1nc
T
Interpretation –
“Prostitution” includes both buying and selling – prefer government code with an
explicit intent to define.
Texas Penal Code 13 (Texas Statute, PENAL CODE, TITLE 9. OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER AND DECENCY, CHAPTER 43.
PUBLIC INDECENCY, SUBCHAPTER A. PROSTITUTION, current through the 3rd Called Session of the 83rd Legislature, August 2013,
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.43.htm)
Sec. 43.02. PROSTITUTION. (a) A
person commits an offense if the person knowingly: (1) offers to engage,
agrees to engage, or engages in sexual conduct for a fee; or (2) solicits another in a public place to
engage with the person in sexual conduct for hire. (b) An offense is established under Subsection (a)(1)
whether the actor is to receive or pay a fee. An offense is established under Subsection (a)(2) whether the
actor solicits a person to hire the actor or offers to hire the person solicited.
“Nearly all” is approximately 99%.
Will 89 (Senior District Judge, for the US Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit, 879 F. 2d 1442 - National Labor Relations Board v. Parents and
Friends of the Specialized Living, 7/10/89, http://openjurist.org/879/f2d/1442/national-labor-relations-board-v-parents-and-friends-of-thespecialized-living-center)
The facility receives nearly all of its funding from public sources (approximately 99%), primarily from the Illinois Department of Public Aid
("IDPA"). Funding is on a per diem (client) basis. P & F may not charge its residents for services rendered. P & F must submit annual financial
reports and allow the state to audit its records.
Legalization means to apply regulation
Adrienne D. Davis, Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law, ’10 “REGULATING POLYGAMY: INTIMACY, DEFAULT
RULES, AND BARGAINING FOR EQUALITY” December, 2010 Columbia Law Review, 110 Colum. L. Rev. 1955
Several legal theorists recently re-clarified the crucial distinction between decriminalization and
legalization. Discussing sex work, they say, "Legalization involves complete decriminalization coupled
with positive legal provisions regulating one or more aspect of sex work businesses." Janet Halley et al.,
From the International to the Local in Feminist Legal Responses to Rape, Prostitution/Sex Work, and Sex
Trafficking: Four Studies in Contemporary Governance Feminism, 29 Harv. J.L. & Gender 335, 339 (2006).
Decriminalization may be partial, i.e., decriminalizing the activities of sex workers alone, or complete,
eliminating all criminal legislation.
Violation –
The affirmative only regulates facilitators, not prostitutes
Topicality is a voting issue –
Ground – key to CP and DA ground based on regulating prostitutes– the core
debate in the literature is whether both or either should be legal – the only way we
get to talk about this is if the aff is held to both
Limits – their interpretation justifies any combination of buying and selling all with
unique advantage grounds
K
Regulating sex work is a tool to increase neoliberal governance – it covers up
increased intervention via a rational state
-
Makes the state more acceptable
Could also be a general link to legalization
Scoular 2010 – University of Strathclyde (Jane, “What’s Law Got To Do With it? How and Why Law Matters in the Regulation of Sex
Work” Wiley Online)
Another consequence of this development of bio-power was the growing importance assumed by the
norm at the expense of the juridical system of the law ... I do not mean to say that the law fades into the
background or that the institutions of justice tend to disappear, but rather that the law operates more and more as a
norm, and that the judicial institution is increasingly incorporated into a continuum of apparatuses
(medical, admini- strative, and so on) whose functions are for the most part regulatory.73 Thus, as Foucault confirms, while law
may no longer provide the model for power relations in society, it remains a vital process through which modem power
relations operate; ‘a medium rather than a principle of power’.74 This suggests not the supplementation of sovereignty by discipline, or
action of the
the displacement of law but rather its embedding within governmental strategies that increasingly centre on the routine administration of
lives,75 a point confirmed by the sheer profusion of social laws that have accompanied the development of modern normalizing societies. As
Rose and Valverde so perceptively note: The legal complex had itself become welded to substantive, normalizing, disciplinary and bio-political
objectives having to do with the re-shaping of individual and collective conduct in relation to particular substantive conceptions of desirable
ends. The legal complex, that is to say, had been go vemmental i zed.76 It is
this govemmentalization that explains law’s
continued relevance in shaping the contours of contemporary forms of sex work. As law adapts to the
wider social and political culture of neo-liberalism, typified by a decentred economy and forms of
governance that operate at a distance, it too increasingly reflects its ‘economized model’77 of power,
operating through, not simply over, lives. This model implies not less power but rather its more rationalized
deployment as it is operates productively for the protection of lives, not simply by threatening to take
them away (though this remains in the background).78 While there may be less government there is more
govern- ance, as power operates through normative discourses (including law) to produce subjects as
effects of power and to ‘structure the[ir] possible field of action’79 in ways that so often align with
wider social structures. Thus in the context of a retracted or dismantled welfare state, individuals are increasingly
responsible for their own well-being which is all the time more aligned to market norms . For those
who fail in this task of ethical self- discipline, exclusion is their fate. Thus, modern systems of governance may actually
augment and allow the carceral system to function better - by identifying for criminalization those who
cannot self-correct .80 By corollary, modern law operates as much through freedom, rights, and norms as
it does through censure, to regulate the complete lives of individuals rather than simply to prevent certain actions.
In this context it operates both through the ‘empowering’ systems of licensing and welfare- inspired interventions
designed to liberate women from the oppressive ‘reality’ of commercial sex. In order to examine how law
matters in this more complex way, we need to take a more expansive view beyond the legal/ illegal, inside/outside binaries that Agustin
employs, beyond law’s positivist presentation (as a ‘unified phenomenon carried out by specialist institu- tions’81), and, as Valverde and Rose
advise, examine instead what ‘law is doing’.82 This allows us to move beyond the ‘dreary debate between sovereignty and discipline’,83 as
both are shown to be involved in contemporary forms of govemmentality. The
insights of govemmentality suggest a new
focus for future regulatory studies: to examine the ways in which law regulates and legitimates the operations of
discipline, as it is ‘ these operations , rather than juridically imposed interdictions that constitute the
fabric of the modem subject’ .84 This signals a new, but important, direction for research in the area of prostitution policy.
Biopower and neoliberalism combine to create a unique form of necropolitics that
drives endless extermination in the name of maintaining the strength of the market
Banerjee 2006 - University of South Australia (Subhabrata Bobby, “Live and Let Die: Colonial Sovereignties and the Death Worlds of
Necrocapitalism,” Borderlands, Volume 5 No. 1, http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/banerjee_live.htm)
10. Agamben shows how sovereign
power operates in the production of bare life in a variety of contexts:
concentration camps, 'human guinea pigs' used by Nazi doctors, current debates on euthanasia, debates on human rights
and refugee rights. A sovereign decision to apply a state of exception invokes a power to decide the
value of life, which would allow a life to be killed without the charge of homicide. The killings of mentally and physically handicapped
people during the Nazi regime was justified as ending a 'life devoid of value', a life 'unworthy to be lived'. Sovereignty thus becomes a decision
on the value of life, 'a power to decide the point at which life ceases to be politically relevant' (Agamben, 1998: 142). Life is no more
sovereign as enshrined in the declaration of 'human' rights but becomes instead a political decision,
an exercise of biopower (Foucault, 1980). In the context of the 'war on terror' operating in a neoliberal economy,
the exercise of biopower results in the creation of a type of sovereignty that has profound
implications for those whose livelihoods depend on the war on terror as well as those whose lives become constituted as 'bare life' in the
economy of the war on terror. 11. However, it is not enough to situate sovereignty and biopower in the context of a neoliberal economy
especially in the case of the war on terror. In
a neoliberal economy, the colony represents a greater potential for
profit especially as it is this space that, as Mbembe (2003: 14) suggests, represents a permanent state of
exception where sovereignty is the exercise of power outside the law, where 'peace was more likely
to take on the face of a war without end'
civilization.
But these forms of necropolitical
and
where violence could operate in the name of
power, as Mbembe reads it in the context of the occupation of Palestine,
literally create 'death worlds, new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are
subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of theliving dead ' (Mbembe, 2003: 40). The
state of endless war is precisely the space where profits accrue whether it is through the extraction of
resources or the use of privatized militias or through contracts for reconstruction. Sovereignty over
death worlds results in the application of necropower either literally as the right to kill or the right to
'civilize', a supposedly 'benevolent' form of power that requires the destruction of a culture in order
to 'save the people from themselves' (Mbembe, 2003:22). This attempt to save the people from themselves
has, of course, been the rhetoric used by the U.S. government in the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
12. Situating necropolitics in the context of economy, Montag (2005: 11) argues that if necropolitics is interested in the production of death or
subjugating life to the power of death then it is possible to speak of a necroeconomics - a space of 'letting die or exposing to death'. Montag
explores the relation of the market to life and death in his reading of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments. In
Montag's reading of Smith, it is 'the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness...which while it afflicts and mortifies the individual,
guards and protects the society' (cited in Montag, 2005: 12). If social life was driven solely by unrestrained self-interest then the fear of
punishment or death through juridical systems kept the pursuit of excessive self-interest in check, otherwise people would simply rob, injure
and kill for material wealth. Thus, for Smith the universality of life is contingent on the particularity of death, the production of life on the
production of death where the intersection of the political and the economic makes it necessary to exercise the right to kill. The market then, as
a 'concrete form of the universal' becomes the 'very form of universality as life' and requires at certain moments to 'let die'. Or as Montag
theorizes it, Death establishes the conditions of life; death
as by an invisible hand restores the market to what it must
be to support life. The allowing of death of the particular is necessary to the production of life of the
universal. The market reduces and rations life; it not only allows death , it demands death be allowed by the
sovereign power , as well as by those who suffer it. In other words, it demands and required the latter allow
themselves to die. Thus alongside the figure of homo sacer, the one who may be killed with impunity, is another
figure, one whose death is no doubt less spectacular than the first and is the object of no memorial or commemoration: he who with
impunity may be allowed to die, slowly or quickly, in the name of the rationality and equilibrium of the
market (Montag, 2005: 15). Montag, therefore, theorizes a necroeconomics where the state becomes the
legitimate purveyor of violence: in this scenario, the state can compel by force by 'those who refuse to
allow themselves to die'
(Montag, 2005: 15). However, Montag's concept of necroeconomics appears to universalize conditions of
poverty through the logic of the market. My concern however, is the creation of death worlds in colonial contexts through the collusion
between states and corporations. 13. If
states and corporations work in tandem with each other in colonial
contexts, creating states of exception and exercising necropower to profit from the death worlds that they establish,
then necroeconomics fails to consider the specificities of colonial capitalist practices. In this sense, I would argue that necrocapitalism
emerges from the intersection of necropolitics and necroeconomics, as practices of accumulation in colonial contexts
by specific economic actors - multinational corporations for example - that involve dispossession, death,
torture, suicide, slavery, destruction of livelihoods and the general management of violence. It is a
new form of imperialism, an imperialism that has learned to 'manage things better' . Colonial sovereignty
can be established even in metropolitan sites where necrocapitalism may operate in states of exception: refugee detention centres in Australia
are examples of these states of exception (Perera, 2002). However, in the colonies (either 'post' or 'neo'), entire regions in the Middle East or
Africa may be designated as states of exception.
The alternative is a critical refusal of the affirmative – criticism of power is
necessary to destabilizing the status quo
DONEGAN 2006 – PHD STUDENT DEPT ANTHROPOLIGY SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL STUDIES GOVERNMENTAL REGIONALISM,
MILLENNIUM, VOL 35 NO 23
The typical reproach to Foucault’s conception of power as immanent to all types of relationships is
that such a conception prevents us from ever being able to step outside a conflict, whether it be epistemic or
political, in order to resolve it. Of course it is the case that ‘to make truth-claims is to try to strengthen some epistemic alignments, and to
challenge, undermine, or evade others’.148 To
criticise power is to attempt to resist or evade it; it is also to take a
stance, a position. Foucault’s critics ask: how is it possible to take a stance without some outside, neutral position from which to make a
decision about which side to adopt, about which side is ‘right’? According to Foucault, neither side is right. But [m]y point is not that
everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous , which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then
we always have something to do . So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic
activism . I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main
danger.149 Is there any reason why a neoliberal, neo-medieval world order of multiple levels of governance need be ‘worse’ than the
present world order? This is the wrong question. The question to ask is: how are things developing, how are social
relations changing, and who will be hit hardest, and who will benefit most? These are the questions we need
to be asking, as analysts. A governmentality perspective can contribute to our ability to respond to this task. Mitchell Dean has emphasised
that the study of governmentality as an empirical phenomenon ‘does not amount to a study of politics or power relations in general; it is a
study only of the attempts to (more or less) rationally affect the conduct of others and ourselves’.150 In this sense, the picture of power
relations that governmentality scholarship can offer is therefore partial and incomplete. But to
the extent that the particular
power relations it portrays are both hard to see and increasingly significant, the governmentality
framework offers something useful to the analyst of power in the contemporary global social order. It may seem
that post-structuralist theorists are constantly engaged in a game of ‘catch-up’,151 unpacking and teasing out
how those with power do what they do, always after the event. But the conclusion to be drawn should not focus on the
fact that the deconstructive practice is always post- and thus ‘too late’, in vain, without hope; rather it should
focus on the fact that in order for those in power to do what they do the use of such material and
discursive practices is necessary
– which suggests, as Foucault points out, that
their hold on power is far more
fragile , that the relationships of power they impose are far closer to relationships of confrontation,
than they would like us to believe. Thus the deconstructive practice is not essentially negative, pessimistic,
and nihilistic. In seeking not simply to understand what or why any particular action was undertaken in the past, but also to use
that understanding when engaging with political practice in the present, it is hopeful, optimistic, and proactive.
DA
The best models show the GOP will win
FiveThirtyEight – 10/23 (“FiveThirtyEight’s Senate Forecast”; OCT 23, 2014; http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/senateforecast/)
FiveThirtyEight’s election forecasting model combines hundreds of opinion polls with historical and demographic information to calculate odds
for each Senate race. We estimate the probability that each party will win control of the Senate by running those odds through thousands of simulations.
The forecast is updated regularly. What It Means Republicans have a 66.0% chance of winning a majority. Democrats have a 34.0% chance of keeping the
majority. There is an 18.6% chance Republicans will control 52 seats and Democrats will control 48 seats.
The GOP will win because Dems can’t identify a winning issue—the plan shifts
attention away from Obama failures
Gold et al, 8-9—
Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Matea Gold – “Unlike previous midterm election years, no dominant theme has emerged for 2014,”
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-previous-midterm-election-years-no-dominant-theme-has-emerged-for2014/2014/08/09/8775aca6-1f0a-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html -- BR
This is an election about nothing — and everything. Unlike in previous midterm election years, no dominant national theme has emerged for
the 2014 campaign, according to public opinion surveys as well as interviews last week with scores of voters in five key states and with dozens
of politicians and party strategists. Even without a single salient issue, a heavy cloud of economic anxiety and general unease is hanging over
the fiercely partisan debate. Listening to voters, you hear a downbeat tone to everything political — the nation’s economy, infrastructure and
schools; the crises flaring around the world; the evolving culture wars at home; immigration laws; President Obama and other elected leaders in Washington. View
Graphic No dominant issue leading into midterm elections “I probably feel the way everyone else feels,” said Lindsay Perry, a 32-year-old Democrat, as she tried to
keep her 9-month-old son from tipping over her salad last week at a Durham, N.C., bakery. “Clearly, it’s really dysfunctional and it’s essentially driven by monied
interests at this point. It’s really just discouraging. It just seems clear the people’s interests aren’t being represented.” Over the past 20 years, every midterm
election has had a driving theme. In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans to power in a backlash against President Clinton’s domestic agenda. In 1998, it was a
rebuke to Republicans for their drive to impeach Clinton. Terrorism motivated voters in 2002, while anger over the Iraq war propelled Democratic gains in 2006. And
2010 turned into an indictment of Obama’s economic stewardship and, for many, his health-care plan. As long as it has been polling, Gallup has asked voters
to state their “most important problem.” For the first midterm cycle since 1998, no single issue registers with more than 20 percent of voters .
Immigration was the top concern for 17 percent of those Gallup surveyed in July, while 16 percent said government dissatisfaction and 15 percent the economy.
The result could be an especially unpredictable final 12 weeks of the campaign. With voter turnout expected to be low and several big races virtually
tied, campaigns everywhere are searching for pressure points — by taking advantage of news events or colorful and, at times, highly parochial
issues — to motivate their base voters to go to the polls. In Iowa, a neighborhood dispute over chickens wandering into the yard of Rep. Bruce Braley, a
Democratic Senate candidate, has become a flap much discussed by Republicans. Democrats in Colorado have zeroed in on Senate candidate and GOP Rep. Cory
Gardner’s past support for the personhood movement, which gives fertilized eggs individual rights. Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq veteran locked in a tight race
with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), has used the recent airstrikes in Iraq as an opportunity to criticize Obama’s “lack of overall Middle East strategy.” Democrats, who are
eager to drive African Americans to the polls, have been sounding the alarm over threats to impeach Obama, even though Republican House leaders insist that is
not a real possibility. “The African American turnout in 2014 will have to be at the level of a presidential year turnout for us to do well,” said Rep. James E. Clyburn
(S.C.), the assistant House Democratic leader. “We’ve got to carry a strong message and organize, not agonize, and be ready to take advantage of any opportunities
Republicans give us.” View Graphic Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014 In talks with voters, there was some evidence that the
impeachment issue was resonating with African Americans, though it barely registered more broadly. The lack of a dominant issue also means that campaigns could
be more susceptible than in other years to events this fall. Republicans believe, for instance, that if Obama signs an executive order granting legal status to millions
of undocumented immigrants, as White House officials have indicated he might, it will create a huge backlash against Democrats. And after a summer dominated by
problems around the globe — a downed plane in Ukraine, war in the Middle East and the return of U.S. bombs in Iraq — continued trouble abroad could further
dampen support for the president and his party. There is hope in the uncertainty for both parties. Democrats believe they have an opening to use wedge
issues, such as same-sex marriage, access to birth control and abortion, to rally opposition against Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, see the potential to
expand their opportunities and turn what they expect to be a good year into a great one . “It’s like a close basketball game and then
something happens, there is a breakaway, and it goes from a three- to four-point game to a 10-point win,” Republican strategist Ed Rollins said.
Senate battle is fierce The hardest-fought battleground this year is for control of the U.S. Senate. Republicans need to pick up six seats to win back the majority for
the first time in eight years. Republicans are heavily favored to win three elections — in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — while another
dozen or so races are in play, many in states where Obama is unpopular. Democrats believe they have a shot to pick up seats in Georgia and Kentucky,
but red-state victories will be difficult in a year that generally favors Republicans. Republicans are expected to hold their majority in the House, while a number of
incumbent GOP governors are facing stiff challenges from Democrats. All year, Republicans have tried to make the midterm elections a referendum
on Obama’s presidency — specifically, his signature health-care law. In Senate battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Alaska, television ads on Obamacare
have been pounding viewers. And some Republican leaders are confidently predicting a wave. “This is the year,” Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) said. “It’s a
midterm election for an unpopular president in his second term. History says that goes against his party. . . . I was on the ballot in 2010, which was
a good year for Republicans, and 1994, which was a great year. I think this could be comparable to ’94. I think it’ll be better than 2010.”
Legalizing prostitution is enormously popular
McNeil, 10
Maggie, “Election Day,” 11-2, The Honest Courtesan; Frank commentary from a retired call girl,
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/election-day/ -- BR
I have to thank Dave of Sex Hysteria! for this one as well; it also appeared on October 29th. Perhaps there was some whore-favorable
astrological conjunction that day, because on that same night a program called Dirty Money: The Business of High-End Prostitution appeared
on CNBC. Despite the insulting title, the program was actually reasonably sober rather than inflammatory, and allowed a number of escorts
(including Amanda Brooks, whose After Hours blog is linked at the right) to speak without nullifying their words by following them with
neofeminists, cops or trafficking hysterics. A poll on the show’s website currently stands at 85% of respondents voting for decriminalization .
Maybe, just maybe, our day in the court of public opinion is coming , and all our daughters will have to worry about around Election Day will
be the same economic slowdown as other businesspeople rather than periodic persecution by power-mad perverts.
GOP senate is key to Asia Pivot
Keck 14—Managing Editor @ The Diplomat, former Deputy Editor of e-IR @ Center for a New American Security
Zachary Keck, “The Midterm Elections and the Asia Pivot: The Republican Party taking the Senate in the 2014 elections could be a boon for the
Asia Pivot.” The Diplomat, April 22, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/the-midterm-elections-and-the-asia-pivot/ --BR
There is a growing sense in the United States that when voters go to the polls this November, the Republican Party will win enough Senate
seats to control both houses of Congress. This would potentially introduce more gridlock into an already dysfunctional American political
system. But it needn’t be all doom and gloom for U.S. foreign policy, including in the Asia-Pacific. In fact, the Republicans wrestling control of
the Senate from the Democrats this November could be a boon for the U.S. Asia pivot. This is true for at least three reasons. First, with
little prospect of getting any of his domestic agenda through Congress, President Barack Obama will naturally focus his attention on foreign
affairs. Presidents in general have a tendency to focus more attention on foreign policy during their second term, and this effect is magnified
if the other party controls the legislature. And for good reason: U.S. presidents have far more latitude to take unilateral action in the realm
of foreign affairs than in domestic policy. Additionally, the 2016 presidential election will consume much of the country’s media’s attention on
domestic matters. It’s only when acting on the world stage that the president will still be able to stand taller in the media’s eyes than the
candidates running to for legislative office. Second, should the Democrats get pummeled in the midterm elections this year, President
Obama is likely to make some personnel changes in the White House and cabinet. For instance, after the Republican Party incurred losses in
the 2006 midterms, then-President George W. Bush quickly moved to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the less partisan (at
least in that era) Robert Gates. Obama followed suit by making key personnel changes after the Democrats “shellacking” in the 2010
midterm elections. Should the Democrats face a similar fate in the 2014 midterm elections, Obama is also likely to make notable personnel
changes. Other aides, particular former Clinton aides, are likely to leave the administration early in order to start vying for spots on Hillary
Clinton’s presumed presidential campaign. Many of these changes are likely to be with domestic advisors given that domestic issues are certain
to decide this year’s elections. Even so, many nominally domestic positions—such as Treasury and Commerce Secretary—have important
implications for U.S. policy in Asia. Moreover, some of the post-election changes are likely be foreign policy and defense positions, which
bodes well for Asia given the appalling lack of Asia expertise among Obama’s current senior advisors. But the most important way a
Republican victory in November will help the Asia Pivot is that the GOP in Congress are actually more favorable to the pivot than are
members of Obama’s own party. For example, Congressional opposition to granting President Trade Promotional Authority — which is key to
getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership ratified — is largely from Democratic legislators. Similarly, it is the Democrats who are largely in favor of
the defense budget cuts that threaten to undermine America’s military posture in Asia. If Republicans do prevail in November, President
Obama will naturally want to find ways to bridge the very wide partisan gap between them. Asia offers the perfect issue area to begin
reaching across the aisle. The Republicans would have every incentive to reciprocate the President’s outreach. After all, by giving them
control of the entire Legislative Branch, American voters will be expecting some results from the GOP before they would be ostensibly be
ready to elect them to the White House in 2016. A Republican failure to achieve anything between 2014 and 2016 would risk putting the GOP
in the same dilemma they faced in the 1996 and 2012 presidential elections. Working with the president to pass the TPP and strengthen
America’s military’s posture in Asia would be ideal ways for the GOP to deliver results without violating their principles. Thus, while the
president will work tirelessly between now and November to help the Democrats retain the Senate, he should also prepare for failure by having
a major outreach initiative to Congressional Republicans ready on day one. This initiative should be Asia-centric.
Pivot is to key to prevent Asia wars
Lohman 13 – MA in Foreign Affairs @ UVA (Walter, “Honoring America’s Superpower Responsibilities,”
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2013/06/honoring-americas-superpower-responsibilities)
When you withdraw from the world, either by imposing trade barriers or drawing down military commitments, you lose your ability to
influence events. Those considering an Asia with less American presence have to ask themselves whether freedom would do as well
without us. In fact, proponents of American withdrawal have to ask themselves a more important question: Whether they have
responsibility for anyone’s well-being but their own! Times are, indeed, changing in Asia. Power is shifting. I have traveled to Asia quite a
bit—easily 50 times over the course of my career. I’ve seen the change first-hand. One thing that is not changing is that the U.S. is the one
“ indispensable” ingredient for continued peace, prosperity, and freedom around the world. Everyone I talk to in Asia tells me that. They
must be talking to President Obama, too, because he’s also used the word “indispensable” to describe America’s role in the world. Of
course, these countries want access to our markets and our capital. But on the diplomatic side , it is also the case that the U.S. is the
closest thing in Asia to an honest broker . And because if anything, nationalist tensions in Asia are only growing, this is not going to
change anytime soon. Sure, there are South Koreans who would rather not have American troops in their country. But they are not the
majority. And they like us a whole heck of a lot more than they like the prospect of another invasion. They like us a lot better than they like
the Japanese. Imagine how the Koreans feel about the prospect of Japan acquiring nuclear weapons to defend itself. That’s what they
would have to do without the benefit of the American nuclear deterrent.
Asian wars cause extinction – multiple reasons they uniquely escalate
Mead, 10 – Senior Fellow @ the Council on Foreign Relations
Walter Russell, American Interest, Nov 9, “Obama in Asia”, http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/11/09/obama-in-asia/
The decision to go to Asia is one that all thinking Americans can and should support regardless of either party or ideological affiliation. East
and South Asia are the places where the 21st century, for better or for worse, will most likely be shaped; economic growth,
environmental progress, the destiny of democracy and success against terror are all at stake here. American objectives in this region are
clear. While convincing China that its best interests are not served by a rash, Kaiser Wilhelm-like dash for supremacy in the region, the US
does not want either to isolate or contain China. We want a strong, rich, open and free China in an Asia that is also strong, rich, open and
free. Our destiny is inextricably linked with Asia’s ; Asian success will make America stronger, richer and more secure. Asia’s failures
will reverberate over here, threatening our prosperity, our security and perhaps even our survival . The world’s two most
mutually hostile nuclear states, India and Pakistan, are in Asia. The two states most likely to threaten others with nukes , North Korea
and aspiring rogue nuclear power Iran, are there. The two superpowers with a billion plus people are in Asia as well. This is where the
world’s fastest growing economies are. It is where the worst environmental problems exist. It is the home of the world’s largest
democracy, the world’s most populous Islamic country (Indonesia — which is also among the most democratic and pluralistic of Islamic
countries), and the world’s most rapidly rising non-democratic power as well. Asia holds more oil resources than any other continent; the
world’s most important and most threatened trade routes lie off its shores. East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia (where American and NATO
forces are fighting the Taliban) and West Asia (home among others to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and Iraq) are the theaters in the world
today that most directly engage America’s vital interests and where our armed forces are most directly involved. The world’s most
explosive territorial disputes are in Asia as well, with islands (and the surrounding mineral and fishery resources) bitterly disputed
between countries like Russia, the two Koreas, Japan, China (both from Beijing and Taipei), and Vietnam. From the streets of Jerusalem to
the beaches of Taiwan the world’s most intractable political problems are found on the Asian landmass and its surrounding seas. Whether
you view the world in terms of geopolitical security, environmental sustainability, economic growth or the march of democracy, Asia is at
the center of your concerns. That is the overwhelming reality of world politics today, and that reality is what President Obama’s trip is
intended to address.
CP
The United States should legalize medical marijuana.
That solves cooperative federalism
Somin 6, Ilya is an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, Gonzales v. Raich: Federalism as a Casualty of the
War on Drugs, http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/06-31.pdf
G. Summing up Raich’s impact.
Overall, Raich’s
evisceration of Lopez and Morrison was in large part a consequence of ambiguities in
those earlier decisions themselves. The Lopez and Morrison Courts failed to provide a definition of “economic activity,” did not precisely
delineate the scope of the “broader regulatory scheme” exception, and refrained from explicitly repudiating the rational basis test or state
unequivocally that it does not apply to regulations of “noneconomic” activity. In each of these three areas, there was some indication that the
Court favored constructions that would limit federal power; otherwise Lopez and especially Morrison could not have come out the way they
did. But the Court’s failure to address these issues explicitly left gaps in its analysis that Justice Stevens’ majority opinion in Raich exploited to
the hilt. As a result, future
substantive judicial review of congressional Commerce Clause authority is
largely dead in the water until Raich is either limited or overruled . II. TEXT, STRUCTURE, AND PRECEDENT IN RAICH.
This Part criticizes the Raich decision primarily on textual and structural grounds. I also contend that Raich cannot be justified on the basis of
precedent. The textualist arguments presented here should be distinguished from originalist ones. Even jurists who reject originalism need not
and should not also reject the relevance of text and structure. 100 It is perfectly possible, at least in many situations, to analyze a text without
reference to the intentions of its drafters or the understanding of the ratifiers. Rejection of textualism, as distinguished from originalism, would
seem to raise the question of why we should have a written Constitution at all. If courts are to decide constitutional cases without being
constrained by the text, it would seem to be more efficient and more honest to rely directly on whatever philosophical, prudential, or policy
grounds that drive their decisions. However, I do not attempt here to defend textualism against theories that argue that judicial decisionmaking should largely ignore the text in favor of reliance on prudential political considerations or “common law” reasoning focusing on policy
consequences. 101 For present purposes, I assume, in common with most scholars and jurists, that the constitutional text should play a major
role in judicial review, even if it is not always the only factor that deserves consideration. I incorporate a number of prudential and political
factors into the analysis in Part III. A. The textual case against Raich’s reading of the Commerce Clause. The textual argument against Raich’s
interpretation of the Commerce Clause is sufficiently simple and unoriginal that I hesitate to dwell on it for too long. Nonetheless, some
discussion is necessary in light of the Raich majority’s almost complete neglect of textual considerations. It should be noted that the textualist
argument presented differs from the Raich dissenters’ contention that Congress cannot regulate homegrown medical marijuana because this
class of activities is part of a special class defined by the state’s Compassionate Use Act. 102 Under my analysis, Congress
lacks the
power to regulate homegrown medical marijuana even in cases where state law is silent on the
subject. The critical issue is the scope of congressional power , not that of the state. The Commerce Clause
gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,
and with the Indian Tribes.” 103 Focusing first on the word “commerce,” I have long noted that nonlawyers and first year law
students are almost always surprised at the notion that the Supreme Court has interpreted that word to give Congress the power to regulate
anything that has even a remote potential effect on commerce; or as the Raich Court puts it, any activity that, “taken in the aggregate”
Congress might have a “rational basis” for believing “substantially affect[s] interstate commerce.” 104 In common usage, the word “commerce”
generally refers to the exchange of goods or services, not to any and all activity that might have an effect on such exchange. To be sure, some
words function as “terms of art” that have specialized meanings in legal 105 parlance that differ from ordinary usage. However, there is no
evidence indicating that “commerce” is such a term. Indeed, in other situations, lawyers seem to use the term in much the same way as
laypeople do. For example, first year law students quickly learn that the Uniform Commercial Code regulates the exchange of goods and
services through contracts, but does not purport to govern activities such as manufacturing, education, torts, property ownership, and violent
crime, despite the fact that all of these surely have an effect on commercial exchange. The leading American legal dictionary defines the term
“commerce” as “[t]he exchange of goods, productions or property of any kind; the buying, selling, or exchanging of articles.” general purpose
dictionaries. 106 This legal definition is very similar to that found in ordinary usage and in 107 And, for those willing to give credence to
originalism, it is worth noting that the modern lay and legal definition of the term is also very similar to that which prevailed at the time of the
Founding. 108 As Justice Thomas effectively argued in his concurrence in Lopez, expanding our gaze beyond the word “commerce” to consider
the Clause as a whole strengthens the textual case against deriving unlimited congressional power from the Commerce Clause. 109 . In addition
to giving Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, the Clause also gives it the authority to regulate commerce “with foreign
Nations” and “Indian Tribes.” 110 As Thomas points out, “if Congress could regulate matters that substantially affect interstate commerce,
there would have been no need to specify that Congress can regulate international trade and commerce with the Indians.” branches of trade
substantially affect interstate commerce.” 111 112 There is no doubt that “these other Thomas also emphasizes that a reading of the
Commerce Clause that gives Congress the power to regulate all activities that might “substantially affect” interstate commerce would render
most of Congress’ other enumerated Article I powers “wholly superfluous:” 113 [I]f
Congress may regulate all matters that
substantially affect commerce, there is no need for the Constitution to specify that Congress may
enact bankruptcy laws,[U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8] cl. 4, or coin money and fix the standard of weights and
measures, cl. 5, or punish counterfeiters of United States coin and securities, cl. 6. Likewise, Congress would
not need the separate authority to establish post-offices and post-roads, cl. 7, or to grant patents and
copyrights, cl. 8, or to "punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas," cl. 10. It might not even
need the power to raise and support an Army and Navy, cls. 12 and 13, for fewer people would engage in
commercial shipping if they thought that a foreign power could expropriate their property with ease.
Econ
Decline doesn’t cause war
Daniel Deudney, Hewlett Fellow in Science, Technology, and Society at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton,
April 1991, “Environment and Security: Muddled Thinking”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, p. 27, google books,
Poverty Wars. In a second scenario, declining living standards first cause internal turmoil. then war. If groups at all levels of affluence protect
their standard of living by pushing deprivation on other groups class war and revolutionary upheavals could result. Faced with these pressures,
liberal democracy and free market systems could increasingly be replaced by authoritarian systems capable of maintaining minimum order.9 If
authoritarian regimes are more war-prone because they lack democratic control, and if revolutionary regimes are warprone because of their
ideological fervor and isolation, then the world is likely to become more violent. The
record of previous depressions supports
the proposition that widespread economic stagnation and unmet economic expectations contribute
to international conflict. Although initially compelling, this scenario has major flaws. One is that it is
arguably based on unsound economic theory. Wealth is formed not so much by the availability of cheap
natural resources as by capital formation through savings and more efficient production. Many
resource-poor countries, like Japan, are very wealthy, while many countries with more extensive
resources are poor. Environmental constraints require an end to economic growth based on growing use of raw materials, but not
necessarily an end to growth in the production of goods and services. In addition, economic decline does not necessarily
produce conflict. How societies respond to economic decline may largely depend upon the rate at
which such declines occur. And as people get poorer, they may become less willing to spend scarce
resources for military forces. As Bernard Brodie observed about the modein era, “The predisposing factors to
military aggression are full bellies, not empty ones.”’” The experience of economic depressions over
the last two centuries may be irrelevant, because such depressions were characterized by underutilized production capacity and falling resource prices. In the 1930 increased military spending
stimulated economies, but if economic growth is retarded by environmental constraints, military spending will
exacerbate the problem. Power Wars. A third scenario is that environmental degradation might cause war by altering the relative
power of states; that is, newly stronger states may be tempted to prey upon the newly weaker ones, or weakened states may attack and lock in
their positions before their power ebbs firther. But such alterations might not lead to war as readily as the lessons of history suggest,
because economic power and military power are not as tightly coupled as in the past. The economic power
positions of Germany and Japan have changed greatly since World War 11, but these changes have not been accompanied by war or threat of
war. In
the contemporary world, whole industries rise, fall, and relocate, causing substantial
fluctuations in the economic well-being of regions and peoples without producing wars. There is no
reason to believe that changes in relative wealth and power caused by the uneven impact of environmental
degradation would inevitably lead to war. Even if environmental degradation were to destroy the basic social
and economic fabric of a country or region, the impact on international order may not be very great.
Among the first casualties in such country would be the capacity to wage war. The poor and wretched
of the earth may be able to deny an outside aggressor an easy conquest, but they are themselves a minimal threat to other
states. Contemporary offensive military operations require complex organizational skills, specialized
industrial products and surplus wealth.
Growth now makes war more likely—globalization is becoming militarized
Capie, prof IR, 11—Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Visiting Scholar at
the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Research Associate in the ASEAN Studies Centre at American University,
co-editor of the journal Political Science, member of the editorial board of Asian Politics and Policy (David, 7/16/2011, “Welcome to the dark
side? Mittelman's encounter with global insecurity”, Global Change, Peace & Security, Volume 23, Issue 2, Taylor and Francis, AL)
The book's thesis is that there
are two systemic drivers of contemporary security and insecurity. The first is what
Mittelman calls hypercompetition , the ‘intensified competition that agglomerates markets’. Accelerated
by ‘new technologies, the rise of transnational capital and increasing labour mobility’, national production
systems are giving way to global firms with supply chains extending across the world. The language of war has
permeated commerce , with corporations embracing aspects of a Hobbesian ‘warre of all against all’
as they seek to cut costs, raise efficiency and dominate markets. Hypercompetition is ‘heavily but not totally
American’ in several of its facets, including the long reach of US markets, investment in R&D, the prevalence of neoliberal ideas about the
ordering of the economy and society as well as the prevalence of American popular culture.
The second is the concentration of power in an historically unprecedented hegemonic actor: the United
States of America. The book puts aside the traditional vocabulary of geopolitics, arguing that the USA is not a superpower or even a great
power enjoying a unipolar moment. Rather, ‘in light of the large distance between the United States and the other
major powers in a globalizing world’, the preferred term is hyperpower .3 The idea builds on the notion of hyperpuissance
coined by French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine in 1998, but, drawing on Gramscian notions of consensual hegemony and Foucauldian
biopolitics, Mittelman gives it more precision and extracts greater analytic leverage from it. Notably, in his vision, although there can be only
one hyperpower, the concept extends beyond the USA as a state. Instead, hyperpower is imperial in character, a ‘weblike structure, including a
net of overseas military bases, a clutch of allies, aspects of ideological appeal, and an educational system that widely propagates values
associated with those at the epicentre of globalization’.4
When hypercompetition and hyperpower converge (or coincide), the conditions point to
concept: hyper conflict .
the book's third core
This arises ‘out of the tension between the logic of statecentric and polycentric
worlds’ and when ‘a medley of nonstate actors both accommodates and more assertively resists state initiatives’.5 Although only in a
‘nascent’ phase, hyperconflict expresses itself as ‘heightened coercion and weakening consensus’,
‘pervasive uncertainty’ and ‘a rising climate of fear’.6 Contrasting the ‘old’ order of war with the ‘new’ order of militarized
globalization, Mittelman argues that the old order was ‘permeated by wars between states and within them, as well as partial
safeguards with rules to manage them’. This has been ‘partly supplanted by hyperpower enmeshed in various
conflicts, but the most flagrant conflicts deny military solutions. In fact, the application of more and more coercion
inflames tensions , emboldens unconventional enemies, and inspires recruits for their causes.’7 The three
concepts serve less as a model or formal explanation of contemporary insecurity and work more as a heuristic, ‘a grammar for
thinking about evolving forms of world order’.8 The author seeks to provide a vocabulary through which the links between globalization and
insecurity can be understood holistically and critically explored. One of Hyperconflict's most significant contributions is the wide-ranging
theoretical discussion that fills its first two chapters, offering a sophisticated distillation of the vast literatures on globalization and peace and
conflict to form a compelling and provocative account.
Complexity ensures inevitable collapse – sooner is better
Vail 5 – Jeff Vail, attorney at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in Denver, Colorado specializing in litigation and energy issues, former intelligence
officer with the US Air Force and energy infrastructure counterterrorism specialist with the US Department of the Interior, April 28, 2005, “The
Logic of Collapse,” online: http://www.jeffvail.net/2005/04/logic-of-collapse.html
But despite the declining
marginal returns, society is not capable of reducing expenditure, or even reducing the
is—at its very root—an
evolutionary development that uses a continual increase in complexity to address social needs—and to
ensure its own survival. So, as societies continue to invest more and more in social complexity at lower and
lower marginal rates of return, they become more and more inefficient until eventually they are no
longer capable of withstanding even commonplace stresses. They collapse.¶ This may seem too deterministic—
growth in expenditure. I discuss this at length in A Theory of Power, but the basic fact is that society
after all, it suggests that all societies will eventually collapse. While that may cause our inherent sense of hubris to perk up for a moment, we
should remember that this
equation fits our data quite well—every civilization that has ever existed has, in
fact, collapsed. Our present global civilization is, or course, the sole exception. A look back at the contemporary
chroniclers of history shows that every “great” civilization thinks that they are somehow different, that history
will not repeat with them—and their hubris is shared with gusto by members of the present global civilization.¶ Of course, as discrete
empires and societies grow ever more cumbersome they do not always collapse in the spectacular fashion of the Western Roman Empire. If
they exist in a “peer-polity” situation—that is, they are surrounded by competitors of similar levels of
complexity—then they will tend to be conquered and absorbed. It is only in the case of a power
vacuum—like the Chacoans or Western Romans—that we witness such a spectacular loss of complexity. In the “modern”
world, we have not witnessed such a collapse as we exist in a global peer-polity continuum. When the Spanish empire grew too cumbersome
the British were there to take over, and the mantel has since passed on to America, with the EU, China and others waiting eagerly in the wings.
In the modern world there can no longer be an isolated collapse—our next experience with this will be global.¶ In fact, the modern
civilization continuum has existed for so long without a global collapse because we have managed to
tap new energy sources—coal, then oil—each with a higher energy surplus than the last. This has buoyed
the marginal return curve temporarily with each discovery, but has not changed the fundamental dynamics of collapse.¶
Perhaps we should take a step back and look at collapse in general. Our psychological investment in the “goodness” of
“high-civilization” leads to the commonly held conclusion that collapse is bad—and that to advocate it would be
irrational. But from a purely economic point of view, collapse actually increases the overall benefit that
social complexity provides to society for their level of investment. It makes economic sense. In the graph
above, C3-B1 and C1-B1 provide the same benefit to society—but for dramatically different support burdens required to maintain their
respective levels of complexity. C1-B1 is a much more desirable location for a society than C3-B1, so collapse from C3-B1 to C1-B1 is actually a
good thing. With the growing burden of today’s global society, the global inequality and injustice that seems to grow daily, collapse is beginning
to make economic sense. In fact, an entire philosophical movement, Primitivism,
has sprung up dedicated to convincing the
world that a “C1-B1”, hamlet society is in fact a far better place.¶ Despite the growing logic of collapse, in today’s
peer-polity world that option does not exist except on a global scale. Today we have 3 options:¶ 1. Continue business as
usual, accepting declining marginal returns on investments in complexity (and very soon declining overall returns) until an eventual,
inevitable collapse occurs globally. Continuation of present patterns will continue the escalating environmental damage, and will
continue to grow the human population, with population levels in increasing excess of the support capacity of a post-collapse Earth (i.e. more
people will die in the collapse).¶ 2. Locate
a new, more efficient energy source to subsidize marginal returns on
our investments in complexity. This does not mean discover more oil or invent better clean coal technology—these, along with
solar or wind power still provide lower marginal returns than oil in the heyday of cheap Saudi oil. Only the development of super-efficient
fusion power seems to provide the ability to delay the decline of marginal returns any appreciable amount, and this will
still serve to
only delay and exacerbate the eventual return to option #1.¶ 3. Precipitate a global collapse now in
order to reap the economic benefits of this action while minimizing the costs of the collapse that will
continue to increase with the complexity and population of our global civilization. When combined with a
strategy to replace hierarchy with rhizome, as outlined in A Theory of Power, Chapter 9, this may even represent a
long-term sustainable strategy.¶ Whoa. Am I seriously suggesting the triggering of a global collapse? For the moment I’m just
suggesting that we explore the idea. If, after deliberation, we accept the totality of the three options as outlined above, then triggering
collapse stands as the only responsible choice. It is—admittedly—a choice that is so far outside the realm of consideration of
most people (who are strongly invested in the Myth of the West) that they will never take it seriously. But critically, it does not necessarily
require their consent…¶ These may seem like the ramblings of a madman. But in the late Western Roman Empire, there is a fact that is simply
not taught today because it is too far outside our tolerance for things that run counter to the Myth of the West: The citizens of Rome wanted to
end the Empire, to dissolve its cumbersome structure, but could not reverse its pre-programmed course. Many—perhaps most—welcomed the
invading barbarians with open arms.¶ So should
collapse be triggered now, or should we wait as long as possible?
If we accept the inevitability of collapse, then it should be triggered as soon as possible, as the cost of
implementing a collapse strategy is continually growing…¶ Throughout history, when collapse has occurred, it
has been a blessing. The mainstream continues to cling to the beliefs that collapse will be a terrible loss, and that it is not inevitable.
Even with all of our cultural brain-washing, do we really have so much hubris as to hold on to the tired mantra that “this time, in our civilization,
things will be different”?
Collapse forces a transition – can’t reboot the economy
Korowicz 11 – (10/8/11, David, physicist and human systems ecologist, the director of The Risk/Resilience Network in Ireland, a board
member of FEASTA (The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability), former head of research for The Ecology Foundation, and was recently
appointed to the council of Comhar, Ireland's Sustainable Development Partnership, “On the cusp of collapse: complexity, energy, and the
globalised economy,” http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/10/08/on-the-cusp-of-collapse-complexity-energy-and-the-globalised-economy/)
The opportunity to re-boot the globalised economy from a trough in the oscillating decline model, or from a
collapsed state, so as to return it to the operation and functionality of its current state, is likely to be deeply problematic. We can
consider this from four standpoints.¶ Entropic decay¶ As Germany was hit by the global economic crisis, there was a
big drop in the need for commercial transport. As a result trains and locomotives were taken out of use. A
year later as the economy picked up, the trains were again required. But in the interim, cylinders and
engines had rusted. The trains were of no use until repairs could be carried out, which required finance, time and open supply-chains.
There was a costly shortage for a while but a fully functioning operational fabric and wider economy ensured there was no disaster [30].¶ If
we have a major economic collapse, the longer it continues the greater the entropic decay of our
productive and critical infrastructure, and the more difficult it will be to re-boot.¶ Loss of co-ordination¶ The
global economy we have now is the result of a self-organising process that emerged over generations. If
it collapsed, we would lose the infrastructure that allowed that complex self-organisation to emerge. Postcollapse, we would have to begin with top-down conscious re-building; this would suffice for simple
projects but not the hyper-complex products with globalised sourcing we rely upon today.¶ Loss of resilience
& adaptive capacity¶ In this paper, I have focused on some well-defined collapse mechanisms that are to varying degrees necessary, though
they are by no means exclusive. Social stresses,
health crises, and the effects of climate change may all add to our
difficulties.¶ By way of illustration we can consider climate change. We are likely to see a major (forced) drop in emissions of anthropogenic
greenhouse gases. However, temperature may continue to rises for many decades. Furthermore, we are left with uncertainty as to whether we
have crossed tipping points in the climate system that could accelerate terrestrial emissions. ¶ Few studies of the economic impact assume we
will be very much poorer in future. The
physical effects of climate change, in the form of flooding or reduced
food productivity, will amplify the effects of the collapse processes. Being much poorer, and without our current
operational fabric, will mean that the relative cost of adaption and recovery from climate induced shocks will
escalate beyond our ability to pay much sooner than if our economies continued on their present courses. Furthermore, we
will lose the buttressing provided by insurance, and the open supply-chains and strong globalised economies that could redistribute surplus food from elsewhere.¶ Focus of the moment¶ In the increasing stress of the moment, available resources are
more likely to be invested in dealing with immediate needs over long-term investment. The stability of the
globalising economy has provided the context in which planning and investment could occur. The inherent uncertainty in the collapse process
will also tend to favour shorter-term actions. This will reduce the resources for re-booting the system to its former state.
Maintaining growth causes total ecosystem collapse—multiple scenarios for
extinction
Barry, PhD ecologist, 12—President and Founder of Ecological Internet, PhD in Land Resources from the U of WisconsinMadison, MSc in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from U of Wisconsin-Madison, BA in political science from Marquette U
(Glen, 1/31/2012, “EARTH MEANDERS: On Violence and Earth Revolution”, EcoEarth,
http://www.ecoearth.info/blog/2012/01/on_violence_and_earth_revoluti.asp#more)
Earth's ecosystems are collapsing under the burden of human growth, destroying our one shared biosphere
that makes life possible . Industrial growth ? frantically destroying ecosystems to feed insatiable, evergrowing appetites ? is an aberration, a mistake, a disease. If left untreated, this will be the end of the human family, all
life, and Earth's very being. Infinite economic growth at the expense of ecosystems is impossible, and seeking endless and
inequitable growth in consumption and population can only lead to collapse and massive die-off.
Humanity’s last best chance to justly and equitably sustain a livable planet is to protect and restore ecosystems, end fossil fuels, and
a people's power Earth revolution to utterly destroy the ecocidal industrial growth machine. We are all bloody fools to tolerate
and not immediately overthrow a violently ecocidal system that is killing us all. If we all understood the implications of global ecosystem
collapse, we would go now, together, and slay the global growth machine. It is too late
to escape profound ecological decline, yet
complete disastrous social and ecological collapse ? and possible end to most or all life ? may yet be avoided.
Sustaining ecology must become society?s central organizing principle or humans and all species face horrendous death. Globally it is time
for radical change to simply survive converging ecology, food, war, water, inequity, population, climate, jobs,
ocean, and extinction crises. It is deeply troubling most "environmentalists" deny the severity of ecosystem collapse, rejecting out of
hand revolutionary measures sufficient to sustain ecology.
Their authors are biased – we have a psychological propensity to think tech can
solve– prefer evidence that cites emerging trends
Robert Jensen, professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, 9/1/10, “A World In Collapse?”,
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_world_in_collapse/,
I think not only leftists, but people
in general, avoid these realities because reality is so grim. It seems overwhelming
than confront it, people find modes of evasion. One is to deny
there’s a reason to worry, which is common throughout the culture. The most common evasive strategy I hear from
people on the left is “technological fundamentalism”—the idea that because we want high-energy/high-tech
solutions that will allow us to live in the style to which so many of us have become accustomed, those solutions will be found.
That kind of magical thinking is appealing but unrealistic, for two reasons. First, while the human
discoveries of the past few centuries are impressive, they have not been on the scale required to
correct the course we’re on; we’ve created problems that have grown beyond our capacity to
understand and manage. Second, those discoveries were subsidized by fossil-fuel energy that won’t
be around much longer, which dramatically limits what we will be able to accomplish through energyintensive advanced technology. As many people have pointed out, technology is not energy; you don’t replace
energy with technology. Technology can make some processes more energy-efficient, but it can’t
create energy out of thin air.
to most people, for good reason. So, rather
China
PLA will never allow lashout
Gilley, 5 -- New School international affairs professor
[Bruce, New School University, former contributing editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review, China’s Democratic Future, 2005, 114]
More ominous as a piece of "last ditchism" would be an attack on Taiwan. U.S. officials and many overseas democrats believe that there is a significant chance of an
attack on Taiwan if the CCP is embattled at home. Indeed, China's strategic journals make frequent reference to this contingency: "The need for military
preparations against Taiwan is all the more pressing in light of China's growing social tensions and unstable factors which some people, including the U.S. might take
advantage of under the flag of 'humanism' to paralyze the Chinese government," one wrote. Such a move would allow the government to impose martial law on the
country as part of war preparations, making the crushing of protest easier. It would also offer the possibility, if successful, of CCP survival through enhanced
nationalist legitimacy. Yet the risks,
even to a dying regime , may be too high. An unprovoked attack on Taiwan would almost certainly
bring the U.S. and its allies to the island's rescue. Those forces would not stop at Taiwan but might march on Beijing and oust the CCP, or
attempt to do so through stiff sanctions, calling it a threat to regional and world peace. Such an attack might also face the opposition of the peoples
of Fujian, who would be expected to provide logistical support and possibly bear the worst burdens of war. They, like much of coastal China, look to
Taiwan for investment and culture and have a close affinity with the island. As a result, there are doubts about whether such a plan could be put
into action. A failed war would prompt a Taiwan declaration of independence and a further backlash against the CCP at home, just as the May
Fourth students of 1919 berated the Republican government for weakness in the face of foreign powers. Failed wars brought down authoritarian regimes in
Greece and Portugal in 1974 and in Argentina in 1983.
Even if CCP leaders wanted war, it is unlikely
that
the PLA would
oblige . Top officers would see the disastrous implications of attacking Taiwan. Military caution would also guard against the even wilder
scenario of the use of nuclear weapons against Japan or the U. S. At the height of the Tiananmen protests it appears there was consideration given to the
use of nuclear weapons in case the battle to suppress the protestors drew in outside Countries .41 But even then, the threats did not appear to gain even minimal
support. In an atmosphere in which the military is thinking about its future, the resort to nuclear confrontation would not make sense.
Cooperative Federalism
Alt causes swamp federalism –
a) The EPA
Yeatman 9-2, William Yeatman is Senior Fellow specializing in energy policy and global warming at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
How the EPA Is Undermining Cooperative Federalism under the Clean Air Act And What Congress Can Do About It,
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/William%20Yeatman%20-How%20the%20EPA%20Is%20Undermining%20Cooperative%20Federalism.pdf
When it crafted legislation to fight air pollution, Congress relied on America’s unique system of federalism. The 1970 Clean Air Act establishes a
“division of responsibilities” between the state and federal governments commonly known as “cooperative federalism.”2 In practice, this
means that the federal agency sets minimum standards, which states are left to meet however they best see fit, subject to U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) approval. Pursuant to this partnership, “[t]he state proposes” and “the EPA disposes.”3 Typically, states shoulder 80
percent of the costs of implementing regulations under the Clean Air Act.4 For
most of the Clean Air Act’s history, states
and the EPA have worked well together. However, during the Obama administration, there has been a
marked shift away from harmonious relations between these co-sovereigns. This transition from cooperative
to combative federalism has led to some serious problems
EPA takeovers of
state air quality programs, known as Federal Implementation Plans (FIPs), have increased precipitously since President Obama
took office. The Obama administration has imposed more FIPs than the sum of the previous three administrations—
eight percent (50 of 51) of Obama-era Clean Air Act
-
By using a
legal strategy known as “sue and settle,” the EPA has effectively undermined states’ authority in favor of
environmental special interests in the implementation of the Clean Air Act. This involves the agency implementing policy changes
in response to lawsuits by environmental pressure groups, rather than pursuant to any explicit delegation by Congress. Sue and settle
litigation has tripled during the Obama administration. Two legislative solutions would restore the proper balance of
In return for investing in electoral politics, green groups have been given the reins to environmental policy making at the E
power between the state and federal governments pursuant to the Clean Air Act. The first would level the balance of justice when state and
federal governments disagree on how to implement the Clean Air Act. The second would ameliorate the impacts of collusive “sue and settle”
policymaking between EPA and special interests, to the exclusion of the states. The Obama Administration Ushers
Unprecedented Expansion of Federal Power at the Expense of States.
in
During the Obama administration, the
EPA has demonstrated an unprecedented usurpation of the states’ role under the Clean Air Act’s system of
cooperative federalism. If the EPA disapproves a state Clean Air Act compliance plan, then the agency is empowered to impose a Federal
Implementation Plan that would achieve the statute’s purpose. 5 Under the Clean Air Act’s cooperative federalism structure, a FIP is the most
drastic and aggressive action the EPA can take against a state government, as it represents a seizure of the state’s authority.
b) Obamacare
Moffit 10, Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow in Domestic and Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Revitalizing
Federalism: The High Road Back to Health Care Independence, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/revitalizing-federalism-thehigh-road-back-to-health-care-independence
Americans face a direct and historic challenge to their personal liberty and to their unique citizenship in a federal republic. Though its
enactment of the massive Patient Protection and
A ffordable C are A ct (PPACA), official Washington is not merely engi-neering a federal
takeover of health care, but is also
radically altering the relationships between individ-uals and the government as well as
the national gov-ernment and the states.
In other words, the PPACA is a direct threat to federalism itself . As Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington
University, has argued, “Federalism
was already on life support before the individual mandate. Make no mistake
about it, this plan might provide a bill of good health for the pub-lic, but it
could amount to a ‘ do not resuscitate’ order for
federalism .”[1]
Never before has Congress exercised its power under Article I, Section 8 of the Federal Constitu-tion to
force American citizens to purchase a pri-vate good or a service, such as a health insurance policy.[2] Congress is
also intruding deeply into the internal affairs of the states , commandeering their officers, specifying
in minute detail how they are to arrange health insurance markets within their bor-ders, and
determining the products that will be sold to their citizens.
If allowed to stand, this unprecedented concen-tration of political power in Washington will result in the states
being reduced to mere instruments of federal health policy rather than “distinct and inde­pendent
sovereigns,” as James Madison described them in Federalist No. 40.[3]
Cooperative federalism can’t solve their impacts – conflict continues in other areas
Schapiro 05 (Emory Law Professor, “Toward a Theory of Interactive Federalism,” 91 Iowa L. Rev. 243)
While an essential corrective to dual federalism, cooperative
federalism gives an incomplete specification of federalstate relations. Cooperative federalism blesses the voluntary interaction of state and national
governments. The theory does little to sort out the conflicts that may arise in that relationship. The
interaction of state and national authority may be competitive or even confrontational. Cooperative
federalism contributes little to an understanding or resolution of these conflicts. Recognizing this problem,
Daniel Elazar called for a normative theory of cooperative federalism. 148 Little work has been done, though, to flesh out the constitutional
framework of such a normative theory of cooperative federalism. That
lack of specification contributes to an instability
in cooperative federalism . The theory resists the separation of state and federal, but does not
ensure that the two governments play well together . 149 Some scholars [*285] have found that cooperative federalism
has become a coercive federalism of national mandate. 150 Others charge that cooperative federalism constitutes a collusive
relationship lacking in the competitive dynamic so important to federalism. 151 Because cooperative federalism
accepts the general notion of a federal-state partnership, but does not provide for rules of engagement, the theory provides no
resources for monitoring federal-state relations.
Oil spills are inevitable in Alaska – effective response prevents environmental
disaster
Cramer 3/20/14 – Virginia, Senior Press Secretary at Sierra Club, “Alaskans Highlight Lessons Learned, Continuing Risks”
http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2014/03/exxon-valdez-25-years-later-0
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Alaskan community
members, along with oil spill, climate and offshore drilling
experts, gathered today in Washington, D.C. to mark the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster. On
March 24, 1989, the Exxon tanker spilled more than 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, coating 1,300 miles of shoreline
– about the length of California’s coast. Twenty-five years
later the environment and the local economy have still
not recovered , and plans for new offshore drilling in the dangerous Arctic waters show that few lessons have
been learned.
“Our wild fishing way of life collapsed overnight. Herring
and wild salmon runs disappeared and have
never fully recovered . The herring fishery was 50% of our annual income and provided food and jobs for our families. So, what have
we learned in the last 25 years? I know that no matter where
an oil spill happens, industry and government can't
clean it up, no matter what they say or try to make the public believe. I also learned that preservation is the key to restoration of any kind,
whether it is endangered habitat, culture or Native languages,” said Eyak Native Dune Lankard, a commercial and subsistence fisherman. The
oil spill took a devastating toll on wildlife , from shorebirds and the nearly $300 million herring fishery. More than half
of the wildlife populations, habitats, and resource services injured in the spill have yet to be considered “recovered”
by the government. Many animal populations are considered “not recovering” today, including herring and the AT1
pod of orca whales, which is expected to go extinct. The disaster illustrated the difficulty of cleaning up an oil spill in Arctic conditions, and
forebodes future offshore drilling disasters where the risk of oil spills is inevitable . Despite this, plans
continue to move forward to drill in the Arctic Ocean. “Shell Oil’s 2012-2013 Arctic program was a disaster, its mishaps
culminating with its drilling rig running aground near Kodiak Island, Alaska. It was forced to abandon its plans to drill this summer because of its
own lack of preparedness and technical failures. Shell
has only proven that no oil company is ready to drill in the
Arctic’s harsh and unpredictable climate,” said Cindy Shogan, Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness League. “The take-home
lesson from Exxon Valdez is this: if we genuinely care about a coastal or marine area, such as the Arctic Ocean or Bristol Bay, we should not
expose it to the dangerous risks of oil development. Even
with the best safeguards possible, spills will undoubtedly occur .
And when they do, they can’t be cleaned up; they can cause long-term, even permanent, ecological injury; human communities can be
devastated; and restoration is impossible. This would be particularly true of a major spill in ice-covered waters of the Arctic Ocean,” said Rick
Steiner, a professor and international oil spill expert involved with the Exxon Valdez oil spill clean-up and restoration.
Cooperative federalism kills response – multi-layered confusion
Leckrone 11 – J. Wesley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Widener University, “Federalism and the Gulf Oil Spill”
http://theamericanpartnership.com/2011/04/20/federalism-and-the-gulf-oil-spill/
Disasters always seem to highlight some of the difficulties inherent in our noncentralized form of American
federalism. As we commemorate the first anniversary of the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon, I thought it
might be important to revisit some of the federalism issues that affected the response to the Gulf oil spill. The
major issues revolved around lack of familiarity with oil spill policy jurisdiction, differing government
objectives in the aftermath of the blowout, and political positioning. Federalism, Planning , the Unified Command
and The Clean-up One major intergovernmental controversy involved control over the clean up in the immediate
aftermath of the blowout. State and local officials argued that the lines of authority were blurred between
the BP response team and the Coast Guard. Local officials felt the system was too top heavy, resulting in
sluggish response times to requests and the impression that no one was in charge. Both state and local
officials claimed that the response should operate under the assumption of spend first and argue over
reimbursement later. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco gave voice to this sentiment when she declared that states should “act and
send them the bill and fight over it later”. Part of the problem was that state and local officials were more accustomed to
operating under the federal legislation responding to natural disasters such as hurricanes than regulations
dealing with off-shore oil spills. Gulf state officials are used to operating under the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Act
which covers natural disasters such as hurricanes. Under this federal legislation governors request help from the federal government but the
states retain primary control over the effort with FEMA assisting them. The
Gulf Oil Spill was covered by the National
Contingency Plan (NCP) which gives the federal government the primary responsibility for responding to
the crisis. Under this legislation the federal On-Scene Coordinator acts as the primary partner with states in a
Unified Command structure. State and local governments cannot spend funds without the authorization from
the On-Scene Coordinator . As a consequence there was a lot of conflict between governments because
of an unfamiliarity with the NCP . Throughout the process there was very little role for local governments
who felt they were being kept out of the decision making process. Economic Development vs. Long-term
Environmental Clean-up The second conflict resulted from the tension between the economic development
priorities of some Gulf states and the federal government’s focus on the long-term environmental
consequences of the disaster. State governments, particularly Louisiana, were interested in quick action to protect
their economies based on tourism, fishing and the oil industry (13.4% of Louisiana’s employment is oil-related). In a post-Katrina environment
their attitude was do something first and worry about the consequences later. Conversely, the federal
government was concerned that quick solutions might exacerbate the long-term environmental
consequences of the oil spill. Needless to say, the conflict over economics also extended to the federal government’s moratorium on
offshore drilling in the Gulf which state and local governments claimed would lead to job losses for their constituencies. There was
particular conflict over Louisiana’s plan to build sand berms and rock barriers to prevent oil from
reaching its shores. On the one hand the state viewed their construction as a job creation tool. However,
they sought to use the oil spill as a reason to begin construction of permanent berms and barriers
which were part of the state’s long-term plans to address coastal restoration. For policy wonks this was a classic
example of Kingdon’s policy streams where an existing solution (berms) is attached to a focusing event (oil spill) to achieve political objectives.
The federal government was less sanguine concerning the construction of the berms which led to
political struggle between the levels of government.
Federalism and Politics Finally, good old-fashioned political
posturing accounted for some of the conflict between governors and the federal government. Bobby Jindal was elected governor in postKatrina Louisiana partly on his claim that he had the background to competently address natural disasters. His assertiveness on behalf of the
state was an achievement heading into his 2011 reelection campaign. It should also be noted that all five Gulf states had Republican governors
(Jindal, Charlie Crist – Florida, Haley Barbour – Mississippi, Bob Riley – Alabama, Rick Perry – Texas) who had no incentive to make the Obama
administration look good, particularly since three of them (Barbour, Crist and Jindal) were potential presidential candidates at the time. Models
of Federalism The
intergovernmental problems related to the Gulf spill were in many ways the result of
conflicting jurisdictional priorities that are endemic to our federal system . State and local governments,
responsive to their electoral constituencies, were focused on ensuring the economic livelihoods of their
citizens. Federal officials were responding to a national emergency and were focused on the longterm consequences of their actions as opposed to their immediate impact . In the final analysis the response to
the Gulf Oil Spill could be considered an example of cooperative federalism from the vantage point of
the Obama Administration while state and local governments perceived it as top-heavy coercive
federalism.
Federalism doesn’t solve – Iraq’s issues are much deeper
Haddad 2013 - Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore (May 25, Fanar, “Federalism would mean
death of Iraqi nationalism — but so what?” http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/federalism-would-mean-death-of-iraqi-nationalism-butso-what-1.1188361)
Federalism may well be the answer to Iraq’s communal problems as some have argued recently. However, what
should be an administrative procedure is complicated by several factors none of which are inherently
related to federalism as a political concept. Pronounced sectarian entrenchment, mutual suspicions, a
profoundly dysfunctional political order, rampant corruption, a flawed and incoherent constitution,
wild expectations and even wilder fears and so much more conspire to make federalism perhaps less of a
cure and more a mutation of existing illnesses .
2nc
AT: Inev
Collapse of neoliberalism is inevitable because of economic and environmental
trends – multiple structural trends make resuscitation impossible, which means its
try-or-die for the alt
Li ‘10
(Minqi, Chinese Political Economist, world-systems analyst, and historical social scientist, currently an associate
professor of Economics at the University of Utah “The End of the “End of History”: The Structural Crisis of
Capitalism and the Fate of Humanity”, Science and Society Vol. 74, No. 3, July 2010, 290–305)
In 2001, the U. S. stock market bubble started to collapse, after years of “new economy” boom. The
Bush administration took advantage of the psychological shock of 9/11, and undertook a series of
“preemptive wars” (first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq) that ushered in a new era of intensified interstate conflicts. Towards the end of 2001, Argentina, which was regarded as a neoliberal model
country, was hit by a devastating financial crisis. Decades of neoliberalism had not only undermined
the living standards of the working classes, but also destroyed the material fortunes of the urban middle
classes (which remained a key social base for neoliberalism in Latin America until the 1990s). After the
Argentine crisis, neoliberalism completely lost political legitimacy in Latin America . This paved the
way for the rise of several socialist-oriented governments on the continent. After the 2001 global recession,
the global economy actually entered into a mini–golden age. The big semi-peripheral economies, the
so-called “BRICs” (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) became the most dynamic sector. The neoliberal
global economy was fueled by the super-exploitation of the massive cheap labor force in the
semi-periphery (especially in China). The strategy worked, to the extent that it generated massive
amounts of surplus value that could be shared by the global capitalist classes. But it also created a
massive “realization problem.” That is, as the workers in the “emerging markets” were deprived of
purchasing power, on a global scale, there was a persistent lack of effective demand for the
industrial output produced in China and the rest of the semi-periphery. After 2001, the problem
was addressed through increasingly higher levels of debt-financed consumption in the advanced
capitalist countries (especially in the United States). The neoliberal strategy was economically and
ecologically unsustainable . Economically, the debt-financed consumption in the advanced capitalist
countries could not go on indefinitely. Ecologically, the rise of the BRICs greatly accelerated
resource depletion and environmental degradation on a global scale. The global ecological system
is now on the verge of total collapse. The world is now in the midst of a prolonged period of economic
and political instability that could last several decades. In the past, the capitalist world system had
responded to similar crises and managed to undertake successful restructurings. Is it conceivable that
the current crisis will result in a similar restructuring within the system that will bring about a new global
“New Deal”? In three respects, the current world historical conjuncture is fundamentally
different from that of 1945. Back in 1945, the United States was the indisputable hegemonic power.
It enjoyed overwhelming industrial, financial, and military advantages relative to the other big powers and,
from the capitalist point of view, its national interests largely coincided with the world system’s common and
long-term interests. Now, U. S. hegemony is in irreversible decline. But none of the other big
powers is in a position to replace the United States and function as an effective hegemonic power. Thus,
exactly at a time when the global capitalist system is in deep crisis, the system is also deprived
of effective leadership.4 In 1945, the construction of a global “New Deal” involved primarily
accommodating the economic and political demands of the western working classes and the nonwestern elites (the national bourgeoisies and the westernized intellectuals). In the current conjuncture, any
new global “New Deal” will have to incorporate not only the western working classes but also
the massive, non-western working classes. Can the capitalist world system afford such a new
“New Deal” if it could not even afford the old one? Most importantly, back in 1945, the world’s
resources remained abundant and cheap, and there was still ample global space for
environmental pollution. Now, not only has resource depletion reached an advanced stage, but
the world has also virtually run out of space for any further environmental pollution.
AT: Democracy
Western management of emerging democracies is driven by a neoliberal “shock
doctrine” – they use instability to create market relations and fix non-Western states
into satellites that produce raw materials that fuel First World economic growth
Dixon ‘11
(Marion, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, “An Arab spring”, Review of African
Political Economy
Vol. 38, No. 128, June 2011, 309–316)
The ‘imperial reach’ represents a real threat to the popular opposition movements exploding
throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The dangers exist not just in the ongoing military
interventions via a United Nations-authorised turned NATO- enforced No-Fly Zone in Libya, with Western
powers taking an active role, but in internationally legitimated knowledge production and funding that
fuel and make invisible the neoliberal agenda. The imperial reach extends throughout the region and
attempts to monopolise ‘at home’, in an effort to maintain geopolitical relations of power. For this essay I define
this effort in three broad ways: Western governments and observers defining the ‘Arab Spring’ on
their own terms, especially in naming responsibility for the social uprisings in one way or another that comes
back to the West (or as preferences may be, the ‘Euro-Atlantic axis’), and maintaining a ‘monopoly of
expertise’ (Mitchell 2002). This effort of claiming and co-opting is funnelled squarely to prop up the
neoliberal agenda that has brought to the region much of what the movements have risen to reject –
a revolving door between wealthy businessmen and ruling party members, monopolistic and
oligopolistic economies, rising food and housing prices, slashed wages/prices and protections for workers and
farmers, dropping standards of living with weakened public welfare programmes, heightened restriction of rights
and liberties (‘reign of terror’) – to name a few resulting societal ills. And the ‘assistance’ announced thus
far by Western governments for democratic transitions in the region is more of the same of what has
been ‘offered’ for the last three decades – pre-packaged, trickle-down prescriptions of private-sector
growth. This indeed seems like an opportune ‘time of shock’ for the further implementation of
neoliberal reforms, just as such prescriptions have been more widely questioned as a result of the ongoing
triple crisis (financial–climate change–food). I argue that these dangers signal a need for a collective
effort among writers/commentators to ward off or resist the imperial reach of the tremendous
momentum that has generated in the region for popular democracy rooted in social and economic
justice.
Democracy assistance is part of a neoliberal-military complex that coopts social
movements – that’s the root cause of instability
Chossudovsky et al 11
GLOBAL RESEARCH ONLINE INTERACTIVE READER SERIES GR I-BOOK No. 1 Libya and "The
Arab Spring": Neoliberalism, "Regime Change" and NATO's "Humanitarian Wars" by Michel
Chossudovsky, Finian Cunningham and Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya November 2011,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27884
America is no “role model” of democratization for the Arab World, comprising some 22 countries with a
combined population of 300 million. US military presence imposed on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia, and other Arab countries over decades, coupled with Washington-inspired “free market”
reforms, are the root cause of state violence. Washington’s agenda for Egypt and Tunisia was to
hijack the protest movement; what prevails in Egypt is the maintenance of a de facto military regime. In
Tunisia, following the October 2011 parliamentary elections, the neoliberal policy framework remains
unscathed. From Washington’s standpoint, regime replacement no longer requires the installation
of authoritarian military rulers, as in the heyday of US imperialism. Regime change can be
implemented by co-opting political parties, financing civil society groups, infiltrating the protest
movement, and by manipulating national elections. The ultimate objective is to sustain the
interests of foreign powers and to uphold the “Washington consensus” of the IMF/World Bank economic
agenda that has served to impoverish millions throughout the Arab World and beyond. Moreover,
Western powers have used “Political Islam” –including the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaedaaffiliated groups– to pursue their hegemonic objectives. Covert operations are launched to
weaken the secular state, foment sectarian violence and create social divisions throughout the Arab
World. In Libya, the “pro-democracy” rebels were led by Al Qaeda affiliated paramilitary brigades
under the supervision of NATO Special Forces. The much-vaunted “Liberation” of Tripoli was carried out by
former members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
Warming causes extinction—collapse is key and solves
McPherson 14—professor emeritus of natural resources and the environment at the University of Arizona [NOTE: This article was originally
published in 2013, but McPherson substantively updates it frequently—this card comes from the 15 July 2014 edit]
(Guy, “Climate-change summary and update”, http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/, dml)
If you’re too busy to read the evidence presented below, here’s the bottom line: On
a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we
can prepare for is human extinction (from Oliver Tickell’s 2008 synthesis in the Guardian). Tickell is taking a conservative
approach, considering humans have not been present at 3.5 C above baseline (i.e., the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, commonly accepted as 1750). I cannot imagine a scenario involving a rapid rise in globalaverage temperature and also habitat for humans. Neither can Australian climate scientist Clive
Hamilton, based on his 17 June 2014 response to Andrew Revkin’s fantasy-based hopium. According to the World Bank’s 2012 report, “Turn
down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided” and an informed assessment of “BP Energy Outlook 2030” put together by Barry
Saxifrage for the Vancouver Observer, our
path leads directly to the 4 C mark. The conservative International
Energy Agency throws in the towel on avoiding 4 C in this video from June 2014 (check the 25-minute mark). The 19th
Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19), held in November 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, was
warned by professor of climatology Mark Maslin: “We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know
of any scientists who do not believe that.” Adding to planetary misery is a paper in the 16 December 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences concluding that 4
C terminates the ability of Earth’s vegetation to sequester
atmospheric carbon dioxide. I’m not sure what it means to plan for 4 C (aka extinction). I’m not impressed that civilized scientists
claim to be planning for it, either. But I know we’re human animals, and I know animals require habitat to survive.
When there is no ability to grow food or secure water, humans will exit the planetary stage. According to
Colin Goldblatt, author of a paper published online in the 28 July 2013 issue of Nature Geoscience, “The runaway greenhouse may
be much easier to initiate than previously thought.” Furthermore, as pointed out in the 1 August 2013 issue of Science, in
the near term Earth’s climate will change orders of magnitude faster than at any time during the last
65 million years. Tack on, without the large and growing number of self-reinforcing feedback loops
we’ve triggered recently, the 5 C rise in global-average temperature 55 million years ago during a span
of 13 years, and it looks like trouble ahead for the wise ape. This conclusion ignores the long-lasting ,
incredibly powerful greenhouse gas discovered 9 December 2013 by University of Toronto researchers:
Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is 7,100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas in the
atmosphere, and it persists hundreds of years in the atmosphere. It also ignores the irreversible
nature of climate change: Earth’s atmosphere will harbor, at minimum, the current level of atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentration for at least the next 1,000 years, as indicated in the 28 January 2009 issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Finally, far too late, the New Yorker posits a relevant question on 5 November 2013: Is It Too
Late to Prepare for Climate Change? Joining the too-little, too-late gang, the Geological Society of London points out on 10 December 2013 that
Earth’s climate could be twice as sensitive to atmospheric carbon as previously believed. New Scientist piles
on in March 2014, pointing out that planetary warming is far more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentration than indicated by past reports. As usual and expected, carbon dioxide emissions set a record
again in 2013, the fifth-warming year on record and the second-warmest year without an El Nino. Another El Niño is on the
way, as pointed out by Robert Scribbler on 6 March 2014: “Should the predicted El Nino emerge and be as strong as
average model values indicate, global surface temperatures could rise by between .05 and .15 degrees
Celsius …. This would be a substantial jump for a single year, resulting in yet one more large shift toward an ever more extreme climate.”
Indeed, the upper end of the projected range takes us to 1 C warmer than baseline. Is There a Way Out? All of the above information fails to
include the excellent work by Tim Garrett, which points out that
only complete collapse avoids runaway
greenhouse . Garrett reached the conclusion in a paper submitted in 2007 (personal communication) and published online by Climatic
Change in November 2009 (outcry from civilized scientists delayed formal publication until February 2011). The
paper remains largely
ignored by the scientific community, having been cited fewer than ten times since its publication. According to Yvo de Boer, who
was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2009, when attempts to reach a deal
at a summit in Copenhagen crumbled with a rift between industrialized and developing nations, “the
only way that a 2015 agreement can achieve a 2-degree goal is to shut down
the whole global
economy .” Politicians finally have caught up with Tim Garrett’s excellent paper in Climatic Change. Writing for the Arctic News Group,
John Davies
concludes: “The world is probably at the start of a runaway Greenhouse Event which will end
most human life on Earth before 2040.” He considers only atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration,
not the many self-reinforcing feedback loops described below. Writing on 28 November 2013 and tacking on only one
feedback loop — methane release from the Arctic Ocean — Sam Carana expects global temperature anomalies up to 20 C 2050 (an anomaly is
an aberration, or deviation from long-term average). Small wonder atmospheric
methane can cause such global
catastrophe considering its dramatic rise during the last few years, as elucidated by Carana on 5 December 2013 in the figure below.
Turns every impact
Sharp and Kennedy, 14 – is an associate professor on the faculty of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA). A former British Army Colonel he
retired in 2006 and emigrated to the U.S. Since joining NESA in 2010, he has focused on Yemen and Lebanon, and also supported NESA events into Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Palestine
and Qatar. He is the faculty lead for NESA’s work supporting theUAE National Defense College through an ongoing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) case. He also directs the Network of Defense
and Staff Colleges (NDSC) which aims to provide best practice support to regional professional military and security sector education development and reform. Prior to joining NESA, he served
for 4 years as an assistant professor at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at National Defense University where he wrote and taught a Masters' Degree syllabus for a program
concentration in Conflict Management of Stability Operations and also taught strategy, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and also created an International Homeland Defense Fellowship
program. At CISA he also designed, wrote and taught courses supporting the State Department's Civilian Response Corps utilizing conflict management approaches. Bob served 25 years in the
British Army and was personally decorated by Her Majesty the Queen twice. Aftergraduating from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1981, he served in command and staff roles on
operations in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Afghanistan, and Cyprus. He has worked in policy and technical staff appointments in the UK Ministry of Defense and also UK Defense
Intelligence plus several multi-national organizations including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In his later career, he specialized in intelligence. He is a 2004
distinguished graduate of the National War College and holds a masters degree in National Security Strategy from National Defense University, Washington, D.C. AND is a renewable energy
and climate change specialist who has worked for the World Bank and the Spanish Electric Utility ENDESA on carbon policy and markets (Robert and Edward, 8-22, “Climate Change and
Implications for National Security” http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2014/08/22/climate-change-implications-national-security/)djm
Our planet is 4.5 billion years old. If that whole time was to be reflected on a single one-year calendar then the dinosaurs died off sometime
late in the afternoon of December 27th and modern humans emerged 200,000 years ago, or at around lunchtime on December 28th.
Therefore, human life on earth is very recent. Sometime on December 28th humans made the first fires – wood fires – neutral in the carbon
balance. Now reflect on those most recent 200,000 years again on a single one-year calendar and you might be surprised to learn that the
industrial revolution began only a few hours ago during the middle of the afternoon on December 31st, 250 years ago, coinciding with the
discovery of underground carbon fuels. Over the 250 years carbon fuels have enabled tremendous technological advances including a
population growth from about 800 million then to 7.5 billion today and the consequent demand to extract even more carbon. This has occurred
during a handful of generations, which is hardly noticeable on our imaginary one-year calendar. The
release of this carbon – however –
is changing our climate at such a rapid rate that it threatens our survival and presence on earth. It defies
imagination that so much damage has been done in such a relatively short time. The
implications of climate change are the
single most significant threat to life on earth and, put simply, we are not doing enough to rectify the
damage. This relatively very recent ability to change our climate is an inconvenient truth; the science is sound. We know of
the complex set of interrelated national and global security risks that are a result of global warming and the
velocity at which climate change is occurring. We worry it may already be too late. Climate change writ large has informed few, interested
some, confused many, and polarized politics. It
has already led to an increase in natural disasters
including but not limited to
droughts, storms, floods, fires etc. The year 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record according to an American Meteorological Society
(AMS) report. Research suggests that climate change
is already affecting human displacement; reportedly 36 million people
displaced
because of rising sea levels, heat and storms. Climate change affects all natural systems . It impacts
were displaced in 2008 alone because of sudden natural disasters. Figures for 2010 and 2011 paint a grimmer picture of people
temperature and consequently it
affects water and weather patterns . It contributes to desertification,
deforestation and acidification of the oceans . Changes in weather patterns may mean droughts in one area and floods in
another. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, sea levels rise but perennial river water supplies are reduced because glaciers
are retreating. As glaciers and polar ice caps melt, there is an albedo effect, which is a double whammy of
less temperature regulation because of less surface area of ice present. This means that less absorption occurs and also
there is less reflection of the sun’s light. A potentially critical wild card could be runaway climate change due to the release of
methane from melting tundra. Worldwide permafrost soils contain about 1,700 Giga Tons of carbon, which is about four times more than all
the carbon released through human activity thus far. The
planet has already adapted itself to dramatic climate change
including a wide range of distinct geologic periods and multiple extinctions, and at a pace that it can be managed. It is human
intervention
that
has accelerated the pace dramatically : An increased surface temperature, coupled with
more severe weather
systems
and changes in water distribution will create uneven threats to our agricultural
and will foster
Rising sea levels will
people –
and support the spread of insect borne diseases
increasingly
half the planet
threaten
like Malaria, Dengue and the West Nile virus.
our coastal population and infrastructure centers and with more than 3.5 billion
– depending on the ocean for their primary source of food, ocean acidification may dangerously undercut
critical natural food systems which would result in reduced rations. Climate change also carries significant inertia. Even if emissions were
completely halted today, temperature increases would continue for some time. Thus
the impact is not only to the
environment, water, coastal homes, agriculture and fisheries as mentioned, but also would lead to
conflict and thus impact national security . Resource wars are inevitable as countries respond, adapt
and compete for the shrinking set of those available resources . These wars have arguably already started and will continue
in the future because climate change will force countries to act for national survival ; the so-called Climate Wars. As
early as 2003 Greenpeace alluded to a report which it claimed was commissioned by the Pentagon titled: An Abrupt Climate
Change Scenario and Its Implications for U.S. National Security. It painted a picture of a world in turmoil because global
warming had accelerated. The scenario outlined was both abrupt and alarming. The report offered recommendations but backed away
from declaring climate change an immediate problem, concluding that it would actually be more incremental and measured; as such it would
be an irritant, not a shock for national security systems. In 2006 the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) – Institute of Public Research –
convened a board of 11 senior retired generals and admirals to assess National Security and the Threat to
Climate Change. Their initial report was published in April 2007 and made no mention of the potential acceleration of climate change.
The team found that climate change was a serious threat to national security and that it was: “most likely to
happen in regions of the world that are already fertile ground for extremism.” The team made recommendations from their analysis of regional
impacts which suggested the following.
Europe would experience some fracturing because of border migration.
Africa would need more stability and humanitarian operations provided by the United States. The
Middle East would experience a “loss of food and water security (which) will increase pressure to
emigrate across borders.” Asia would suffer from “threats to water and the spread of infectious
disease.” In 2009 the CIA opened a Center on Climate Change and National Security to coordinate across the intelligence community and to
focus policy. In May 2014, CNA again convened a Military Advisory Board but this time to assess National Security
and the Accelerating Risk of Climate Change. The report concludes that climate change is no longer a
future threat but occurring right now
and the authors appeal
to the security community, the entire government
form agreements to stabilize
and the American people to not only build resilience against projected climate change impacts but to
climate change and also to integrate climate change across
all
strategy and planning . The calm of the 2007
report is replaced by a tone of anxiety concerning the future coupled with calls for public discourse and debate because “time and tide wait for
no man.” The report notes a key distinction between resilience (mitigating the impact of climate change) and agreements (ways to stabilize
climate change) and states that: Actions
by the United States and the international community have been insufficient to adapt
to the challenges associated with projected climate change. Strengthening resilience to climate impacts already locked into the
system is critical, but this will reduce long-term risk only if improvements in resilience are accompanied
by actionable agreements on ways to stabilize climate change. The 9/11 Report framed the terrorist attacks as less of a
failure of intelligence than a failure of imagination. Greenpeace’s 2003 account of the Pentagon’s alleged report describes a
coming climate Armageddon which to readers was unimaginable and hence the report was not really taken seriously. It described:
A world thrown into turmoil by drought, floods, typhoons . Whole countries rendered uninhabitable .
The capital of the Netherlands submerged. The borders of the U.S. and Australia patrolled by armies firing into waves of
starving boat people desperate to find a new home. Fishing boats armed with cannon to drive off competitors.
Demands for access to water and farmland backed up with nuclear weapons . The CNA and
Greenpeace/Pentagon reports are both mirrored by similar analysis by the World Bank which highlighted not only the physical
manifestations of climate change, but also the significant human impacts that threaten to unravel decades of
economic development , which will
ultimately
foster conflict . Climate change is the quintessential “Tragedy of the
Commons,” where the cumulative impact of many individual actions (carbon emission in this case) is not seen as linked to the marginal gains
available to each individual action and not seen as cause and effect. It is simultaneously huge, yet amorphous and nearly invisible from day to
day. It is occurring very fast in geologic time terms, but in human time it is (was) slow and incremental. Among environmental problems, it is
uniquely global. With our planet and culture figuratively and literally honeycombed with a reliance on fossil fuels, we face systemic
challenges in changing the reliance across multiple layers of consumption, investment patterns, and political decisions; it will be hard to fix!
---wars from growth are much worse
Chase-Dunn 1996 – distinguished professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins, director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems (1/23,
Christopher, "Conflict among core states", http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers/c-d&hall/warprop.htm)
Late in the K-wave upswing (i.e. in the 2020s), the world-system schema predicts a window of vulnerability to another round of world war. This is when
world wars have occurred in the past. Intensified rivalry and competition for raw materials and markets will coincide with a multipolar
distribution of military power among core states. The world-system model does not predict who the next hegemon will be. Rather it designates that there will be
structural forces in motion that will favor the construction of a new hierarchy. Historical particularities and the unique features of the era will shape the outcome
and select the winners and losers. If it were possible for the current system to survive the holocaust of another war among core states, the outcome of the war
would be the main arbiter of hegemonic succession. While the hegemonic sequence has been a messy method of selecting global "leadership" in the past, the
settlement of hegemonic rivalry by force in the future will be a disaster that our species may not survive. It is my concern about this possible disaster that
motivates this effort to understand how the hegemonic sequence has occurred in the past and the factors affecting hegemonic rivalry in the next decades. What are
the cyclical processes and secular trends that may affect the probability of future world wars? The world-system model is presented in Figure 1. Figure 1: Factors
influencing the probability of future core wars This model depicts the variables that I contend will be the main influences on the probability of war among core
states. The four variables that raise the probability of core war are the Kondratieff cycle, hegemonic decline, population pressure (and resource scarcity)
and global inequality. The four variables that reduce the probability of core war are the destructiveness of weaponry, international economic interdependency,
international political integration and disarmament. The probability of war may be high without a war occurring, of course. Joshua Goldstein's (1988) study of war
severity (battle deaths per year) in wars among the "great powers" demonstrated the existence of a fifty-year cycle of core wars. Goldstein's study shows how this
"war wave" tracks rather closely with the Kondratieff long economic cycle over the past 500 years of world-system history. It is the future of this war
cycle that I am trying to predict. Factors that Increase the Likelihood of War Among Core States The proposed model divides variables into those that are alleged to
increase the probability of war among core states and those that decrease that probability. There are four of each. Kondratieff waves The first variable that has a
positive effect on the probability of war among core powers is the Kondratieff wave -- a forty to sixty year cycle of economic growth and stagnation. Goldstein
(1988) provides evidence that the most destructive core wars tend to occur late in a Kondratieff A-phase (upswing). Earlier research by Thompson and Zuk
(1982) also supports the conclusion that core wars are more likely to begin near the end of an upswing. Boswell and Sweat's (1991) analysis also supports the
Goldstein thesis. But several other world-system theorists have argued that core wars occur primarily during K-wave B-phases. This disagreement over timing is
related to a disagreement over causation. According to Goldstein states are war machines that always have a desire to utilize military force, but wars are
costly and so statesmen tend to refrain from going to war when state revenues are low. On the other hand, statesmen are more likely to engage in
warfare when state revenues are high (because the states can then afford the high costs of war). Boswell and Sweat call this the "resource theory of war."
---outweighs diversionary theory
Bennett and Nordstrom 2000 – Department of Political Science at Penn State (Scott and Timothy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, “Foreign Policy
Substitutability and Internal Economic Problems in Enduring Rivalries,” February 2000, EBSCO)
By coming at externalization from the substitutability perspective, we hope to deal with some of the theoretical problems raised by critics of
diversionary conflict theory. Substitutability can be seen as a particular problem of model specification where the dependent variable has not been fully developed.
We believe that one of the theoretical problems with studies of externalization has been a lack of attention to alternative choices; Bueno de Mesquita actually hints
toward this (and the importance of foreign policy substitution) when he
argues that it is shortsighted to conclude that a leader will uniformly
externalize in response to domestic problems at the expense of other possible policy choices (1985, 130). We hope to improve on the study of
externalization and behavior within rivalries by considering multiple outcomes in response to domestic conditions."n particular, we will focus
on the alternative option that instead of externalizing, leaders may internalize when faced with domestic economic troubles.
Rather than
diverting the attention of the public or relevant elites through military action, leaders may actually work to solve their internal problems
internally. Tying internal solutions to the external environment, we focus on the possibility that leaders may work to disengage their country
from hostile relationships in the international arena to deal with domestic issues. Domestic problems often emerge from the
challenges of spreading finite resources across many different issue areas in a manner that satisfies the public and solves real problems. Turning
inward for some time may free up resources required to jump-start the domestic economy or may simply provide leaders the time to solve
internal distributional issues. In our study, we will focus on the condition of the domestic economy (gross domestic product [GDP] per capita growth) as a
source of pressure on leaders to externalize. We do this for a number of reasons. First, when studying rivalries, we need an indicator of potential domestic trouble
that is applicable beyond just the United States or just advanced industrialized democracies. In many non-Western states, variables such as election cycles and
presidential popularity are irrelevant. Economics are important to all countries at all times. At a purely practical level, GDP data is also more widely available (crossnationally and historically) than is data on inflation or unemployment. 6 Second, we believe that fundamental economic conditions are a source of potential political
problems to which leaders must pay attention. Slowing growth or worsening economic conditions may lead to mass dissatisfaction and protests down the road;
economic problems may best be dealt with at an early stage before they turn into outward, potentially violent, conflict. This leads us to a third argument, which is
that we in fact believe that it may be more appropriate in general to use indicators of latent conflict rather than manifest conflict as indicators
of the potential to divert. Once the citizens of a country are so distressed that they resort to manifest
conflict (rioting or
engaging in open protest), it may be too late for a leader to satisfy them by engaging in distracting foreign policy actions. If indeed
leaders do attempt to distract people's attention, then if protest reaches a high level, that attempt has actually failed and we are looking for correlations between
failed externalization attempts and further diversion.
AT: Royal
Royal votes neg two pages later—decline disincentivizes costly power balancing
Royal 10—their author
(Jedediah, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and
Political Perspectives pg 217, dml)
There is, however, another trend at play. Economic
crises tend to fragment regimes and divide polities . A decrease
in cohesion at the political leadership level and at the electorate level reduces the ability of the state to coalesce a
sufficiently strong political base required to undertake costly balancing measures such as economic costly
signals. Schweller (2006) builds on earlier studies (sec, e.g., Christensen, 1996; Snyder, 2000) that link political
fragmentation with decisions not to balance against rising threats or to balance only in minimal and
ineffective ways to demonstrate a tendency for states to 'underbalance'. Where political and social cohesion is strong,
states are more likely to balance against rising threats in effective and costly ways. However,
'unstable and fragmented regimes that rule over divided polities will be significantly constrained in their ability to
adapt to systemic incentives; they will be least likely to enact bold and costly policies even when their
nation's survival is at stake and they are needed most' (Schweller, 2006, p. 130).
Timeframe matters—collapse now is better than later and delay wrecks the
transition
Foss 14—co-editor of The Automatic Earth, previously a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
(Nicole, “Crash on Demand? A Response to David Holmgren”, http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-on-demand-a-response-to-davidholmgren/, dml)
Holmgren argues that time is running
out for bottom-up initiatives to blunt the impact of falling fossil fuel
supply. While simpler ways of doing things at the household and community level could sustain a less energy
dependent world, uptake is limited and time is short . Holmgren points out that during the Soviet collapse,
the informal economy was the country’s saving grace, allowing people to survive the collapse of much
of the larger system. For instance, when the collective farms failed, the population fed themselves on 10% of the arable land by
gardening in every space to which they had access. This kind of self-reliance can be very powerful, but the ability to
adapt is path-dependent. Where a society finds itself prior to collapse – in terms of physical capacity, civil society
and political culture – determines how the collapse will be handled. Dale Allen Pfeiffer’s excellent book Eating Fossil Fuels,
comparing the Cuban and North Korean abrupt loss of energy supplies, makes this point very clearly. Cuba, with its much better developed civil
society and greater flexibility was able to adapt, albeit painfully, while the rigidly hierarchical North Korea saw very much larger impacts. Dimitri
Orlov has argued very persuasively that the
Soviet Union was far better prepared than the western world to face
such circumstances, as the informal economy was much better developed. The larger system was so inefficient and ineffectual that
people had become accustomed to providing for themselves, and had acquired the necessary skills, both physical and
organizational. Their expectations were modest in comparison with typical westerners, and their system was far less dependent on money in
circulation. One would not be thrown out of a home, or have utilities cut off, for want of payment, hence people were able to withstand being
paid months late if at all and were still prepared to perform the tasks which kept supply chains from collapsing. The
economic
efficiency of western economies, with very little spare capacity in a system operating near its limits, is
their major vulnerability. As James Howard Kunstler has put it, “ efficiency is the straightest path to hell ”,
because there is little or no capacity to adapt in a maxed out system. The combination of little
physical resilience, enormous debt, substantial vulnerability even to small a small rise in interest rates ,
the potential for price collapse on leveraged assets, a relatively small skill base, legal obstacles to small scale decentralized solutions, an acute
dependence on money in circulation and
sky high expectations in the context of widespread ignorance as to
approaching limits is set to turn the collapse of the western financial system into a perfect storm. Time
is indeed short and there will be a limit to what can possibly be accomplished. However, whatever
people do manage to achieve could make a difference in their local area. It is very much worth the effort, even if the task
at hand appears overwhelming. Given that a top-down approach stands very little chance of altering the course
of the Titanic, we might as well direct our efforts towards things that can potentially be successful as
there is no better way to proceed. Reaching limits to growth will impose severe consequences, but
these can be mitigated . Acting to create conditions conducive to adaptation in advance can make a
difference to how crises are handled and the impact they ultimately have. Holmgren argues that collapse in
fact
offers the best way forward ,
Finishing Foss
a reckoning postponed will be worse when the inevitable limit is finally reached. The longer
the expansion phase of the cycle continues, the greater the debt mountain and the structural
dependence on cheap energy become, and the more greenhouse gas emissions are produced .
Considerable pain is inflicted on the masses by the attempt to sustain the unsustainable at any cost. If we need to learn to live
within limits, we should do so sooner rather than later . Holmgren focuses particularly on the
that
potential for collapse to sharply reduce emissions , thereby perhaps
preventing the climate
catastrophe built into the Brown Tech scenario.
First, declining agricultural production
Peter Goodchild, “”The Imminent Collapse of Industrial Society,” COUNTERCURRENTS, 5-9-10,
www.countercurrents.org/goodchild090510.htm, accessed 9-22-10.
In the entire world there are 15,749,300 km 2 of arable land. [CIA] This is 11 percent of the world's total
land area. The present world population (in 2010) is about 6.9 billion. Dividing the figure for population by that for arable
land, we see that there are about 440 people per km 2 of arable land. On a smaller scale that means about 4
people per hectare. Only about a third of the world 's 200-odd countries are actually within that
realistic ratio of 4:1. In other words, we have already reached the limits of the number of people who can
be supported by non-mechanized agriculture.¶ The UK, for example, has a population-to-arable ratio of
slightly more than 10 people per hectare. What exactly is going to happen to the 6 people who will
not fit onto the hectare? But many countries have far worse ratios.
Third, pollution from tech advances
Jouvet and de Perthuis 2012 - Paris Ouest Nanterre University and Scientific Director of the Climate Economics Chair AND
Professor at Paris-Dauphine University and President of the Climate Economics Chair’s Scientific Committee (June, Pierre-Andre and Christian,
“Green Growth: From Intention to Implementation ,” Les Cahiers de la Chaire Economie du Climat n° 15 Information and debates Series,
http://www.chaireeconomieduclimat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/12-06-19-GG-engFINAL.pdf)
In a retroactive way, deterioration
of these services may negatively impact our production capacities directly or
indirectly. For example, air pollution can degrade human capital, generating a significant cost for the whole
economy. Similarly, the loss of biodiverisity, increased scarcity of forest resources and deterioration of
groundwater each constitutes a degradation of productive capital. Clearly, natural capital plays a
significant role in the productivity of the two factors of production traditionally taken into account. It follows that
some portion of the creation of value is attributable to natural capital. Exogenous and endogenous growth models
assign a key role to the global parameter, A, of the production function and attempt to shape it. If we accept that the
reproduction conditions of human capital and physical capital partly depend on the state of the
environment, then the multiplicative factor of the production function must depend on the overall
quality of our environment (Q), i.e. A = A(Q). Thus, the production function incorporating the environment
depends not only on pollution emitted during the production process but also on the accumulation of
this pollution, P, which alters the conditions under which production occurs. Viewing the quality of the environment as a decreasing
function of the total amount of pollution, P, it is evident that the pollution flow constantly being emitted will increase the total stock by
degrading the conditions of production itself. The model
developed in the annex shows that above a certain level,
this retroaction leads to zero production, i.e. to the disappearance of the economy . The quality of the
environment becomes a constitutive component of growth. We need therefore to devise a model that can successfully
make a connection between pollution both as a factor of production and a cause of limitation of that growth. These production factor
aspects should make us think not only about the distribution of wealth among the factors of production, but also about the
conditions for production growth. Investing in environmental quality implies not only a reduced role of pollution in production but
also an improvement in overall production conditions and therefore in growth conditions.
Fourth, carbon sinks
Boston 2011 - Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington and was Director of the Institute of Policy Studies
(November, Jonathan, “Biophysical Limits and Green Growth,” Policy Quarterly – Volume 7, Issue 4
http://ips.ac.nz/publications/files/45dbb0b603c.pdf)
Waste absorption limits While
the planet’s natural resources are limited, so too are its ‘sinks’. In other words, the
capacity of the biosphere to absorb or assimilate the waste and pollution generated by economic activity is
constrained. Hence, even if the scarcity of certain resource inputs does not constrain economic growth
and human activity over the foreseeable future, waste absorption limits may well have adverse consequences (see
Reynolds, 2011). The limited capacity of the biosphere to absorb humanity’s increasing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), is perhaps the greatest single threat on the horizon. Currently, atmospheric
concentrations of CO2 are rising rapidly (at around 2.5 parts per million per annum); within a few years they will reach 400
parts per million (or more than 40% above preindustrial levels). Global mean surface temperatures, which have already risen by
about 0.8°C over the past century, are projected to increase by at least another 2°C by 2100, unless GHG emissions are substantially
reduced. Such warming and related climate changes will have serious and potentially irreversible consequences,
including substantial sea-level rise, more severe storms and droughts, and a massive loss of biodiversity. By the end of the century, the sea level
could be as much as a metre higher (and possibly more). Such a rise will cause huge and widespread damage to coastal infrastructure and
settlements (including roads, railway ... any serious and protracted global food shortages could have major economic, social and political
consequences – including the risk of civil disorder and violent conflict. lines and ports), and inundate many river deltas and low-lying islands.
It
is hard to believe that such damage could occur without having negative impacts on global economic
growth, as well as human well-being. Despite these risks, few governments have implemented significant or effective policy measures to
reduce GHG emissions.
Continued growth risks water wars—massive shortages loom
Speth 08 – Rhodes Scholar @ Oxford University, Chairman of Council on Environmental Quality for Executive Office, Founder of World
Recourses Institute (Think-Tank), Led the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development, Administrator of United Nations
Development Program, Dean of Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Leader of the President’s Task Force on Global Recourses
and the Environment, Holds multiple awards—National Wildlife Federation’s Recourse Defense Award and Lifetime Achievement Award of
Environmental Law Institute, and Blue Planet Prize [James, “The Bridge at the Edge of the World”)
It has been said that there are alternative sources of energy, but there
are no alternatives to water. There are several dimensions
is the crisis of natural watercourses and their
attendant wetlands. No natural areas have been as degraded by human activi ties as freshwater
systems. Natural water courses and the vibrant life associated with them have been extensively affected by
dams, dikes, diversions, stream channelization, wetland filling and other modifica tions, and, ofcourse,
pollution. Six percent of the world's major river basins have been severely or moderately fragmented
to what has correctly been called the world water crisis.40 First, there
by dams or other construction. Since 1950 the number of large dams has increased from
5,700 worldwide to more than 41,000.
Much of this activity is done to secure access to the water, but power production, flood control, navigation, and land reclamation have also
As freshwater is diverted from natural sources, ecosystems dependent on that
water suffer, including aquatic systems, wetlands, and forests. About half the world's wetlands have been
lost, and more than a fifth of known freshwater species have already been driven to extinction.41 The
second crisis is the crisis of freshwater supply. Human demand for water climbed sixfold in the twentieth
century, and the trend continues today. Humanity now withdraws slightly over half of accessible freshwater,
and water withdrawals could climb to 70 percent by 2025.42 Meeting the world's demands for freshwater is proving problematic.
About 40 percent of the world's people already live in countries that are classified as "water stressed ,"
been important factors.
meaning that already 20 to 40 percent of liate pressures the available freshwater is being used by human societies. Projections indicate that
the percentage of people living in water-stressed countries could rise to 65 percent by 2025.43 A large portion
of freshwater
withdrawals, about 70 percent, goes to agriculture. Since 1960, acreage under irrigation has more than doubled. A special
problem is occurring in India, China, and elsewhere in Asia where tens of millions of tube wells are depleting "fossil" ground waters. The New
Scientist reports that "hundreds of millions of Indians may see their land turned to desert.,,44 Overall, according to a study by top water
specialists from around the world, world demand
for water could double by 2050.45 "At the worst," the New York Times
reported, "a deepening water crisis would fuel violent conflicts, dry up rivers and increase groundwater
pollution.... It would also force the rural poor to clear ever-more grasslands and forests to grow food
and leave many more people hungry."46 Last, there is the crisis of pollution. Pollutants of all types are
discharged into the world's waters in enormous quantities, reducing the capacities of bodies of water
to support life in the water and to support human communities. Contamination denies a large portion of the world's
population access to clean water supplies. About a billion people, a fifth of the world's population, lack clean drinking
water; 40 percent lack sanitary services. The World Health Organization calculates that each year about 1.6 million children die
from diseases caused by unsafe drinking water and lack of water for sanitation and hygiene.47 Water
supply issues will become increasingly prevalent in the United States. Freshwater withdrawals per
capita from surface and ground waters in the United States are twice that of the OECD (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development) as a whole. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if current American
water use remains constant at a hundred gallons per person per day, thirtysix states will face water
shortages by 2013. As a result, humanity's "first need" will soon be privatized. Investors are moving into a water related market that is
estimated to be worth at least $15° billion in the United States by 20IO. "Water is a growth driver for as long and as far as the eye can see," a
Goldman Sachs water analyst told the New York Times in 2006. 48
Extinction
Barlow 8 National chairperson of The Council of Canadians. Co-founder of the Blue Planet Project.
Chairs the board of Washington-based
Food & Water Watch and is also an executive member of the San Francisco–based International Forum on Globalization and a Councillor with
the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She is the recipient of eight honorary doctorates. Served as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd
President of the United Nations General Assembly (Maude, The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, 25 February
2008, http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_global_water_crisis_and_the_coming_battle_for_the_right_to_water)
The three water crises – dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access to water and the
corporate control of water – pose the greatest threat of our time to the planet and to our survival.
Together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises impose some
life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively change our behavior, we are heading toward a
world of deepening conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater – between
nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the private interest, between rural and
urban populations, and between the competing needs of the natural world and industrialized
humans. Water Is Becoming a Growing Source of Conflict Between Countries Around the world, more
that 215 major rivers and 300 groundwater basins and aquifers are shared by two or more countries,
creating tensions over ownership and use of the precious waters they contain. Growing shortages
and unequal distribution of water are causing disagreements, sometimes violent, and becoming a
security risk in many regions. Britain’s former defense secretary, John Reid, warns of coming “water
wars.” In a public statement on the eve of a 2006 summit on climate change, Reid predicted that
violence and political conflict would become more likely as watersheds turn to deserts, glaciers melt
and water supplies are poisoned. He went so far as to say that the global water crisis was becoming a
global security issue and that Britain’s armed forces should be prepared to tackle conflicts, including
warfare, over dwindling water sources. “Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more,
rather than less, likely,” former British prime minister Tony Blair told The Independent. “The blunt
truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic
conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign.” The Independent gave
several other examples of regions of potential conflict. These include Israel, Jordan and Palestine,
who all rely on the Jordan River, which is controlled by Israel; Turkey and Syria, where Turkish plans
to build dams on the Euphrates River brought the country to the brink of war with Syria in 1998, and
where Syria now accuses Turkey of deliberately meddling with its water supply; China and India,
where the Brahmaputra River has caused tension between the two countries in the past, and where
China’s proposal to divert the river is re-igniting the divisions; Angola, Botswana and Namibia, where
disputes over the Okavango water basin that have flared in the past are now threatening to re-ignite
as Namibia is proposing to build a threehundred- kilometer pipeline that will drain the delta; Ethiopia
and Egypt, where population growth is threatening conflict along the Nile; and Bangladesh and India,
where flooding in the Ganges caused by melting glaciers in the Himalayas is wreaking havoc in
Bangladesh, leading to a rise in illegal, and unpopular, migration to India.
Second, humans are destroying earth beyond the ability of tech to solve – collapse is
inevitable
Tech can’t solve all problems:
- fisheries – not enough food in the ocean to feed everyone – that causes mass death from disease, starvation, and resource wars
- soil erosion – undermines even subsistence agriculture which spills over to global food production causing extinction - That’s Boston
Boston 2011 - Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington and was Director of the Institute of Policy Studies
(November, Jonathan, “Biophysical Limits and Green Growth,” Policy Quarterly – Volume 7, Issue 4
http://ips.ac.nz/publications/files/45dbb0b603c.pdf)
To illustrate briefly: a
large-scale project – the ‘Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’ – sponsored by the United Nations
and involving 1,300 leading scientists over several years was completed in 2005. The authors of the synthesis
report on Ecosystems and Human Well-Being observed that of the various ecosystem services2 examined,
approximately 60% were ‘degraded’ or being ‘used unsustainably’, including fresh water, capture
fisheries, and air and water purification (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Similarly, the report highlighted
evidence of an increasing ‘likelihood of nonlinear changes in ecosystems (including accelerating, abrupt and
potentially irreversible changes) that have important consequences for human well-being’. These include
‘abrupt alterations in water quality, the creation of “dead zones” in coastal waters, the collapse of
fisheries, and shifts in regional climates’. To compound problems, genetic diversity is declining, as is the
number of species on the planet. It is estimated that since around 1800 ‘humans have increased the species
extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times over background rates typical over the planet’s history’.
Currently, up to 30% of mammal, bird and amphibian species are threatened with extinction. And to make
matters worse, the growing human population, projected to reach at least 9 billion by 2050, is bound to increase
pressures on already fragile ecosystems. As a result, the earth faces another great spasm of extinction –
but this time caused by humanity, not natural forces (see also Sukhdev et al., 2008).
Related to this, a team of scientists concluded in 2002 that humanity’s collective demands began to exceed
the earth’s regenerative capacity about 1980 (Brown, 2009, p.14). By 2009, the demands on natural systems
exceeded their sustainable yield capacity by close to 30%. This means that human beings are depleting the
planet’s natural assets and doing so at an increasing rate. Such trends can continue only for so long
before negative feedback mechanisms are triggered, critical thresholds are crossed, and irreversible
ecosystem damage is inflicted. Hence, while the relevant timescales are uncertain, the long-term implications are
clear.
Monbiot’s wrong—transition’s inevitable, now is better
Kingsnorth 9—co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project
(Paul, “Is There Any Point in Fighting to Stave Off Industrial Apocalypse?”,
http://www.alternet.org/story/142051/is_there_any_point_in_fighting_to_stave_off_industrial_apocalypse?page=0%2C2&paging=off&current
_page=1#bookmark, dml)
Dear George
You say that you detect in my writing a yearning for apocalypse. I detect in yours a paralysing fear.
You have convinced yourself that there are only two possible futures available to humanity. One we might
call Liberal Capitalist Democracy 2.0. Clearly your preferred option, this is much like the world we live in now, only with fossil
fuels replaced by solar panels; governments and corporations held to account by active citizens; and growth somehow
cast aside in favour of a "steady state economy".
The other we might call McCarthy world, from Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road [41— which is set in an impossibly hideous
post-apocalyptic world, where everything is dead but humans, who are reduced to eating children. Not long ago you suggested in a
column [51 that such a future could await us if we didn't continue "the fight".
Your letter continues mining this Hobbesian [51 vein. We
have to "fight on" because without modern industrial
civilisation the psychopaths will take over, and there will be "mass starvation and war". Leaving aside the fact that
psychopaths seem to be running the show already, and millions are suffering today from starvation
and war, I think this is a false choice. We both come from a western, Christian culture with a deep apocalyptic tradition. You
seem to find it hard to see beyond it. But I am not "yearning" for some archetypal End of Days, because that's not what we face.
We face what John Michael Greer [11, in his book of the same name, calls a "long descent": a series of ongoing crises
brought about by the factors I talked of in my first letter that will bring an end to the all-consuming culture we
have imposed upon the Earth. I'm sure "some good will come" from this, for that culture is a weapon of planetary mass destruction.
Our civilisation will not survive in anything like its present form, but we can at least aim for a
managed retreat to a saner world. Your alternative — to hold on to nurse for fear of finding
something worse — is in any case a century too late. When empires begin to fall, they build their own
momentum. But what comes next doesn't have to be McCarthyworld. Fear is a poor guide to the future.
Monbiot’s a biased pro-nuclear hack
Porritt 11—Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission [George=Monbiot, obvi, also modified
ableist language]
(Jonathon, “Why George Monbiot is completely wrong on nuclear power”, http://www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/why-george-monbiotcompletely-wrong-nuclear-power, dml)
Forgive me going on about this at such length, George. But I’ve come to the conclusion that your
controversialist instincts
have blinded [distracted
] you, in this instance, to
the inadequacy of your research , the untrustworthiness of your sources and the
potentially damaging consequences of your bizarre pro-nuclear advocacy . You have caused many in
the nuclear industry (and in government) to delight in your “Damascene conversion”, an unexpected turn of events that
they are already ruthlessly exploiting. All this might be seen as an acceptable price to pay if you had a solid case
to make – which you transparently do not.
1nr
China
a) Housing
Boesler 12 (Matthew, “BofA: A Hard Landing In China Could Soon Become A ‘High Probably Event,’”
http://www.businessinsider.com/bofa-china-hard-landing-property-bubble-2012-7) KGH
Recently, it appeared as though China's property bubble was unwinding as prices came down. Now, it
looks like prices are turning up again. These developments in the property market prompted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to
comment over the weekend that "currently, the property market adjustment is still at a crucial stage and we must
unswervingly continue the work and make the fight against speculative property investment demand a long-term policy." However, BofA China
strategist David Cui thinks that based on remarks made by the People's Daily, a Chinese newspaper seen as the Communist Party's mouthpiece,
additional measures to curb the property market could come sooner than expected, which in turn
could mean a hard landing for the Chinese economy.
b) Is for bubbles
Woo and Wagner 12 (Dee, economics lecturer at Beijing Royal School, Daniel, CEO of Country Risk Solutions, “China’s Coming
Great Deleveraging,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dee-woo/china-economy-deleveraging_b_1674951.html) KGH
China's biggest problem is that the
state, SOEs and crony capitalists wield too much power over national
economy, have too much control over wealth creation and income distribution, and much of the GDP growth and vested interest groups'
economic progress are made at the expense of average consumers who are stuck in a spiral of relative poverty. Faster GDP growth will in the
end not mean much since Chinese consumers are unable to support the overcapacity in the housing market and lending markets. China will try
to create more export momentum in an effort to sustain its growth, but this is a vicious circle of imbalance that even a revaluation of renminbi
cannot break. Unsustainable economic
bubbles and collapsing demand are the root causes of China's slowing
economy. If these structural deficiencies are not properly addressed by the government, things will get worse. More frivolous rate
cuts and other central banking maneuvering are sure to come, but to no avail, as the chain reaction will only be accelerated. China will
eventually face its end game - the dark side of a great deleveraging.
Our 538 model combines demographics, empirics and 1000s of simulations to show
Our model is best – their’s is just political noise
Enten, 10-15-14—Harry, “Senate Update: A Lot Has Changed — And Mostly Stayed The Same,” Five Thirty Eight,
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-a-lot-has-changed-and-mostly-stayed-the-same/
According to the latest FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast, Republicans have about a 60 percent chance
of taking control of the Senate. The GOP’s prospects have stayed relatively consistent over the last month,
never dropping below 53 percent or rising above 65 percent. How is that possible, even as some other models have
seen Republican chances climb higher and higher? The FiveThirtyEight model is relatively
conservative: It takes more evidence to convince the model a race has shifted and more evidence to convince it
a state is totally out of play. The model views a larger group of states as competitive compared to other
forecasts. So movement in the more marginal battleground states — the Democrat solidifying his lead in Michigan, or the Republican pulling
away in Kentucky, for example — matters more. If you consider those states as mostly out of play, the favorites improving their position there
won’t affect your overall outlook as much. And
so our forecast hasn’t swung towards the GOP as much as other
models have recently, and it didn’t swing towards the Democrats as much as other forecasts did in
September. The same is true in specific states; the FiveThirtyEight model has largely ignored polling
“head fakes.” Looking at FiveThirtyEight’s adjusted polling average since we launched our forecast on Sept. 2, some marquee
races have clearly shifted towards Republicans: Colorado, Iowa, Alaska and Louisiana. But other
battleground states have moved toward Democrats: Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina and Michigan. These shifts have largely canceled each
other out.
2 – Arithmetic—the GOP has a clear advantage but it’s still too close to call
Kondik and Skelley, 10-23—Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, Sabato's Crystal Ball October 23rd, 2014. “Senate Forecast:
Cloudy With a Good Chance of a Republican Majority,” University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball Forecasting,
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/senate-forecast-cloudy-with-a-good-chance-of-a-republican-majority/ --BR
With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, the picture in several key races remains hazy. But when the dust settles,
the most likely result is a Republican majority, as the Crystal Ball’s outlook of Republicans adding five to eight seats has long
indicated. The GOP needs at least a net gain of six seats to win back Congress’ upper chamber . But the math is
complicated by Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R) struggles in Kansas against independent Greg Orman, and even if Roberts wins, the GOP may not get to 51
seats until after Dec. 6 (Louisiana’s runoff) or even Jan. 6, 2015 (Georgia’s runoff), making it difficult to actually call the Senate for Republicans
even this close to Nov. 4. A rundown of the arithmetic at this point: The GOP looks certain to win Democratic-controlled seats
in Montana and West Virginia, both of which we rate as Safe Republican. While ex-Gov. Mike Rounds (R) hasn’t had an easy go of it in South
Dakota — thus our Leans Republican rating there — he is still in a decent position to beat Rick Weiland (D) and independent ex-Republican Sen.
Larry Pressler in a three-way race. A win in the Mount Rushmore State would give the GOP three pickups. Down south in Arkansas, Sen. Mark
Pryor’s (D) hopes seem to be fading to some degree: A new Talk Business/Hendrix College poll found Rep. Tom Cotton (R) leading the
incumbent 49%-41%. While Pryor isn’t completely down and out, it’s increasingly hard to see him overcoming Arkansas’ hard shift to the right.
We’re upgrading Cotton’s chances from Leans Republican to Likely Republican. Republicans are hopeful that they’ve put this one away, and the
trend line for Democrats is not good. That would be a net gain of four for the GOP. In Iowa’s open seat race, state Sen. Joni
Ernst (R) is ahead by about 2.5 points in the polling averages over Rep. Bruce Braley (D). While that helps make her a slight favorite at this point,
that kind of slim lead in the averages hasn’t proven to be a sure thing in the past. Still, an Ernst win would be a fifth pickup for Republicans. It’s
interesting: The two Democratic-held House districts in eastern Iowa, IA-1 and IA-2, are more Democratic than the state’s other two districts:
President Obama won 56% in both of them in 2012. Yet both seem to be getting more competitive in part because of rumblings that Braley is
not doing that well in either district. If that’s true, and Braley is doing poorly in the more Democratic part of the state, then perhaps Ernst is
doing better than the statewide public polling indicates. Or maybe the House polling is just off: Those surveys often are. Up north in Alaska, the
inconsistent polling history in the Last Frontier still gives us some pause despite the fact Dan Sullivan (R) has consistently led Sen. Mark Begich
(D) in recent surveys, though we favor him to win in our ratings. If Sullivan wins, that would give the GOP a sixth seat, and a majority right? Not
necessarily. The Kansas Senate race continues to vex prognosticators. Although Roberts’ fortunes seem to have improved after national
Republicans and outside conservative groups entered the race to hammer Orman, the race remains a Toss-up. It appears that over the past
several weeks, Roberts pulled himself out of a deficit, moving from down five or more to basically a tie. However, according to our sources, he
has not really been able to move into the lead, and Republicans are now worried about outside spending on Orman’s behalf starting to take its
toll on the already woefully unpopular Roberts (though it’s not as if Roberts is without air cover himself). One of the Super PACs backing Orman
is Harvard Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday PAC, which raises big money to spend big money on candidates who oppose big money in elections.
(Got it?) Presently, RealClearPolitics’ average actually has the two in an out-and-out tie, while HuffPost Pollster shows Roberts with a lead of
under a point. So the Sunflower State’s uncertainty keeps the GOP from getting to a sixth net gain at this point. What of the other three Tossups in Colorado, Georgia, and Louisiana? In the Centennial State, Rep. Cory Gardner (R) continues to lead Sen. Mark Udall (D) in the polling
averages. While our view of the race — it remains a Toss-up — is colored by previous problems with polling in Colorado and the state’s new allmail balloting system, evidence favoring Gardner is mounting, seemingly with every new poll. In effect, Democrats’ retorts to Gardner’s lead in
the public polls are beginning to sound somewhat like Republicans in 2012 “unskewing” polls to argue that Mitt Romney would win. We will
make our call here — along with the other tough ones — in the days prior to the election. We currently expect both Toss-up contests in Georgia
and Louisiana to head to runoffs. In the former, both sides are hoping to avoid that eventuality, although according to some of our sources,
Michelle Nunn (D) might now have a better chance than David Perdue (R) to win outright on Election Day in Georgia, which would be a disaster
for the Republicans. In the Pelican State, a runoff is essentially a foregone conclusion at this point. Although Republicans would probably be
favored in each runoff, one month (Louisiana) or, particularly, two months (Georgia) is a lifetime in politics, and who knows what new
revelations or outside developments may occur between Nov. 4 and the runoff dates? With that in mind, we are erring on the side of caution.
Cassidy has a healthy lead on Landrieu in trial heats of the runoff, but the regular electorate might very well be different than the runoff
electorate. Those writing Landrieu’s obituary — some of the election models give her less than a 10% chance to win based on polls of a
hypothetical runoff — are discounting the inherent uncertainty of the overtime. Meanwhile in Kentucky, we’re holding at Likely Republican the
race between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), even though the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is getting back on the airwaves. McConnell has had a consistent though small lead in polling for
months. Finally, in two states that currently Lean Democratic in our ratings — New Hampshire and North Carolina — we continue to believe
that incumbent Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Kay Hagan (D-NC) are slightly better positioned than their Republican challengers. Hagan is
the more vulnerable of the two, but rumors that her race has tightened significantly have not really been confirmed by public polling. One can
imagine both seats being washed away in a GOP tide, but as of now the Democrats retain at least a small edge, and remain confident, in both.
The blunt math: Our present ratings leave Republicans with 49 seats and Democrats with 47 seats,
with four Toss-ups: Georgia and Louisiana, which both might be heading to overtime, and Colorado and Kansas, where incumbents Udall
and Roberts are in deep trouble — especially Udall — but retain a path to victory. To claim a majority, Republicans need to
win half of the Toss-up states. Democrats need to win three of them to achieve a Biden Majority (a 5050 draw with Vice President Joe Biden’s tie-breaking vote giving Democrats the edge). Given the playing field, this arithmetic
certainly advantages the GOP , but there is at least some chance that Democrats might pull off the
unexpected. So the Senate remains too close to call, but it’s clear that Republicans are well positioned
to win a majority and that Democrats’ backs are up against the wall as Election Day approaches.
3 – Momentum – it’s trending GOP but reversible
Silver, 10-23-14—Nate, “The Democrats’ Path Of Last Resort Is Georgia,” Five Thirty Eight, http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/thedemocrats-path-of-last-resort-is-georgia/ -- BR
The numbers are the numbers. There’s nothing sacred about 51 percent or 72 percent or 95 percent. But certain probabilities, I’ve found, are
harder to translate into the right words. For
most of 2014, Republicans’ probability of taking over the Senate has
been somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. The gambler in me says
that’s not quite close enough to describe as a “tossup”; you’d make a lot of money over the long run betting on a coin toss
weighted 60-40 to your side. But it still represents a highly doubtful outcome. A 60 percent chance of an outcome occurring
means there’s a 40 percent chance of it failing to occur. As 60-40 underdogs, Democrats’ chances of keeping the Senate would be about as
good as Ted Williams’s chances of getting a base hit in 1941. Over
the past week or two, the FiveThirtyEight forecast
has drifted slightly more toward Republicans. As of Wednesday night, the GOP’s chances of a Senate
takeover were up to 66 percent, its highest figure on the year. Sixty-six percent might seem a lot
different than 60 percent; it tends to read as “2-to-1 favorites” rather than “just slightly better than a coin flip.” But it isn’t
much of a change, really; Democrats still have a 34 percent chance of prevailing. The difference between a 40
percent chance and a 34 percent chance is one additional “hit” for every 17 attempts. Essentially, Democrats have fallen from Williams’s
chances of getting a hit in 1941 to Tony Gwynn’s in 1989. With
that said, it’s been hard to find good news for
Democrats in the Senate polls lately. Colorado has broken against its incumbent, Mark Udall. Sen. Mark Pryor’s odds of holding
his seat in Arkansas have become longer. Democratic incumbents are still favored in North Carolina and New Hampshire, but those races have
tightened. Sometimes, Democrats have had to settle for an absence of bad news. Joni Ernst, a Republican, is the slight favorite in Iowa. But her
lead is small and steady at 1 or 2 percentage points; it’s not expanding like Republican Cory Gardner’s in Colorado. Greg Orman, an
independent in Kansas who could caucus with the Democrats if he wins, no longer holds a consistent lead over the Republican incumbent, Pat
Roberts. But Roberts hasn’t pulled ahead either.
4 – Consensus supports a narrow GOP win
Columbia Management, 10-21-14—Columbia Management is one of the nation's largest asset managers
“Stocks: What To Expect From U.S. Midterm Elections,” Value Walk, http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/stocks-midterm-elections/ --BR
Next month’s midterm election battle for control of the U.S. Senate is going to be a dramatically close
call. Republicans can gain control of the Senate if they win six new seats. Incumbent Democrats are defending 21
seats, and seven of those are in broadly red states won by Mitt Romney in 2012. Conventional wisdom would suggest that President Obama’s
low current approval ratings would provide a significant tailwind for the GOP, but the reality is a little more complex. First and foremost, the
broad approval ratings of the legislative branch (both parties) are even lower than those for the president as the electorate is generally
disappointed in Washington’s performance. Secondly, the state-by-state situations are complicated and unique. We have some disruptive third
party candidates in several elections; we have seen some candidates’ prospects diverging from their local party strength/weakness based on
their own campaigning skill or lack thereof. Third, several national issues that were GOP rallying points in prior months have lost some of their
punch. In particular, public concern about the ACA (Obamacare) has fallen significantly. Similarly, the GOP effort to run on support for U.S.
energy independence and energy-based job creation seems less effective with dramatically falling oil/gasoline prices. Finally, despite the oftcited portrayal of the GOP as the party of Big Money, the Democrats have a significant overall funding advantage in these elections; that money
will give them an edge in the advertising barrage that we will see down the home stretch. Currently,
odds-maker and strategist
consensus suggests a slightly better than average chance that the GOP seizes control of the Senate.
We see things similarly. But if we dig a little deeper, what might the potential different outcomes mean more specifically for specific
industries? Some notable examples of areas that would likely be affected are: Energy: A GOP win would significantly change the tone around
energy policy discussion. A GOP win would likely result in Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a staunch defender of coal, becoming Senate Majority
Leader, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a vocal supporter of legalizing oil exports, heading the Senate Energy Committee and Jim Inofe (R-OK), famous
for calling global warming “the second biggest hoax ever” stepping in as chair of the Senate Committee of the Environment and Public Works.
Prospects for LNG and crude oil exports, accelerated drilling licenses offshore and on federal land, and reduced regulation or threats to MLP’s
would clearly improve. Conversely, subsidies for alternative energy would come under greater scrutiny.
5 – Quals—most respected pollsters and analysts conclude Neg
GRI, 10-22-14—Global Risk Insights provides expert political risk analysis for businesses and investors
“Will Independents Determine U.S. Midterm Elections?” http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2014/10/22/will-independents-determineu-s-midterm-elections/ --BR
Because of these races, and the flipping of polls in a half dozen other states, even a month before the
election control of the Senate appears up for grabs. Nate Silver’s (of FiveThirtyEight.com) recent prediction that
Republicans had a 59% chance of gaining the Senate is remarkably slim, though other respected pollsters and analysts (including
Professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball) have indicated a possible tilt in favor of Republicans. Overall, the Democrats have
proven remarkably apt at winning Senate races, with only one Democratic incumbent losing a bid for reelection in the past 3 Senate race cycles
(Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas). However, the dynamics of the election favor the Republican Party: most of the close elections are in
traditionally Republican/lean Republican states (4 of the 9 are in the South), many of which are occupied by Democratic Senators that were
able to succeed in part by riding President Obama’s 2008 election coattails. Additionally, the
incumbent president’s party tends
to lose seats in a midterm election, and Republican challengers to Democratic Senate seats are of
fairly high quality (which has been problematic in past elections, when seemingly winnable races in Nevada, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana,
and Alaska were lost due to poor Republican candidate performances). The 2014 election may represent the Republican
Party’s best chance to win the Senate, and unify both houses under the Republicans for the first time
since 2005. However, the Democratic Party has shown itself to be particularly resilient in maintaining
its hold of the U.S. Senate, and the unique situations in Georgia, Louisiana, and Kansas may delay the answer to this increasingly
tricky question until January anyway.
ISIS is irrelevant—experts agree, candidates won’t push
Rogers, 9-3 – Political Reporter @TIME, citing Duffy—Senate campaign expert at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report
Alex, “Republicans Use ISIS for Campaign Fodder as Midterm Elections Loom,” TIME, http://time.com/3264518/isis-2014-barack-obama-senaterepublicans-midterm-elelections/ -- BR
While ISIS
has hardly dominated campaign messaging, the topic could feed into broader critiques of Obama’s foreign
policy. A recent Pew poll found that 54% of Americans think Obama isn’t tough enough on foreign policy, while 36% his approach is about right.
“[Voters] don’t focus on Ukraine specifically or on Putin or ISIS,” Nicole McClesky, a partner with the Republican
polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, told the Fiscal Times. “They see it as a weakening of America abroad and a lack of respect for the United
States along with the instability and insecurity that creates.” Jennifer Duffy,
a Senate campaign expert at the nonpartisan
Cook Political Report, said “it’s not a huge issue.” “There may be some talk on the stump, but I don’t
see candidates putting it into advertising,” Duffy said. “In terms of political implications, Obama’s comments simply feed the
larger message that the Administration isn’t competent, or more kindly, lacks direction, on a host of issues.”
People don’t vote on ISIS
Masket 14, a political scientist at the University of Denver [Seth Masket, Pacific
Standard, 6/23/14, “What Matters in Mid-Term Elections,” http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-andlaw/congress-politics-democrats-matters-midterm-elections-84120/, 6/29/14]
That’s most of what we find matters in mid-term elections. Now, a
Google search lists many other possible influences on
this year’s election, such as Bowe Bergdahl’s release from the Taliban, Obamacare enrollment figures, foreign policy
crises in such places as Ukraine and Iraq, campaign fundraising, unemployment figures, and so forth. Will
these things affect the elections? Probably not, or at least not directly, and not in the aggregate . (They
could affect Obama’s approval ratings, for example, which could then influence the elections, but it’s pretty tenuous.) It’s not that these
other stories aren’t important, it’s just that they won’t actually drive many people’s votes .
Ebola doesn’t thump – it’ll burnout*
*bah dum ching awesome pun
Summers, 10-16-14—Juliana, NPR, “Ebola Blame Game Takes The Stage At Midterm Election Debates,”
http://www.npr.org/2014/10/16/356588413/ebola-takes-the-stage-at-midterm-election-debates -- BR
For a campaign that's been in search of substance, Ebola
offers a debate about issues fundamental to both parties. But Iona
College political science professor Jeanne Zaino cautions that issues this cycle have changed rapidly. "If
you think back a year ago, we were talking about Obamacare being the key issue of the election. Then
there was some talk about perhaps it would be Benghazi, and then it moved to immigration," she said.
And now we seem to have moved very quickly to Ebola. So we see this kind of fast-moving train. I don't
think we know where it's gonna take us at this point." And there are fewer than three weeks until that train gets to its
station.
2nc L Wall—Prostitution
Social issues- like the plan – mobilize turnout
BIGGERS 10 PhD., Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland
[Daniel R. Biggers, When Ballot Issues Matter: Social Issue Ballot Measures and Their Impact on Turnout, Published online: 1 April 2010]
Why Social Issues? While they are not
the only type of issue that can mobilize turnout, social issues are
uniquely positioned to consistently do so. Such issues include abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, stem cell research, drug
legalization, same-sex marriage, homosexual rights, and obscenity. These issues relate to morality politics, which involves
policies that attempt to regulate social norms or generate a strong moral response from citizens (Mooney and Lee 1995) by
invoking notions of right and wrong (Haider-Markel and Kaufman 2006). These policies validate a particular set
of moral values (Mooney 2001), and attitudes regarding them are based on core values rooted within an citizen’s
system of beliefs (Tatalovich et al. 1994) and primary identity, especially religion, which for many serves as the basis of their most
fundamental values (Tatalovich and Daynes 1998).4 In comparison to other ballot measures, those that address social issues are particularly
well known. Nicholson (2003) finds
that 80% or more of respondents were familiar with initiatives that dealt with social
issues, as well as more likely to be aware of initiatives addressing morality or civil liberties and rights issues than
other initiatives. Furthermore, social issues are consistently the most cited by respondents when asked about which issues are on the
ballot (Donovan et al. 2005). Many of these are “easy” issues (Carmines and Stimson 1980) in that they trigger a “gut
response” and do not require a heightened level of sophistication. Such issues are considered “easy” because they are often framed as
morality based alternatives, such as the simplification of abortion into a choice of pro-life versus pro-choice (Layman 2001). As they tap core
values that reflect deeply held beliefs (Carmines and Stimson 1980) and produce a highly emotional response from citizens (Layman 2001),
they are often seen as more meaningful to citizens than other, more complex issues (Mooney 2001), and this
technical simplicity may facilitate participation (Mooney 1999; Mooney and Lee 1995). More importantly, social issue
propositions tap into existing social cleavages, and they possess the ability to arise the passions of those in both the
traditionalist and modernist camps (Layman and Carsey 2002). Such issues heighten a sense of cultural embattlement and feelings of religious
threat for many evangelicals (Campbell 2006), while some on the other side of the issue perceive the Christian right’s views as intolerant or
extreme (Bolce and De Maio 1999).
The characteristics of these issues act to overcome key reasons as to why
citizens do not participate in politics.
Individuals fail to vote because they cannot, do not want to, or are not asked (Verba et al.
1995). The religious nature of social issues, however, means that churches can play an active role in developing the skills necessary to vote
(Verba et al. 1995), and that individuals have sufficient information (drawn from their religious identify) to participate. This nature also
facilitates mobilization on both sides of the issue (Barclay and Fisher 2003; Haider-Markel and Meier 1996; Roh and Haider-Markel 2003), which
serves to maximize participation (Wilcox and Larson 2006), lower the costs of voting (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995), and may
even partially reduce the socioeconomic bias in participation (Verba et al. 1995).
Turnout boost would mean the Dems keep the Senate.
BALZ 14 Chief correspondent @ Washington Post [Dan Balz, “Democrats face turnout problem, dissatisfaction
in ranks leading to midterms,” Washington Post, March 18, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ls5n8gn]
At the beginning of each midterm election cycle, Democrats vow to do a better job of getting their voters to the polls. But when history (a
president’s party generally loses seats in midterm elections) and the political winds are blowing in the wrong direction, they’ve fallen short.
That was the case in 2010, when Republicans made
historic gains
in the House just two years after Obama and the Democrats celebrated
his 2008 victory as a sign that the pendulum was swinging permanently in their direction.
After the government shutdown in October, Democrats told themselves that the Republicans were in such poor shape that the House could
actually change hands with the 2014 contest. No one is suggesting that today, which may be one reason such longtime Democratic stalwarts as
Reps. John D. Dingell (Mich.) and Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) have decided to retire. Republicans are favored to hold their House majority, and
Democrats are looking mainly at holding down their losses.
The Senate is another story. Former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs
said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that
Democrats should worry that the electorate in November will look more like it did in 2010 than in 2012. If that’s the case, he said, the GOP
could win control of the Senate . “If we lose the Senate, turn out the lights,” he said, “because the party’s over.”
Gibbs had uttered something similar about the possibility of big losses in 2010 and was slapped down by senior Democrats, including thenHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).
Gibbs quipped Sunday that he still has “tire tracks” on his body from that experience. But his point is a serious one. Democrats must get their
voters to the polls in November or risk losing control of the Senate, which would make life even more difficult for Obama during his final two
years in office than it has been with Republicans in control of the House.
Legalizing Prostitution shockingly popular
SALAM 14 columnist for Slate [Reihan Salam, It’s Time for Legalized Prostitution,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/legalized_prostitution_there_s_no_way_to_end_demand_for_sex_work_s
o_why.2.html]
There is relatively little polling on how Americans feel about legalizing the buying and selling of sex. The main
reason, presumably, is that outside of a few rural counties in Nevada, the idea seems exotic, strange, and very far off the political
radar. Back in 2012, however, YouGov found that legalization was surprisingly popular: While 48 percent of
respondents said that prostitution should definitely or probably remain illegal, 38 percent of Americans said it should definitely or
probably be legalized, with the remaining 13 percent on the fence. Far more respondents maintained that prostitution should
“definitely not” be legalized (31 percent) than that it definitely should (12 percent), and this intensity of opinion does matter, as we’ve learned
from the debate over gun rights and other hotly contested issues. Intriguingly, a substantial majority of women (57 percent) opposed
legalization, while only 40 percent of men felt the same way.
Only introduction of a new issue can trigger GOP loss of both chambers
Meyer 14 - Chief Washington Correspondent for Scripps News Service, Former Executive Producer for the BBC’s news services in America
and Executive Editor for National Public Radio. 2014 Election Guide: Cramming for midterms, So far, it doesn't look like a watershed year, DICK
MEYER, AUG 11, 2014, http://www.10news.com/decodedc/2014-election-guide-cramming-for-midterms
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Three months out from the midterm elections, it looks like the theme of
the year might be a negative one:
Voters disapprove of Congress by record levels, but seem inclined to keep the rascals in. Unless a political
tornado touches down , it does not look like 2014 will be a watershed or what is called a “wave election.”
There is not a single driving issue
sour and
like Obamacare was in 2010. The
economic picture is schizoid, the national mood
the array of thorny global issues confusing . There is an almost universal consensus among
professional election watchers that the Republicans will hold on to the House and have a good to
very good chance to capture the Senate, albeit by a slim margin .
Your article proves our link about mobilization
Osse, 13
(Caroline “Polling the political debate on the legalization of prostitution” http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/03/23/legalization-ofprostitution/, accessed 7/17/2014/JMU/JF)
Political ideology is clearly a strong indicator of views on this topic.
Over half of self-identified Liberals (56%) support
legalizing prostitution ; 42% of Moderates and 33% of Conservatives would agree.
From those pro-legalization respondents, only 9%
of Liberals think that legislation would primarily reduce the influence of organized crime. However, 35% of Liberals supporting legalization
believe that the main benefit of legalization is better-regulated health controls.
Interdependence doesn’t check
Escalation factors = all powers armed w nukes, geopolitical competition, arms races
Zero checks = interdependence, institutions and deterrence don’t check
Mohan, 13— distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi,
C. Raja, March 2013, Emerging Geopolitical Trends and Security in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the People’s Republic of China,
and India (ACI) Region,” background paper for the Asian Development Bank Institute study on the Role of Key Emerging Economies,
http://www.iadb.org/intal/intalcdi/PE/2013/10737.pdf
Three broad types of conventional conflict confront Asia. The first is the prospect of war between great
powers . Until a rising PRC grabbed the attention of the region, there had been little fear of great power rivalry in the region. The fact that
all major powers interested in Asia are armed with nuclear weapons , and the fact that there is growing economic
interdependence between them, has led many to argue that great power conflict is not likely to occur. Economic interdependence,
as historians might say by citing the experience of the First World War, is not a guarantee for peace in Asia . Europe saw great
power conflict despite growing interdependence in the first half of the 20th century. Nuclear weapons are surely a larger inhibitor of great
power wars. Yet we have seen military tensions build up between the PRC and the US in the waters of the Western
Pacific in recent years. The contradiction between the PRC’s efforts to limit and constrain the presence of other powers in its maritime
periphery and the US commitment to maintain a presence in the Western Pacific is real and can only deepen over time.29 We also know from
the Cold War that while nuclear
weapons did help to reduce the impulses for a conventional war between great powers, they did not
prevent geopolitical competition. Great power rivalry expressed itself in two other forms of conflict during the Cold War: interstate wars and intra-state conflict. If the outcomes in these conflicts are seen as threatening to one or other
great power, they are likely to influence the outcome. This can be done either through support for one of the parties in
the inter-state conflicts or civil wars. When a great power decides to become directly involved in a conflict the
stakes are often very high . In the coming years, it is possible to envisage conflicts of all these types
in the ACI
Asia has barely begun the work of creating an institutional framework to resolve regional security
challenges. Asia has traditionally been averse to involving the United Nations (UN) in regional security arrangements. Major powers like the
region.
PRC and India are not interested in “internationalizing” their security problems—whether Tibet; Taipei,China; the South China Sea; or
Kashmir—and give other powers a handle. Even lesser powers have had a tradition of rejecting UN interference in their conflicts. North Korea,
for example, prefers dealing with the United States directly rather than resolve its nuclear issues through the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the UN. Since its founding, the involvement of the UN in regional security problems has been rare and occasional. The burden of
securing Asia, then, falls squarely on the region itself. There are three broad ways in which a security system in Asia might evolve: collective
security, a concert of major powers, and a balance of power system.30 Collective security involves a system where all stand for one and each
stands for all, in the event of an aggression. While collective security systems are the best in a normative sense, achieving them in the real
world has always been difficult. A more achievable goal is “cooperative security” that seeks to develop mechanisms for reducing mutual
suspicion, building confidence, promoting transparency, and mitigating if not resolving the sources of conflict. The ARF and EAS were largely
conceived within this framework, but the former has disappointed while the latter has yet to demonstrate its full potential. A second, quite
different, approach emphasizes the importance of power, especially military power, to deter one’s adversaries and the building of
countervailing coalitions against a threatening state. A
balance of power system, as many critics of the idea point out,
promotes arms races , is inherently unstable , and breaks down frequently leading to systemic wars .
There is growing concern in Asia that amidst the rise of Chinese military power and the perception of American decline, many large and
small states are stepping up their expenditure on acquiring advanced weapons systems. Some analysts see this as a
structural condition of the new Asia that must be addressed through deliberate diplomatic action. 31 A third approach involves cooperation
among the great powers to act in concert to enforce a broad set of norms—falling in between the idealistic notions of collective security and
the atavistic forms of balance of power. However, acting in concert involves a minimum level of understanding between the major powers. The
greatest example of a concert is the one formed by major European powers in the early 18th century through the Congress of Vienna after the
defeat of Napoleonic France. The problem of adapting such a system to Asia is the fact that there are many medium-sized powers who would
resent any attempt by a few great powers to impose order in the region.32 In the end, the system that emerges in Asia is likely to have
elements of all the three models. In the interim, though, there are substantive disputes on the geographic scope and the normative basis for a
future security order in Asia.