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ENDI 6 Week – Impact Defense File
***Accidental Launch ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Accidental Launch – A2 China ............................................................................................................................... 5
***Asteroids .............................................................................................................................................................7
Asteroids – No Impact ............................................................................................................................................ 8
***China War .........................................................................................................................................................10
China War – No Escalation ................................................................................................................................... 11
China War – A2 – ASAT's ...................................................................................................................................... 13
China War – A2 – ComSat Takeout....................................................................................................................... 15
China War – A2 – Early Warning Satellite Takeout.............................................................................................. 16
***Dedev ................................................................................................................................................................18
Dedev - Interdependence Stops Conflict ............................................................................................................... 19
***Diseases ............................................................................................................................................................ 21
Diseases – Burnout ............................................................................................................................................... 22
Diseases – Monitoring Solves ............................................................................................................................... 23
Diseases – A2 Space Mutations ............................................................................................................................ 24
***Econ Decline .................................................................................................................................................... 26
Econ Decline – No Great Power War ................................................................................................................... 27
Econ Decline – No Civil War ................................................................................................................................ 29
***Environment .................................................................................................................................................... 32
Environment – Inevitable..................................................................................................................................... 33
Environment – Species Adapt .............................................................................................................................. 35
***Heg ................................................................................................................................................................... 37
Heg – Nukes Solve ................................................................................................................................................ 38
Heg – A2 Solves War ............................................................................................................................................ 39
***Nuke War .......................................................................................................................................................... 41
Nuke War – No Risk ............................................................................................................................................. 42
Nuke War – A2 Extinction .................................................................................................................................... 43
Nuke War – A2 Radiation Poisoning.................................................................................................................... 44
***Prolif ................................................................................................................................................................ 46
Prolif – Leaders Responsible ................................................................................................................................ 47
Prolif – Slow.......................................................................................................................................................... 48
Prolif – US Solves ................................................................................................................................................. 50
Prolif – A2 Asia ...................................................................................................................................................... 51
Prolif – A2 Middle East ........................................................................................................................................ 52
Prolif – A2 Iran ..................................................................................................................................................... 53
Prolif – A2 South America .................................................................................................................................... 54
Prolif – A2 NPT collapse ....................................................................................................................................... 55
***Resource Wars ..................................................................................................................................................57
Resource Wars – No Impact ................................................................................................................................. 58
Resource Wars – A2 China ................................................................................................................................... 59
***Russia War ........................................................................................................................................................ 61
Russia War – Domestic Problems ........................................................................................................................ 62
Russia War – No Military Threat ......................................................................................................................... 63
Russia War – US Would Win................................................................................................................................ 64
***Soft Power ........................................................................................................................................................ 66
Soft Power – Fails ................................................................................................................................................. 67
Soft Power – Hard Power Solves .......................................................................................................................... 68
***Space Debris .................................................................................................................................................... 70
Space Debris – No Impact ..................................................................................................................................... 71
Space Debris – Other Nations Solve ..................................................................................................................... 72
***Space War .........................................................................................................................................................75
Space War – China/Russia Solve.......................................................................................................................... 76
Space War – We'd Win .......................................................................................................................................... 77
Space War – A2 China .......................................................................................................................................... 78
***Terrorism ......................................................................................................................................................... 80
Terrorism – Exaggerated .......................................................................................................................................81
Terrorism – No Retaliation .................................................................................................................................. 82
Terrorism – They're Losing .................................................................................................................................. 83
Terrorism – A2 Attack the US .............................................................................................................................. 84
Terrorism – A2 Pakistan....................................................................................................................................... 85
***Warming .......................................................................................................................................................... 87
Warming – Feedbacks Check ............................................................................................................................... 88
Warming – No Impact .......................................................................................................................................... 90
Warming – Not Anthropogenic ............................................................................................................................ 92
Warming – Slow ................................................................................................................................................... 93
Warming – Too Late ............................................................................................................................................. 94
Warming – A2 Droughts....................................................................................................................................... 96
Warming – A2 Ozone Holes ................................................................................................................................. 97
Warming – A2 Weather ........................................................................................................................................ 98
***Accidental Launch
Accidental Launch – A2 China
No impact to accidental launch – China warheads are detached from missile
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America
Foundation, 09,
Eds. Hansell and Potter, "Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament",
http://cns.miis.edu/opapers/op15/op15.pdf (PDMP354), [Zheng]
By all indications, Chinese
nuclear warheads are not normally mated to their missiles. Robert Walpole, then national
intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs at the CIA, stated in 1998 that "China keeps its missiles
unfueled and without warheads mated."20 The warheads are stored at nearby, but separate, bases. Press reports
of Chinese mobile ballistic missile exercises published by the state-run Xinhua News Agency indicate that nuclear
warheads would be mated in the field to mobile ballistic missiles before launch, similar to the procedure used by Soviet
Mobile Technical Rocket Bases (PRTB, in Russian) stationed in East Germany and elsewhere during the Cold War.21
No impact – China warheads are not attached to missiles
Taipei Times 5/23
"ANALYSIS: Questions remain on China's nuclear stance", 23 May 2011,
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/05/23/2003503945/2, [Zheng]
Beyond a lack of transparency, which has haunted China's relations with other countries on every aspect of its military, another problem with bean
counting China's nuclear arsenal derives from the metrics used for that assessment. As another specialist on the Chinese military told
the Taipei Times, counting delivery vehicles alone is a limited basis for assessing the actual number of warheads. The Second Artillery,
which is responsible for China's nuclear forces and also holds a large conventional missile arsenal, reportedly
does not keep warheads mated with delivery vehicles in peacetime, and missile components are also believed to
be stored separately. China stores most warheads and/or warhead components at a central depot in the Qinling Mountains in
Shaanxi Province. Each of the six missile bases has a warhead storage and handling facility, but there does not seem to be a permanent allocation of
stored warheads, the analyst said. All of this makes it nearly impossible to assess the total number of warheads with certainty.
***Asteroids
Asteroids – No Impact
No chance of extinction from asteroids – NASA proves
Michael Brooks, PhD in Quantum Physics, 08
New Scientist, "The end of the world is not nigh", 23 July 08,
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/5505/The_end_of_the_world_is_not...pdf, [Zheng]
How about cosmic threats? Though
the danger from asteroid impacts remains, we are getting close to charting all the
potential world-destroying rocks. "We now know there is no asteroid out there remotely like the one that ended
the Cretaceous period," says David Morrison, NASA's leading expert on asteroid threats. "We are not going to go
the way of the dinosaurs."
***China War
China War – No Escalation
China has no plans to escalate war to a nuclear level
James Mulvenon, Vice-President of Defense Group, Inc.¹s Intelligence Division, 06
RAND Corporation, "Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Transformation and Implications for the Department of Defense", 2006,
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2006/RAND_MG340.pdf, [Zheng]
When Chinese strategists contemplate how to affect U.S. deployments, they confront the limitations of their
current conventional force, which does not have range sufficient to interdict U.S. facilities or assets beyond the
Japanese home islands. Nuclear options, while theoretically available, are nonetheless far too escalatory to be used so early
in the conflict. Theater missile systems, which are possibly moving to a mixture of conventional and nuclear warheads, could be used against Japan
or Guam, but uncertainties about the nature of a given warhead would likely generate responses similar to the nuclear scenario. According to the
predictable cadre of "true believers," both of the centers of gravity identified above can be attacked using computer network operations (CNO). In the
first case, the Chinese information operations (IO) community believes that CNO will play a useful psychological role in undermining the will of the
Taiwanese people by attacking infrastructure and economic vitality. In the second case, the Chinese IO community envisions CNO effectively deterring or
delaying U.S. intervention and causing pain sufficient to compel Taipei to capitulate before the United States arrives. The remainder of this section
outlines how these IO theorists propose operationalizing such a strategy.
China would get crushed – the war wouldn't last
Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties, 08
"Turning China into the Next Big Enemy", 8 March 2008, http://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2008/03/07/turning-china-next-big-enemy/,
[Zheng]
Which leaves the People's Republic of China. Beijing, like Russia, should not be considered an enemy. However, it has the makings of a
great power, even a superpower, which could ultimately face America as a peer. Moreover, with its influence rising in a region that the U.S. government
has grown used to dominating, there is real potential for future conflict. That potential makes the PRC the best excuse for Washington to spend ever
more on the U.S. military. There are more than a few advocates of the "China as enemy" thesis, penning articles and books about how Beijing is
preparing for, and determined to wage, war against America. There are many more practitioners of what passes for cautious centrism: the PRC could
become a threat, so the U.S. needs to enhance its alliances and forces in East Asia. Toss in human rights activists and protectionists, who have other
reasons for disliking Beijing, and the anti-China coalition grows. The latest addition to the "China as enemy" literature is the Pentagon's newly released
"Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2008." In contrast to more fevered attacks on Beijing, this publication is a sober analysis of the PRC's
ongoing defense build-up, which we can see but through a glass darkly. China has announced a 17.6 percent increase in military spending this year,
bringing it to $58.8 billion, but that number is incomplete at best and misleading at worst. This uncertainty understandably worries the Pentagon.
American military expenditures are outlandish, but they are obviously outlandish. Although Washington does hide intelligence expenditures, it's hard
not to know how many air wings, carrier groups, and armored divisions, as well as foreign bases, the U.S. is funding. But the Defense Department is even
more worried that the Chinese are spending too much, which is essentially defined as developing a military which one day could confront American
forces – successfully. It's a fair concern, since Beijing's military build-up is transforming the international environment far more quickly than most
American analysts had expected. The PRC has numerous reasons for seeking to create a superior military. The Pentagon notes that China probably is
developing forces for use in such contingencies "as conflict over resources or disputed territories." Moreover, Beijing's growing "capabilities will increase
Beijing's options for military coercion to press diplomatic advantage, advance interests, or resolve disputes in its favor." As Washington well knows,
international political influence is more likely to follow a larger military. Russia has regained regional clout, but remains a smaller global player; Europe
is an economic giant but a military midget. Beijing seems intent on twinning soft and hard power to enhance its global clout. Despite the multiple ends,
however, the PRC appears to have two more basic goals with its military build-up. The first is to enable the PRC to compel Taiwan, through use of
military force, if necessary, to accept some form of reunification. The second is to deter the U.S. from intervening to stop China from using coercion. As
the Pentagon observes, "A potential military confrontation with Taiwan, and the prospect of U.S. military intervention, remain the PLA's most immediate
military concerns." Indeed, much of the PRC's military program seems directed at creating a credible deterrent to America. The Pentagon reports:
"China's nuclear force modernization, as evidenced by the fielding of the new DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental-range missiles, is enhancing China's
strategic strike capabilities. China's emergent anti-access/area denial capabilities – as exemplified by its continued development of advanced cruise
missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles designed to strike ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, and the January 2007 successful
test of a direct-ascent, anti-satellite weapon – are expanding from the land, air, and sea dimensions of the traditional battlefield into the space and cyberspace domains." It's an impressive list. But America's military capabilities remain far greater. Why does the PRC need anti-
ship missiles for use against aircraft carriers? Because it lacks even one carrier, while the U.S. controls the seas
with 12 carrier groups. This country dominates most other military fields as well. America's nuclear missile
arsenal is much bigger, more sophisticated, and more deadly than that possessed by China. Washington
already is reaching into space with its missile defense program. Thus, the PRC is seeking to deter America from
deploying its more powerful forces. Notes the Pentagon, "Through analysis of U.S and coalition warfighting practices since 1991, Beijing
hopes to develop approaches to waging future conflict by adapting and emulating lessons learned in some areas while seeking perceived vulnerabilities
that could be exploited through asymmetric means in others." In particular, "As part of its planning for a Taiwan contingency, China is prioritizing
measures to deter or counter third-party intervention in any future cross-Strait crisis." Thus, Beijing might be preparing to confront the
U.S. But the critical question is, confront the U.S. over what? If Beijing was plotting the conquest of Guam, Hawaii, and ultimately the
North American continent, then Beijing's ongoing military build-up would look dangerous indeed. But there is nothing in China's long history that
suggests such overarching ambitions. Unwilling to remain weak and thus subject to coercion by a trigger-happy superpower across the Pacific. Yes.
Determined to vigorously assert its perceived interests. Yes. Expecting international respect and consultation that reflects its
increasingly expansive interests and growing power. Yes. Ready to commit global aggression, initiate world
war, and wreck both China's and America's futures. No. Which means the U.S. should think carefully before responding to China's
ongoing build-up. The Pentagon speaks of a situation which "will naturally and understandably lead to hedging against the unknown," meaning
Washington will need to spend even more on the military. If half of the world's military outlays aren't enough, one wonders how much would be. Twothirds? Three-fourths? Even more? Washington should not fret. If the goal is defending America, the U.S. possesses sufficiency today. Just catching up
with the U.S. will be a daunting task for the PRC. Explained the
Pentagon: "The U.S. Intelligence Community estimates China
will take until the end of this decade or longer to produce a modern force capable of defeating a moderate-size
adversary. China will not be able to project and sustain small military units far beyond China before 2015, and
will not be able to project and sustain large forces in combat operations far from China until well into the
following decade." Washington already occupies the global summit, with the enormous military infrastructure
of a superpower. China will not easily displace America with the world's most powerful military. Assume that China,
still desperately poor and surrounded by potentially hostile states, decides to deploy one new carrier group a year, no mean task. The PRC still
wouldn't match America until 2020. Even then Beijing wouldn't be strong enough to take aggressive action against the U.S. homeland or
dependencies. To develop an air force capable of dominating U.S. airspace and ground forces capable of invading U.S. territory would be another step
well beyond. Most important, the U.S. possesses what would remain an effective nuclear deterrent against almost any
imaginable Chinese missile force. It's not that the PRC couldn't theoretically construct and deploy more and better nuclear missiles, strategic
bombers, and nuclear-armed subs than the U.S., though such a process would take an enormous commitment over many years. But it's hard to
imagine that China could ever deploy enough to create a first strike capability.
No impact - China lacks critical military capabilities to challenge the U.S
Richard A. Bitzinger, Senior Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Monterey Institute, 08
Survival, "Why East Asian War is Unlikely", 5 December 2008, PDF, [Zheng]
Overall, most Western assessments agree that the PLA has made considerable progress over the past decade in adding new weapons to its arsenal, and
that China has noticeably improved its military capabilities in several specific areas - particularly missile attack, power projection over sea and in the air,
and information warfare. Most predict that Chinese military power relative to its likely competitors in the Asia-Pacific region -
the United States will continue to increase significantly over the next ten to 20 years. There
are, however, some striking differences of opinion when it comes to interpreting the significance of these
hardware developments. Many Western analysts assert that the PLA continues to suffer from considerable
deficiencies and weaknesses that limit its ability to constitute a major military threat: in spite of all its efforts, China
is still at least two decades behind the United States in terms of defence capabilities and technology. In particular,
the PLA still lacks the logistical and lift capacity - both by sea and by air - for projecting force much beyond its
borders. China also lags far behind the West in areas such as C4I architectures and surveillance and
reconnaissance capabilities. Some therefore argue that China's current rearmament programme is an
incremental, long-term modernisation process that must be understood in the context of competing forcemodernisation activities taking place among China's likely rivals.
especially Taiwan - and
China War – A2 – ASAT's
China could only launch 4 ASATs at one time
Geoffrey Forden research associate at MIT since 2000 specializes in Russian and Chinese space systems 08
Wired Magazine "How China Loses the Coming Space War" 1/10/2008 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/01/inside-the-chin/ [Lockwood]
At the same time that
China would be trying to covertly move its mobile missile launchers around the country, it
would also have to assemble a fleet of large rockets — ones normally used for launching satellites. The more large rockets China uses
for this task, the more deep-space satellites it can destroy. At present, however, China only has the facilities for assembling and
launching a total for four such rockets nearly simultaneously. Two would have to be assembled out in the open where they could
be observed by US spy satellites and two could be assembled inside a vertical assembly building during the 18 days it takes to stack and fuel the Long
March rocket's stages while preparing to launch. [See right.] Even the two assembled indoors would need to arrive by train and
eventually would have to be moved, one after the other, to the launch pad. Each of these rockets, usually reserved for
launching satellites into geostationary orbits, could carry three to four interceptors and their special orbital maneuver motors to attack either US
navigation satellites, at about 12,000 miles altitude, or communications satellites at about 22,000 miles. Four days prior to the attack,
China would launch the first of its Long March rockets carrying deep-space attack ASATs; the same launch pad would have to be
used for the second rocket stacked inside the vertical assembly building. As the technicians renovated that pad, the first rocket's
payload would circle the Earth in a parking orbit at about 200 miles altitude waiting to be joined by the other
deep-space ASATs. This would appear to be a tell-tale sign of an impending strike. But China could explain the delay to
the international community by claiming that the third stage, intended to take the payload it its final altitude, had failed to fire and that they were
working on it. Roughly six hours before the first the attack on the US's low Earth orbit military satellites, the other
three Long March rockets would have to be fired since it takes roughly that long to get their payloads up to
their target's orbits. Delays or failures to launch any of these rockets would strand their interceptors on the
launch pad and subject them to possible retaliatory bombing by the US.
At best china could only knock out 4 satellites and knock out precision weapons for 4 hours
Attacking Navigation Satellites You
need a launch pad to attack a target in deep space, like an American GPS satellite. China has
just three of these pads. This really restricts China's offensive capabilities in space. Assuming that China devotes all its deep-space ASATs on GPS
satellites, it could destroy at most 16 satellites. At the current time, with 32 functioning navigation satellites, that would
still leave 16 satellites still working. Over a period of years, the debris from those collisions would represent a significant threat to more than
those satellites immediately attacked. They would pass, time and time again, through the belts of debris that resulted from the interceptions. However, it
would probably take longer than the military conflict China initiated with these attacks before additional satellites were destroyed by subsequent
collisions. Usually, there are about nine GPS satellites over China at any given time. If China somehow managed to
destroy all of these, it could eliminate America's use of precision-guided munitions—for a few
hours, until the orbits of other GPS satellites take them over the Taiwan Straits. Quite quickly, the constellation's other 23 satellites would fill in the
gap due to their normal orbital movement. Even if it destroyed 16 satellites, China could still only interrupt GPS over the Straits for about eight hours.
During the other 16 hours there would be the four or more satellites present over the target area for bombing
runs, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights, and ship tracking. This pattern of eight hours off followed by 16 hours when GPS
could be used would be repeated every day until new satellites are launched. This outage would certainly cause difficulties; GPS not only guides American
precision bombs – it helps pilot UAV spy planes, and monitor ships. US casualties might increase , with air crews forced to fly missions during daylight
hours – and conduct some of the "dull, dirty, and dangerous" missions now flown by robotic planes. It's a situation no American commander would want
to face. But it would not be a catastrophic one. And it would not eliminate precision weaponry, UAVs, or any other American activity that depends on
GPS. Keep in mind, this is the worst of the worst-case scenarios. It is highly unlikely that China could remove all the
satellites over the conflict area at the same time. After all, attacking 16 satellites, all in different orbits with
ASATs launched on just four different rockets involves some fairly complex orbital maneuvers. A much more
likely scenario is that, at best, China could destroy four GPS satellites in the initial wave followed roughly seven
hours later by four more, a third wave at roughly 45 minutes after that, and the final wave two hours later. Thus, the GPS attack is spread over ten hours
and never eliminates all the satellites visible over the area of conflict at the same time. This Chinese attack on US navigation satellites would
not eliminate or even significantly degrade the US's ability use precision-guided munitions.
The U.S. will be able to prevent an attack on naval satellites – just move them
Attacking Low Altitude Satellites China would launch its first attack against a US electronic intelligence satellite in low Earth orbit minutes before the
first wave of deep space ASATs hit their targets. The same type of ASAT used to target the deep-space satellites could also be
launched on short range missiles from Transporter-Erector-Launchers (TELs). These are 22-wheeled vehicles that look very similar to
tanker trucks. They're more sophisticated than the mobile launchers that Saddam used during the first Gulf War to launch SCUDs toward Israel and
Saudi Arabia but would be no easier to find and destroy. The exact order of attacks will depend upon the specific day and hour chosen but a typical attack
might involve a first launch against a Lacrosse signals intelligence satellite followed within seconds by another, this time against a Keyhole 11 highresolution spy satellite. Moments later, three ASATs would be launched against small groups of three NOSS satellites that
the Navy uses to locate an adversary's ships at sea. These travel around the Earth in closely spaced groups of either two or three
satellites and triangulate on the radio signals emitted by warships. During a span of about twenty minutes, China could attack
and destroy a total of nine US military satellites in the scenario considered here. Inevitably, however, there
would eventually be a lull in satellite crossings because of the random clumpings of satellites along their orbits.
If the United States does nothing to protect itself, such as change the orbits of its lower altitude satellites, China could continue to shoot
down military satellites as they come over the horizon using pre-positioned ASATs. It is highly unlikely,
however, that the United Sates would simply roll over while these attacks took place. Even today, with no
formal satellite defenses, we could be fairly effective at stopping the destruction of our satellites. Nevertheless, the
loss of those satellites that were destroyed would be significant. It would increase the "revisit" times between spy satellites, which might not matter so
much for reconnaissance satellites in a tactical setting. The loss of a significant fraction of the Navy's enemy ship surveillance
system, however, might be more important in battles around the Taiwan Straits. Without timely determination
of enemy locations, the US would have to increase the number of aircraft devoted to scouting — and
subsequently decrease the number of combat missions — as these planes are diverted.
China War – A2 – ComSat Takeout
China doesn't have the capability to knock all our communication satellites – even if they could
civilian satellites would solve
Attacking Communications Satellites While it is possible for China to eliminate the eight US military communications satellites in geostationary orbits
that can broadcast to the Taiwan Straits, Beijing does not have enough the lauch capacity for as many ASATs as it would
take to eliminate all 22 civilian communications satellites that could also be used. However, not all of these satellites have
equal capacities for transmitting information; it might be possible for China to destroy enough of that capacity to limit the US military. During the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, US armed forces sent and received a tremendous amount of information via satellite. This included video conferencing between
the Pentagon and the commanders in the field, satellite photographs downloaded to operations planners, orders directing jets where to drop their
bombs, and soldiers emailing their families back home. At its peak, all of this added up to about three billion "bits" per second ,
a tremendous amount of information. Bandwidth was – and continues to be – a premium on the battlfield, particularly at the tactical level. And the
appetite for information is only increasing. But the total amount of information transmitted over satellites is certain to increase by the next time we go to
war; perhaps it could triple or even quadruple to twelve billion bits per second in the next ten years. Assuming that the eight military
communications satellites are destroyed first, that leaves at most eight ASATs to destroy the eight most capable
civilian communications satellites. If these eight are removed, then there is still a total capacity of over 14
billion bits per second in US owned and operated civilian communications satellites. Thus, there should be
enough transmission capacity for our military — even if the demand for satellite communications increases by a factor of four. And
the US military is used to using civilian satellites, as the 2003 invasion of Iraq showed. The vast majority (84%) of all
military communications into and out of the theater of operations went through civilian satellites.
China War – A2 – Early Warning Satellite Takeout
China wouldn't attack early warning satellites – No clear objective and huge potential for
miscalculation
Attacking Early Warning Satellites The United States has five satellites in geostationary orbit that detect missile launches using the heat released from
their exhaust plumes. These satellites are primarily used to alert US nuclear forces to massive nuclear attacks on the homeland. However, in recent years,
they have played an increasing role in conventional conflicts, such as both Gulf Wars, by cueing tactical missile defenses like the Patriot missile defense
systems that gained fame in their engagements with Saddam's SCUD missiles. Because of this new use, China might find it useful to attack
them with ASATs. Since there are only five of them, China could destroy the entire constellation but at the cost of
diverting some of the few available deep-space ASATs from other targets. Of course, China would not have to attack all five but could limit its attack to
the three that simultaneously view the Taiwan Straits area. If China did decide to destroy these early warning satellites, it would greatly reduce the area
covered by US missile defenses in Taiwan against SCUD and longer range missiles. This is because the area covered by a theater missile defense system is
highly dependent on the warning time it has; the greater the warning time, the more effective the missile defense system's radar is. Thus a Patriot
battery, which might ordinarily cover the capital of Taiwan, could be reduced to just defending the military base it was stationed at. Some analysts
believe that China would gain a tremendous propaganda coup by having a single missile make it through US defenses
and thus might consider this use of its deep-space ASATs highly worthwhile even if it could not increase the probability of destroying military targets.
On the other hand, China would run a tremendous risk of the US believing it was under a more general nuclear
attack if China did destroy these early warning satellites. Throughout the history of the Cold War, the US has
had a policy of only launching a "retaliatory" nuclear strike if an incoming attack is detected by both early
warning satellites and radars. Without the space leg of the early warning system, the odds of the US
misinterpreting some missile launch that it detected with radar as a nuclear attack would be greatly increased even if the US did not view
the satellite destruction as a sufficiently threatening attack all by themselves. Such a misinterpretation is not without precedent. In 1995, Russia's early
warning radars viewed a NASA sounding rocket launch off the coast of Norway and flagged it as a possible Trident missile launch. Many analysts believe
that Russia was able to not respond only because it had a constellation of functioning early warning satellites. Any Chinese attacks on US
early warning satellites would risk both intentional and mistaken escalation of the conflict into a nuclear war
without a clear military goal.
***Dedev
Dedev - Interdependence Stops Conflict
Economic Interdependence Checks Conflict
Andrew Kuchins, Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Institution, 2002 http://sdli.Stanford.edu/101/lectures/notes20.html
Economic Interdependence Argument: Major
war would be too economically devastating for a great power to consider it
in its interests. Economic globalization does not affect all countries and regions equally. Institutional Arguments:
Regional and global institutions are becoming increasingly more powerful, and they encourage and facilitate
cooperation and dispute resolution between nation states in a peaceful manner.
***Diseases
Diseases – Burnout
Virulent diseases cannot cause extinction because of burnout theory
Leah R. Gerber, PhD. Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Sciences, 05
Ecological Society of America, "Exposing Extinction Risk Analysis to Pathogens: Is Disease Just Another Form of Density Dependence?" August 2005,
Jstor, [Zheng]
The density of it population is an important parameter for both PVA and host-pathogen theory. A
fundamental principle of epidemiology
is that the spread of an infectious disease through a population is a function of the density of both susceptible and
infectious hosts. If infectious agents are supportable by the host species of conservation interest, the impact of
a pathogen on a declining population is likely to decrease as the host population declines. A pathogen
will spread when, on average, it is able to transmit to a susceptible host before an infected host dies or eliminates
the infection (Kermack and McKendrick 1927, Anderson and May l99l). If the parasite affects the reproduction or mortality of
its host, or the host is able to mount an immune response, the parasite population may eventually reduce the density of susceptible
hosts to a level at which the rate of parasite increase is no longer positive. Most epidemiological models indicate that there
is a host threshold density (or local population size) below which a parasite cannot invade, suggesting that rare or depleted
species should be less subject to host-specific disease. This has implications for small, yet increasing, populations. For example, although endangered
species at low density may be less susceptible to a disease outbreak, recovery to higher densities places them at increasing risk of future disease-related
decline (e.g., southern sea otters; Gerber ct al. 2004). In the absence of stochastic factors (such as those modeled in PVA), and given the usual
assumption of disease models that the chance that a susceptible host will become infected is proportional to the density
of infected hosts (the mass action assumption) a host specific pathogen cannot drive its host to extinction (McCallum
and Dobson 1995). Extinction in the absence of stochasticity is possible if alternate hosts (sometimes called reservoir hosts) relax the extent to which
transmission depends on the density of the endangered host species.
Virulent diseases burn out before causing pandemics
Shawn Carlson, PhD MacArthur Fellow, 06
The Citizen Scientist, "Dealing with Doctor Doom," 2006 http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/editorial-p/index.html, [Zheng]
The data stand utterly against this idea. Plagues have run rampant through human populations throughout time. Millions have died. Huge fractions of
some populations have been wiped out. But the net death rate has never come close to the fractions that Pianka envisions. Virulent diseases that
kill quickly tend to burn themselves out. Natural selection creates less lethal varieties because an organism
can't spread if it kills its host before it can propagate. The flu pandemic of 1918 (the influenza virus is championed by Pianka) may
have killed 50 million people, but that was only about 5 percent of those infected. Moreover, every year sees medical advancements—screening
techniques improve, as do our methods of creating new vaccines and treating illness of all kinds. Not only that, a desperate situation would be met by
desperate measures, including the implementation of martial law, the halting of all air and ground traffic except for emergency vehicles and so on, to
stop contagion.
Lethal diseases burn out fast, pandemic is unlikely
Stephen Morse, director of the Center for Public Helth Preparedness, at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, 04
ActionBioscience.org, "Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: A Global Problem", 2004,
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/morse.html, [Zheng]
ActionBioscience.org: How do infectious diseases become pandemic?
Morse: A pandemic is a very big epidemic. It requires a number of things. There are many
infections that get introduced from time to
time in the human population and, like Ebola, burn themselves out because they kill too quickly or they don't
have a way to get from person to person. They are a terrible tragedy, but also, in a sense, it is a lucky thing that
they don't have an efficient means of transmission. In some cases, we may inadvertently create pathways to allow transmission of
infections that may be poorly transmissible, for example, spreading HIV through needle sharing, the blood supply, and, of course, initially through the
commercial sex trade. The disease is not easily transmitted, but we provided, without realizing it, means for it to spread. It is now pandemic in spite of its
relatively inefficient transmission. We also get complacent and do not take steps to prevent its spread.
Virus burnout solves the impact
The Guardian 03
"Second Sight", 25 September 2003 http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1048929,00.html, [Zheng]
The parallel with the natural world is illustrative. Take the case of everyone's favorite evil virus, Ebola.
This is so virulent that it kills up
to 90% of infected hosts within one to two weeks. There is no known cure. So how come the entire population hasn't
dropped dead from hemorrhaging, shock or renal failure? The "organism" is just too deadly: it kills too quickly
and has too short an incubation period, so the pool of infected people doesn't grow.
Diseases – Monitoring Solves
Prevention methods along with monitoring systems prevent disease spread from occurring.
"Swine Flu Unlikely to Affect the Economy", April 27, 2009,
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1894052,00.html, [Zheng]
Over the last decade, as similar concerns have arisen about avian flu spreading from Asia to the rest of the world, the fears have not been justified. The
last pandemic was known as the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968 and 1969. The deaths from the Hong Kong flu were estimated to be between 750,000
and one million people, including nearly 34,000 in the U.S. Since that pandemic more than 40 years ago, there have been no
major events involving the global spread of lethal flu infections. There have been cases of dangerous avian flu outbreaks in Asia
for a decade which has caused the deaths of a small number of people. Since these flu infections have not spread globally warnings
and concerns about pandemics have not been much seen in the media. At the start of this weekend however the media has
been very involved in transmitting the latest information from all the public health organizations and specialists in disease tracking. "We are very, very
concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to
human ... It's all hands on deck at the moment." Two critical factors should prevent the current outbreak from spreading
much further. The first is the sophisticated monitoring systems set up by the CDC in the United States, similar authorities
in other countries, and the WHO on a global basis. The SARS outbreak in 2002 ended up killing less than 800
people, in part because of a near shutdown of world travel and minute-by-minute tracking of the progress of
the disease around the world. Secondly, there are several theories about why flu viruses do not spread with the rapidity and scale that they
once did. One of the probable reasons is that flu vaccines diminish the spread of the disease in general by cutting down on
the spread of specific strains. This even extends to the vaccinations of animals that are the primary carriers of
the infectious viruses. In addition, the CDC said that two major flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, appear likely to diminish the severity of
symptoms for the new strain, if taken in the first 48-hours of this Swine flu infection. That may be one of the reasons that public health officials,
epidemiologists, and infectious disease specialists have indicated that people should not be overly concerned. One expert told NPR, "We've seen swine
influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it's come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto,
from the University of Michigan. "I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they
proceed."
Diseases – A2 Space Mutations
Barely any bacteria can survive in space – even if it could simple precautions check back
Roger Launius Smithsonian Institution Space History 10
Science Direct, "Can we colonize the solar system? Human biology and survival in the extreme space environment," September 2010,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160932710000451 [Lockwood]
Humans, of course, cannot survive more than a few seconds while exposed to the vacuum of space. The realm has long
been understood as one of the most extreme environments in which humans might ever have to operate and perhaps even colonize. Exposure to it results
in nearly immediate death. The need to sustain life and productive human functions in spaceflight has presented many unique challenges to medicine
and life-support technology from the dawn of the space age more than 50 years ago. Without the development of these capabilities there would have
been no spaceflight.2 Humans are well adapted for survival at sea level in temperate latitudes on Earth, but movement elsewhere requires considerable
artificial assistance to preserve life. Not so some extremophiles from this planet. During the Apollo 12 mission, astronauts Pete Conrad and
Alan Bean piloted their Lunar Module to within approximately 160 m of Surveyor III, walked over to it, and retrieved several pieces from the spacecraft,
including its television camera and some associated electrical cables, the sample scoop, and two pieces of generic aluminum tubing. In examining
the camera upon its return to Earth, scientists saw evidence of micrometeoroid bombardment. But, too, they found terrestrial bacteria –
Streptococcus mitis – apparently surviving for two and a half years in the vacuum of space. As only one of 33 samples from
various parts of the spacecraft harbored the bacteria, the question arose as to whether it predated
Apollo 12's visit or resulted from accidental contamination following return from the Moon.3 Dr. Leonard Jaffe, project scientist
for Surveyor, stated this possibility best: 'It is, therefore, quite possible that the microorganisms were transferred to the camera after its return to Earth,
and that they had never been to the Moon.'4 Even so, scientists at the time concluded that 'the bacterium was deposited in the camera before launch.'5
This was amazing to non-scientist Pete Conrad, the astronaut who commanded the Apollo 12 mission. He recalled in 1991, 'I always thought the most
significant thing that we ever found on the whole goddamn Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said shit about it.' But
such a possibility was anticipated and scientists did not rigorously sterilize the Surveyors so they might learn if
a microbial form of life could survive the harsh environment of space. A planning document stated: 'The precautions
against the contamination of the Moon, once strict, have now been relaxed in view of our developing knowledge
of the inhospitable environment for terrestrial life that exists on the lunar surface and the belief that landed contamination, if it
survives, will remain localized. For these reasons, lunar landing spacecraft may have on board a low level of microbial
life, they must be decontaminated but not sterile.
***Econ Decline
Econ Decline – No Great Power War
Economic decline doesn't cause war- prefer consensus
TIR 10 Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is an Associate Professor in the Department of International
Affairs at the University of Georgia
(Tir Jaroslav, The Journal of Politics, "Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict", 2010, Volume 72: 413-425, Hopkins)
Empirical support for the economic growth rate is much weaker. The finding that poor economic performance
is associated with a higher likelihood of territorial conflict initiation is significant only in Models 3–4.14 The
weak results are not altogether surprising given the findings from prior literature. In accordance with the insignificant
relationships of Models 1–2 and 5–6, Ostrom and Job (1986), for example, note that the likelihood that a U.S. President will use force
is uncertain, as the bad economy might create incentives both to divert the public's attention with a foreign
adventure and to focus on solving the economic problem, thus reducing the inclination to act abroad . Similarly,
Fordham (1998a, 1998b), DeRouen (1995), and Gowa (1998) find no relation between a poor economy and U.S. use of
force. Furthermore, Leeds and Davis (1997) conclude that the conflict-initiating behavior of 18 industrialized
democracies is unrelated to economic conditions as do Pickering and Kisangani (2005) and Russett and Oneal
(2001) in global studies. In contrast and more in line with my findings of a significant relationship (in Models 3–4), Hess and Orphanides (1995), for
example, argue that economic recessions are linked with forceful action by an incumbent U.S. president. Furthermore, Fordham's (2002) revision of
Gowa's (1998) analysis shows some effect of a bad economy and DeRouen and Peake (2002) report that U.S. use of force diverts the public's attention
from a poor economy. Among cross-national studies, Oneal and Russett (1997) report that slow growth increases the incidence of militarized disputes, as
does Russett (1990)—but only for the United States; slow growth does not affect the behavior of other countries. Kisangani and Pickering (2007) report
some significant associations, but they are sensitive to model specification, while Tir and Jasinski (2008) find a clearer link between economic
underperformance and increased attacks on domestic ethnic minorities. While none of these works has focused on territorial diversions, my own
inconsistent findings for economic growth fit well with the mixed results reported in the literature.15 Hypothesis 1 thus receives strong support via the
unpopularity variable but only weak support via the economic growth variable. These results suggest that embattled leaders are
much more likely to respond with territorial diversions to direct signs of their unpopularity (e.g., strikes,
protests, riots) than to general background conditions such as economic malaise. Presumably, protesters can be distracted
via territorial diversions while fixing the economy would take a more concerted and prolonged policy effort. Bad economic conditions seem to motivate
only the most serious, fatal territorial confrontations. This implies that leaders may be reserving the most high-profile and risky diversions for the times
when they are the most desperate, that is when their power is threatened both by signs of discontent with their rule and by more systemic problems
plaguing the country (i.e., an underperforming economy).
No correlation between economic decline and war- their evidence is based on flawed
Boehmer Charles R., Ph.D. in Political Science from Pennsylvania State, is an associate professor of political science at the University of Texas '10
(Defense and Peace Economics, " Economic Growth and Violent International Conflict: 1875-1999" June 2010, Volume 21: 249-68, Hopkins)
Crisis-Scarcity as a Source of Violent Conflicts I term the next body of literature the 'Crisis-Scarcity' perspective because it links violent interstate
conflicts to domestic or international economic crises. The first group of studies within this broad perspective argues that downswings in Kondratieff
cycles in the global economy or other crises of capitalism increase the risk of war. The theories of imperialism by Hobson (1917, 1938) and Lenin (1939
[1916]) make broad arguments in this manner. World-systems or Dependency scholars advance similar arguments (Chase-Dunn, 1978; Frank, 1978;
Bosquet, 1980; Hopkins and Wallerstein, 1982; Bergesen, 1983, 1985). However, many of the theories in this category are difficult to test due to
conceptual ambigu- ities and the number of available observations, considering that the temporal length of an entire cycle is purportedly 50 to 60 years.
Moreover, World-Systems theory lacks an opera- tional definition by which to categorize states into 'periphery', 'semi-periphery', and 'core', making it
difficult to quantitatively assess some of its claims. Although there could be strong consensus on how to categorize many states into the core or periphery
categories, the roster ECONOMIC GROWTH AND VIOLENT CONFLICT 253 of semi-periphery states is much less clear. However, some propositions in
these theories have been tested with historical data or have been covered in studies at the systemic level of analysis. The studies by Mansfield (1988),
Goldstein (1988), Pollins (1996), and Pollins and Murrin (1999) yielded results contrary to some of the claims made by World-System theory, or similar
theories, relating global economic cycles to violent conflicts. On the one hand, the historical analysis of World-Systems theory examines a longer timeframe than extant quan- titative studies, but on the other hand these historical approaches must assume that the main economic and political processes
that shaped much of the past millennium will continue into the future, which may be heroic. Because I am in particular interested in whether individual
states become more or less prone to involvement in violent interstate conflicts as their economic growth rises or falls, I do not offer further tests of
systemic-level propositions found in the literature. In contrast, studies of diversionary theory make state-level (monadic) or dyadic arguments. Most
studies to date have been monadic and only a few have examined strategic diversionary behavior from a dyadic
perspective. Of central importance to this study are those theories of diversionary conflict arguing that
economic crisis induces foreign conflicts. However, while diversionary theory has been popular, the bulk of
extant research examines the foreign policy of the United States (Ostrom and Job, 1986; James and Oneal, 1991; Morgan and
Bickers, 1992; DeRouen, 1995; Hess and Orphanides, 1995; Wang, 1996; Fordham, 1998; Mitchell and Moore, 2002; Foster, 2006). Meernik (1994) and
Meernik and Waterman (1996) find no evidence of diversionary behavior. Of more importance to this analysis are those studies that
theorize or examine cases more generally at the state-level of analysis. Russett
(1987) finds an inverse relationship between
economic growth (two and three year moving averages) and conflict involvement using a pooled time series of
23 countries. In an extension of this study, he later finds evidence that negative growth leads to a higher rate of
militarized conflict participation by democracies but that the opposite is true of autocracies (Russett, 1990).
When disaggregating by power and polity type, the results appear less clear. Positive growth leads to a higher
participation rate in war for democracies (the sign is positive for autocracies but insignificant), whereas non-democratic major powers
were more apt to use force. The sign directions for minor powers of both regime types were negative and statistically insignificant. However, Russett
(1990: 126) notes in a larger sample of 100 states from 1953–1976, using the Penn World Tables (Summers and Heston, 1991), that economic growth was
statistically insignificant. Considering the limitations in data and the lack of control for autocorrelation, these results could be inaccurate. Heldt
(1999) similarly finds at the state level that while high depriva- tion increases the use of force by states, this is
unrelated to regime type or any strategic interactions with other states. His sample though only includes
challengers in territorial disputes with negative growth rates, leading to 187 cases, and he thus neither provides
a general test of growing states compared with non-growing states nor compares conflict participants to nonconflict participants (non-barking dogs). Enterline and Gleditsch (2000) examine whether political leaders substitute diversionary tactics with
other states for repres- sion when confronted with domestic pressure using the 'leader-year' as the unit of analysis. While they find that leaders
often use both repression and diversion when pressured domestically, the results were unclear concerning
economic growth rates and inflation. They dropped these variables from most of their discussion due to limited
data and the resulting loss in cases.
Econ Decline – No Civil War
Econ decline doesn't lead to civil war- their authors ignore empirics- Kenya proves
Sambanis Nicholas, Ph.D. from Princeton, is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University '4 (Perspectives on
Politics, "Using Case Studies to Expand Economic Models of Civil War", 2004, Volume 2: 259-279, Hopkins)
But GDP per capita can also be used as a proxy for state strength, as in the FL model. It
is unclear, therefore, how to interpret the negative
correlation between GDP per capita and civil war. CH's use of GDP adjusted by purchasing power parity is consistent with the
opportunity-cost argument; yet FL's constant-dollar GDP figures are more in line with the state-strength argument, since they describe the overall size of
the economy. However, both uses of GDP are questionable. The size of an economy probably correlates with country size or population size and may not
indicate the extent of a state's control over its territory. For the CH opportunity-cost argument, unemployment levels might have been a more direct
measure, because they would have indicated potential rebel supply. In prewar Yugoslavia, income per capita was two or three times that of war-affected
countries in our sample, but unemployment surged and in some regions reached 40 percent of the adult population. Using unemployment rates
(especially region-specific rates) in the quantitative analysis might help distinguish the CH opportunity-cost theory from the FL state-strength theory—
hypotheses that are now conflated by their similar use of GDP as a proxy variable. The interpretation of GDP as a measure of state strength is also
problematic in a number of cases. Consider the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland insurgency) and Kenya (Rift Valley ethnic violence). In the United
Kingdom, the FL theory could be used to explain (at least partially) why the "Troubles" and their aftermath did not escalate into a larger war. The
strength of the British state may have forced the insurgents to adopt a strategy of low-level urban violence and terrorism. 53 Yet this explanation omits
other plausible factors, such as the role of civil society and public opinion in the United Kingdom and neighboring Ireland. A more intense campaign by
the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a more indiscriminate and forceful response from the British army would have caused negative reactions from civil
society on both sides. In an established democracy like Britain, war-fighting tactics such as the ones used by the Russian state in the war in Chechnya (for
instance, bombing the capital, Grozny) are not viable—indeed, they are unthinkable. But it is hard, on the basis of the FL model, to disentangle the
impact of the state's strength (defined in terms of military and economic capacity) from the consequences of the state's liberal-democratic characteristics.
The problem lies with the poor analytic value of the empirical proxy used to measure state strength. The case of Kenya is instructive. Here,
we have a weak economy with a weak civil society, but a strong authoritarian state. The state's ability to repress
its opponents was unconstrained until the recent liberalization in Kenya. Despite strong ethnic antagonism,
significant electoral violence, and a coup attempt in August 1982, no civil war has occurred in Kenya, mainly as
a result of the state's strength and authoritarianism. 54 The mechanism of exercising state control was corruption. 55 The government
used local police forces to violently repress local opposition groups that could not be bought off; it rewarded government supporters with gifts of public
land. Our case study on Kenya shows that a low GDP is not necessarily a good measure of a state's capacity to
prevent civil war. Additionally, we cannot even distinguish between the effects of state strength and those of absent or weak civil-society
institutions. Clearly, to sort out the relative significance of these explanations, we must return to large-N data analysis. But case studies help us identify
plausible mechanisms and hypotheses to test. Consider next the CH argument about education. Several countries seem to fit the CH model well,
especially in Africa (there were virtually no educated Congolese at the time of their independence and right before the start of their first civil war). But
regional disparities may weaken the underlying theory linking education to violence. Other civil war countries—Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Georgia, and
Russia—had high education rates. Lebanon had one of the highest in the Arab world, with adult literacy at 60 percent (compared with 15 percent in Iraq)
in the 1950s and 1960s, and school enrollment at 76 percent in the 1950s. 56 Saudi Arabia, by contrast, had a secondary schooling rate of 4 percent
(males enrolled), but no war. To make sense of these contradictions, we need an explanation of how schooling might influence civil war risk. A close-up
look at what is being taught in schools might help. In many countries, the curriculum is the primary way of inculcating children with nationalist ideology.
It is not surprising that CH does not focus on this micro-level mechanism, since the model dismisses the significance of nationalist ideology as a motive
for civil war. But others have shown a causal link between nationalist education in schools and the persistence of nationalist ideology. 57 This might
explain cases such as Lebanon, where sectarian education fueled war by nurturing ideologies of intolerance. Indeed, a recent study on terrorism found
that Hezbollah recruits in Lebanon have been drawn from the ranks of the highly educated, and this pattern also seems to hold cross-nationally. 58 If
economic opportunity cost is the mechanism through which education influences the decision to join a civil war, then why does this mechanism not
apply to the decision to join a terrorist organization? This puzzle suggests that a refinement of the theory is necessary to distinguish civil war from
terrorist violence. Turning to economic growth, several of our countries seem to be perfect examples of the CH argument. In Sierra Leone, economic
growth was negative before the start of the war in 1991. 59 Yugoslavia's growth rate declined 15 percent to 20 percent between 1988 and 1992, fueling
social unrest. 60 Economic growth was also negative in the five years before civil war broke out in Senegal, Mali, Azerbaijan, and other countries in our
sample. However, the relationship between economic growth and civil war is complex. While CH posits a linear
relationship, there are undeniable dynamic effects between growth and civil war. First, the effects of economic
growth may be channeled through other variables. Even rapid growth may (indirectly) cause civil wars. In
Indonesia, it indirectly reinvigorated GAM—the rebel Free Aceh Movement—because it resulted in the
expansion of the extractive resource industries in the region and an increase in the number of migrants, leading
to land seizures in Aceh. 61 Thus, government policies implemented in high-growth periods exacerbated the risk of war. This example seems to
suggest that internal migration is a mechanism for war outbreak; but migration was the result of a deliberate government policy of repression, so the
cause of violence was state repression, not migration (or growth) per se. Second, quantitative studies of civil war fail to account for the effects of low-level
violence that typically precedes war, reducing both income and growth by reducing investment and encouraging capital flight. This is particularly true for
studies using data sets that code civil war onset during the year that deaths cross the 1,000 threshold (as is common in the literature), even though
armed conflict may have been occurring for several years. Quantitative models should therefore consider modeling the endogeneity of economic growth
to armed conflict. Political violence in Caucasian states caused massive declines in income. Georgia's GDP per capita dropped from approximately
$3,670 in 1991 to somewhere between $777 and $913 in 1997. 62 In Azerbaijan, GDP fell from around $4,400 per capita in 1985 to around $400 in 1996,
and then rose to $510 in 1999. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—one of the most war-ravaged countries, with up to five civil wars—income
per capita in the late 1990s was half of what it had been at the time of independence in 1960. In Burundi, another country with recurrent civil wars, GDP
per capita fell by half in the 1990s, from $211 in 1991 to $110 in 1999. 63 If at least some of these declines were attributable to escalating violence that led
to civil war, then we have a feedback effect that should be properly modeled in quantitative studies of war onset. In response to these drastic changes in
economic conditions, the CH theory predicts that the risk of civil war would increase as income fell. This is consistent with evidence that the risk of war
recurrence is far greater immediately after the end of a war than several periods later. 64 Declining income can be the mechanism through which time at
war increases the risk of future wars. But if we interpreted GDP per capita as a measure of state strength, we would reach a similar conclusion, as falling
GDP would imply loss of strength, which would increase the risk of a new war. This logic might suggest a specification change in the CH model: adding
an interaction term between GDP and ongoing war to a model of civil war onset would measure such an effect. Furthermore, the CH model neglects the
effect that ongoing civil war has on the risk of a new war. The
authors drop ongoing periods of war from their analysis,
ignoring the feedback effects mentioned above. If we used the FL coding of the dependent variable, we could add such an interaction
term to control for the potentially differential effects of some variables during periods of war as compared with periods of peace. For instance, as argued
in the case study on Georgia, a war's depletion of national income may discourage a long war duration because the available "loot" shrinks, making war
unprofitable. 65 In short, a close examination of the cases reveals the need to refine our empirical measures so we
can explain the relationship between economic variables and war onset. The same is true with respect to the CH and FL
arguments on resource dependence.
***Environment
Environment – Inevitable
The plan can't solve the structural problems with the environment – makes their impact
Jeanne Neath, PhD in Social Psychology from Kansas University, 10
The Cedar Hill, "My Fair Share", Report, 24 January 2010, http://www.ecofeminismblog.org/?p=455, [Zheng]
People immersed in globalized industrial patriarchy view traditional ways of life as inferior because these
lifeways have been the target of an enormous smear campaign since the era of European colonization and then
the inception of industry. Traditional people (and this includes all our ancestors) leave the land and their traditions when
the powerful forces of industrializing, colonizing or globalizing patriarchy take the land and destroy their
communities. Forced into cities or other participation in the globalized patriarchy, the propaganda of the dominating
culture eventually persuades most displaced people that the old ways of life are inferior or too hard. But, now it is time
to reverse this process! We can recognize the value of traditional ways of life linked directly to nature and local communities, dismantle globalized
industrial patriarchy, and build new subsistence cultures. The traditional lifeways of indigenous peoples, peasants of the global
South, and our own ancestors are our models for sustainability. Many of these small-scale, traditional cultures
are also models for equalizing distribution of resources and more equitable social relationships. Some have
matriarchal social structures (matrilineal, matrilocal) and these cultures deserve the closest study. Low-tech, modern
inventions like bio-intensive gardening and perhaps bicycling can also help us to build subsistence cultures, as can social practices like consensus
decision-making and consciousness raising. In contrast, the vision of "sustainability" put forward by most of the political and
educated classes of the industrialized world leaves many of the deadly bases of the dominant society
untouched: industrialization, consumerism, capitalism, inequity, domination, patriarchy. Almost all the books,
government reports, and even non-governmental organizations proposing solutions to climate change assume
that industrialized society must continue. They call for major changes in practice – energy efficiency, recycling, decarbonizing energy sources, even sometimes for an end to inequity - but do not address the roots of the problem. How can a
system based in domination (patriarchy) and greed (capitalism) and therefore dedicated to giving more power
and more goodies to some people create equity among people and live in balance with the Earth? Why would a
sane people who care for the earth want to gamble that an aberrant way of life can be reined in enough to
preserve the climate when there are existing ways of life that have worked for our species for thousands of
years? Perhaps there may (or may not) be ways to live with the earth that could include some benefits from modern technology, but revolutionary
changes are needed, not a new consumerism and more of the same old patriarchy. Only by getting rid of the social elements that have created the climate
crisis, poverty, and ecological overshoot – patriarchy, capitalism, domination, consumerism – will we save the Earth and save our Selves.
Human consumerism and capitalism make the impact inevitable
Abolfazl Vatanparast, Managing Director, Instructor, & Researcher of Kiana Development Institute, 10
http://www.earthcharterplus10.org/pdf/Cities_papers/Vatanparast_and_Lavasani.pdf, [Zheng]
Society",
It is not surprising seeing many paradoxes in the modern world we are living in now. For example, passing a holiday on
the bank of a river which is full of different kinds of trash or taking photograph of nature which is destroyed mostly or are demolishing under the
pressure of modern and noisy tools. In this review article, we are questioning if our environmental ethics in this new world has any effect on our aesthetic
view? On the other hand, if changing in our aesthetic view is resulting in new environmental ethics which may shift
our impression on nature and developing a different kind of ethics based on destruction. The answers of these questions
can be found in the values of modern society such as excessive and competitive materialism, consumerism and social structures which make them.
Today human being believes in adaptation with necessities of modern society to live in and he found
destruction of many of aesthetic manifestations of nature as an inevitable way to reach this adaptation. The
result of this kind of adaptation is an insensibility and habituation with produced indecencies in the nature by
justifications such as economic development and improving human welfare. Is such adaptation necessary? If yes, to what
extend? Do we face more to kind of surplus adaptation? Kind of adaptation which is exceeded its boundaries that affect
people's understanding about beauty so that they can enjoy nature beside accumulated trash or taking
memorial photos. The necessity for such adaptation is repressing significant part of aesthetic needs and need to nature as its main provider
source. Nowadays, human being suspects there are no way to satisfy this need and must choose between being
modern human and neglecting the pleasure, ecstasy and comfort which are gave by nature. Again this question is
arisen, is such a choice inevitable? Is such repressing necessary? Or we are facing again to a surplus repression which is imposed by modern society
values? It is obvious that the result of surplus repression and adaptation is indifference and irresponsibility in
respect to environment destruction and even doing destruction to live according modern society's values. In this
article, we reviewed different theories about ethic philosophy and environmental ethics. We also explain some concepts such as nature intrinsic and
instrumental value. Also, we analysed the change of aesthetic approaches of modern human and its effect on these theories and concepts. In the ethic
philosophy, human is responsible morally in respect to the things which have intrinsic value and his responsibility in respect to the things which have
instrumental value is indirect. It seems that the important point about nature is not its intrinsic or instrumental value or the responsibility of human in
respect to it, direct or indirect. Because in modern society with its own values, prosperity, welfare and well being of
human is not depended on nature and the most significant part of nature neither has intrinsic value nor
instrumental value, so, moral responsibility to protect it is meaningless. Do such human who lost his sensibility to
unattractiveness of nature and repress his aesthetic needs to adapt to modernity, suppose such responsibility? Does human who has found
his welfare and safety in his material properties and consumerism as a result of such repressing and adaptation
to values of modern life and even determines his identity base on it, take any responsibility to protect nature's
sources and its variety and biodiversity? May be in this situation his duty and moral responsibility is protecting and increasing properties
and consuming more and more even if it leads to destruction of nature which is originally the main providers of these needs.
Environment – Species Adapt
No impact to biodiversity loss - species and environments are adaptive
Times 09
"Experts say that Fears Surrounding Climate Change are overblown", 6 November 2009,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6905082.ece, [Zheng]
Alarming predictions that climate change will lead to the extinction of hundreds of species may be exaggerated,
according to Oxford scientists. They say that many biodiversity forecasts have not taken into account the
complexities of the landscape and frequently underestimate the ability of plants and animals to adapt to
changes in their environment. "The evidence of climate change-driven extinctions have really been overplayed,"
said Professor Kathy Willis, a long-term ecologist at the University of Oxford and lead author of the article. Professor
Willis warned that alarmist reports were leading to ill-founded biodiversity policies in government and some
major conservation groups. She said that climate change has become a "buzz word" that is taking priority while, in practice, changes in human
use of land have a greater impact on the survival of species. "I'm certainly not a climate change denier, far from it, but we have to have sound policies for
managing our ecosystems," she said. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature backed the article, saying that climate change is "far from
the number-one threat" to the survival of most species. "There are so many other immediate threats that, by the time climate change really kicks in,
many species will not exist anymore," said Jean Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN species program, which is responsible for compiling the
international Redlist of endangered species. He listed hunting, overfishing, and destruction of habitat by humans as more critical for the majority of
species. However, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds disagreed, saying that climate change was the single biggest threat to biodiversity on the
planet. "There's an absolutely undeniable affect that's happening now," said John Clare, an RSPB spokesman. "There have been huge declines in British
sea birds." The article, published today in the journal Science, reviews recent research on climate change and
biodiversity, arguing that many simulations are not sufficiently detailed to give accurate predictions. In
particular, the landscape is often described at very low resolution, not taking into account finer variations in
vegetation and altitude that are vital predictors for biodiversity. In one analysis of the likelihood of survival of alpine plant species
in the Swiss Alps, the landscape was depicted with a 16km by 16km (10 miles by 10 miles) grid scale. This model predicted that all suitable habitats for
alpine plants would have disappeared by the end of the century. When the simulation was repeated with a 25m by 25m (82ft by 82ft) scale, the model
predicted that areas of suitable habitat would remain for all plant species. The article suggests that migration to new regions and
changes in living patterns of species would take place but that actual extinction would be rare. Other studies
comparing predictions of extinction rates with actual extinction rates have come to similar conclusions.
According to a high-profile paper published in the journal Nature in 2004, up to 35 per cent of bird species
would be extinct by 2050 due to changes in climate. To be on track to meet this figure, Professor Keith Bennett,
head of geography at Queen's University Belfast, calculated that about 36 species would have to have become
extinct each year between 2004 and 2008. In reality, three species of bird became extinct. He said that many
species are far more versatile than some prediction models give them credit for. "If it gets a couple of degrees warmer than
they're comfortable with, they don't just die, they move," he said.
***Heg
Heg – Nukes Solve
Nuclear primacy prevents challengers
Craig '09 Campbell is the IR professor at the University of Southampton (Review of International Studies, "American power preponderance and the
nuclear revolution", 2009, Volume 35: 27–44)
The nuclear revolution delivers a clear message to any large state considering major war with a powerful
nuclear rival. The message is that such a war is likely to escalate to total nuclear exchange, and that in this event a
large percentage of its citizenry will be killed or injured, its ability to govern what remains of the nation will be
weakened or destroyed, and its power relative to other states that stayed out of the war will be radically
diminished. It also delivers a message to any advanced small state eager to obtain security from the possible predation of large ones. The message is
that if the small state possesses, or can quickly get its hands on, a few invulnerable and deliverable nuclear
weapons, any large state contemplating invading it will have to weigh the benefits of invasion against a new
kind of cost – not just a difficult or stalemated conventional war, such as the US faced in Vietnam and faces in Iraq, but the destruction of
perhaps one, three, or five of its cities, and the death and injury of millions of its citizens. Unless it is able to
obtain an absolutely fool-proof defense against any kind of nuclear retaliation, the choice that any large state is
going to make when faced with this new circumstance is so likely to be peace that the small nuclear state can
feel confident that it will be safe from conquest.34 The general relevance of these messages to American unipolar
preponderance is clear. At the 'great power' level, rising states are unlikely to regard major war as a suitable
means for overturning the international system and overthrowing American preponderance. The classic means
of systemic change – hegemonic war – will not be an attractive option to any state hoping to survive, and the
very existence of nuclear arsenals will make all states cautious about provoking conflict with nuclear rivals,
especially the heavily armed US.35 Moreover, advanced smaller states know that they can provide for their own security, if they come to
believe that it is endangered, not by embarking on large military build-ups or forming alliances with larger states, but by developing a small and
invulnerable nuclear arsenal, or at least preparing the way to obtain such an arsenal quickly. This means that small states have a far
greater ability to defend themselves from, and therefore be less afraid of, American predation today than
comparable states facing dominant powers in previous eras.36 The main effects of the nuclear revolution, then,
bolster the general claim of Power Preponderance that unipolarity is enduring. To support their claim, Brooks and
Wohlforth specify three factors that dissuade would-be rivals to the US from balancing against it in traditional military terms: the effect of America's
relative geographical isolation from these potential rivals; the fact that American preponderance happened as a fait accompli about which no other
nation could do anything; and the vast and growing 'power gap' between the US and all other rivals.
Heg – A2 Solves War
Hegemony doesn't solve war
Friedman '10 Benjamin H., Ph.D. candidate in political science at MIT, is research fellow in defense and homeland security for the Cato Institute
(Cato Institute, "Military Restraint and Defense Savings", July 20, 2010, http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-bf-07202010.html)
Another argument for high military spending is that U.S. military hegemony underlies global stability. Our forces
and alliance commitments dampen conflict between potential rivals like China and Japan, we are told, preventing them from fighting wars that would
disrupt trade and cost us more than the military spending that would have prevented war. The theoretical and empirical foundation for
this claim is weak. It overestimates both the American military's contribution to international stability and the
danger that instability abroad poses to Americans. In Western Europe, U.S. forces now contribute little to
peace, at best making the tiny odds of war among states there slightly more so.7 Even in Asia, where there is more
tension, the history of international relations suggests that without U.S. military deployments potential rivals,
especially those separated by sea like Japan and China, will generally achieve a stable balance of power rather than fight. In
other cases, as with our bases in Saudi Arabia between the Iraq wars, U.S. forces probably create more unrest
than they prevent. Our force deployments can also generate instability by prompting states to develop nuclear
weapons. Even when wars occur, their economic impact is likely to be limited here.8 By linking markets, globalization
provides supply alternatives for the goods we consume, including oil. If political upheaval disrupts supply in
one location, suppliers elsewhere will take our orders. Prices may increase, but markets adjust. That makes American consumers less
dependent on any particular supply source, undermining the claim that we need to use force to prevent unrest in supplier nations or secure trade
routes.9 Part of the confusion about the value of hegemony comes from misunderstanding the Cold War. People tend to assume, falsely, that our activist
foreign policy, with troops forward supporting allies, not only caused the Soviet Union's collapse but is obviously a good thing even without such a rival.
Forgotten is the sensible notion that alliances are a necessary evil occasionally tolerated to balance a particularly threatening enemy. The main
justification for creating our Cold War alliances was the fear that Communist nations could conquer or capture by insurrection the industrial centers in
Western Europe and Japan and then harness enough of that wealth to threaten us — either directly or by forcing us to become a garrison state at ruinous
cost. We kept troops in South Korea after 1953 for fear that the North would otherwise overrun it. But these alliances outlasted the
conditions that caused them. During the Cold War, Japan, Western Europe and South Korea grew wealthy
enough to defend themselves. We should let them. These alliances heighten our force requirements and
threaten to drag us into wars, while providing no obvious benefit.
US hegemony can't stop wars – leash-slipping theory proves
Christopher Layne, PhD. Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush
School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, 06
International Security, "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming of the United States' Unipolar Moment",
Fall 2006, http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.7, [Zheng]
The United States' hard power poses a nonexistential (or soft) threat to others' autonomy and interests. By acquiring
the capability to act independent of the United States in the realm of security, however, other states can slip free
of the hegemon's leash-like grip and gain the leverage needed to compel the United States to respect their foreign policy interests.
As Posen writes, other major states are expected "at a minimum [to] act to buffer themselves against the caprices of the U.S.
and will try to carve out the ability to act autonomously should it become necessary." 81 Leash-slipping is not traditional
hard balancing because it is not explicitly directed at countering an existential U.S. threat. At the same time, it is a form of
insurance against a hegemon that might someday exercise its power in a predatory and menacing fashion. As Robert
Art puts it, a state adopting a leash-slipping strategy "does not fear an increased threat to its physical security
from another rising state; rather it is concerned about the adverse effects of that state's rise on its general
position, both political and economic, in the international arena. This concern also may, but need not, include a
worry that the rising state could cause security problems in the future, although not necessarily war." If successful, leashslipping would result in the creation of new poles of power in the international system, thereby restoring multipolarity
and bringing U.S. hegemony to an end.
***Nuke War
Nuke War – No Risk
Deterrence Checks – no risk of a nuke war
Walsh, Lieutenant colonel in Air Force, '85 Edward, "Nuclear War Opposing Viewpoints, p. 48
The most difficult keynote of this new day for the diehard traditionalists to digest is the maxim that all-out
nuclear war will never happen!
Nor will there be a limited nuclear confrontation, since basic logic rejects containment; escalation would be as
night follows day. Those who consider the latter a practical strategy have lost sight of what has happened to
such concepts down through the centuries of man's all-out hostility towards his fellow man. The side about to
lose a limited nuclear exchange would certainly raise the ante until the game reached the no-limit stage. Starting a
nuclear war would be like a man [sic] setting fire to a house in which he [sic] is chained to the floor. The very nature, mutuality, and
magnitude of nuclear devastation has made nuclear war obsolete as an instrument of national policy, except as
a deterrent force, which cancels it out as a weapon of offense. Nuclear war is not only unthinkable psychologically, it is unfeasible
and untenable technically.
Even stupid leaders understand a nuke war would be devastating
Robert Rauchhaus Department of Political Science University of California 09
Sage Journals, "Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach" 2/5/2009 http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/53/2/258.full.pdf+html
[Lockwood]
From the early days of the nuclear revolution, proponents of nuclear deterrence have argued
that atomic weapons have the capacity to
reduce the probability of conventional war (Brodie 1946, 1947). Reflecting on the Cold War, some scholars argue that this is indeed what
happened: despite dozens of crises and several proxy wars, the United States and USSR avoided a direct military
conflict because each feared that matters might escalate to nuclear war (Gaddis 1986, 1987; Waltz 1990, 1993, 2000). Unlike
conventional deterrence in previous eras, nuclear deterrence is extremely robust because even irrational or
unintelligent leaders are likely to recognize the exceedingly high cost of nuclear war. Thus, proponents
of nuclear deterrence claim with a high degree of confidence that "the probability of major war among states having nuclear weapons approaches zero"
(Waltz 1990, 740). Scholars who are critical of nuclear deterrence have generally avoided questioning whether nuclear weapons make war less likely.
Instead, they usually take one of two approaches. "Safety critics" warn that the nuclear weapons pose a danger because of accidental detonations and
inadvertent escalation (Sagan 1993). In contrast, "moral critics" argue that nuclear weapons should be eliminated because they violate international law,
are immoral, or both (Falk and Lifton 1991). Oddly enough, neither safety critics nor moral critics tend to question
whether nuclear weapons deter war. To the contrary, some critics have assumed that nuclear weapons do indeed reduce the
chance of conflict but argue that their deterrent value is outweighed by safety concerns and the prospects of more proliferation (Sagan 1994). Scholars
have also examined the theoretical underpinnings of nuclear deterrence from a number of other perspectives. Using game theory and other
formal methods, scholars have examined crisis stability, various deterrent strategies, the credibility of threats,
and the consequences of proliferation (Berkowitz 1985; Brito and Intriligator 1996; Bueno de Mesquita and Riker 1982; Harvey and James
1996; Intriligator and Brito 1981; Langlois 1991; Nalebuff 1988; Powell 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1990; Schelling 1960, 1966; Wagner 1991; Zagare
and Kilgour 2000). Others have scrutinized the psychological underpinnings of deterrence and the assumption of
rationality (Jervis 1984, 1989; Jervis, Lebow, and Stein 1985). Despite the potential problems associated with nuclear
deterrence, the pacifying effects of nuclear weapons are seldom challenged. In these and other studies, the concern is
generally for the potential failure of nuclear deterrence, not for the irrelevance of nuclear deterrence. Thus, with only a few caveats and exceptions, the
literature on nuclear deterrence makes a rather unambiguous prediction.8
Nuke War – A2 Extinction
Extinction Theories are Wrong – no evidence nuke war kills us all
Jack Greene, Former deputy assistant director of research, US defense Civil Preparedness Agency, NUCLEAR
WAR: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS, 1985, p. 72
On the question of whether the United States would recover following a massive nuclear attack, the jury is still
out - and most probably always will be. Everyone hopes and most people believe the question will always remain in the abstract. The probability of
nuclear war seems very remote, and we will never know for sure whether recovery is possible unless nuclear war actually occurs. No nation can
realistically hope to be better off after a nuclear exchange than it was before. One might inflict more damage on the other
than itself sustained, but any such "victory" would be a Pyrrhic one. The argument that a nuclear war could eliminate the human
species or bring an end to civilization as we know it has not stood up to the light of objective and scientific
examination. New hypotheses for doom and disaster will arise, and they must be examined and evaluated. But no
prudent society will allow unproved hypotheses to exert a paralyzing influence on its preparedness programs.
Nuke War – A2 Radiation Poisoning
UV radiation is no big deal
Bruce Clayton, PhD, Ecology, NUCLEAR WAR: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS, 1985, p. 104
If the UV threat did in fact materialize, its effects on terrestrial life would be manageable and temporary.
Remember that the high UV levels would be present only during daylight hours. Nights would be normal.
Humans would wear protective clothing and would stay out of the sun during the middle of the day. Wild
animals already confine their activities to the night, early morning and early evening when UV levels would not
be a problem. Even animals as stupid as cows have a history of sleeping in the shade during the day and grazing
at night when suffering from sunburn (brought on by eating sensitizing poisonous plants).
***Prolif
Prolif – Leaders Responsible
Countries become more responsible with their nuclear arsenals over time
Michael Horowitz Department of Political Science UPenn 09
Sage Journals, "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons and International Conflict Does Experience Matter?" April 2009
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/53/2/234.full.pdf+html [Lockwood]
Does the fact that new nuclear states lack experience in dealing with nuclear weapons influence the way they
behave and the way they are treated by potential adversaries? This question is highly relevant for both academics and policy makers. In the United
States, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and especially nuclear weapons, has been at the top of the foreign-policy agenda for
decades. Given that nuclear weapons have not been used in war since 1945, that modern biological weapons have arguably never been used in warfare,
and that the risk of chemical weapons is often considered exaggerated, one might think preventing the proliferation of WMDs is not a critical policy
issue. However, the proliferation of new weapons systems can have a profound impact on international politics even
at levels short of war. The impact on the coercive power of states and the potential for actual use make nuclear weapons potentially destabilizing in the
international security environment. This article presents a quantitative test of the belief in policy circles and one of the central
arguments of this special journal issue (Gartzke and Kroenig 2009, this issue) that nuclear weapons increase the coercive bargaining power of the states
that possess them. While it is almost certainly true that nuclear weapons affect the balance of power between states,
it is also possible that variations in experience with nuclear weapons are relevant for international
politics. Specifically, the length of time countries have nuclear weapons may influence both the way they think about how to use their arsenal to
achieve national goals and they way they are perceived by adversaries; nuclear learning may occur. The results of this project provide strong initial
evidence that nuclear states and their opponents behave differently over time in dispute situations. New nuclear states, with a nascent
arsenal and lack of experience in nuclearized disputes, play the "nuclear card" significantly more often than
their more experienced nuclear counterparts, making them more likely to reciprocate militarized disputes.
Perhaps counterintuitively, more experienced nuclear states reciprocate disputes less frequently,
which suggests perhaps that opponents learn over time about how to calibrate their challenges against nuclear powers. The results have both academic
and policy relevance. The successful coercion of a state in situations short of war becomes much more difficult in the years immediately following a
state's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation, therefore, may risk more dangerous militarized disputes, or
opponents of new nuclear states may back down and make concessions to avoid conflict.
Experienced states, like the US, have learned to effectively leverage nuclear weapons over time
Another plausible alternative worth mentioning is the idea that experienced nuclear states may be viewed as
more responsible in dealing with nuclear issues— too responsible. Older nuclear states' safe experience with nuclear weapons may undermine their
ability to credibly leverage nuclear capabilities in militarized disputes, especially in disputes involving nonvital areas of interest. Adversaries will
discount the possibility of nuclear escalation if the issue does not affect the vital interests of the nuclear state. Nuclear experience could
therefore lead to the opposite result as that hypothesized above.7 However, the logic of experience drawn from Sagan and the
information provided to all sides after dispute participation by new nuclear states would seem to suggest that
nuclear learning should help experienced nuclear powers more effectively leverage their weapons,
which will also influence adversary perceptions rather than undermine their credibility. Finally, it is important to recognize that these
concepts are somewhat indeterminate. The logics of experience and uncertainty are not the only way to think about nuclear
learning, and they could also be drawn out to come to very different conclusions. As a first cut at the question, the point of the empirical tests that follow
is precisely to test these extrapolations of some of the deterrence literature and generate initial insights about the relationship between the amount of
time a state has nuclear weapons, its behavior, and the behavior of its potential opponents.
Prolif – Slow
Empirically the NPT has slowed proliferation
Graham Allison Director at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Faculty Chair at Dubai
Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School 10
Foreign Affairs 89 no. 1, "Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats," Jan/Feb 2010
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19819/nuclear_disorder.html [Lockwood]
The George Marshall Question After listening to a compelling briefing for a proposal or even in summarizing an argument presented by himself,
Secretary of State George Marshall was known to pause and ask, "But how could we be wrong?" In that spirit, it is important to examine the
reasons why the nonproliferation regime might actually be more robust than it appears. Start with the
bottomline. There are no more nuclear weapons states now than there were at the end of the Cold War. Since then,
one undeclared and largely unrecognized nuclear weapons state, South Africa, eliminated its arsenal, and one new state, North Korea, emerged as the
sole self-declared but unrecognized nuclear weapon state. One hundred and eighty-four nations have forsworn the
acquisition of nuclear weapons and signed the NPT. At least 13 countries have begun down the path to
developing nuclear weapons with serious intent, and were technologically capable of completing the journey, but stopped short of the finish
line: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Libya, Romania, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia. Four countries had nuclear
weapons but eliminated them. South Africa completed six nuclear weapons in the 1980s and then, prior to the transfer of power to the postapartheid
government, dismantled them. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine together inherited more than 4, 000 strategic nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union
dissolved in December 1991. As a result of negotiated agreements among Russia, the United States, and each of these states, all of these weapons were
returned to Russia for dismantlement. One thousand six hundred and forty of Ukraine's strategic nuclear warheads were dismantled, and the highly
enriched uranium was blended down to produce low-enriched uranium, which was sold to the United States to fuel its nuclear power plants. Few
Americans are aware that, thanks to the Megatons to Megawatts Program, half of all the electricity produced by
nuclear power plants in the United States over the past decade has been fueled by enriched uranium blended
down from the cores of nuclear warheads originally designed to destroy American cities.
The nuclear domino has never fallen – multiple examples
Johan Bergenas Research Associate at Henry L. Stimson Center 10
Council Of Foreign Affairs, "The Nuclear Domino Myth" 9/31/2010 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66738/johan-bergenas/the-nucleardomino-myth?page=show [Lockwood]
When considering the dangers of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, those who differ on political ideology find rare common ground. According
to nearly everyone, if Iran develops nuclear weapons, its neighbors will inevitably do so, too. Former U.S. Senator Sam
Nunn (D-Ga.), for example, said earlier this year, "The governments of the world must understand what a threat it is if the Iranians get nuclear weapons,
because there are probably 10 other countries in the Middle East over the next 10 to 20 years that would follow down that road." U.S. policymakers from
John Bolton, the conservative former U.S. ambassador to the UN, to Vice President Joe Biden all seem to agree with this dark prediction. But there's
one problem with this "nuclear domino" scenario: the historical record does not support it. Since the dawn of
the nuclear age, many have feared rapid and widespread nuclear proliferation; 65 years later, only nine
countries have developed nuclear weapons. Nearly 20 years elapsed between the emergence of the first nuclear state, the
United States, in 1945, and the fifth, China, in 1964. The next 40 years gave birth to only five additional nuclear countries: India, Israel, South Africa,
Pakistan, and North Korea. South Africa voluntarily disarmed in the 1990s, as did Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine following the dissolution of the
Soviet Union. After Israel developed a nuclear weapons capability in the late 1960s, no regional nuclear chain
reaction followed, even though the country is surrounded by rivals. Nor was there even a two-country nuclear
arms race in the region. Similarly, it has now been four years since North Korea became a nuclear
weapons state, yet South Korea and Japan have not followed suit, despite the fact that they have a latent
nuclear weapons capability -- access to the fissile material necessary for nuclear weapons. These countries'
decisions to not go nuclear are largely thanks to extensive U.S. efforts to dissuade them. Both South Korea and Japan enjoy
firm and long-standing security assurances from Washington, including protection under the U.S. strategic nuclear umbrella, obviating the need for their
own deterrents. Following North Korea's 2006 nuclear test, U.S. President George W. Bush immediately assured South Korea and Japan that the United
States was unequivocally committed to protecting them. The fruit of these efforts to prevent rapid and widespread nuclear proliferation, then, is the very
reason a nuclear domino effect remains a myth. In the Middle East, there are no signs that the nuclear dominos will fall anytime soon. Although many
governments believe that Iran could be one to three years away from developing a nuclear bomb, all other Middle Eastern countries
(besides Israel) are at least 10 to 15 years away from reaching such a capability.
Proliferation has slowed to a glacial pace since the end of the cold war
Alexandre Debs and Nuno Monteiro Department of Political Science at Yale 10
Department of Government at Cornell University "Deterring Nuclear Proliferation: Polarity, Credibility, and Preventive War " 9/26/2010,
http://government.arts.cornell.edu/assets/psac/fa10/DebsMonteiro_PSAC_Oct1.pdf [Lockwood]
During the Cold War, the objective risk of proliferation was high, with tens of countries trying to develop nuclear weapons and
seven eventually acquiring them. Yet neither the Soviet Union nor the United States were willing to threaten or wage war in order to prevent
proliferation. In contrast, the post-Cold War has seen rare attempts at proliferation and only one instance thereof,
North Korea (see Figure 1, taken from (Sagan, 2010, 4)). But, contrary to its Cold War posture, Washington now seems willing to
threaten and wage war to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. In fact, fear of nuclear proliferation led President
Clinton close to war with North Korea in 1994; drove president Bush to invade Iraq nine years later; and continues to
press grave dilemmas on president Obama concerning Iran. What accounts for the low level of proliferation since the end of the
Cold War? And what explains the contemporary – and apparently irrational – fear of proliferation?
Prolif – US Solves
U.S. would check any country trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Interestingly, the
likelihood of acquisition and preventive war depend in a simple way on the effect of proliferation
on the balance of power. The greater this effect, the less likely the target is to acquire nuclear weapons and the more likely the deterrer is to
launch a preventive war. The logic is as follows. As the effect of nuclear acquisition on the balance of power increases,
then everything else being equal, the deterrer is more tempted to declare war to prevent the adverse shift.
Therefore, in order to preserve the equilibrium condition, where the deterrer is indifferent between war and peace, the probability with which the target
decides to invest in nuclear weapons must decrease. At the same time, the greater the effect of acquisition on the balance of power, then everything else
being equal, the target would benefit more from developing nuclear weapons, and would therefore be more tempted to proliferate. Consequently, in
order to leave the target indifferent in what concerns the decision to proliferate, the deterrer must be more
likely to declare preventive war. Combining these results – a lower probability of proliferation and a higher probability of preventive war –
we also conclude that, as the effect of investment on the balance of power increases, mistaken preventive wars become more likely. This model
therefore offers a simple answer to our initial questions. In the bipolar world of the Cold War, nuclear
proliferation had little effect on the balance of power and the costs of war were very high. Thus, nuclear
proliferation continued apace, with wars unlikely to be waged to preventive it. In the post-Cold War period, the balance of
power in any dyad is heavily favoring the U.S., who can launch preventive wars at a relatively low cost. Nuclear acquisition could significantly improve a
state's power relative to the U.S. Thus, the U.S. should be concerned with nuclear proliferation, while recognizing that the credibility of its threat to strike
preventively ensures the general success of its counterproliferation policy. At the core of our approach is the intuition that nuclear
counterproliferation is a particular form of deterrence. Counterproliferation involves the (implicit or explicit)
threat of military action by one state against another in an attempt to dissuade the latter from effecting a shift in their
relative power through the development of nuclear weapons. This is a particular instance of the more general problem of deterrence, which
refers to any attempt by one agent at discouraging a certain behavior in another agent by threatening with negative consequences in case that behavior is
implemented. In short, counterproliferation is a problem of deterrence. Throughout the Cold War, deterrence was the cornerstone
of peace. Policymakers practiced it incessantly and IR scholars spent a great deal of time theorizing it, developing deterrence theory as one of the
largest and most influential bodies of IR literature.2
Prolif – A2 Asia
Troops and nuclear umbrella stop any asian proliferation
Although they do not minimize the consequences of North Korea's or Iran's becoming a nuclear weapons state, those
confident in the stability
of the nuclear order are dubious about the prospects of a cascade of proliferation occurring in Northeast Asia,
the Middle East, or elsewhere. In Japan, nuclear neuralgia has deep roots. The Japanese people suffered the consequences of the only two nuclear
weapons ever exploded in war. Despite their differences, successive Japanese governments have remained confident in the U. S.
nuclear umbrella and in the cornerstone of the United States' national security strategy in Asia, the U.S.-Japanese security alliance. The South
Koreans fear a nuclear-armed North Korea, but they are even more fearful of life without the U. S. nuclear
umbrella and U. S. troops on the peninsula. Taiwan is so penetrated and seduced by China that the terror of getting caught cheating
makes it a poor candidate to go nuclear. And although rumors of the purchase by Myanmar (also called Burma) of a Yongbyon-style
nuclear reactor from North Korea cannot be ignored, questions arise about whether the country would be able to successfully
operate it.
Prolif – A2 Middle East
Domino proliferation could never occur in the Middle East – Technological constraints
Such mistaken beliefs are due in part to the West's poor understanding of Iran. After more than 30 years of severed
diplomatic, cultural, and educational relations with the country, the West knows little about Iran's leadership, national aspirations, and culture.
Because of this, policymakers have a difficult time thinking about the implications of a nuclear Iran and resort to
simplistic grandstanding, reprising outdated political fears that lack historical nuance or modern perspective. The exaggerated fears have been useful,
too: had the United States not presented Iran's nuclear aspirations in the darkest of lights, it may not have been able to gain support for four rounds of
UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic in the last few years. Another reason for the persistence of worst-case thinking is that
the domino analogy is often discussed interchangeably with bilateral arms races, such as those between the United States
and the former Soviet Union, and between India and Pakistan. These are two distinct concepts, however. The Cold War and
South Asian cases represent dyadic arms buildups -- a scenario that cannot be ruled out in the Middle East.
Even though this hypothetical should be of great concern, it is far from the nightmare nuclear
domino effect, which by definition requires many more countries to speedily develop nuclear weapons. In
the Middle East, this type of rapid development is just not technologically feasible.
Few middle eastern countries have to ability to acquire nuclear weapons
In the Middle East, it is important to separate abstract aspirations from realistic plans. Few countries in the region have the
scientific and technical infrastructure to support a nuclear weapons program. Saudi Arabia is a plausible buyer,
although the United States would certainly make a vigorous effort to persuade it that it would be more secure
under a U. S. nuclear umbrella than under its own. Egypt's determination to acquire nuclear weapons, meanwhile, is limited by its weak
scientific and technical infrastructure, unless it were able to rent foreign expertise. And a Turkish nuclear bomb would not only
jeopardize Turkey's role in NATO but also undercut whatever chances the country has for acceding to the EU.
U.S. pushing for NFWZ
More generally, the United States is trying to reinforce a culture of nonproliferation in the Middle East. In late 2009,
Washington concluded an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to forego the enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel -- crucial steps in the
development of nuclear weapons. (In return, the United Arab Emirates will receive help developing a civilian nuclear-energy program.) Similar
overtures are being made to both Saudi Arabia and Jordan, states that are pursuing civilian nuclear-power programs to diversify
their energy supplies. Another achievement came during the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review
Conference, when the United States endorsed the convening of a regional meeting on establishing a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. The summit is due to be held in 2012 and, although Israel's nuclear weapons
complicate matters, could serve as another step toward cementing a nonproliferation culture in the region. These are major accomplishments in
preventing proliferation in the Middle East, and they contradict the worst-case scenarios about a nuclear Iran. Yet they have done little to reassure those
who expect a chain reaction of proliferating states.
Prolif – A2 Iran
Any threat by Iran would not be credible – prevents a hostage scenario
Other fears about a nuclear Iran are less convincing. It is often said, for example, that Iran's neighbors will be held hostage to Tehran's atomic tyranny.
Undoubtedly, a nuclear Iran will gain regional prestige and power, and the country would be able to exert increased pressure on
other nations. But
the offensive utility of nuclear weapons is questionable; they have not been used since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All other nuclear powers have relied on their nuclear capabilities for deterrence, and
there is no reason to believe that Iran would act differently. Any Iranian threats to use nuclear weapons would simply not be
credible. And without credibility, Iran -- like any country -- would not be able to hold another country hostage.
Iran wont collapse the NPT – structural integrity
Others claim that the global nonproliferation regime would quickly crumble if Iran went nuclear. According to them,
a nuclear Iran may damage the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the agreement under which states endorse nuclear disarmament and pledge not
to develop nuclear weapons. If Iran were to emerge as a nuclear weapons state after cheating on its treaty obligations, the NPT's legitimacy would
certainly suffer a blow. It would take more than Iran cheating on the treaty, however, to nudge the NPT into the abyss
of irrelevance. The NPT is one of the most successful international accords in history, currently enjoying almost universal
membership. Its more than 180 committed parties are unlikely to allow Iran's nuclear program to demolish an
institution that is -- and has been for four decades -- the foundation of nonproliferation efforts. And if Iran has the
power to make the NPT collapse, it is questionable whether the treaty is worth preserving in the first place.
Prolif – A2 South America
Treaty of Tlatelolco stops any south american proliferation
Looking elsewhere, Brazil
is now operating an enrichment facility but has signed the Treaty of Tlatelolco,
which outlaws nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, and has accepted robust legal constraints,
including those of the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials. Other than South Africa, which retains the
stockpile of 30 bombs' worth of highly enriched uranium that was once part of its nuclear program, it is difficult to identify other countries
that might realistically become nuclear weapons states in the foreseeable future. Such arguments for skepticism have a certain
plausibility. The burden of evidence and analysis, however, supports the view that current trends pose unacceptable risks. As the bipartisan
Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which was led by former Secretaries of Defense William Perry
James Schlesinger,
concluded in 2009, "The risks of a proliferation 'tipping point' and of nuclear terrorism
underscore the urgency of acting now."
Prolif – A2 NPT collapse
Problematic countries don't care about the NPT – South Africa, Iraq, and North Korea
Scott Sagan Department of Political Science at Stanford University 11
Annual Reviews, "The Causes of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation" 3/21/2011 http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052209131042 [Lockwood]
Despite this lack of consensus about the central causes of nuclear proliferation, there are two specific agreements in both the case-study and the
quantitative political science literature: (a) the NPT does not have significant effects on the likelihood of proliferation and (b) regime type has only a
minimal effect on proliferation. Because of the (false) consensus that the capability to build nuclear weapons is already widely available, most political
scientists studying proliferation are highly skeptical of the potential effect of efforts to control the supply of nuclear technology. Hymans (2006, p. 220)
argues that "given the widespread diffusion of nuclear capacities, supply-side control measures against potential
proliferant states are clearly of declining utility." Jo & Gartzke (2007a, pp. 185–86) maintain that "the inhibiting effect of the
NPT is overcome by the stronger technological diffusion effect" and conclude that "enthusiasm for the NPT
among proliferation opponents thus appears to be misplaced." Solingen (2007, p. 31) also expresses skepticism about the
effectiveness of the treaty: "Would more states have opted for nuclear weapons had the NPT never been concluded? Not necessarily . . . " Betts (2000, p.
69) makes the most extreme argument, from a realist perspective, about the irrelevance of the NPT: As useful as
treaties are, it is a misconception to see them as a solution. They are effects of nonproliferation, not
causes of it. The NPT and CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) reflect the intent of their adherents to abjure nuclear weapons. To date,
the countries considered problematic—those that might acquire nuclear weapons—simply did not join the NPT
(South Africa stayed out while it had a nuclear weapons program and joined when it decided to get rid of it). Or else they joined and
cheated (Iraq and North Korea). . . . If the NPT or CTBT themselves prevent proliferation, one should be able to
name at least one
***Resource Wars
Resource Wars – No Impact
Resource Wars Theory – Doesn't happen
David Victor 07 , David G. Victor is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and the director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable
Development, November 12, 2007, What Resource Wars?, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=16020
RISING ENERGY prices and mounting concerns about environmental depletion have animated fears that the
world may be headed for a spate of "resource wars"-hot conflicts triggered by a struggle to grab valuable
resources. Such fears come in many stripes, but the threat industry has sounded the alarm bells especially loudly in three areas. First is the rise of
China, which is poorly endowed with many of the resources it needs-such as oil, gas, timber and most minerals-and has already "gone out" to the world
with the goal of securing what it wants. Violent conflicts may follow as the country shunts others aside. A second potential path down the road to
resource wars starts with all the money now flowing into poorly governed but resource-rich countries. Money can fund civil wars and other hostilities,
even leaking into the hands of terrorists. And third is global climate change, which could multiply stresses on natural resources and trigger water wars,
catalyze the spread of disease or bring about mass migrations.
Most of this is bunk, and nearly all of it has focused on the wrong lessons for policy. Classic resource wars are good
material for Hollywood screenwriters. They rarely occur in the real world. To be sure, resource money can
magnify and prolong some conflicts, but the root causes of those hostilities usually lie elsewhere. Fixing them
requires focusing on the underlying institutions that govern how resources are used and largely determine
whether stress explodes into violence. When conflicts do arise, the weak link isn't a dearth in resources but a dearth in governance.
Environmental resource conflicts settled by negotiation and compromise, not war
GOLDSTONE 02 professor of public policy, George Mason
Jack Goldstone, Population and Security: How Demographic Change Can Lead to Violent Conflict., JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,
Fall2002, Vol. 56, p. 123
Should we therefore dismiss the environment as a cause of conflict? No, although I believe we can be free of the fear that environmental decay will
unleash wars and revolutions across the globe. Rather, what research has shown is that although environmental issues do cause
international and domestic conflicts, they are of the kind that are generally settled by negotiation and
compromise and do not lead to taking up arms. The reason for that is straightforward. Where the problem
faced by two groups, or two nations, is over the degradation or depletion of an environmental resource, war
neither solves the problem (it cannot make more of the resource) nor is it an economically efficient way to
redistribute the resource (the costs of war almost invariably far outweigh the cost of gaining alternative
resources or paying more for a share of the resource). For example, if two nations have a conflict over sharing river water—such as
India and Bangladesh over the Ganges, Israel and Jordan over the river Jordan or Hungary and Slovakia over the Danube they may threaten violence but
in fact are most likely to produce non-violent resolution through negotiation or arbitration rather than war (and indeed all of these conflicts led to
treaties or international arbitration. The reason is that for one party to insist on all the water would in fact be a casus belli; and to risk a war to simply
increase one's access to water is economically foolhardy. Throughout the world, the main use of freshwater (over three-quarters) is for irrigation to
produce food. A reduction in water can be compensated either by adopting more efficient means of irrigation (drip rather than ditch); by switching to
less water-intensive crops (dry grains rather than rice; tree crops rather than grains); or by importing food rather than producing it. All of these steps,
though costly, are far, far, less costly than armed conflict. Thus for both the country with the ability to take more water and the
country dependent on downstream flows, the issue will be how to use and negotiate use of the resource most
efficiently; resort to war would inevitably be more costly than any gains that could be made from increased
access to the resource. No nations have ever gone to war strictly over access to water; nor are any likely to do so
Resource Wars – A2 China
China will not engage in wars over resources
VICTOR 07 professor of law at Stanford Law School and the director of the Program on Energy and
David Victor, November 12, 2007, What Resource Wars?, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=16020
Most importantly, China's
going-out strategy is unlikely to spur resource wars because it simply does not work, a
lesson the Chinese are learning. Oil is a fungible commodity, and when it is sourced far from China it is better
to sell (and buy) the oil on the world market. The best estimates suggest that only about one-tenth of the oil
produced overseas by Chinese investments (so-called "equity oil") actually makes it back to the country. So, thus
far, the largest beneficiaries of China's strategy are the rest of the world's oil consumers—first and foremost the United States—who gain because China
subsidizes production. Until recently, the strategy of going out for oil looked like a good bet for China's interests. But, despite threat-industry fearmongering, we need not worry that it will continue over the long term because Chinese enterprises are already poised to follow a new strategy that is less
likely to engender conflict. The past strategy rested on a trifecta of passing fads. One fad was the special access that Chinese state enterprises had to
cheap capital from the government and by retaining their earnings. The ability to direct that spigot to political projects is diminishing as China engages
in reforms that expose state enterprises to the real cost of capital and as the Chinese state and its enterprises look for better commercial returns on the
money they invest. Second, nearly all the equity-oil investments overseas have occurred since the late 1990s, as prices have been rising. Each has looked
much smarter than the last because of the surging value of oil in the ground. But that trend is slowing in many places because the cost of discovering and
developing oil resources is rising. And the third passing fad in China's going-out strategy is the fiction that China can cut special deals—such as by
channeling development assistance to pliable host governments—to confer a durable advantage for Chinese companies. While there is no question that
the special deals are rampant—by some measures, most of China's foreign assistance is actually tied to natural-resources projects—the Chinese
government and its overseas enterprises are learning that it is best to avoid these places for the long haul. Among the special havens where Chinese
companies toil are Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Iran and Zimbabwe—all countries where even Chinese firms find it hard to assure adequate stability to reliably
extract natural resources. As China grapples with these hard truths about going out, the strategy will come unstuck. It won't happen overnight, but
evidence in this direction is encouraging. China already pursues the opposite strategy—seeking reliable hosts, multiple commercial partners and marketoriented contracts—when it secures natural resources that require technical sophistication. China's first supplies of imported natural gas, which started
last year at a liquefied natural gas terminal in Shenzhen, came from blue-chip investments in Australia, governed by contracts and investments with
major Western companies. With time, China will shift to such arrangements and away from the armpits of governance. At best, badly governed countries
are mediocre hosts for projects that export bulk commodities, such as iron ore and raw crude oil. These projects, however, are least likely to
engender zero-sum conflicts over resources because it is particularly difficult to corner the market for widely
traded commodities, as China has learned with its equity-oil projects. Resources that require technical
sophistication to develop tend to favor integration and stability, rather than a zero-sum struggle.
***Russia War
Russia War – Domestic Problems
Domestic problems prevent Russia from being a threat
Lieber '08 Robert is professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown (World Affairs, "Falling Upwards", Summer 2008)
Farther East, and despite its economic recovery and the restoration of central power under Putin, Russia remains overwhelmingly
dependent on the current boom in energy and commodity prices—and correspondingly vulnerable in the event
of their decline. The country suffers from pervasive corruption, with a ranking from Transparency International that puts it at 121
among 163 countries in this category. Its population, already less than half that of the U.S. and plagued with alcoholism,
chronic violence, a decrepit health-care system, and a male life expectancy of fewer than 60 years of age (lower
than that of Bangladesh), shrinks by some half a million people per year. And its army, while bidding for
attention and resources, remains weak and in disarray. As The Economist recently summarized Putin's Russia, it has become one of
the most "criminalized, corrupt and bureaucratized countries in the world." True, the Putin regime plays to its domestic base with
strident nationalism and xenophobia. In doing so, it has actively opposed and occasionally subverted American policies on some issues
while providing a degree of cooperation on others. Instances of the former include opposition to NATO enlargement and to the stationing of anti-missile
systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, the use of oil and gas resources as leverage against neighboring countries, overt and covert pressure against
former Soviet Republics, and arms sales to Syria and Iran. Yet Moscow grudgingly collaborates where it has shared concerns, as with North Korea and
combating terrorism. Russia presents a problem for the United States, but its erratic behavior, its priorities at home,
and its own internal decline put it well short of being a major power challenger.
Russia War – No Military Threat
No nuclear threat- Russia's weapons are useless
Lieber and Press '6 Keir is a professor of political science at Notre Dame and Daryl G. is an associate professor of political science at the
University of Pennsylvania (Foreign Affairs, "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" March/April 2006)
EVEN AS the United States' nuclear forces have grown stronger since the end of the Cold War, Russia's
strategic nuclear arsenal has
sharply deteriorated. Russia has 39 percent fewer long-range bombers, S8 percent fewer ICBMs, and 8o percent fewer SSBNS than the Soviet
Union fielded during its last days. The true extent of the Russian arsenal's decay, however, is much greater than these cuts suggest. What nuclear
forces Russia retains are hardly ready for use. Russia's strategic bombers, now located at only two bases and thus
vulnerable to a surprise attack, rarely conduct training exercises, and their warheads are stored off-base. Over
8o percent of Russia's silo-based ICBMS have exceeded their original service lives, and plans to replace them
with new missiles have been stymied by failed tests and low rates of production. Russia's mobile ICBMS rarely
patrol, and although they could fire their missiles from inside their bases if given sufficient warning of an
attack, it appears unlikely that they would have the time to do so. The third leg of Russia's nuclear triad has weakened the most.
Since 2000, Russia's SSBNS have conducted approximately two patrols per year, down from 6o in 1990. (By contrast, the U.S. SSBN patrol rate today is
about 40 per year.) Most of the time, all nine of Russia's ballistic missile submarines are sitting in port, where they make easy targets. Moreover,
submarines require well-trained crews to be effective. Operating a ballistic missile submarine-and silently coordinating its operations with surface ships
and attack submarines to evade an enemy's forces-is not simple. Without frequent patrols, the skills of Russian submariners, like the submarines
themselves, are decaying. Revealingly, a 2004 test (attended by President Vladimir Putin) of several submarine-launched ballistic missiles was a total
fiasco: all either failed to launch or veered off course. The fact that there were similar failures in the summer and fall of 2005 completes this unflat tering
picture of Russia's nuclear forces. Compounding these problems, Russia's early warning system is a mess. Neither Soviet
nor Russian satellites have ever been capa ble of reliably detecting missiles launched from U.S. submarines. (In
a recent public statement, a top Russian general described his country's early warning satellite constellation as
"hopelessly out dated.")
OR conventional threat- Russia's army obsolete
Trenin '9 Dmitri, Ph.D., is director of the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Stimson Center, "RUSSIA AND THE
UNITED STATES", June 2009, https://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Russia_US_Format_FINAL.pdf)
Russia has declared that, in order to defend its own sovereignty, territorial security, and the territorial security of its allies, it would use nuclear weapons,
even if it were the first nation in the conflict to use of them. This is a striking departure from the Soviet declaratory stance which proclaimed a "no-firstuse" doctrine. This declaratory change of heart is attributable to the dramatic change in its own condition and resources, including its military
capabilities, rather than Russia's strategic environment. Russia's conventional forces have been redeployed from the forward
positions they previously occupied in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Afghanistan,
and Mongolia. Russia's defense perimeter has moved closer to Moscow, reducing its strategic depth in the west by
about 1,000 kilometers (km). Russia's conventional forces, also reduced to about one-third of their Soviet size, have
still not been restructured for modern warfare and their quality has deteriorated drastically. Russia's military
has a top-heavy structure, with an outsized overhang of flag officers and colonels, a pathetic shortage of
company officers, and a complete lack of professional non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Its weapons and
equipment are obsolete, with virtually no combat systems purchased since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its
training exercises have only been resumed recently, after a break of a decade and a half. Russia took a long time and a lot of effort to defeat the
insurgency in Chechnya, and although it did defeat Georgia in the short war in 2008, its conventional forces are no match for the
forces of its principal neighbors—NATO in the west and China in the east.
Russia War – US Would Win
US would win the war—has nuclear weapons dominance and could destroy Russia with a single
Artyukov and Trukhachev '06 Center for Research on Globalization
("US capable of wiping out Russia's nuclear capacity in a single strike", March 23, 2006,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2154)
For the first time in the last 50 years the
USA is on the verge of attaining ultimate domination with regard to nuclear
weapons. This means that Russia is no longer able to keep up with the United States. If a conflict were to break
out, the USA would be able to quickly and with impunity attack Russian territory, and Russia would have no
means to mount a response. This is roughly the message of an article published in the latest edition of the American journal Foreign Affairs.
Its authors calculated that in comparison with the USSR, the amount of strategic bombers at Russia's disposal has fallen by 39%, intercontinental
ballistic missiles by 58% and the number of submarines with ballistic missiles by 80%. "However the true scale of the collapse of the Russian arsenal is
much greater than can be judged from these figures," they write. "The strategic nuclear forces now at Russia's disposal are barely
fit to be used in battle." Russian radar is now incapable of detecting the launch of American missiles from
submarines located in some regions of the Pacific Ocean. Russian anti-air defense systems might not manage to intercept B-2
stealth bombers in time, which could easily mean that they are able to inflict a strike with impunity on Russian nuclear forces. If Russian missile
forces continue to decrease at the current rate, then in about 10 years only isolated missiles, which the
American anti-missile defense is capable of intercepting, will be able to deliver a retaliatory blow. "It will
probably soon be possible for the USA to destroy the strategic nuclear potential of Russia and China with a
single strike," says the article.
***Soft Power
Soft Power – Fails
Soft power fails- no policy implications
Gray, PHD @ Oxford and Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of
Reading and director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, 11- ("Hard Power and Soft Power: The Utility of
Military Force as an Instrument of Policy in the 21st Century." April 08, 2011
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubid=1059 [JUNEJA])
Unfortunately, although the concept of American soft power is true gold in theory, in practice it is not so
valuable. Ironically, the empirical truth behind the attractive concept is just sufficient to mislead policymakers
and grand strategists. Not only do Americans want to believe that the soft power of their civilization and
culture is truly potent, we are all but programmed by our enculturation to assume that the American story and
its values do and should have what amounts to missionary merit that ought to be universal. American culture is so
powerful a programmer that it can be difficult for Americans to empathize with, or even understand, the somewhat different values and their
implications held deeply abroad. The idea is popular, even possibly authoritative, among Americans that ours is not just an "ordinary country," but
instead is a country both exceptionally blessed (by divine intent) and, as a consequence, exceptionally obliged to lead Mankind. When national
exceptionalism is not merely a proposition, but is more akin to an iconic item of faith, it is difficult for usually balanced American minds to consider the
potential of their soft power without rose-tinted spectacles. And the problem is that they are somewhat correct. American values, broadly speaking "the
American way," to hazard a large project in reductionism, are indeed attractive beyond America's frontiers and have some utility for U.S. policy. But
there are serious limitations to the worth of the concept of soft power, especially as it might be thought of as an
instrument of policy. To date, the idea of soft power has not been subjected to a sufficiently critical forensic
examination. In particular, the relation of the soft power of attraction and persuasion to the hard power of
coercion urgently requires more rigorous examination than it has received thus far.
Soft Power – Hard Power Solves
Soft power is not better than hard power- usage matters
Nye, PHD @ Harvard, 06- (Foreign Policy: "Think Again: Soft Power." 2006. <http://www2.ihis.aau.dk/political-economy/NYE.doc.> [JUNEJA]
"Soft power is better than hard power" Not
necessarily. Because soft power has appeared as an alternative to raw power
politics, it is often embraced by ethically-minded scholars and policymakers. But soft power is a descriptive
rather than a normative concept. Like any form of power, it can be wielded for good or bad purposes. Hitler,
Stalin, Mao and bin Laden all possessed a great deal of soft power in the eyes of their acolytes, but that did not
make it good. It is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist arms. If I want to steal your money, I can threaten you with
a gun, or I can swindle you with a get rich scheme in which you invest. I can also persuade you that I am a guru
to whom you should hand over your estate and that I will save the world. The third means depends upon attraction or soft
power, but the result remains fraud and theft.
Many world problems do not lend themselves to soft power solutions- hard power is critical
"Some goals can only be achieved by hard power." True.
Soft power is not the solution to all problems. For example, even
though North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il likes to watch Hollywood movies, that is unlikely to affect his
decision to give up his nuclear weapons program. Such a choice would be determined by hard power,
particularly in the unlikely case that China were to agree to economic sanctions. Neither will soft power be
sufficient to stop the Iranian nuclear program, though the legitimacy of the Administration's current multilateral approach may help to
recruit other countries to a coalition that isolates Iran. And soft power got nowhere in attracting the Taliban government away
from its support for Al Qaeda in the 1990s. It took American hard military power to end that.
Hard Power is key to Soft power
Joffe, publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, 00- (Berkley Interviews: "The Power of the United
States." 2000. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Joffe/joffe-con4.html [JUNEJA])
In this world of two worlds, so to speak, different kinds of power are important, and in your writing a theme emerges partly first defined by Joe Nye at
Harvard, of soft power. Tell us a little about that and how that compares to the traditional power base in the world of insecurity. I think power has
to be seen like a bundle of currencies. Traditionally the most important currency of power was military power,
strategic power. Machiavelli said it's easier to get gold with good soldiers than to get good soldiers with gold. So
on top, the most fungible of all currency is strategic. Then you can go down to all kinds of other "currencies": economic power, the
attraction of your political and social system, even of your movies and your TV, your diplomatic skills. Or the power radiating from ideas: part of the
great power that the Soviet Union had for a while was that this idea of socialism was a very powerful, attractive idea which inspired the entire Third
World after decolonization. Everybody wanted a kind a Marxist-Soviet model of economic development and one-party states. So in the Berlin-Berkeley
Belt, where the strategic issue for the time being does not arise, those who have the most soft power sources will do very well, such as Germany. But also
the United States. Yes. But the most important thing is, the best deal you can get is when hard power and soft power come together. The Vatican
has a lot of soft power but it has no hard power and so that means the influence of the Vatican is limited.
Switzerland has a lot of soft power but nothing in the hard power field. So if you really want to sit pretty today
you have to be like the United States, because the United States has all of these resources in spades. It's the
mightiest military power in the world, it is the mightiest economy. Everybody looks in envy to the way America has restructured
its economy beginning in the 1980s.
***Space Debris
Space Debris – No Impact
No impact to debris – Shielding and maneuvering
Postnote works for the British Parliament 10
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology "Space Debris" Number 355 3/2010
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/documents/upload/postpn355.pdf [Lockwood]
Protecting Satellites from Debris Satellites can be shielded against smaller pieces of debris and they can attempt to
actively avoid larger tracked debris. It is also important to reduce the "gap" between these two regimes by improving shielding and tracking.
Shielding The main problem with shielding satellites from debris is that it adds considerable mass to the satellite. Launch costs, at several thousand
pounds per kilogram, are highly dependent on mass. Shielding is essential for manned missions such as the ISS, which would
lose pressure if there were a leak in its surface. Research continues on light but strong materials for shielding.
Collision Avoidance Tracking information can be used to predict a collision in time for a satellite to manoeuvre
out of the way. For example, the ISS performs around one avoidance manoeuvre each year. However, the relatively
crude information available from the SSN makes it difficult to predict collisions accurately and there are so many close approaches that most cannot be
Space debris is at a tolerable level
Bradley and Wein '09 Andrew M. received his Ph. D. from Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University
and Lawrence M. is the Professor of Management Science and Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at
Stanford (Advances in Space Research,"Space debris: Assessing risk and responsibility", May 2009, Volume 43: 1372-1390)
More importantly, while our numerical results mimic earlier results ([Liou and Johnson, 2005] and [Walker and Martin, 2004]) that stressed the
importance of postmission deorbiting, we do not necessarily agree with the claim that the only way to prevent future problems is to remove existing large
intacts from space ([Liou and Johnson, 2006] and [Liou and Johnson, 2008]). The divergence between our views and those in (Liou and Johnson,
2006) and (Liou and Johnson, 2008) is perhaps due to the different performance metrics used. The root causes for alarm in (Liou and Johnson,
2006) and (Liou and Johnson, 2008) appear to be the growth rate of fragments and the small increase in the rate of catastrophic collisions over the next
200 years (Liou and Johnson, 2008, Fig. 2). However, the great majority of catastrophic collisions in the SOI do not involve
operational spacecraft, and are hazardous only in the sense that the fragments generated from such a collision
could subsequently damage or destroy operational spacecraft. Therefore, we introduced the notion of the lifetime
risk of an operational spacecraft as the primary performance metric. Our model predicts that the lifetime risk
is <5×10-4 over the next two centuries, and always stays <10-3 if there is very high (>98%) spacecraft deorbiting
compliance. These risks appear to be low relative to the immense cost and considerable technological
uncertainty involved in removing large objects from space, are dwarfed by the ≈20% historical missionimpacting (but not necessarily mission-ending) failure rate of spacecraft (Frost and Sullivan, 2004), and could be
overestimated if improved traffic management techniques lower future collision risks (Johnson, 2004). Hence, the
need to bring large objects down from space does not appear to be as clear cut as suggested in (Liou and Johnson,
2006) and (Liou and Johnson, 2008). Nonetheless, our model does not incorporate the possibility of intentional catastrophic collisions (ASAT tests,
space wars) that could conceivably occur in the future. In addition, Fig. 5 considers only catastrophic collisions, whereas noncatastrophic intact-fragment
collisions could easily disable an operational spacecraft. If the operational lifetime risk is modified to include noncatastrophic collisions with
fragments ≥10cm, then the sustainable risk rises by ≈50%: it increases from 2.19×10-2 to 3.09×10-2 in the base case, and increases from 4.91×104 to 7.94×10-4 in the full compliance case. Moreover, if fragments ≥ 1 cm (rather than ≥10 cm) are harmful to spacecraft (Johnson, 2004), then we (as
well as other researchers) could be underestimating the risk.
In summary, in the absence of the removal of large objects from space, the sustainable lifetime risks in Fig. 3, Fig.
4 and Fig. 5 do not appear to be obviously above or below a tolerable level. Even if these risks are deemed acceptable, it is
prudent to invest in research and development for space remediation technologies, which is a topic of current study (Proposal for forming an IAA study
group, 2000). However, given the optimality of full deorbit compliance from a societal, sustainable perspective, and the sensitivity of sustainable lifetime
risk to postmission deorbit compliance, the primary focus for policymakers should be on increasing compliance, which leads us to a discussion of
economic instruments that could be used to address this issue.
Space Debris – Other Nations Solve
Russia solves the impact by 2023
Julie Beck Popular Science 10
"Russia Invests $2 Billion to Clean Up Space Debris" 11/29/2010, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/russia-invests-2-billion-cleanspace-debris [Lockwood]
Hare-brained schemes
for cleaning up space debris have been batted around for some time, but Russia has finally put
some money down on a real project. Russia's space corporation, Energia, is going to invest $2 billion to build a
space pod to fly around and knock the junk out of orbit and out of our way. Hopefully it will burn up in the atmosphere, or land in
the ocean, and not rain down on Chinese villagers. This pod could help reopen orbits that are currently inaccessible to future spacecraft due to the
amount of shredded metal and empty hulls of dead satellites floating around. Using an ion drive, it will gently nudge these useless
scraps out of orbit. Energia plans to have completed testing on the pod, which will have a nuclear power core,
by 2020, and have it in service no later than three years after. It will have a lifespan of about 15 years, enough
time to make a significant dent in our space debris problem. Energia is also working on developing an "interceptor" spacecraft
using similar technology. This craft would be able to derail any incoming comets or other outer-space projectiles that might be hurtling towards Earth,
and change their trajectory just enough that they miss us.
Russia solves
Thierry Sénéchal M.P.A. Harvard University 07
Papers on International Environmental Negotiation Series "Space Debris Pollution: A Convention Proposal"
www.pon.org/downloads/ien16.2.Senechal.pdf [Lockwood]
2.5.3 The Role of Russia The Federal Space Agency of Russia
is active in the field of space debris problems. The Agency is mostly
activity on debris mitigation is presently being
concerned with the safety of spacecraft and International Space Station (ISS). The
carried out within the framework of Russian National Legislation, taking into account the dynamics of similar measures and practices of
other space-faring nations. Since 2000, designers and operators of spacecraft and orbital stages have been asked to follow the requirements of Federal
Space Agency's standard entitled, ―Space Technology Items, General Requirements for Mitigation of Space Debris Population.‖ The Russian
Federation is now working on a set of mitigation measures. A national standard called ―General Requirements to Spacecraft and
Orbital Stages on Space Debris Mitigation‖ is being developed and shall provide general space debris mitigation requirements to design and operate
spacecrafts and orbital stages. At this time, the implementation of requirements remains voluntary. In terms of international
cooperation, and similar to the U.S. position, the Russian Federation is convinced that development of space debris mitigation guidelines of the Scientific
and Technical Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is the essential input in developing an internationally approved
set of measures to protect near-Earth space environment. For the disposal of satellite at geosynchronous altitude, Russia also
proposes to base the standard on IADC Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines
China has been working to stop debris – Chinese debris experts conclude
Peter Selding Space News Staff Writer 07
Space.com "China Says Work Under Way to Mitigate Space Junk" 9/3/2007 http://www.space.com/4301-china-work-mitigate-space-junk.html
*IADC = Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee
The Chinese government is implementing a wide series of measures to reduce the amount of debris left in orbit
by Chinese rockets and satellites, and to develop a space-surveillance tool to determine what is in orbit,
Chinese space-debris experts said. The measures, some of which already have been put into place, include techniques already adopted by
some other space powers to reorbit retired satellites out of the geostationary orbital arc and to render Chinese rocket upper stages passive in orbit by
emptying their fuel tanks to prevent the threat of explosion and debris propagation. The Chinese government has been a member of the 11-member
Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) since the mid-1990s. But Chinese officials concede they have been slow in adopting debrisprevention or debris-mitigation measures. China's seriousness about space debris has been thrown into question since the January test of a mobile
ground-based Chinese missile that was used to intentionally destroy a retired Chinese meteorological satellite, creating thousands of pieces of orbital
debris in a heavily used region of low Earth orbit. The negative global reaction to that event led China to cancel a scheduled April IADC meeting in
Beijing. The meeting was switched to July in Toulouse, France. China sent a full delegation to the meeting, which featured at least one blunt exchange
between U.S. and Chinese delegates regarding January's test of the anti-satellite missile. Li Ming, who headed the Chinese delegation to IADC, declined
to outline China's space-debris policy immediately after the Toulouse meeting. But in response to Space News inquiries, in August he emailed a summary
of China's space-debris policies in reports written by him and by other Chinese space-debris experts. "China has made a relatively late start in space
debris research," Li said in a preface to the summary of the debris research. "There is still an obvious gap between China and other advanced countries in
space debris-related technologies." Chinas space-debris research is based at the Purple Mountain Astronomical Observatory, a Chinese Academy of
Sciences facility located in Nanjing and home to the Center for Space Debris Observation and Research. Li said the center and related institutes, working
under Chinas 11th Five-Year Plan from 2006-2010, are working on four debris-related aspects: Space debris surveillance.
Collision avoidance. Satellite debris protection. Debris mitigation. Two optical telescopes, one a 25-inch (65-centimeter) fixed
facility and the other a 10-inch (25-centimeter) car-mounted telescope, have been developed as space-surveillance tools and have been used to time the
launch of China?s astronaut-carrying capsules to avoid heavier concentrations of debris in low-Earth orbit, Li said. A Hypervelocity Impact Center
created by Harbin Institute of Technology has been created and tasked with developing technologies to shield spacecraft from debris. Debris
mitigation has been the focus of much IADC work to persuade space powers to take measures to reduce the
debris-creating potential of their rocket upper stages and their satellites. Li and Zhang Wenxiang, a research fellow at the
Xi?an Satellite Control Center, said Chinese Long March rockets? Specifically the Long March (LM) 2C, LM 2D, LM 3, LM 4B and LM 4C vehicles?
Either already have been fitted with propellant-venting systems or soon will be. Li said the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology has adopted
propellant venting for the LM-3A vehicle. Zhang said the propellant-venting design for the cryogenic upper stage of the LM-3 series, which carries heavy
satellites into geostationary transfer orbit, has been completed. "We believe that in the near future we may perform the post-mission passivation" for the
upper stage, Zhang said. Zhang also said recent research has been focusing on ways to better estimate the amount of
fuel remaining in satellites so that they can be removed from their operational orbits at the latest possible time,
but early enough to be placed into so-called graveyard orbits out of the main orbital traffic lanes. Zhang said this
kind of reorbit maneuver was performed for the first time on a geostationary-orbit Chinese satellite in September 2006, on the FY-2B meteorological
satellite. In a separate presentation, Zhang Ke, senior engineer at the Xi?an Satellite Control Center, said the FY-2B maneuver, which placed the nowretired satellite about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above geostationary position, ?was not enough. ? It indicates that we had developed the re-orbiting
technology successfully. In the future, we will improve the estimation process and leave [sufficient] propellant to perform the operation.? Li said
work also has begun on using the remaining fuel in Chinese rocket upper stages to send the stages back into the
atmosphere to burn up. Zhao Changyin, a research fellow at the Purple Mountain Observatory, said China's space activities as of December
2006 had produced "more than 300 pieces of orbital debris." The U.S. Space Command's Space Surveillance Network, in a catalogue dated July 4, said
China-created debris numbered 2,296, behind the 4,281 pieces from Russia and other nations of the former Soviet Union, and 4,189 pieces for which
U.S. launches are responsible. Space Command's public catalogue lists only pieces of debris about four inches (10 centimeters) or larger.
***Space War
Space War – China/Russia Solve
Russia and China are working towards space weaponization prevention
Jinyuan Su Silk Road Institute of International Law and the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law 10
Science Direct, "The "peaceful purposes" principle in outer space and the Russia–China PPWT Proposal," 4/8/2010,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026596461000024X [Lockwood]
Early calls for preventing space weaponization and an arms race date back to the early 1980s. In 1981 the USSR
introduced the topic of the prevention of an arms race in outer space into the agenda of the 36th General Assembly,38 and also submitted to the United
Nations a 'Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of the Stationing of Weapons of any Kind in Outer Space'.39 The proposal was considered by the USA as
insufficient for the goal of a peaceful world, particularly since it seemed designed to accord the USSR with special benefits as a result of its anti-satellite
(ASAT) work.40 In recent years China has played an increasingly active role in international affairs , with its work on
prevention of space weaponization and an arms race being one example. China
is working with Russia in the CD to promote a
weapons-free outer space. Its earliest effort in this forum dates back to a speech by Qian Jiadong in 1986, calling for the negotiation of an
international agreement on a complete prohibition of space weapons.41 A compilation of comments and suggestions made by member states and
observer delegations to the CD, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
Commission reveals that Russia's and China's efforts are widely appreciated and the draft treaty is regarded as a good
starting point for a new international convention on prohibiting space weaponization.42 Some commentators consider it
"the most promising proposal to fill the normative void in the current space security treaty regime", "the most highly structured state-originating
proposal that has been introduced in the CD with the aim of preventing the weaponization of space" and "a building block in a broader space security
legal regime".43 Critiques have been presented as well. Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes that
the PPWT "would neither effectively prohibit [the] deployment [of weapons], nor conclusively annul the threat of force against space objects" and that it
"would only produce the illusion of security, while doing nothing to eliminate the counter-space capabilities currently present in many countries".44 The
Bush administration tended to neglect the PPWT initially, but has responded to it on several occasions, mainly in the CD and the General Assembly First
Committee. Of most relevance is an official response entitled "Analysis of a Draft Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, or
the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects" submitted by Christina B. Rocca, the permanent representative of the USA to the CD, on 26
August 2008.45 The Obama administration seems likely to move toward a more multilateral approach to US space
policy. But a multilateral approach does not eliminate disagreements in substance, which are reflected in the responses from the Bush administration.
Space War – We'd Win
Worst case scenario – we'd survive and kick butt on the ground
Wired Magazine "How China Loses the Coming Space War (Pt. 1)" 1/10/2008 http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/01/inside-the-chin/
For years, the American armed forces have worried about an attack on US satellites; this could be how it begins. The United States military has become
increasingly dependent on space. It uses photo-reconnaissance satellites to observe potential adversaries, GPS satellites to guide munitions with pinpoint accuracy, communications satellites to handle the flow of information into and out of a theater of operations, and early warning satellites to detect
and track enemy missile launches to name just a few of the better known applications. Because of this increasing dependence, many
analysts have worried that the US is most vulnerable to asymmetric attacks against its space assets ; in their view US
satellites are "sitting ducks" without any sort of defense and their destruction would cripple the US military. China's test of a sophisticated anti-satellite
(ASAT) weapon a year ago, Friday — 11 January 2007, when it shot down its own obsolete weather satellite — has only increased these concerns. But is
this true? Could a country—even a powerful country like China that has demonstrated a very sophisticated, if nascent, ability to shoot
down satellites at all altitudes—inflict
anything close to a knock-out blow against the US in space? And if it was anything less than a
answers to these questions should influence how the US
responds to the threats China's ASAT represents. There is at least one way to answer these questions: "war-gaming" a
massive Chinese attack on US satellites, where China is only limited by the laws of physics and the known properties of their ASAT, and see how
much damage could be done. Such an exercise also reveals what the US could do, and what it could not do, to minimize the consequences. The
results of my calculations are reported here. They assume that China launches a massive attack and that
everything works exactly as planned: every ASAT launches, the US does not respond until after the attacks are launched
even though it will have overwhelming evidence ahead of time, and every ASAT hits its target. Thus, this is a worst case scenario for the
United States. In the end, we'll show, the US would still has sufficient space assets to fight a major conventional
war with China, even after such an attack. America's military capabilities would be reduced, for a few hours at a time. But they would not be crippled.
knock-out, how seriously would it affect US war fighting capabilities? The
Back in 2001, a commission lead by Donald Rumsfeld warned of a "space Pearl Harbor," a single strike that could cripple America's satellite network. It
turns out, there is no such thing. Let's start with what we know about China's ASAT capabilities today. And we know
quite a bit. Because there are few, if any, secrets in space. Amateurs around the world track most, if not all, of the classified US military satellites
from their backyards, posting their positions on the internet. NORAD,is capable of tracking objects as small as four inches across. In fact,
NORAD's measurements of the debris caused by China's January 2007 test were posted on the web. In the case of
the Chinese test, the orbital tracks of that debris can be used to reveal the capabilities and limitations of China's ASAT weapon by reconstructing the
collision — much like forensic scientists reconstruct a crime scene. By backtracking the debris to the point where they all converge, we can determine the
two most important aspects of the Chinese ASAT: how China destroyed that satellite, and just how capable its satellite-killer really is. The interception
was almost head on at a combined speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour. The pieces of debris wound up with the greatest speeds—much higher than the
original satellite. This means that China accomplished the most sophisticated of space maneuvers: a hit-to-kill interception, the equivalent of hitting a
bullet with a bullet. This is equivalent to what the US is trying to develop in its national missile defense system and is much more sophisticated than the
ASAT the Soviet Union was working in the 1980s: little more than a space mine that slowly snuck up on its target and detonated near by. We also know
that the ASAT was highly maneuverable. Yes, the target satellite's orbit was known well ahead of the interception. However, that does not
mean that the satellite's position was known well enough that the ASAT did not need to steer itself to hit the
target. In fact, it is very likely that the interceptor needed to maneuver at high speeds, perhaps as much as six times the
acceleration of gravity, to hit its target. The orbital speed of the target satellite, which is determined by its altitude, also provides us with significant
insight into the interceptor's capability. The closing speed of the interception, which is a combination of the target satellite's orbital speed and the speed
of the interceptor, determines how much time is available to make final adjustments. For instance, just one second before the collision on January 11th,
the interceptor and target were five miles apart. During that one second, the interceptor had to make any final adjustments to its trajectory to hit a target
smaller than six feet across. Any decrease in the closing speed makes the attack that much easier. Since orbital speeds decrease with increasing altitudes,
the Chinese interceptor would find it considerably easier to hit a target in higher orbit. Finally, the interceptor needed to track its
target, so that it could determine where it should move to place itself in front of the obsolete weather satellite;
we have a good sense of how that was done, too. The most likely method it employed to track the oncoming satellite was an on-board
telescope using visible light. Locking onto a target this way — as opposed to focusing on the infrared light emitted by the heat of the target, the way the
US missile defense interceptor does — imposes significant limitations on the system. In particular, until it develops a far-infrared capability, which is
probably decades away, its ASAT will be forced to attack satellites while they are in bright sunlight. Indeed, even though the site from
which the interceptor was launched was cloaked in darkness, the target satellite was high enough to be brightly
illuminated by the sun. Until China does develop better sensors, this imposes a very severe constraint on how and when it could attack other
satellites: it must wait to attack low Earth orbit satellites when they are in bright sunshine. Attacks against satellites in significantly higher orbits, such as
GPS or geostationary satellites, are less constrained by this requirement since they are almost always in direct sunlight. China has informally
stated a number of times that it will "never do this again." But after having paid a very high price for testing the
system once, both in resources and in political capital, it seems unlikely that they would abandon it altogether.
Fortunately for China, it can continue to develop the system—including its on board tracking, guidance, and control systems—in the guise of a missile
defense system. Such interceptions could be arranged at similar, or even greater, closing speeds as the January 2007 test. Only now, China could
arrange to have both the target and the interceptor collide when they are both in downward portions of their
trajectories, much like the US does during its missile defense tests. That way, they can test their system again – without creating
orbital debris that might harm their own and other nation's satellites.
Space War – A2 China
Right now a space war with China wouldn't be a big deal - no strike capabilities & weak
Thilo Scroeter et al Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs 10
BCJ Journal "Challenging US Command of the Commons" 12/19/2010 http://bcjournal.org/volume-13/challenging-us-command-of-thecommons.html?printerFriendly=true [Lockwood]
Anti-Satellite Weapons Both Chinese and American military counterparts are aware of the substantial vulnerabilities
of space-based communications and surveillance systems—some have gone as far as to label satellites as the "Achilles heel" of American military might.8
There are many ways to degrade or even destroy such satellite systems; the PLA's successful test of a ground-based kinetic ASAT weapon in 2007 was
merely the latest and most public of its ongoing efforts to develop effective ASAT systems. The January 2007 test demonstrated considerable
technological sophistication. The Chinese interceptor successfully struck its target, an aging weather satellite that was flying at a speed (7.42 km per
second) comparable to that of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in an atmospheric re-entry phase.9 The test represented the most difficult of
interceptions, a maneuver often referred to as "hitting a bullet with a bullet."10 China's space capabilities are growing, and their kinetic ASAT systems
are advancing in lockstep. In 2008, China conducted 11 space launches that put a combined 15 satellites into orbit, and the country is in the process of
developing more highly advanced rockets that could deliver greater payloads to a wider variety of orbits. The 2009 edition of the annual Pentagon report
on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China noted that once the ongoing developments of China's Long March V rocket are complete, they
will "more than double" the size of the payloads that China can deliver into low-earth and geosynchronous orbits.11 In addition to new launch vehicles
and expanding launch capabilities, China is also developing improved long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering ASAT payloads into
geosynchronous orbits. These new missiles might be capable of directly attacking satellites in a geosynchronous orbit, effectively giving the Chinese
military the capability to use direct-ascent methods on satellites operating at any altitude.12 At present, China's ability to strike at
targets in geosynchronous orbits is somewhat limited, as it only possesses the facilities to launch
simultaneously four rockets capable of reaching satellites at that altitude.13 While the long-term implications
of such a strike for satellites would be devastating, the short-term impacts would be significant, although less
encompassing.14 Depending on target selection and hit rates, it is conceivable that the Chinese could achieve
the following: • Reduction of the US Navy's satellite-based ship surveillance capabilities • Temporary
elimination of high-resolution imagery coverage over much of China • Creation of a GPS "gap" over China of
approximately eight hours per day15
***Terrorism
Terrorism – Exaggerated
Terrorism is exaggerated – conservatives don't want to admit successes
Messner 11-("Can Conservatives Accept Success in Fighting Terror?" June 29th, 2011.
http://www.frumforum.com/can-conservatives-accept-success-in-fighting-terror[JUNEJA])
America is winning the War on Terror. At least by the most visible metrics, that is. As David Frum wrote for
FrumForum, the death of Osama bin Laden was the culmination of a decade in which the leadership of AlQaeda has been decimated by Predator drones and Islamic terrorism in general has collapsed in complexity,
scope, and ambition.
But some conservatives seem reluctant to accept the gains that they, themselves, fought so hard to achieve. Instead, they are desperately grasping for
new enemies to fight.
I visited the Heritage Foundation on June 28th to watch Catherine Herridge of Fox News promote her new book, The Next Wave: On the Hunt for AlQaeda's American Recruits. What I saw from Herridge and the audience was a voracious appetite for claims of Muslim American subversion tinged with
a faint, but troubling willingness to engage in 9/11 conspiracy speculation.
The lion's share of Herridge's talk was devoted to the activities of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the New Mexico-born civil engineering student turned radical AlQaeda cleric. Aulaqi is one of the most active radical Muslim clerics in the Middle East. He releases footage of his extremist sermons on a regular basis
and is currently allied with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. The U.S. government has placed Aulaqi on its list of global terrorists to be killed
without trial.
But Herridge believes that the government is doing too little too late. She explained that the intelligence community overlooked his role in the 9/11
attacks and is now trying to cover up their failure to address his radicalization. In one instance, she said, Aulaqi was taken into custody only to be
released without charge. "This event is like a bomb waiting to be triggered. I've spoken to people on the Hill about this. I have spoken to people within
the government about this, and it's just what I call 'crickets,' radio silence," Herridge said.
Herridge uses a somewhat fluid standard of proof for her charges, one that ranges from official arrest warrants to the presence of "too many
coincidences." Nonetheless, she held Aulaqi up as an example of "Al-Qaeda 2.0," a social media-savvy, largely American-born incarnation of global
jihad. "There always seem to be his fingerprints on these plots," she said. According to Herridge, these new terrorists are the "digital jihadist Facebook
friends from hell."
On some level, this is true. There are definitely American Muslims being radicalized and social media does contribute to those instances. But the
important question is this: With the figurehead of global jihad resting at the bottom of the Arabian Sea and
Islamic terrorism on the retreat, what type of threat do disjointed and largely incompetent would-be terrorists
actually pose?
Well, Herridge disagrees with the premise of the question. According to her, the recent ineptitude of Islamic terrorism is not a triumph of our national
security apparatus, but a tactical shift of which we must be especially wary. "There has been a shift. Part of that has been by design because we've
become better at pulling a string and unraveling these things, but it doesn't make them less important," she told FrumForum. And the small scale of
recent attacks is not the only worrisome terrorist strategy: "A failed plot is good news for them too. It gets them a lot of publicity and it helps them raise
a lot of money," she said. Apparently, the terrorists benefit even when we foil their schemes. Is there any way to beat these guys?
Herridge's illusion of an inexhaustible, ever-regrouping global jihad is troubling. As a nation we have sacrificed immensely to combat terrorism. Our
fight has consumed vast amounts of blood and treasure and eroded our conception of liberty at home. Necessary as it may have been at one point, does
anybody want to live under the Patriot Act forever? If we cannot acknowledge progress and eventually victory, we will
continue paying this price indefinitely. Now, when we finally have Islamic terrorism on its heels, we cannot
afford to ignore our own success.
Terrorism – No Retaliation
No U.S. retaliation to terrorism
AP News 01- (Tony Karon, "Retaliation Is No Easy Task" Sept 11, 2001.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174544,00.html[JUNEJA])
America's first instinct is to hit back, and hit back hard in response to a terrorist attack that many have compared with Pearl Harbor. But
retaliation was a lot easier back in 1941, when the bombers had a return address and plenty of fixed assets of their own.
Terrorism is different; it's what Pentagon planners call "asymmetrical warfare," in which an enemy who can't match
America's planes, ships and missiles uses unconventional methods to strike. The prime suspects in the latest outrage — the networks associated
with Osama Bin Laden — have no fixed address or military installations of their own, much less civilian infrastructure.
The fugitive Saudi terrorist financier may be sheltered by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, but his is very much an independent operation rather than
anybody's proxy.
It is too early, of course, to say definitively that Bin Laden was responsible, and terror attacks against U.S. targets are seldom followed by a claim of
responsibility. Still, the choice of targets points less to the Oklahoma City variety of domestic terrorism than to a foreign enemy looking to strike at
symbols of American power and wealth. Terrorism is the dark art of sending political messages through spectacularly ugly
acts of violence. And everything from motive, track record, modus operandi and operational capability put the terror networks of Osama Bin Laden
at the top of the suspect list. His statement published Wednesday praising the attack but denying responsibility will be read as a fudge familiar from
previous Bin Laden-linked strikes.
Terrorism – They're Losing
No terrorists – al qaeda is retreating
Thiessen 09 - Visiting Fellow @ Hoover Institution. [Marc A. Thiessen (Served in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House (01–09).
Most recently as Chief Speechwriter to President George W. Bush) "Obama's Inheritance: Al-Qaeda in Retreat," World Affairs, Summer 2009, pg.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Summer/full-Thiessen.html]
Increasingly defeated on the battlefield, al-Qaeda
has also suffered significant setbacks in the other front of this war: the battle of
ideas. The first came in Iraq. The popular rejection of al-Qaeda began in Anbar, where it had moved in and attempted to impose a Taliban-like rule. It
banned men from shaving, cut off the fingers of people who smoked, tried to force the daughters of local tribesmen to marry al-Qaeda leaders, and killed
anyone who dared to question these demands. With their actions, they turned the population against them and sparked what has become known as the
"Anbar Awakening"—the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden and his network. As American and Iraqi forces supported the
resistance, this popular rejection quickly spread to other parts of Iraq. The importance of these developments cannot be
overstated. As President Bush put it in a 2008 speech: "For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be a place where al-Qaeda rallied Arab masses to
drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaeda out." As a result, al-Qaeda suffered more
than a military defeat in Iraq—it suffered a massive ideological defeat as well. It also suffered rejection in the broader Muslim world.
Since 9/11, al-Qaeda
and its affiliates have launched attacks in places such as Jordan, Indonesia, Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, and Kenya. Most of the victims of these attacks have been Muslims. According to the U.S. intelligence community, in
2007 alone, al-Qaeda and its allies killed an estimated 9,500 Muslim civilians—this in a year when terrorist attacks were reportedly down compared to
previous years. This violence has triggered a wave of anger and revulsion. Today, support for suicide bombings has
plummeted in Muslim nations from the Middle East to South Asia, and Osama bin Laden's popularity is at its lowest point
since the 9/11 attacks. According to the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project, support for suicide attacks has dropped by more than
half from 2002 to 2007 in key Islamic countries: In Lebanon, from 74 percent in 2002 to 34 percent; in Bangladesh from 44 percent to 20
percent; in Indonesia from 26 percent to 10 percent; and in Pakistan from 33 percent to just 9 percent.
ANTI TERROR EFFORTS WORK
McNeill and Carafano, 7/2/09 (Jena Baker, Policy Analyst in Homeland Security at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign
Policy Studies [Heritage Foundation] and James Jay, Ph.D.Assistant Director, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and
Senior Research Fellow, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies [Heritage]. "Terrorist Watch: 23 Plots Foiled Since 9/11."
Backgrounder #229http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/bg2294.cfm[JUNEJA]))
Executive Summary Since
the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 23 terrorist plots against the United States have been foiled.
This report updates a November 2007 report from the Heritage Foundation that described 19 plots that had
been foiled to date since 9/11. Less than two years later, the U.S. has foiled four more plots aimed at Americans.
While some trials have ended in mistrial and charges against some suspects were dropped, significantly more
individuals have been convicted and sentenced for their crimes. These victories make the case for continued
U.S. vigilance against terrorism around the globe. While these particular attacks have been disrupted, the threat remains. The
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress should not construe the successes over the past eight years as a signal to reduce U.S.
counterterrorism efforts.
Terrorism – A2 Attack the US
AL Qaeda is the only group targeting the US and they're weak
Carle 08 - Member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years. Retired as deputy national intelligence officer for
transnational threats. [Glenn L. Carle, "Overstating Our Fears," Washington Post, Sunday, July 13, 2008, pg. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102710.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I
have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat. We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their lives to
protect ours. We all "support the troops." Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy. The next commander in chief should base his
counterterrorism policies on the following realities: We do not face a global jihadist "movement" but a series of disparate
ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and
almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary
threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic
terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in
Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and
leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are
far inferior to its desires. Even the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the
medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives.
Terrorism – A2 Pakistan
Pakistan is super responsible with its weapons
Ryan Costello serves as a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Threat Convergence 11
The Fund for Peace "Threat Convergence in Pakistan" http://www.fundforpeace.org/global/library/cr-11-01-tc-threatconvergence-pakistan-1104a.pdf
Command and Control Pakistan has taken many steps to boost nuclear security, including the creation of a three tiered command
and control structure. The National Command Authority (NCA) oversees all organizations involved in nuclear research, weapons development, strategy,
deployment and employment.35 The NCA is headed by the Prime Minister and includes the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the Director of the Strategic
Plans Division (SPD), Commanders of the various branches of the Armed Services, and Ministers of Defense, Interior, and Finance. A full consensus is
required for any nuclear strike.36 The SPD is tasked with the daily management of Pakistan's nuclear assets and
oversees approximately 10,000 personnel involved in securing the arsenal and strategic infrastructure.37 The SPD also formulates
nuclear doctrine and strategy; the chain of command; and plans for the storage, transport, deployment and use of nuclear weapons.38 The Army, Air
Force, and Navy of Pakistan each have their own strategic forces command, which comprises the third tier of command and control.39 External Security
Measures Pakistan appears to have robust security measures in place to moderate the threats posed by external
assault. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are believed to be scattered and disassembled. Reports indicate that the weapons are stored at up to six locations
and are likely buried in deep underground facilities in order to prevent their destruction or seizure during an attack on the facility.40 Analysts
believe that the weapons are stored in component form in separate buildings or facilities, thus necessitating
multiple operations to seize control of a complete nuclear weapon.41 The SPD's official position is that the weapons will be ready
when needed but will not be on "hair trigger alert." It should be noted that if the weapons are stored in component form, this measure might make the
theft of a fissile nuclear core easier if its location within the facility is known and can be accessed.42 This indicates that Pakistan's nuclear
security is principally designed to safeguard against an attack by states, such as India, and not by extremist or rogue forces
interested in obtaining nuclear components rather than a full-scale, strategic nuclear device. Pakistan implements security measures
that are integrated into the nuclear weapons themselves. Pakistan claims to have developed its own Permissive Action Links (PALs)
technology and has integrated the PALs into its nuclear security system. Assuming this is the case, anyone seeking to utilize a nuclear
weapon would need to have authorizing codes, which are controlled by the NCA. Additionally, Pakistan operates a
standard two-man or three-man rule so that multiple individuals are needed to activate the weapons.43 If terrorists seek to acquire the fissile core for
use in a dirty bomb, however, the PALs will be unable to prevent them from doing so.44 The physical security measures in place also present
considerable challenges to potential external assaults. It is believed that the SPD and its 10,000 member security force exclusively guard Pakistan's
weapons sites.45 Shaun Gregory, a scholar focused on Pakistani security, indicates that Pakistan "operates a layered concept of concentric tiers of armed
forces personnel to guard nuclear weapons facilities," in addition to utilizing "barriers and intrusion detection systems."46 Perimeter security
measures such as strengthened fencing and heightened surveillance are also utilized. Counter-intelligence
teams operate within nuclear facilities in order to identify both external and internal threats.47 It appears as if
external attacks by extremist forces would not be able to overcome the physical safeguards in place without internal assistance. Another tool that
Pakistani forces utilize to safeguard their nuclear weapons is the secrecy of the program itself. The location of nuclear weapons sites
other critical aspects of the program are kept secret, and transport of nuclear components and materials is generally conducted
clandestinely and avoids highly visible security measures.48 This approach offers both strengths and weaknesses for countering external attacks from
extremist forces. The secrecy of the location of nuclear components limits the ability of extremists because they will not know where to look for the
weapons without insider assistance. Ideally, not only will outsiders not know precisely which facilities house nuclear
components, but they also will not know where to look within those facilities for the components in question.49
However, this emphasis on secrecy rather than overt security could create vulnerabilities during transportation. If a terrorist group obtained intelligence
on the timing and route of transported nuclear components they could be susceptible to theft.50
***Warming
Warming – Feedbacks Check
No impact – negative feedback mechanisms cancel the effects of warming
Craig Idso, founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global
Change and S. Fred Singer, emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, 09
NIPCC, "Climate Change Reconsidered", 2009, http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf, [Zheng]
The next negative feedback phenomenon is diffused
light. It operates through a chain of five linkages, triggered by the incremental
propensity for higher levels of atmospheric CO2 to enhance vegetative productivity, which phenomena are
themselves powerful negative feedback mechanisms of the type we envision. Greater CO2-enhanced photosynthetic
rates, for example, enable plants to remove considerably more CO2 from the air than they do under current conditions, while
enhancement of the atmosphere's greenhouse effect that is produced by an increase in the air's CO2 content. The first linkages is the
CO2-induced increases in plant water use efficiency allow plants to grow where it was previously too dry for them. (See Chapter 7 for extensive
documentation of this phenomenon.) This establishes a potential for more CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere by increasing the abundance of
earth's plants and increasing their robustness. The second linkage of the feedback loop is the ability of plants to emit gases to the
atmosphere that are ultimately converted into "biosols," i.e., aerosols that owe their existence to the biological activities of earth's
vegetation, many of which function as cloud condensation nuclei. It takes little imagination to realize that since the existence of these
atmospheric particles is dependent upon the physiological activities of plants and their associated soil biota, the CO2-induced presence of more, and
more-highly productive, plants will lead to the production of more of these cloud-mediating particles, which can then result in more clouds
which reflect sunlight and act to cool the planet. The third linkage is the observed propensity for increases in
aerosols and cloud particles to enhance the amount of diffuse solar radiation reaching the earth's surface. The
fourth linkage is the ability of enhanced diffuse lighting to reduce the volume of shade within vegetative
canopies. The fifth linkage is the tendency for less internal canopy shading to enhance whole-canopy
photosynthesis, which finally produces the end result: a greater biological extraction of CO2 from the air and
the subsequent sequestration of its carbon, compliments of the intensified diffuse light driven increase in total canopy photosynthesis
and subsequent transfers of the extra fixed carbon to plant and soil storage reservoirs. How significant is this multi-link process?
Roderick et al. (2001) provide a good estimate based on the utilization of a unique "natural experiment," a technique
that has been used extensively by Idso (1998) to evaluate the climatic sensitivity of the entire planet. Specifically, Roderick and his colleagues considered
the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991, which ejected enough gases and fine materials into the atmosphere to produce sufficient aerosol
particles to greatly increase the diffuse component of the solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth from that point in time through much of 1993,
while only slightly reducing the receipt of total solar radiation. Based on a set of lengthy calculations, they concluded that the Mt. Pinatubo
eruption may well have resulted in the removal of an extra 2.5 Gt of carbon from the atmosphere due to its
diffuse-light enhancing stimulation of terrestrial vegetation in the year following the eruption, which would
have reduced the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration that year by about 1.2 ppm. Interestingly, this reduction is
about the magnitude of the real-world perturbation that was actually observed (Sarmiento, 1993). What makes this observation even more
impressive is the fact that the CO2 reduction was coincident with an El Niño event; because, in the words of Roderick
et al., "previous and subsequent such events have been associated with increases in atmospheric CO2." In addition,
the observed reduction in total solar radiation received at the earth's surface during this period would have had a tendency to reduce the amount of
photosynthetically active radiation incident upon earth's plants, which would also have had a tendency to cause the air's CO2 content to rise, as it would
tend to lessen global photosynthetic activity. Significant support for the new negative feedback phenomenon was swift in
coming, as the very next year a team of 33 researchers published the results of a comprehensive study (Law et al.,
2002) that compared seasonal and annual values of CO2 and water vapor exchange across sites in forests, grasslands, crops and tundra—which are part
of an international network called FLUXNET— investigating the responses of these exchanges to variations in a number of environmental factors,
including direct and diffuse solar radiation. The researchers reported that "net carbon uptake (net ecosystem exchange, the net of
photosynthesis and respiration) was greater under diffuse than under direct radiation conditions ," and in discussing
this finding, which is the centerpiece of the negative feedback phenomenon we describe, they noted that "cloud-cover results in a greater proportion of
diffuse radiation and constitutes a higher fraction of light penetrating to lower depths of the canopy (Oechel and Lawrence, 1985)." More importantly,
they also reported that "Goulden et al. (1997), Fitzjarrald et al. (1995), and Sakai et al. (1996) showed that net carbon uptake was consistently higher
during cloudy periods in a boreal coniferous forest than during sunny periods with the same PPFD [photosynthetic photon flux density]." In fact, they
wrote that "Hollinger et al. (1994) found that daily net CO2 uptake was greater on cloudy days, even though total PPFD was 21-45 percent lower on
cloudy days than on clear days."
No impact to warming - your authors don't take into the cooling effect caused by aerosols
NIPCC, "Climate Change Reconsidered", 2009,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf, [Zheng]
The IPCC estimates the net effect of all aerosols is to produce a cooling effect, with a total direct radiative forcing of -0.5 Wm-2 and an additional indirect
cloud albedo forcing of -0.7 Wm-2 (IPCC, 2007-I, p. 4). However, the scientific literature indicates these estimates are too low. Many studies
suggest the radiative forcing of aerosols may be as large as, or larger than, the radiative forcing due to
atmospheric CO2. Vogelmann et al. (2003) report that "mineral aerosols have complex, highly varied optical properties
that, for equal loadings, can cause differences in the surface IR flux between 7 and 25 Wm-2 (Sokolik et al., 1998)," and "only a few largescale
climate models currently consider aerosol IR [infrared] effects (e.g., Tegen et al., 1996; Jacobson, 2001) despite their potentially large
forcing." In an attempt to persuade climate modelers to rectify this situation, they used high-resolution spectra to
obtain the IR radiative forcing at the earth's surface for aerosols encountered in the outflow from northeastern Asia, based on
measurements made by the Marine Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer from the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown during the Aerosol
Characterization Experiment-Asia. As a result of this work, the scientists determined that "daytime surface IR forcings are often a few Wm-2 and can
reach almost 10 Wm-2 for large aerosol loadings." These values, in their words, "are comparable to or larger than the 1 to 2 Wm-2
change in the globally averaged surface IR forcing caused by greenhouse gas increases since pre-industrial
times" and "highlight the importance of aerosol IR forcing which should be included in climate model
simulations." Chou et al. (2002) analyzed aerosol optical properties retrieved from the satellite-mounted Seaviewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
(SeaWiFS) and used them in conjunction with a radiative transfer model of the planet's atmosphere to calculate the climatic effects of aerosols over
earth's major oceans. In general, this effort revealed that "aerosols reduce the annual-mean net downward solar flux by 5.4 Wm2 at the top of the
atmosphere, and by 5.9 Wm-2 at the surface." During the large Indonesian fires of September-December 1997, however, the radiative impetus for cooling
at the top of the atmosphere was more than 10 Wm-2, while it was more than 25 Wm-2 at the surface of the sea in the vicinity of Indonesia. These latter
results are similar to those obtained earlier by Wild (1999), who used a comprehensive set of collocated surface and satellite observations to calculate the
amount of solar radiation absorbed in the atmosphere over equatorial Africa and compared the results with the predictions of three general circulation
models of the atmosphere. This work revealed that the climate models did not properly account for spatial and temporal
variations in atmospheric aerosol concentrations, leading them to predict regional and seasonal values of solar
radiation absorption in the atmosphere with underestimation biases of up to 30 Wm-2. By way of comparison, as noted by Vogelmann
et al., the globally averaged surface IR forcing caused by greenhouse gas increases since pre-industrial times is 1 to 2 Wm-2. Aerosol uncertainties and
the problems they generate figure prominently in a study by Anderson et al. (2003), who note there are two different ways by which the
aerosol forcing of climate may be computed. The first is forward calculation, which is based, in their words, on
"knowledge of the pertinent aerosol physics and chemistry." The second approach is inverse calculation, based on
"the total forcing required to match climate model simulations with observed temperature changes." The first approach utilizes known
physical and chemical laws and assumes nothing about the outcome of the calculation. The second approach, in
considerable contrast, is based on matching residuals, where the aerosol forcing is computed from what is
required to match the calculated change in temperature with the observed change over some period of time.
Consequently, in the words of Anderson et al., "to the extent that climate models rely on the results of inverse
calculations, the possibility of circular reasoning arises." So which approach do climate models typically employ?
"Unfortunately," according to Anderson et al., "virtually all climate model studies that have included anthropogenic aerosol forcing as a
driver of climate change have used only aerosol forcing values that are consistent with the inverse approach." How significant is this choice?
Anderson et al. report that the negative forcing of anthropogenic aerosols derived by forward calculation is
"considerably greater" than that derived by inverse calculation; so much so, in fact, that if forward calculation
is employed, the results "differ greatly" and "even the sign of the total forcing is in question," which implies that
"natural variability (that is, variability not forced by anthropogenic emissions) is much larger than climate models currently
indicate." The bottom line, in the words of Anderson et al., is that "inferences about the causes of surface warming over
the industrial period and about climate sensitivity may therefore be in error."
Warming – No Impact
No impact to warming – even doubling C02 won't change things, humans aren't that important,
and feedbacks check
Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology, MIT. Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the
Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American
Meteorological Society, 9
"Climate Science Isn't Settled", 30 November 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html, [Zheng]
Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5
degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge
such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have
caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes. The general support for warming is based not so much on the
quality of the data, but rather on the fact that there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus it is not surprising that temperatures
should increase as we emerged from this episode. At the same time that we were emerging from the little ice age, the industrial era began, and this was
accompanied by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. CO2 is the most prominent of these, and it is again
generally accepted that it has increased by about 30%. The defining characteristic of a greenhouse gas is that it is relatively transparent to visible light
from the sun but can absorb portions of thermal radiation. In general, the earth balances the incoming solar radiation by emitting thermal radiation, and
the presence of greenhouse substances inhibits cooling by thermal radiation and leads to some warming. That said, the main greenhouse substances in
the earth's atmosphere are water vapor and high clouds. Let's refer to these as major greenhouse substances to distinguish them from the anthropogenic
minor substances. Even a doubling of CO2 would only upset the original balance between incoming and outgoing
radiation by about 2%. This is essentially what is called "climate forcing." There is general agreement on the above findings. At this point
there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether any relation between the observed warming and the observed
increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established. Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The failure of the
attempts to link the two over the past 20 years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern. The IPCC's Scientific Assessments generally consist of
about 1,000 pages of text. The Summary for Policymakers is 20 pages. It is, of course, impossible to accurately summarize the 1,000-page assessment in
just 20 pages; at the very least, nuances and caveats have to be omitted. However, it has been my experience that even the summary is hardly ever looked
at. Rather, the whole report tends to be characterized by a single iconic claim. The main statement publicized after the last IPCC
Scientific Assessment two years ago was
that it was likely that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous cold) was
due to man. This claim was based on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't
reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of was
man. Even this argument assumes that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is, such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino,
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc. Yet articles from major modeling centers acknowledged
that the failure of these models to anticipate the absence of warming for the past dozen years was due to the
failure of these models to account for this natural internal variability. Thus even the basis for the weak IPCC argument for
anthropogenic climate change was shown to be false. Of course, none of the articles stressed this. Rather they
emphasized that according to models modified to account for the natural internal variability, warming would resume—in 2009, 2013 and 2030,
respectively. But even if the IPCC's iconic statement were correct, it still would not be cause for alarm. After all
are still talking about tenths of a degree for over 75% of the climate forcing associated with a doubling of CO2.
The potential (and only the potential) for alarm enters with the issue of climate sensitivity—which refers to the change that a doubling of CO2 will
produce in GATA. It is generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only produce a change of about two degrees
Fahrenheit if all else is held constant. This is unlikely to be much to worry about. Yet current climate models predict
much higher sensitivities. They do so because in these models, the main greenhouse substances (water vapor and
clouds) act to amplify anything that CO2 does. This is referred to as positive feedback. But as the IPCC notes,
clouds continue to be a source of major uncertainty in current models. Since clouds and water vapor are intimately related, the
IPCC claim that they are more confident about water vapor is quite implausible. There is some evidence of a positive feedback effect for water vapor in
cloud-free regions, but a major part of any water-vapor feedback would have to acknowledge that cloud-free areas are
always changing, and this remains an unknown. At this point, few scientists would argue that the science is settled. In particular, the
question remains as to whether water vapor and clouds have positive or negative feedbacks. The notion that the earth's climate is
dominated by positive feedbacks is intuitively implausible, and the history of the earth's climate offers some
guidance on this matter. About 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was 20%-30% less bright than now (compare this with
the 2% perturbation that a doubling of CO2 would produce), and yet the evidence is that the oceans were unfrozen at the time,
and that temperatures might not have been very different from today's. Carl Sagan in the 1970s referred to this as the "Early
Faint Sun Paradox." For more than 30 years there have been attempts to resolve the paradox with greenhouse gases. Some have suggested CO2—but the
amount needed was thousands of times greater than present levels and incompatible with geological evidence. Methane also proved unlikely. It turns
out that increased thin cirrus cloud coverage in the tropics readily resolves the paradox—but only if the clouds
constitute a negative feedback. In present terms this means that they would diminish rather than enhance the
impact of CO2. There are quite a few papers in the literature that also point to the absence of positive feedbacks. The implied low sensitivity is
entirely compatible with the small warming that has been observed. So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small
response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to
match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.
Warming – Not Anthropogenic
Warming is not anthropogenic and is actually beneficial – over 30,000 scientists agree
Attached as Appendix 4 to this report is a description of "The Petition Project" and a
directory of the 31,478 American scientists who
have signed the following statement: We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement
that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases
would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no
convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is
causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption
of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon
dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth . This is a
remarkably strong statement of dissent from the perspective advanced by the IPCC, and it is similar to the perspective represented by the NIPCC and the
current report. The fact that more than ten times as many scientists have signed it as are alleged to have
"participated" in some way or another in the research, writing, and review of IPCC AR4 is very significant . These
scientists, who include among their number 9,029 individuals with Ph.D.s, actually endorse the statement that appears above. By contrast, fewer than
100 of the scientists (and nonscientists) who are listed in the appendices to the IPCC AR4 actually participated in the writing of the all important
Summary for Policymakers or the editing of the final report to comply with the summary, and therefore could be said to endorse the main findings of
that report. Consequently, we cannot say for sure whether more than 100 scientists in the entire world actually endorse the most important claims that
appear in the IPCC AR4 report.
Warming – Slow
Warming would be slow – ocean absorption solves
Gerald Roe, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, and Yoram
Bauman, Professor, Program on the Environment, University of Washington, Seattle, 11
"Should the climate tail wag the policy dog?" 1 January 2011,
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/martydom_draft.pdf, [Zheng]
A key player in the physical system is the enormous thermal inertia represented by the deep ocean. The whole
climate system cannot reach a new equilibrium until the deep ocean has also reached equilibrium. In response to a
positive climate forcing (i.e., a warming tendency), the deep ocean draws heat away from the surface ocean, and so buffers
the surface temperature changes, making them less than they would otherwise be. The deep ocean is capable of
absorbing enormous amounts of heat and not until this reservoir has been exhausted can the surface
temperatures attain their full equilibrium values. A second key player is the inherent relationship between feedbacks and adjustment time
scales in physical systems. If it transpires that we do in fact, live on a planet with a high climate sensitivity, it will be because
we live on a planet with strong positive feedbacks. In other words, the net effect of all of the dynamic processes (clouds, water vapor,
ice reflectivity, etc.) is to strongly amplify the planet's response to radioactive forcing. In this event, it would mean that we live on a planet that is
inefficient in eliminating energy perturbations: a positive feedback reflects a tendency to retain energy within the system,
inhibiting its ultimate emission to space, and therefore requiring a larger temperature response in order to
achieve energy equilibrium. Moreover. it is generally true that, all else being equal, an inefficient system takes longer to adjust than an efficient
one. A useful rule of-thumb is that the relevant response time of the climate system is given by the effective thermal inertia of the deep ocean multiplied
by the climate sensitivity parameter (defined as AEX/AR" , see. eg., Roe. 2009). This behavior is absolutely fundamental and widely appreciated (e.g.,
Hansen et al.. 1985: Vlligley and Schlessinger. 1985). As time progresses, more and more of the ocean abyssal waters become involved in the warming,
and so the effective thermal inertia of the climate system increases. Hansen et al. (1985) solve a simple representation of this effect
and show that the adjustment time of climate is proportional to the square of climate sensitivity. In other words, if it
takes 50 yrs to equilibrate
with a climate sensitivity of 1.5°C, it would take 100 times longer, or 5,000 yrs to equilibrate if the climate
sensitivity is 15°C. Although Nature is of course more complicated than this (see eg., Gregory, 2000), the basic picture described here is reproduced
in models with a more realistic ocean circulation. In particular see results Held et al. (2010) for results from fully-coupled global climate models. In the
context of the PDF of climate sensitivity, its effects have been reviewed in Baker and Roe (2009).
Warming – Too Late
Runaway warming happening now - no chance to solve
George Monbiot, writer for The Guardian and winner of the UN Global 500 Award, 08
The Guardian, "Long, detailed, impressive - but futile in the face of runaway climate change", 2 December
2008, https://www.ecoeco.org.br/documentos/Monbiot_-_Turner_report_-_2dez08.pdf, [Zheng]
Last week a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters produced what could be the first hard evidence that
runaway global feedback has begun. In 2007 methane levels in the atmosphere, which had previously levelled off, began
rising again. The most likely reason is that the Siberian permafrost is melting, as a result of the runaway warming of the Arctic. This wasn't
supposed to begin for another 80 years. The great global meltdown appears to have started, yet Turner proposes that we carry on with the
old plan as if nothing has changed. We're still digging trenches, even as the sky fills with bomber planes. My reading of the new projections
suggests that to play its part in preventing two degrees of global warming, the UK needs to cut greenhouse
gases by roughly 25% from current levels by the end of 2012 - a quarter in four years. But how the heck could this be
done? Here is a list of measures that could be enacted almost immediately. They require no economic or technological miracles; but they do demand
that the government is brave enough to govern.
Warming inevitable - government studies prove
Robert Longley, worked closely with federal agencies including the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Census Bureau, 08
About.com, "Global Warming Inevitable This Century, NSF Study Finds", 2008,
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/technologyandresearch/a/climatetochange.htm, [Zheng]
Despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and a greater increase in sea level are inevitable
during this century, according to a new study performed by a team of climate modelers at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. Indeed, say the researchers, whose work was funded by the National Science Foundation
(NSF), globally averaged surface air temperatures would still rise one degree Fahrenheit (about a half degree Celsius) by the year
2100, even if no more greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. And the resulting transfer of
heat into the oceans would cause global sea levels to rise another 4 inches (11 centimeters) from thermal expansion alone. The
team's findings are published in this week's issue of the journal "Science." "This study is another in a series that employs
increasingly sophisticated simulation techniques to understand the complex interactions of the Earth ," says Cliff
Jacobs of NSF's atmospheric sciences division. "These studies often yield results that are not revealed by simpler
approaches and highlight unintended consequences of external factors interacting with Earth's natural
systems." "Many people don't realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea level rise because of the
greenhouse gases we have already put into the atmosphere," says lead author Jerry Meehl. "Even if we stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the
climate will continue to warm, and there will be proportionately even more sea level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed
to in the future."
The EU solves
2.5.4 The Role of the European Union ESA has a long history in tracking space debris. In 1986, the
Director General of ESA created a
Space Debris Working Group with the mandate to assess the various issues of space debris. The findings and
conclusions are contained in ESA's Report on Space Debris, issued in 1988. In 1989, the ESA Council passed a resolution on space debris where the
Agency's objectives were formulated as follows: 1) Minimize the creation of space debris; 2) reduce the risk for
manned space flight, 3) reduce the risk on ground due to reentry of space objects, 4) reduce the risk for
geostationary satellites. ESA's Launcher Directorate at ESA Headquarters in Paris also coordinates the implementation of debris mitigation
measures for the Arianespace launcher. Over the last few years, ESA developed debris warning systems and mitigation guidelines. Following the
publication of NASA mitigation guidelines for orbital debris in 1995, ESA published a Space Debris Mitigation Handbook, issued
in 1999, in order to provide technical support to projects in the following areas: Description of the current
space debris and meteoroid environment, risk assessment due to debris and meteoroid impacts, future
evolution of the space debris population, hyper-velocity impacts and shielding, cost-efficient debris mitigation
measures. The Handbook has already been updated.19
The Inter-Agency Space Debris Committee solve the impact
2.5.5 The Role of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC)
one of the world's leading technical organizations dealing with space debris. ESA is a founding member of IADC, together
with NASA, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, and Japan. IADC is today an internationalforum of governmental bodies for the coordination of
activities related to the issues of man-made and natural debris in space. It is composed of the following members: Italian Space Agency (ASI), British
National Space Centre (BNSC), the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), China National Space Administration (CNSA), Deutsches Zentrum für
Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Space Agency of the Ukraine (NSAU) and the Russian Federal
Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS). The primary purpose of the IADC is to exchange information on space debris research
activities between member space agencies, to facilitate opportunities for co-operation in space debris research,
to review the progress of ongoing co-operative activities and to identify debris mitigation options. Generally
speaking, the organizations reached a consensus of adopting the mitigation guidelines as proposed by the IADC. The ―IADC Space Debris Mitigation
Guidelines‖ was drafted in 2002 as the first international document that is specialized in field of space debris mitigation and based on a consensus
among the IADC members. In February 2003, at the fortieth session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the UNCOPUOS, the IADC
presented the ―IADC Guidelines‖ as its proposals on debris mitigation. This document serves as the baseline for the debris
mitigation in two directions: 1) toward a non-binding policy document, and 2) toward applicable
implementation standards.20 One criticism of the IADC Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines is that they remain voluntary and are not legally
binding under international law. Still, IADC is an ideal forum on space debris due to its wide membership among the leading space agencies and
provides a basis for further international cooperation when elaborating a space debris convention. Indeed, IADC standards have facilitated the
discussion on space debris mitigation guidelines and opened the door to further research related to the cost of mitigation measures. Thus, recently,
various studies have been conducted on the effectiveness and the costs of debris mitigation measures. These
studies examine a number of important problems: prevention of on-orbit explosions and operational debris
release, reduction of slag debris ejected from solid rocket motor firings, de-orbiting of space systems in LEO with various limitations
on the post-mission lifetime, and re-orbiting of space systems to above the LEO & GEO protection zones (graveyard orbiting).
UN working towards debris deflection
2.5.6 The Role of the United Nations Over
the past years, the United Nations On Peaceful Use of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) and its Scientific
and Technical Subcommittee (STSC) have played an important role in debating space debris issues. UNCOPUOS was set up by
the General Assembly in 1959 in resolution 1472 (XIV). At that time, the Committee had 24 members. Since then, it has grown to 67 members--one of the
largest Committees in the United Nations. In addition to states, a number of international organizations, including both intergovernmental and nongovernmental, have been granted observer status with UNCOPUOS and its Subcommittees. The Committee has the following goals: 1)
review the scope of international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, 2) devise programs in this field to be
undertaken under United Nations auspices, 3) encourage continued research and the dissemination of
information on outer space matters, and 4) study legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space. The
resolution establishing UNCOPUOS also requested the UN Secretary-General to maintain a public registry of launchings based on the information
supplied by states launching objects into orbit or beyond. Those terms of reference have since provided the general guidance for the activities of the
Committee in promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses and exploration of outer space. The Committee is divided in two standing
subcommittees: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee. The Committee and its two Subcommittees meet annually to
consider questions put before them by the General Assembly, reports and issues raised by the Member States. The agenda of the Committee is quite
large. For instance, the forty-fourth session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was held
from 12-23 February 2007 at the United Nation Office at Vienna. The session covered a wide array of issues, including space
debris; matters relating to remote sensing of the Earth by satellite, including monitoring of the Earth's
environment; use of nuclear power sources in outer space; near-Earth objects; space-system-based disaster management support; physical nature
and technical attributes of the geostationary orbit; etc. The Committee has also been concerned with space objects with nuclear power sources on board
and problems relating to their collision with space debris. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) implements the decisions of the
General Assembly and of UNCOPUOS. The office has the dual objective of supporting the intergovernmental discussions in UNCOPUOS and of assisting
developing countries in using space technology for development. The Office is the focus of expertise within the United Nations Secretariat. It serves as
the secretariat for the intergovernmental Committee (UNCOPUSOS), and implements the recommendations of the Committee and the United Nations
General Assembly. The Office is also responsible for organization and implementation of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications
(UNPSA). UNPSA is part of the Office for Outer Space Affairs. Its mission is stated as follows: ―Enhance the
understanding and subsequent use of space technology for peaceful purposes in general, and for national
development, in particular, in response to expressed needs in different geographic regions of the world. ‖21 Its
primary function is the organization of a series of 8-10 annual seminars, workshops, and conferences on particular aspects of space technology and
applications. These activities are organized primarily for the benefit of the developing countries and emphasize the use of space technology and
applications for economic and social development. In the past years, the space debris issues have not been part of the curriculum of the workshops and
seminars. The Programme also provides technical assistance to Member States of the United Nations in
organizing and developing space applications programs and projects.
Warming – A2 Droughts
Global warming doesn't cause droughts
Last, and going back in time almost 5,500 years, Russell and Johnson (2005) analyzed sediment cores that had been retrieved from
Lake Edward—the smallest of the great rift lakes of East Africa, located on the border that separates Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—
to derive a detailed precipitation history for that region. In doing so, they discovered that from the start of the record
until about 1,800 years ago, there was a long-term trend toward progressively more arid conditions, after
which there followed what they term a "slight trend" toward wetter conditions that has persisted to the present.
In addition, superimposed on these long-term trends were major droughts of "at least century-scale duration,"
centered at approximately 850, 1,500, 2,000, and 4,100 years ago. Consequently, it would not be unnatural for another such drought
to grip the region in the not-too-distant future. In summation, real-world evidence from Africa suggests that the
global warming of the past century or so has not led to a greater frequency or greater severity of drought in that
part of the world. Indeed, even the continent's worst drought in recorded meteorological history was much milder
than droughts that occurred periodically during much colder times.
Warming – A2 Ozone Holes
Cosmic rays cause ozone holes, not global warming
In one final review paper, Lu (2009) showed that in the period of 1980–2007, two
full 11-year cosmic ray cycles clearly correlated
with ozone depletion, especially the polar ozone loss (hole) over Antarctica. The temporal correlation is also supported by a
strong spatial correlation because the ozone hole is located in the lower polar stratosphere at ~18 km, exactly
where the ionization rate of cosmic rays producing electrons is the strongest . The results provide strong
evidence that the cosmic ray-driven electron-induced reaction of halogenated molecules plays the dominant
role in causing the ozone hole. Changes in ozone then have a global impact on climate.
Warming – A2 Weather
Global warming doesn't cause extreme weather
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
claims, in Section 3.8 of the report of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report,
that global warming will cause (or already is causing) more extreme weather: droughts, floods, tropical cyclones, storms, and more
(IPCC, 2007-I). Chapter 5 of the present report presented extensive evidence that solar variability, not CO2
concentrations in the air or rising global temperatures (regardless of their cause) is responsible for trends in many of
these weather variables. In this chapter we ask if there is evidence that the twentieth century, which the IPCC claims was the
warmest century in a millennium, experienced more severe weather than was experienced in previous, cooler periods.
We find no support for the IPCC's predictions. In fact, we find more evidence to support the opposite
prediction: that weather would be less extreme in a warmer world.
The IPCC's claim that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been responsible for the warming detected in the twentieth century is based on what
Loehle (2004) calls "the standard assumption in climate research, including the IPCC reports," that "over a century
time interval there is not likely to be any recognizable trend to global temperatures (Risbey et al., 2000), and thus the
null model for climate signal detection is a flat temperature trend with some autocorrelated noise," so that "any warming trends
in excess of that expected from normal climatic variability are then assumed to be due to anthropogenic effects." If, however, there are significant
underlying climate trends or cycles—or both—either known or unknown, that assumption is clearly invalid. Loehle used a pair of 3,000-year
proxy climate records with minimal dating errors to characterize the pattern of climate change over the past
three millennia simply as a function of time, with no attempt to make the models functions of solar activity or any other physical
variable. The first of the two temperature series is the sea surface temperature (SST) record of the Sargasso Sea, derived by Keigwin (1996) from a study
of the oxygen isotope ratios of foraminifera and other organisms contained in a sediment core retrieved from a deep-ocean drilling site on the Bermuda
Rise. This record provides SST data for about every 67th year from 1125 BC to 1975 AD. The second temperature series is the ground surface temperature
record derived by Holmgren et al. (1999, 2001) from studies of color variations of stalagmites found in a cave in South Africa, which variations are
caused by changes in the concentrations of humic materials entering the region's ground water that have been reliably correlated with regional
nearsurface air temperature. Why does Loehle use these two specific records? He says "most other long-term records have large
dating errors, are based on tree rings, which are not reliable for this purpose (Broecker, 2001), or are too short for
estimating long-term cyclic components of climate." Also, in a repudiation of the approach employed by Mann et al. (1998, 1999) and
Mann and Jones (2003), he reports that "synthetic series consisting of hemispheric or global mean temperatures are
not suitable for such an analysis because of the inconsistent timescales in the various data sets," noting further,
as a result of his own testing, that "when dating errors are present in a series, and several series are combined,
the result is a smearing of the signal." But can only two temperature series reveal the pattern of global temperature change? According to
Loehle, "a comparison of the Sargasso and South Africa series shows some remarkable similarities of pattern, especially considering the distance
separating the two locations," and he says that this fact "suggests that the climate signal reflects some global pattern rather than being a regional signal
only." He also notes that a comparison of the mean record with the South Africa and Sargasso series from which it was derived "shows excellent
agreement," and that "the patterns match closely," concluding that "this would not be the case if the two series were independent or random." Loehle fit
seven different time-series models to the two temperature series and to the average of the two series, using no data from the twentieth century. In all
seven cases, he reports that good to excellent fits were obtained. As an example, the three-cycle model he fit to the averaged temperature series had a
simple correlation of 0.58 and an 83 percent correspondence of peaks when evaluated by a moving window count. Comparing the forward
projections of the seven models through the twentieth century leads directly to the most important conclusions
of Loehle's paper. He notes, first of all, that six of the models "show a warming trend over the 20th century
similar in timing and magnitude to the Northern Hemisphere instrumental series," and that "one of the models
passes right through the 20th century data." These results suggest, in his words, "that 20th century warming
trends are plausibly a continuation of past climate patterns" and, therefore, that "anywhere from a major
portion to all of the warming of the 20th century could plausibly result from natural causes."
Intro to Energy - DuVall School News
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