda broadcast in the runup in Ukraine. Martin Hurt, a former senior
official of the country's defense ministry, warned that his country's ethnic Russian minority could be "receptive to Kremlin
disinformation." Moscow, he said, could generate unrest "as a pretext to use military force against the Baltic states." In
early
2007, Estonia's parliament voted to relocate a Soviet-era military statue, the Bronze Soldier, that had become a cultural symbol
and annual rallying point for the country's ethnic Russians. In response, Russian politicians and state media
accused the Estonian government of fascism and Nazi-style discrimination against ethnic
Russians; they issued false reports claiming ethnic Russians were being tortured and
murdered. Protests broke out and escalated into riots and mass looting. One person was killed
in the violence, and the next day hackers took many of the country's major institutions offline.
Russia could do it again, only this time gradually escalating further toward a Ukraine-style
conflict. NATO is just not built to deal with such a crisis. Its mutual defense pledge, after all, rests on the
assumption that war is a black-and-white concept, that a country is either at war or not at war. Its charter is from a time
122
when war was very different than it is today, with its many shades of gray. Russia can exploit
this flaw by introducing low-level violence that more hawkish NATO members would consider
grounds for war but that war-averse Western European states might not see that way.
Disagreement among NATO's member states would be guaranteed as they hesitated over
where to declare a moment when Russia had crossed the line into war. Meanwhile, Russian state
media, which has shown real influence in Western Europe, would unleash a flurry of propaganda to confuse the issue, make it
harder to pin blame on Moscow for the violence, and gin up skepticism of any American calls for war. Germany, which is widely
considered the deciding vote on whether Europe would go to war, would
be particularly resistant to going to war.
The legacy of World War II and the ideology of pacifism and compromise make even the idea
of declaring war on Russia unthinkable. German leaders would come under intense political
pressure to, if not reject the call to arms, then at least delay and negotiate — a de facto rejection of
NATO's collective self-defense. In such a scenario, it is disturbingly easy to imagine how NATO's
European member states could split over whether Russia had even crossed their red line for
war, much less whether to respond. Under a fog of confusion and doubt, Russia could gradually escalate until a
Ukraine-style conflict in the Baltics was foregone, until it had marched far across NATO's red
line, exposing that red line as meaningless. But the greatest danger of all is if Putin's plan were
to stumble: By overreaching, by underestimating Western resolve to defend the Baltics, or by
starting something that escalates beyond his control, it could all too easily lead to full-blown
war. "That kind of misperception situation is definitely possible, and that’s how wars start ,"
Saideman said, going on to compare Europe today with 1914, just before World War I. "The thing that makes war most thinkable is
when other people don’t think it’s thinkable." In
1963, a few months after the Cuban missile crisis had almost brought the US and
gave a speech drawing on the lessons of the world's
brush with nuclear war: "Above all, while defending our vital interests, nuclear powers must
avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat
or a nuclear war." That is the choice that Putin may well force upon NATO.
Soviet Union to blows, President John F. Kennedy
Russian Expansion fractures NATO
Johnston 6/3 (Ian, 2015, The Guardian, “Nato and EU face collapse if they fail to stop Russian aggression, warn experts,”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/nato-and-eu-face-collapse-if-they-fail-to-stop-russian-aggression-experts-warn10295927.html)//RTF
Nato and the European Union “could collapse” in the face of increasing aggression from
Russia, which has been emboldened by the EU’s apparent unwillingness to “defend its
principles”, an influential think-tank has warned. A major study by Chatham House found the conflict in
Ukraine – where Moscow is backing separatist rebels – represented a “defining” moment for
the future of Europe. It called for the West to increase the strength of its conventional military
forces. It also warned that Russia was prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons in certain circumstances and Nato should
make clear that a so-called “limited war” was “impossible”. “The conflict in Ukraine is a defining factor for
the future of European security,” the report said. “Ukraine’s failure would deepen instability in Eastern Europe, increase the risk of
further Kremlin adventures and diminish the prospects for eventual beneficial change in Russia. “Russia
may have the
greater interest in Ukraine. But the West has an even bigger interest in preserving the postCold War environment. “If that is dismantled, it is conceivable that Nato and the EU could
collapse too.” The report, whose authors include two former ambassadors to Moscow, Sir Roderic Lyne and Sir Andrew Wood,
said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been encouraged by the “weak and unconvincing responses” from the West to events
such as Russia’s seizure of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia in 2008. “The
Kremlin perceives that Europe
lacks the will to pay the necessary price to defend its principles,” it said. “Russian ambitions
and intentions had been telegraphed for well over a decade, but the West found it easier at
123
the time to disregard them and indulge in the fantasy that Russia was progressing towards a
liberal-democratic model with which the West felt comfortable. “The war in Ukraine is, in
part, the result of the West’s laissez-faire approach to Russia.” And it warned that if there was a wider
conflict in Europe, Russia would be prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons. “Nato must retain its credibility as a
deterrent to Russian aggression. In particular, it needs to demonstrate that limited war is
impossible and that the response to ‘ambiguous’ or ‘hybrid’ war will be robust.” Hybrid tactics is a
term that describes the deployment of unbadged Russian troops and the use of local pro-Moscow forces in eastern Ukraine. The
growing threat from Moscow means that “conventional deterrent capability must be restored as a matter of urgency and
convincingly conveyed, to avoid presenting Russia with inviting targets”, the think-tank warned. The Treasury has reportedly asked
the Ministry of Defence to make spending cuts of £1bn this year. David Lidington, the Europe minister, said: “The UK is working
closely with EU and G7 partners in response to Russian actions in Ukraine. “The UK is also playing a leading role in Nato exercises in
Eastern Europe and with Baltic partners as part of the assurance measures and collective defence in the region.”
Collapse of NATO causes multiple escalatory nuclear wars
John Duffield 1994, Assistant Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia,
[Political Science Quarterly 109:5, p. 766-7]
Initial analyses of NATO's future prospects overlooked at least three important
factors that have helped to ensure the
alliance's enduring relevance. First, they underestimated the extent to which external threats sufficient to
help justify the preservation of the alliance would continue to exist. In fact, NATO still serves to secure its
members against a number of actual or potential dangers emanating from outside their territory. These include not only
the residual threat posed by Russian military power, but also the relatively new concerns raised by conflicts in
neighboring regions. Second, the pessimists failed to consider NATO's capacity for institutional
adaptation. Since the end of the cold war, the alliance has begun to develop two important new functions. NATO is
increasingly seen as having a significant role to play in containing and controlling militarized conflicts in
Central and Eastern Europe. And, at a deeper level, it works to prevent such conflicts from arising at
all by actively promoting stability within the former Soviet bloc. Above all, NATO pessimists overlooked the valuable
intra-alliance functions that the alliance has always performed and that remain relevant after the cold war. Most importantly,
NATO has helped stabilize Western Europe, whose states had often been bitter rivals in the past. By damping the security
dilemma and providing an institutional mechanism for the development of common security policies, NATO
has
contributed to making the use of force in relations among the countries of the region
virtually inconceivable. In all these ways, NATO clearly serves the interests of its European members. But even the
United States has a significant stake in preserving a peaceful and prosperous Europe. In addition to strong transatlantic historical
and cultural ties, American economic interests in Europe— as a leading market for U.S. products, as a source of valuable imports,
and as the host for considerable direct foreign investment by American companies — remain substantial. If history is any guide,
moreover, the
United States could easily be drawn into a future major war in Europe, the
consequences of which would likely be even more devastating than those of the past, given
the existence of nuclear weapons.11
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2NC – War Goes Nuclear
Russian nuclear doctrine means war in Ukraine escalates
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
III. The drift: How the unthinkable became possible The
Cold War was a dangerous game, but it was a game
in which everyone knew and agreed upon the stakes and the rules. That is not the case today.
The Western side believes it is playing a game where the rules are clear enough, the stakes
relatively modest, and the competition easily winnable. The Russian side, however, sees a
game where the rules can be rewritten on the fly, even the definition of war itself altered. For
Russia, fearing a threat from the West it sees as imminent and existential, the stakes are unimaginably high, justifying virtually any
action or gamble if it could deter defeat and, perhaps, lead to victory. Separately, the ever-paranoid Kremlin believes that the West
is playing the same game in Ukraine. Western support for Ukraine's government and efforts to broker a ceasefire to the war there,
Moscow believes, are really a plot to encircle Russia with hostile puppet states and to rob Russia of its rightful sphere of influence.
Repeated Russian warnings that it would go to war to defend its perceived interests in
Ukraine, potentially even nuclear war, are dismissed in most Western capitals as bluffing, mere
rhetoric. Western leaders view these threats through Western eyes, in which impoverished
Ukraine would never be worth risking a major war. In Russian eyes, Ukraine looks much more
important: an extension of Russian heritage that is sacrosanct and, as the final remaining
component of the empire, a strategic loss that would unacceptably weaken Russian strength
and thus Russian security. Both side are gambling and guessing in the absence of a clear understanding of what the other
side truly intends, how it will act, what will and will not trigger the invisible triplines that would send us careening into war. Today's
tensions bear far more similarity to the period before World War I During the Cold War, the comparably matched Western and
Soviet blocs prepared for war but also made sure that war never came. They locked Europe in a tense but stable balance of power;
that balance is gone. They set clear red lines and vowed to defend them at all costs. Today, those red lines are murky and ill-defined.
Neither side is sure where they lie or what really happens if they are crossed. No one can say for sure what would trigger war. That is
why, analysts will tell you, today's tensions bear far more similarity to the period before World War I: an unstable power balance,
belligerence over peripheral conflicts, entangling military commitments, disputes over the future of the European order, and
dangerous uncertainty about what actions will and will not force the other party into conflict. Today's Russia, once more the
strongest nation in Europe and yet weaker than its collective enemies, calls to mind the turn-of-the-century German Empire, which
Henry Kissinger described as "too big for Europe, but too small for the world." Now, as then, a rising power, propelled by
nationalism, is seeking to revise the European order. Now, as then, it believes that through superior cunning, and perhaps even by
proving its might, it can force a larger role for itself. Now, as then, the drift toward war is gradual and easy to miss — which is exactly
what makes it so dangerous. But there is one way in which today's dangers are less like those before World War I, and more similar
to those of the Cold War: the apocalyptic logic of nuclear weapons. Mutual suspicion, fear of an existential threat, armies parked
across borders from one another, and hair-trigger nuclear weapons all make any small skirmish a potential armageddon. In some
ways, that logic has grown even more dangerous. Russia,
hoping to compensate for its conventional military
forces' relative weakness, has dramatically relaxed its rules for using nuclear weapons.
Whereas Soviet leaders saw their nuclear weapons as pure deterrents, something that existed
precisely so they would never be used, Putin's view appears to be radically different. Russia's
official nuclear doctrine calls on the country to launch a battlefield nuclear strike in case of a
conventional war that could pose an existential threat. These are more than just words: Moscow has
repeatedly signaled its willingness and preparations to use nuclear weapons even in a more
limited war. This is a terrifyingly low bar for nuclear weapons use, particularly given that any
war would likely occur along Russia's borders and thus not far from Moscow . And it suggests Putin
has adopted an idea that Cold War leaders considered unthinkable: that a "limited" nuclear war, of small warheads dropped on the
battlefield, could be not only survivable but winnable. "It’s not just a difference in rhetoric. It’s a whole different world," Bruce G.
Blair, a nuclear weapons scholar at Princeton, told the Wall Street Journal. He called Putin's decisions more dangerous than those of
any Soviet leader since 1962. "There’s
a low nuclear threshold now that didn’t exist during the Cold
War." Nuclear theory is complex and disputable; maybe Putin is right. But many theorists would say he is wrong,
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that the logic of nuclear warfare means a "limited" nuclear strike is in fact likely to trigger a
larger nuclear war — a doomsday scenario in which major American, Russian, and European
cities would be targets for attacks many times more powerful than the bombs that leveled
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if a nuclear war did somehow remain limited and contained, recent studies suggest that
environmental and atmospheric damage would cause a "decade of winter" and mass crop die-outs that could kill up to 1 billion
people in a global famine.
Russian nuclear doctrine means even conventional wars escalate
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
VIII. The nuclear dangers: The red line is closer than you think This August, as the Russian military launched its undeclared and
unofficial invasion of eastern Ukraine to defend separatist rebels there against defeat, Putin attended an annual youth conference at
Lake Seliger, just north of Moscow. During a Q&A session, a teaching student asked an odd question about the "cyclical" nature of
history and concerns that Russia could be "drawn into a new, open global conflict." Putin, in his answer, did something that the
leaders of major nuclear powers generally avoid doing — he rattled
the nuclear saber a bit: Let me remind you
that Russia is one of the world’s biggest nuclear powers. These are not just words — this is the
reality. What’s more, we are strengthening our nuclear deterrent capability and developing
our armed forces. They have become more compact and effective and are becoming more
modern in terms of the weapons at their disposal. There is a certain fear in Russia, never far
from the surface, that the only thing preventing the West from realizing its dream of
destroying or subjugating Russia is its nuclear arsenal. (Three months later, Putin warned that the West
wanted to tame the Russian bear so as to "tear out his fangs and his claws," which he explained meant its nuclear weapons.)
"There is
a widespread belief that the only guarantee for Russian security, if not sovereignty
and existence, is the nuclear deterrent," Lukyanov, the Russian foreign policy expert, explained. "After the
Yugoslavia wars, Iraq War, Libyan intervention, it’s not an argument anymore, it’s
conventional wisdom: 'If Russia were not a nuclear superpower, the regime change of an Iraqi
or Libyan style would be inevitable here. The Americans are so unhappy with the Russian regime, they would do it.
Praise God, we have a nuclear arsenal, and that makes us untouchable.'" But Russia faced a problem: Its
conventional military forces are now so much weaker than NATO's, and its capital city so close
to NATO's forces in the Baltics, that it feared NATO tank divisions could push all the way to
Moscow and quickly win a war without ever using a nuclear weapon. Both the US and Russia had
pledged to use nuclear weapons only to deter one another from nuclear attacks. This kept the Cold War cold. But because the
US would not need its ICBMs to win a war, that deterrence is no longer enough to keep Russia
safe. In response, Russia has been gradually lowering its bar for when it would use nuclear
weapons, and in the process upending the decades-old logic of mutually assured destruction,
adding tremendous nuclear danger to any conflict in Europe. The possibility that a limited or
unintended skirmish could spiral into nuclear war is higher than ever. Russia's nuclear
doctrine, a formal document the Kremlin publishes every few years outlining when it will and will not use nuclear weapons,
declares that the Russian military can launch nuclear weapons not just in the case of a nuclear
attack, but in case of a conventional military attack that poses an existential threat. In other
words, if Russia believes that American tanks could be bound for the Kremlin, it has declared it
may respond by dropping nuclear bombs. The danger that this adds to any possible confrontation, particularly along
the Baltic states, is difficult to overstate. If an accident or miscalculation were to lead to a border skirmish,
all it would take is for the Kremlin to misperceive the fighting as the beginning of an assault
toward Moscow and its own doctrine would call for using nuclear weapons. Indeed, it would be the
only way to avoid total defeat. There is another layer of danger and uncertainty to this: It is not clear what Russia
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would consider a conventional threat worthy of a nuclear response. A few months after he'd annexed
Crimea, Putin revealed that during Russia's undeclared invasion of the territory he had
considered putting his country's nuclear forces on alert; his government has signaled it would
consider using nuclear force to defend Crimea from an attack, something Russian analysts told me was not
just bluster. The United States, of course, has no intention of militarily retaking Crimea, despite surprisingly common fears to the
contrary in Russia. But Russian paranoia about such a threat, and a possible willingness to use nuclear weapons to avert it, adds
more danger to the already dangerous war in eastern Ukraine and the fears that greater Russian or Western involvement there
could spark a broader conflict. And the
Crimea revelation raises a disconcerting question: Where exactly
does Moscow place the line for a threat severe enough to use nuclear weapons? Its doctrine says
they should be used only against an existential threat, but an attack on Crimea would be far from existentially dangerous. We can
only guess where the real red line lays, and hope not to cross it by mistake.
Any war escalates- Russian actions put us on the brink
Fisher 6/29 (Max, 2015, writing for Vox, “How World War III became possible,”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war)//RTF
IX. The nuclear dangers: How Putin is pushing us back to the brink There is a specific moment that arms control experts often cite to
highlight the dangers of nuclear weapons, how they kept the world poised, for years at a time, mere minutes away from nuclear
devastation. That moment was September 26, 1983. That evening, a Russian lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov settled in for
his shift overseeing the Soviet Union's missile attack early warning system. Petrov had a top-secret network of satellites, all pointed
squarely at the United States and its arsenal of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, which pointed back at him. The US
and Soviet Union were ramping up development of ICBMs, which could circle the globe in 30 minutes and reduce an enemy city to
ash. Both sides were driven by fear that the other could one day gain the ability to launch a preemptive nuclear strike so devastating
and so fast that it would start and win the war within hours. Each sought to develop ever more sensitive warning systems, and ever
more rapid mechanisms for retaliation, to deter the threat. Petrov ran one such warning system. If he caught an American attack as
soon as it crossed his sensors, it would give the Soviet leadership about 20 minutes of warning time. That was their window to
determine how to respond. The space for mistakes was effectively zero. Five hours into Petrov's shift that night, something he had
never encountered in his 11-year career happened: The system went into full alarm. The word "LAUNCH" displayed in large red
letters. The screen announced a "high reliability" of an American ICBM barreling toward the Soviet Union. Petrov had to make a
decision: Would he report an incoming American strike? If he did, Soviet nuclear doctrine called for a full nuclear retaliation; there
would be no time to double-check the warning system, much less seek negotiations with the US. If he didn't, and he was wrong, he
would have left his country defenseless, an act tantamount to treason. His gut instinct told him the warning was in error, but when
he flipped through the incoming imagery and data and he could reach no hard conclusion from it. After a few moments, he called his
superiors and stated categorically that it was a false alarm. There was, he insisted, no attack. Petrov waited in agony for 23 minutes
— the missile's estimated time to target — before he knew for sure that he'd been right. Only a few people were aware of it at the
time, but thanks to Petrov, the world had only barely avoided World War III and, potentially, total nuclear annihilation. The
US
and Soviet Union, shaken by this and other near-misses, spent the next few years stepping back
from the brink. They decommissioned a large number of nuclear warheads and signed treaties to limit their deployment.
One of their most important measures was a 1987 agreement called the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which saw both sides conclude that the medium-range, landbased nuclear missiles they'd stuffed across Europe were simply too dangerous and
destabilizing to be allowed. Because the missiles could reach Moscow or Berlin or London at lightening speeds, they
shortened the "response time" to any crisis — the window in which a Soviet or Western leader would have to
decide whether the country was under attack before such an attack would hit — to just a few minutes. They made the
danger of an unintended escalation, or of an error like the that one Petrov only barely
prevented, far greater. The risk they posed was deemed, in the 1987 INF Treaty, unacceptable to the world. And the
weapons were removed. Putin has taken several steps to push Europe back toward the nuclear brink ,
to the logic of nuclear escalation and hair-trigger weapons that made the early 1980s, by many accounts, the most dangerous time
in human history. Perhaps
most drastically, he appears to have undone the 1987 INF Treaty,
reintroducing the long-banned nuclear weapons. In March, Russia announced it would place
nuclear-capable bombers and medium-range, nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Russian
enclave of Kaliningrad — only an hour, by commercial airliner, from Berlin. Meanwhile, it has been testing
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medium-range, land-based missiles. The missiles, to the alarm of the United States, appear to violate the
INF Treaty. This is far from Putin's only nuclear escalation. He is developing more nuclear weapons, and
calling frequent attention to them, as apparent cover for his aggression and adventurism in
Europe. There are suspicions, for example, that Russia may have deployed nuclear-armed submarines off of the US Eastern
Seaboard. What makes this so dangerous is that Putin appears to believe, as the scholar Edward Lucas outlined in a recent
report for the Center for European Policy Analysis, that he has a greater willingness than NATO to use
nuclear weapons, and thus that his superior will allows him to bully the otherwise stronger
Western powers with games of nuclear chicken. This is a substantial, and indeed terrifying, break from Cold War–
era nuclear thinking, in which both sides rightly feared nuclear brinksmanship as too dangerous to contemplate and used their
weapons primarily to deter one another. "Russia’s
nuclear saber-rattling is unjustified, destabilizing and
dangerous," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a May speech in Washington. Putin is acting out of an
apparent belief that increasing the nuclear threat to Europe, and as a result to his own country, is
ultimately good for Russia and worth the risks. It is a gamble with the lives of hundreds of
millions of Europeans, and perhaps many beyond, at stake.
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