Substance

Demingng

Err neg – our ev is a database of “U.S. taxpayer funded programs or assistance that
contributes to a nation’s offensive military capabilities”—the offensive and military
planks of our definition should bolster its weight.
ICIJ 14 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [] “A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING
U.S. FOREIGN MILITARY AID” The Center for Public Integrity. Published May 22, 2002. Last updated May
19, 2014. https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/a-citizens-guide-to-understanding-u-s-foreign-
military-aid/ IB

There is no single, accepted definition of the terms “foreign aid” or even “ foreign military aid ” or
“ military assistance .” For a government as large as that of the United States, it’s virtually impossible
to track all of the various federal agencies’ programs across countries and sectors to arrive at a single
number that captures the true amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to foreign governments, or even
just their militaries.

For the “Collateral Damage” investigative study, the Center for Public Integrity created a database
that tracks a subset of those financial flows: taxpayer-funded programs or assistance that contribute
to a nation’s offensive military capabilities . The database does not include certain large nuclear non-
proliferation programs or expenditures such as Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Sales, which
are not supported directly with taxpayer dollars. The database is also limited to tracking funds
appropriated to either the Defense Department or the State Department. For this report, these are the
criteria for “ foreign military assistance ” or “ foreign military aid. ”

There’s no distinction between humanitarian and military aid

Stelzer 15 MAJ Paul, The United States Humanitarian Demining Program: Civilmilitary Relations in
Humanitarian Demining, 2015, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1001874.pdf

The conditions in Afghanistan illustrate the difficulties in civil-military relations with respect to the HDP.
Actions during the civil war period were unsynchronized because the United Nations acted
independently of the government and military, which resembles the problems described in the
separatist theory. During the post 9/11 period, the aligned interests of the United Nations and the US
military blurred the distinction between humanitarian and military aid which resembles the
convergence theory. The result was the rejection of military aid in the form of attacks on deminers.
The flood of international actors also pushed aside Afghan leadership which prevented the development
of Afghan managerial capacity. The nationalization period marked a return to the separatist theory
where the United Nations, the US government, and the military recognized the weakness of Afghan
managerial capacity and all focused on independent exit strategies outside the scope of the Afghan
government. The result of the HDP in Afghanistan was the successful development of local demining
capacity, predominantly through the efforts of NGOs, with the absence of a governmental organization
to coordinate their efforts. In many respects, the conditions in Afghanistan mirror conditions in other
post conflict scenarios. The case of the HDP in Kosovo faced many of the same challenges as
Afghanistan; however, the DOD succeeded in contributing to humanitarian demining in Kosovo
where it failed in Afghanistan.

Here’s another definition

Overton 17
Iain Overton-editor, Jennifer Dathan-researcher, ADDRESSING THE THREAT POSED BY IEDS: NATIONAL,
REGIONAL AND GLOBAL INITIATIVES, https://aoav.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Addressing-the-
threat-posed-by-IEDs.pdf

However, the NAF itself has not received enormous amounts of foreign training or assistance, perhaps
because the NAF have been accused of various human rights abuses during the conflict, deterring those
who might otherwise provide military aid . In 2014, however, a Congressional Research Service Report
asserted that $5 million in aid was being directed by the US to the NAF in the form of military-civilian
relations and C-IED training, an increase from the previous year. In one publicised incident, a US bomb
squad supervisor volunteered to provide C-IED training to Nigerian police during a visit on an unrelated
mission. Other countries, including the UK, are also providing C-IED training to the NAF.

Demining is a part of military assistance

Blanchard, 8 (Analyst in Africa Affairs, MA in Security Studies from Georgetown, “Africa Command:
U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa,” CRS Report for Congress, CRS-17, 4-
10-2008, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/104287.pdf)

U.S. Military Assistance and Security Cooperation in Africa: An Expanding Role

The Department of Defense conducts a wide variety of activities in Africa in support of U.S. national
interests. Operational activities may include, but are not limited to, humanitarian relief,61
peacekeeping, counter-narcotics, sanctions enforcement, demining, non-combatant evacuations
(NEOs), and maritime interdiction operations (MIOs).
1] This makes no sense – demining aid involves training and intel, not money. Regimes
can’t weaponize knowledge about neutralizing explosive devices to do ____. The same
tech you use to defuse a landmine can’t be used for ____.
2] It’s only two hundred thousand bucks – worst case scenario what they say happens,
but the half billion we still end definitely solves their advantage – if any dollar is
enough to not solve, they prob can’t solve anyway cuz other countries will provide it,
and they can reallocate from other areas
3] That’s not how it works – a categorical grant to this specific program is used to buy
and give equipment i.e. we pay ourselves and give *country* demining aid like tech
and training, and then *country* pays us back, but there’s no net money going to
*country*
 1
Counterplan: The United States should substantially contribute to military demining
programs in Laos. The United States should cease all other military aid to
authoritarian regimes.
It’s military aid
ICIJ 7 - The Int'l Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “A citizen’s guide to understanding U.S. foreign
military aid,” http://www.publicintegrity.org/2007/05/22/5772/citizen-s-guide-understanding-us-
foreign-military-aid WJ

For the “Collateral Damage” investigative study, the Center for Public Integrity created a database that tracks a subset of those financial flows: taxpayer-

funded programs or assistance that contribute to a nation’s offensive military capabilities. The database does not
include certain large nuclear non-proliferation programs or expenditures such as Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Sales, which are not supported directly
with taxpayer dollars. The database is also limited to tracking funds appropriated to either the Defense Department or the State Department. For this report, these
are the criteria for “foreign military assistance” or “foreign military aid.”

Funds appropriated to the State Department and Defense Department represent the vast majority of
unclassified military aid and assistance. This report does not attempt to track smaller overseas programs
where funding is appropriated to the Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, or Department of
Homeland Security. The public does not have any way of tracking classified programs administered by
the U.S. intelligence community. These classified programs likely command large amounts of funding,
especially after the 9/11 attacks, and oversight is limited to members of congressional intelligence
committees.

Programs included in the Center’s database:

Coalition Support Funds (CSF): created after 9/11 to reimburse key allied countries for providing
assistance to the U.S. in the global war on terror.

Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP): created after 9/11 to give the Defense
Department its own funding to train and educate foreign military officers in counterterrorism
techniques. In practice, CTFP has evolved into a program very similar to IMET (see definition below).

Department of Defense Counterdrug Funding: assists foreign militaries and security forces to combat
drug trafficking around the world; also known as Section 1004 appropriations.

Economic Support Fund (ESF): provides grants to foreign governments to support economic stability. ESF
is often used for non-military purposes, but the grants are commonly viewed as a way to help offset
military expenditures. They have historically been earmarked for key security allies of the United States.
Israel and Egypt are the two largest recipients of ESF.

Foreign Military Financing (FMF): finances foreign governments’ acquisition of U.S. military articles,
services and training.

International Military Education and Training (IMET): educates foreign military personnel on issues
ranging from democracy and human rights to technical military techniques and training on U.S. weapons
systems.
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement/Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI): the primary State
Department funding effort for countering drugs, including the large Colombian initiatives.

Military Assistance Program (MAP): provides military material and services to foreign countries; the U.S.
government is not reimbursed. MAP includes “emergency drawdowns,” which are emergency transfers
authorized by the president for weapons, ammunition, parts and military equipment to foreign
governments.

Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, De-mining and Related Activities (NADR): supports de-mining, anti-
terrorism, and nonproliferation training and assistance.

Peacekeeping Operations (PKO): supports programs that improve foreign militaries’ peacekeeping
capabilities.

Laos is authoritarian—I inserted the EIU list of regimes

EIU 18 Economist Intelligence Unit. “Democracy Index.” 2018.
https://infographics.economist.com/2018/DemocracyIndex/ TG

167=Most Authoritarian, 116=Least Authoritarian

167 North Korea 166 Syria 165 Chad 164 Central African Republic 163 Democratic Republic of Congo 162
Turkmenistan 161 Equatorial Guinea 159 Saudi Arabia 159 Tajikistan 158 Uzbekistan 157 Guinea-Bissau 156 Yemen
155 Sudan 154 Libya 153 Burundi 151 Eritrea 151 Laos 150 Iran 149 Afghanistan 148 Azerbaijan 147 United Arab
Emirates 146 Bahrain 145 Djibouti 144 Swaziland 143 Oman 142 Togo 141 Kazakhstan 140 Vietnam 139 China 138
Belarus 137 Guinea 136 Zimbabwe 135 Russia 133 Rwanda 133 Qatar 132 Republic of the Congo 131 Cuba 130 Egypt
129 Ethiopia 128 Algeria 126 Cameroon 126 Gabon 125 Angola 124 Cambodia 123 Comoros 122 Niger 121
Mauritania 120 Myanmar 119 Kuwait 117 Venezuela 117 Jordan 116 Ivory Coast

Landmines cause massive violence – they’re unethical

Mekonnen 6 - MA Peace Studies-Notre Dame, “Drought, Famine, and Conflict: A Case from the Horn
of Africa,” Beyond Intractability, September,
http://www.beyondintractability.org/casestudy/mekonnen-drought WJ

Landmines are an additional serious problem that has a profound impact on health, the economy, and
the environment. In many war-torn countries these weapons have been scattered in farm fields, roads,
even around schools and health centers. According to Adopt a Minefield, a UK-based organization,
more than 80% of landmine causalities are civilians . Every day women and children are killed by
landmines or injured during and after violent conflicts. Besides causing death and injury, landmines
prevent people from using their farm lands and they block roads needed to fetch water. Landmines
additionally cause village markets to close and communication between different villages to stop.
Therefore, people either starve to death or wait for relief aid. But aid is also hampered or blocked
entirely by mines in the roads. The Horn of African countries have been infested by landmines. For
example, a UN Mine Action Center survey indicated that the rural and nomadic people in Ethiopia and
Eritrea are highly affected by landmines and unexploded ordinance left from long-lasting struggle of
Eritrea for independence, Ethiopia's conflict with neighboring countries and the recent conflict between
Ethiopia and Eritrea. The report states that there are around 6,295 victims of mine accidents in those
two countries . Making the land safe and available for farming and grazing is even more challenging.
This is yet another way in which armed conflict intensifies the effects of drought and causes famine.

There are mines in Laos—I’ll insert this graph

Landmine Monitor 17. http://the-monitor.org/media/2615219/Landmine-Monitor-2017_final.pdf

CP solves demining
King, 12 (First female Commandant of the US Army, Sergeant Major in the US Army, “USARAF
participates in humanitarian mining program,” US Army Africa, 11/30,
http://www.usaraf.army.mil/NEWS/NEWS_121130_dmn.html)

VICENZA, Italy – What started as a tasking from Africa Command eventually lead to a tremendous
opportunity for U.S. Army Africa to help detect landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) in
Africa in an effort to reduce loss of innocent lives and increase economic development. Humanitarian
Mine Action program helps foreign nations train their local demining cadre to help clear areas littered
with landmines and ERW from the aftermath of several decades of civil war. Partner nations with
landmine problems request the program through the Department of State. Maj. Jennifer Smith, a plans
officer in USARAF Plans, Operations and Training, is also the command’s HMA coordinator. To date,
USARAF has completed eight HMA missions in Chad, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic
of Congo. Smith said USARAF’s role in the HMA program is to ensure their African counterparts are
able to take training received from U.S. Explosive Ordnance Disposal Soldiers and train their own local
EOD technicians to international standards. “[The HMA program] is a train-the-trainer program to
[help] build the capacity of our partner nation so they can take care of their own landmine and
explosive remnants of war problems,” Smith, a Greensburg, Pa. native said. Classes in the HMA
program include demining, ordnance identification, explosives safety and theory, metal detector
operations, demolitions, physical security, stockpile classes, medical training and one-man person
drills in a 21-day program of instruction. On average, each class has 20 students. Smith said training not
only highlights relationships between the United States and Africa, it also allows her to develop a
mutual respect and understand of African soldiers. “[This training] shows there’s a partnership
between the U.S. and partner nations and it’s a way to show by example what a professional military
looks like. They [African soldiers] have a lot of challenges in their countries, not only landmines but in
the structure of the military, things we take for granted. I think it takes a lot of courage to show up
every day and be interested in a subject even though you’re not sure you’re going to get paid for it. They
keep a really positive mindset in spite of their uncertain careers,” Smith said. Smith said she enjoys
returning to the continent to see students continually and routinely engaged in the program. In Chad,
Smith said students have been going out on their own to conduct operations and eliminate landmines
and unexploded ordnance to improve the quality of life for their citizens, which Smith feels is great
progress. “I like this program because it’s not very expensive for the Department of Defense to run,
yet out of all their reconstruction efforts I’ve been a part of, I feel like [the HMA program] is the most
effective and has the greatest chance to build actual capacity in the country. It’s slow progress, but it’s
better than building a million dollar school we don’t have books or teachers for. Training-the-trainer is
always a good approach,” Smith said. In the future, Smith said she hopes the program will start to
teach preventive instruction within the local communities, in addition to the technical training.
“We’re hoping to expand into victim’s assistance and mine risk education. If that happens, our
numbers will probably increase because we will have concurrent training squads,” Smith said.
 2
Counterplan: the United States ought not provide military aid to authoritarian regimes
except for Ukraine.
President Trump should publicly condemn past aggression against Ukraine and warn
against any further such action.
Ukraine is authoritarian.
Kataryna Patsak 13 [BA in International Development Studies from York University (no date given but cites articles as late as March 12,
2013)], “Upholding a Competetively Authoritarian Regime in Ukraine – Human Rights Abuses and the Neopatrimonial State,”
https://aecpa.es/files/view/pdf/congress-papers/11-0/1031/

The current system in Ukraine can be classified as competitively authoritarian and seems to be
moving towards the authoritarian spectrum of ruling . Competitive authoritarianism is a hybrid regime type which consist
of the following democratic attributes: free, fair and competitive elections, full adult suffrage, broad protection of civil liberties, absence of
unelected tutelary authorities while violating at least one of the following democratic attributes - free elections, broad protection of civil
liberties and a reasonably level playing field (Levitsky &Way, 2010). Consequently by and large the post-Soviet regime of Ukraine is competitive
in the sense that opposition forces use democratic institutions to contest for power and occasionally are able to win. However they are not fully
democratic as there exists electoral manipulation , unequal access to media, abuse of state resources
and degrees of harassment and violence which create an unfair advantage for the incumbents, so
while competition exists it is largely unfair (Levitsky &Way, 2010). They should then be treated as distinct nondemocratic
regime types rather than incomplete democracies and it should not be assumed that they are in transition to democracy. The election of Viktor
Yanukovich in 2010 can be seen as proof that competitive authoritarian regimes are not bound to collapse and many of them have proved to be
remarkably robust (Levitsky &Way, 2010).

Err neg on competition—lack of aff specification makes neg prep impossible because
they’ll always read a new arbitrary definition in the 1ar to avoid the link to all neg
arguments—if it reasonably seems like Ukraine is authoritarian you should default neg
Russia’s strategy has changed and appeasement leads to Russian invasion
Stephen J. Hadley, 01-18-2019, 3:53 PM, "It's Time to Stand Up to Russia's Aggression in Ukraine,"
Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/18/its-time-to-stand-up-to-russias-aggression-in-
ukraine/ WJ

Five years ago, Russia rolled into Crimea, orchestrated a swift and one-sided referendum, and annexed
the Ukrainian territory. The West was blindsided by the attack and slow to provide any response. As a
result, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a second invasion of Ukrainian soil—this one in the
country’s east. This attack met stronger resistance, and eventually the West swung into gear to push for
a cease-fire and to impose sanctions on Russia. Yet the conflict rumbles on and has killed over 10,300
Ukrainians so far.

Today, the world is facing another challenge. Russia has seized unilateral control of the Kerch Strait,
and the West has done nothing. This may tempt Putin—who is already massing forces— to seize even
more Ukrainian territory , attempt to subvert the Ukrainian presidential election, or both.
U.S. President Donald Trump is right to say that Putin took Crimea and the West did nothing . But now
that Putin may have bigger designs, what will Trump do?

On Nov. 25, 2018, Russian Coast Guard vessels fired on Ukrainian naval ships in international waters in
the Black Sea, damaging the vessels and wounding a handful of Ukrainian sailors. Russia then took
possession of the ships and imprisoned the sailors.

The Ukrainian ships had attempted to pass from Ukraine’s port at Odessa to its port at Mariupol, on
the Sea of Azov. Doing so requires transiting the very narrow and shallow Kerch Strait, over which
Russia has now built a road and rail bridge connecting Russia with Russian-occupied Crimea. The
Ukrainian vessels refused to recognize Russia’s assertion of unilateral control over the strait or to
comply with the instructions of the Russian Coast Guard to wait outside the strait. The ships proceeded
anyway and were first blocked, then attacked by the Russian Coast Guard.

By firing on the Ukrainian naval ships in international waters, by treating Ukraine’s sailors as civilians
rather than members of a sovereign state’s armed forces, and by basing these actions on its claimed
annexation of Crimea and its territorial waters, Russia violated international law, the laws of armed
conflict, and a 2003 bilateral agreement in which Russia and Ukraine agreed to share sovereignty and
control over the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. Russia argues that it now has sole sovereignty over
the strait; most of the world disagrees.

Ukraine will not lightly abandon its right to move naval vessels through the Kerch Strait and other
territorial waters around Crimea. Russia is likely to respond as aggressively as it did in November,
worsening the risk of further conflict. But there are several other factors heightening the crisis.

Presidential elections will be held in Ukraine on March 31, and Putin is keen to see Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko weakened and ultimately defeated. Russia is also angered by the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church gaining autocephaly—independence from the Russian Orthodox Church—
for the first time since 1686. Crimea is dependent on freshwater reservoirs on Ukrainian territory,
making them a dangerous temptation for Russia.

Putin’s tactics follow a familiar pattern: identify an opportunity to advance his view of Russian
interests, mount a limited military operation to exploit that opportunity, and see whether it
provokes any serious international condemnation or military response. If not, up the stakes and
expand the operation .

In the nearly two months since Russia attacked the Ukrainian naval vessels, there has been almost no
international response . As a result, Russia may believe it will face little resistance to further attacks
on Ukrainian territory or territorial waters , much as it concluded in 2008 prior to attacking Georgia or
in 2014 when pivoting from annexing Crimea to attacking the Donbass. But prudent steps taken now
could help deter further aggression in the first place.

Such measures should cover a wide spectrum of diplomatic, economic, and preventive military steps.
On the diplomatic side, European and American leaders should weigh in to condemn past aggression
against Ukraine and warn against any further such action.
That’s the only existential nuclear risk – it outweighs other impacts
Sebastian Farquhar et al 17 [DPhil from Oxford, John Halstead (DPhil Oxford in Politics), Owen Cotton-Barratt (DPhil Oxford in Math),
Stefan Schubert (PhD Philosophy), Haydn Belfield (Academic Project Manager @ Centere for the Study of Existential Risk), Andrew Snyder-
Beattie (DPhil candidate in biomathematics and economics)], “Existential Risk: Diplomacy and Governance,” Global Priorities Project,
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the unprecedented destructive power of nuclear weapons. However, even in an all-
out nuclear war between the United States and Russia, despite horrific casualties, neither country’s population is likely to be
completely destroyed by the direct effects of the blast, fire, and radiation. The aftermath could be much worse: the burning
of flammable materials could send massive amounts of smoke into the atmosphere, which would
absorb sunlight and cause sustained global cooling, severe ozone loss, and agricultural disruption – a
nuclear winter.

According to one model, an all-out exchange of 4,000 weapons could lead to a drop in global temperatures of around
8°C, making it impossible to grow food for 4 to 5 years. This could leave some survivors in parts of Australia and New
Zealand, but they would be in a very precarious situation and the threat of extinction from other sources would be
great. An exchange on this scale is only possible between the US and Russia who have more than 90% of
the world’s nuclear weapons, with stockpiles of around 4,500 warheads each, although many are not operationally deployed. Some
models suggest that even a small regional nuclear war involving 100 nuclear weapons would produce a nuclear winter serious
enough to put two billion people at risk of starvation, though this estimate might be pessimistic. Wars on this scale are unlikely to lead
to outright human extinction, but this does suggest that conflicts which are around an order of
magnitude larger may be likely to threaten civilisation. It should be emphasised that there is very large uncertainty about
the effects of a large nuclear war on global climate. This remains an area where increased academic research work, including more detailed
climate modelling and a better understanding of how survivors might be able to cope and adapt, would have high returns.

It is very difficult to precisely estimate the probability of existential risk from nuclear war over the next century, and existing attempts leave
very large confidence intervals. According to many experts, the most likely nuclear war at present is between India and Pakistan. However,
given the relatively modest size of their arsenals, the
risk of human extinction is plausibly greater from a conflict
between the United States and Russia. Tensions between these countries have increased in recent
years and it seems unreasonable to rule out the possibility of them rising further in the future.
 3
Interpretation: affs must specify the branch of their aff either in their plan text or
before the round if asked.
Violation: you said quote “that’s a CX question”
Vote neg—who the agent is affects the majority of neg ground from circumvention
arguments, agent-based disads, and process counterplans all of which are key neg
ground on an aff-biased topic. CX doesn’t solve pre-round prep.
 4
There’s no meaningful relationship between debate about the character of the law
and social change—get out of the argument room
Schlag ‘3 (Pierre, Distinguished Prof. @ U. of Colorado and Byron R. White Professor @ Colorado Law
School, 57 U. Miami L. Rev. 1029)

The presumption is that the words of the judge (if they are well crafted) will effectively produce a social reality
that corresponds roughly with the words uttered. But what reason is there to believe this? False
Empowerment (No. 2) The endlessly repeated question in first year, "What should the court do?" leads law
students to believe that courts respond to the force of the better argument. This would be tolerable if one added two
provisos:1. The better argument often means little more than the one the courts are predisposed to believe; and 2. In the phrase "force of better argument" it's
important to attend not just to the "better" part, but to the other term as well. False Empowerment (No. 3) Law students
first learn of many
complex social and economic realities through the medium of case law. What they learn is thus the
law's vision of these economic and social realities. Not surprisingly, there is an almost magical
correspondence between legal categories and social or economic practices. This magical fit leads law
students (later to become law professors) to have an extremely confident view of the efficacy of law. Many law students
n4
are cured of this belief-structure by a stay in the legal clinic or by law practice. There is one group of people, however, who are generally not cured of this belief-
structure at all, but whose faith is actually intensified. These are the people who hold prestigious judicial clerkships where an emotional proximity to and
identification with their judge ("my judge") leads to an even greater confidence in the efficacy of law. These people are frequently chosen to teach in law schools.
False empowerment can be disempowering. It can also lead to pessimism and despair. Many people react to a loss of faith in law or legal studies with despair or
pessimism. But this is the despair and pessimism that comes from giving up a naieve or a romantic vision of law and/or legal studies. The onslaught of this despair
and pessimism is a good thing. It is like the thirty-something who realizes that he is mortal and that life is brief. Generally, this is not welcome news. At the same
time, it may help prevent a life spent in Heideggerian dread, tanning salons, or the interstices of footnote 357.When
the academic loses faith in
law or legal studies, typically that person is most troubled because she has lost the framework that makes
her academic project possible. But so what? Isn't the demand that law conform to an academic
project arguably a selfish one? The Con, The Joke, and The Ironic Truth The Con: In the courtroom, the appellate judge is typically seated behind
an elevated bench. On the classroom blackboard the appellate judge is chalked in above the plaintiff and the defendant. This is both a reflection and a
reinforcement of the belief that the appellate judge is an intellectually and politically privileged legal actor. The Joke: In actuality, the appellate judge is a person
who operates in conditions of severe information deficits and whose outlook is thoroughly manipulated by professional rhetoricians. Very often he has little or no
understanding of the configurations of the social field to which his rulings will apply. What's more, this is a person who is prohibited from talking about the social
field, except with a highly restricted number of people. The Ironic Truth: On the other hand, because we believe the appellate judge is a particularly privileged

intellectual and political actor, we contribute to making him so. Legal intellectuals like to believe that law is an intelligent
enterprise. They like to believe that the law offers an interesting vocabulary, grammar, and rhetoric
through which to think about the world and law itself. This is naive. The political demand that law be
efficacious means that law must track, must indeed incorporate popular beliefs about social and
economic identities, causation, linguistic meaning, and so forth. (Those beliefs are often intellectually bereft.)The Argument
Room The argument room is a place where academic advocates go to argue passionately about law and

politics. (Apologies to Monty Python.) Within the room, arguments are won and lost; triumphs and
defeats are had. But generally, no one outside the room pays much attention to what goes on inside the
room. Sometimes there is seepage and fragments of the conversations are heard outside the room.
Participants most often spend their time arguing about what should happen outside the room. This
they call “knowledge” or "understanding" or "jurisprudence" or “scholarship” or “politics.” The one thing that
generally cannot be talked about inside the room is the construction of the room itself. Politics (No. 1) For
progressive legal thinkers, politics is a "theoretical unmentionable": The concept "politics" does a great deal of

theoretical work and yet its identity remains generally immune from scrutiny. The categories (right,
left) and the fundamental grammar of politics (progress, reaction, and so forth) generally go
unquestioned. Oddly, while everything else seems to be contingent, conditional, contextual, and so on, the categories of politics
seem to be oddly stable, nearly transcendent. Strangely, this occurs at a time when the categories, left and right (and even politics itself),
seem increasingly fragile and non-referential.Still, this is an intensely political time political not in the sense of significant social contestation (not much of that) nor
in the sense of ideological struggle (not happening much either). Rather, political in the sense of very significant reorganizations and reallocations of power, wealth,
and so on. Capital (for lack of a better term) is in a period of rapid self-reorganization in which it increasingly regiments precincts of life previously offering some
resistance to its grammar to wit: time, family, media, public space, wilderness, and so forth. The point is not that these precincts were immune to capital before, but
rather that capital is advancing at such an intense rate to bring about a significant disruption and a qualitative change in these precincts. This change is manifest not
only in the colonization of new precincts, but in the self-organization of capital [*1034] (new financial vehicles) and, of course, in new literary and intellectual forms
(postmodernism as both symptom and diagnosis). Meanwhile, the old categories, the old grammar, the old answers, seem to have lost some of their hold. The right
is intellectually stagnant. And the left is, as a social presence, ontologically challenged. Indeed, in the United States, we seem at present to have several right wings
and no left wing. This does not mean that "politics" as a social category is necessarily dead. It might mean simply that we (and others) have not understood, have
not grasped, have not articulated its new configurations.What would be required on the intellectual level is a re-evaluation not only of the conventionally
articulated categories, but of the social and economic ontology. At its best, postmodernism (and there has been a lot of bad reactionary and nostalgic
postmodernism) is an attempt to trigger such a re-evaluation. Progressives, understandably, strive to protect their categories, grammar, and self-image from these
challenges. But this is not without cost. To argue in favor of political positions is sometimes political. But it is not
always political. Sometimes taking up a political argument is political and sometimes it has no consequences whatsoever. One cannot know beforehand.
But it is a serious mistake to suppose that arguing in favor of a political position is in and of itself

political. Very often in the legal academy, to argue for a political (or normative) position is not political at all. It simply
triggers a scholastic, highly stereotyped meta-discourse about whether the arguments advanced are
sound, accurate, should be adopted, or the like. Traditionally, the left has defended the victims of
capitalism, imperialism, and racism. Indeed, this is an important part of what it means to be "on the left." Meanwhile, in the
university, scholarly attention depends upon the production of new exciting ideas and research agendas. This
poses a problem for the left: the victims of capitalism, imperialism, and racism remain the same. The
political-intellectual defenses advanced on behalf of victims remain the same. This leads to a certain
sense of weariness and deja vu stereotyped arguments, standard rhetorical moves. A tendency to
fight the same old fights. Machines. This is a problem. A Problem for Progressive Legal Thinkers As the author of Laying Down the
Law, it just isn't clear to me that law is the sort of thing that is endlessly perfectible. At times it seems to me that law
is a lot like military strategy. You can try making military strategy the best it can be (maybe you should). But when you get done it's still going to be military strategy.
In that context it would be a good thing to have a few people (I volunteer) to be less than completely enthralled by military strategy. The same would go for law. It

could be that law is objectionable in important respects because, well ... it's law. From this standpoint
it seems odd that someone should feel authorized to say: "You should do X.

" Legal Thought as Arrogance The belief is that the future of the free world, the maintenance of the rule of law, the welfare of the republic, the
liberation of oppressed peoples, the direction of the Court, the legitimacy of the Florida election, hangs on a law professor's next article. This is the
esprit serieux gone nuts. The most significant effect of this belief is to arrest thought and end the play
of ideas necessary for creativity.Yes, legal interpretation sometimes takes place in a field of pain and death. n9 But that hardly means that legal
studies takes place in a field of pain and death. It is a residual objectivism that enables legal academics to believe that when they write about law what it is or what
it should be they are somehow engaged in the same enterprise as judges. They're not. It is not that legal scholarship is without consequence. It's just that the
institutional and rhetorical contexts are sufficiently different that the consequences are different as well.There is an important, indeed foundational, category
mistake that sustains American legal thought it is the supposition that because academics and judges deploy the same vocabulary and the same grammar, they are
involved in largely the same enterprise. I just don't think that's true. My own view is that legal academics are but one social group (among many) competing for the
articulation of what law is. Judges are another. Social movements, corporations, public interest groups, administrative officials, criminals, etc., are some of the
others. For most of the history of the American law school, academics have anointed judges as privileged speakers of law. In turn, legal academics have adopted the
habits, forms of thought, and rhetoric of judges thereby accruing to themselves the authority to say what the law is.Legal academics legitimate their claim to say
what the law is by fashioning law as an academic discipline requiring expertise. Legal academics then hold themselves out as possessing this expertise. Among those
critical theorists who seek to contest this expertise, one can distinguish two approaches. One approach is to try to reveal the emptiness of the claims to expertise
among the legal intelligentsia and to reveal how these claims nonetheless gain power. Another approach is to try to relocate the authority to say what the law is
among those who have been excluded.I do not see these approaches as antithetical, but rather as complementary. Furthermore, both approaches will in fact
reinscribe, will performatively reinforce, precisely the sort of rhetorics and hierarchies they contest. No way around that.I think critical thinkers all do this though in
different ways. And it's certainly worthwhile pointing out how it is being done. At the same time, no one is safe or immune from this sort of criticism.To learn to
laugh at what is taken seriously, but is not serious, is a serious thing to do. To take seriously what is not, is a drag. A Problem for Progressives Progressives wish to
pursue a politics that is efficacious. This means keeping track both of the social context in which progressivism articulates itself (on the side of the subject), and the
social context in [*1038] which progressivism seeks to register its results (on the side of the object). But this work of reconnaissance a work that is necessary may
bring unwelcome news: namely that progressivism unmodified is no longer a terribly cogent project. Choices will have to be made: to defend progressive thought
against this unwelcome news or to put the identity of progressive projects at risk by encountering this unwelcome news. Formalism is virtually an inexorable
condition of legal scholarship in the following sense: a legal academic generally writes scholarship outside the social pressures of what a lawyer would call real
stakes, real clients, or real consequences. The failure of an argument in the pages of the Stanford Law Review is generally very different from the failure of an
argument in a brief or an opinion. The difference in context changes the character and consequences of the acts even if the authors use exactly the same
words.Binary and Not (Insider/Outsider, Immanent/Transcendent, Mind/Body etc. etc. etc.)It's one thing to deploy oppositional binarism to describe the broad
structures of a text. It's quite another to adopt binarism as an intellectual lifestyle choice. Oppositional binarism has a special hold/appeal in American law precisely
because: 1) law is often identified with what appellate courts say it is; and 2) by the time a case gets to an appellate court, the reductionism of litigation and the
binary structure of the adversarial orientation has reduced the dispute to an either/or (e.g., liberty vs. equality or formal equality vs. substantive equality, and so
on).But ... .Oppositional binarism flounders because law does not have fixed, uncontroversial grids. Hence, for instance, the notion that a person is an insider or an
outsider just doesn't track with much of anything (except perhaps the author's own formalism).If one thinks about it, a person is an insider in this respect (he's
white) but an outsider in that respect (he's working class) and then an insider with respect to his pedigree (he went to Columbia) but really an outsider within his
insider Columbia status because he was profoundly [*1039] alienated from the Columbia social scene and blah blah blah. After a while (very soon, actually) the
insider/outsider distinction loses its hold. The point is, unless you happen to have a well-formed, non-overlapping fixed grid (and this would be a very strange thing
for a critical theorist to have!), oppositional binarism (like everything else) ultimately collapses.Interestingly, there was a moment of slippage in the history of critical
legal studies (or perhaps the fem-crits) when binary oppositionalism slid from a heuristic into (of all things) a metaphysic!The Machines In Keith Aoki's comic strip,
the agents of R.E.A.S.O.N. and P.I.E.R.R.E. fight each other in a comically cliched fashion. It is Nick Fury jurisprudence. And there is something s trikingly right about
that (however humbling it may be for me and others).One of the things that happens in the Nick Fury comic strips (as in Keith Aoki's contribution) is that the
antagonists deploy machines against each other. In legal thought, we have a lot of machines in
operation. n13 By this I mean that a great deal of so-called legal thought is not really thought at all but
the deployment of a series of rhetorical operations over and over again to perform actions (usually
destructive in character) on other peoples' texts or persons. Every argument tends to become a
machine. Over time, legal academics tend to become their own arguments. Then, of course, they become their own machines. At that point, it's
time to move on.
 Theory hedge
Theory hedge:
1AR theory is skewed towards the aff— A] the 2NR must cover substance and over-
cover theory, since they get the collapse and persuasiveness advantage of a 3 minute
2AR B] their responses to my counter interp will be new, which means 1AR theory
necessitates intervention. Implications—
A] 1AR theory can’t be a legitimate check for abuse and you should reject it B]
dropping the argument minimizes the chance the round is decided unfairly C] if
intervention will happen on theory debates, then judges should intervene in a way
that decreases the asinine nature of LD theory
 Framing
Attempts to resolve singular causes of warfare lock in aggressive government policy –
strategic changes are key
Moore, Director Center for Security Law @ University of Virginia, 7-time Presidential appointee, &
Honorary Editor of the American Journal of International Law, ‘04

(John N., Solving the War Puzzle: Beyond the Democratic Peace, pg. 41-42).
If major interstate war is predominantly a product of a synergy between a potential nondemocratic aggressor and an absence of effective
deterrence, what is the role of the many traditional "causes" of war? Past, and many contemporary, theories of war
have focused
on the role of specific disputes between nations, ethnic and religious differences, arms races, poverty or social
injustice, competition for resources, incidents and accidents, greed, fear, and perceptions of "honor," or many other
such factors. Such factors may well play a role in motivating aggression or in serving as a means for generating fear
and manipulating public opinion. The reality, however, is that while some of these may have more potential to
contribute to war than others, there may well be an infinite set of motivating factors, or human wants,
motivating aggression. It is not the independent existence of such motivating factors for war but rather the

circumstances permitting or encouraging high risk decisions leading to war that is the key to more
effectively controlling war. And the same may also be true of democide. The early focus in the Rwanda slaughter on "ethnic conflict,"
as though Hutus and Tutsis had begun to slaughter each other through spontaneous combustion, distracted our attention from the reality that
a nondemocratic Hutu regime had carefully planned and orchestrated a genocide against Rwandan Tutsis as well as its Hutu opponents.I1
Certainly if
we were able to press a button and end poverty, racism, religious intolerance, injustice, and
endless disputes, we would want to do so. Indeed, democratic governments must remain committed to
policies that will produce a better world by all measures of human progress. The broader achievement of
democracy and the rule of law will itself assist in this progress. No one, however, has yet been able to demonstrate the
kind of robust correlation with any of these "traditional" causes of war as is reflected in the
"democratic peace." Further, given the difficulties in overcoming many of these social problems, an
approach to war exclusively dependent on their solution may be to doom us to war for generations to
come.

A useful framework in thinking about the war puzzle is provided in the Kenneth Waltz classic Man, the State, and
War,12 first published in 1954 for the Institute of War and Peace Studies, in which he notes that previous thinkers about the causes of
war have tended to assign responsibility at one of the three levels of individual psychology, the nature of the state,
or the nature of the international system. This tripartite level of analysis has subsequently been widely copied in the study of international
relations. We might summarize my analysis in this classical construct by suggesting that the most critical variables are the second and third
levels, or "images," of analysis. Government structures, at the second level, seem to play a central role in levels of aggressiveness in high risk
behavior leading to major war. In this, the "democratic peace" is an essential insight. The third level of analysis, the international system, or
totality of external incentives influencing the decision for war, is also critical when government structures do not restrain such high risk
behavior on their own. Indeed, nondemocratic systems may not only fail to constrain inappropriate aggressive behavior, they may even
massively enable it by placing the resources of the state at the disposal of a ruthless regime elite. It is not that the first level of analysis, the
individual, is unimportant. I have already argued that it is important in elite perceptions about the permissibility and feasibility of force and
resultant necessary levels of deterrence. It
is, instead, that the second level of analysis, government structures, may
be a powerful proxy for settings bringing to power those who may be disposed to aggressive military
adventures and in creating incentive structures predisposing to high risk behavior. We should keep before us, however, the
possibility, indeed probability, that a war/peace model focused on democracy and deterrence might be
further usefully refined by adding psychological profiles of particular leaders, and systematically applying other findings of
cognitive psychology, as we assess the likelihood of aggression and levels of necessary deterrence in context.
A post-Gulf War edition of Gordon Craig and Alexander George's classic, Force and Statecraft,13 presents an important discussion of the inability of the pre-war coercive diplomacy effort to
get Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait without war.14 This discussion, by two of the recognized masters of deterrence theory, reminds us of the many important psychological and
other factors operating at the individual level of analysis that may well have been crucial in that failure to get Hussein to withdraw without war. We should also remember that
nondemocracies can have differences between leaders as to the necessity or usefulness of force and, as Marcus Aurelius should remind us, not all absolute leaders are Caligulas or Neros.
Further, the history of ancient Egypt reminds us that not all Pharaohs were disposed to make war on their neighbors. Despite the importance of individual leaders, however, we should also
keep before us that major international war is predominantly and critically an interaction, or synergy, of certain characteristics at levels two and three, specifically an absence of democracy
and an absence of effective deterrence.

Yet another way to conceptualize the importance of democracy and deterrence in war avoidance is to
note that each in its own way internalizes the costs to decision elites of engaging in high risk aggressive
behavior. Democracy internalizes these costs in a variety of ways including displeasure of the electorate
at having war imposed upon it by its own government. And deterrence either prevents achievement of
the objective altogether or imposes punishing costs making the gamble not worth the risk.I5

VI Testing the Hypothesis Theory without truth is but costly entertainment.

HYPOTHESES, OR PARADIGMS, are useful if they reflect the real world better than previously held
paradigms. In the complex world of foreign affairs and the war puzzle, perfection is unlikely. No general construct will
fit all cases even in the restricted category of "major interstate war"; there are simply too many variables. We should
insist, however, on testing against the real world and on results that suggest enhanced usefulness over other
constructs. In
testing the hypothesis, we can test it for consistency with major wars; that is, in looking, for example, at the
principal interstate wars in the twentieth century, did
they present both a nondemocratic aggressor and an absence
of effective deterrence?' And although it is by itself not going to prove causation, we might also want to
test the hypothesis against settings of potential wars that did not occur. That is, in nonwar settings, was
there an absence of at least one element of the synergy? We might also ask questions about the effect of changes on the
international system in either element of the synergy; that is, what, in general, happens when a totalitarian state makes a transition to stable
democracy or vice versa? And what, in general, happens when levels of deterrence are dramatically increased or decreased?

Their impact claims are first world essentialism – narrow focus turns the k
Goetz ‘91 (Anne, research fellow in Development studies at U of Sussex, “Gender and International
Relations,” 1991)

Third world women have accused first world and western-trained feminists of exercising a certain
cultural colonialism, of misrepresenting different women by homogenizing the experiences and
conditions of western women across time and culture. Chakravorty Spivak has shown that western
women are “complicitous” in contributing to the continued ‘degredation’ of third world women whose
micrology they interpret without having access to it. Monica Lazreg, exploring the ‘perils of writing as a
woman on women in Algeria’ suggests that third world women have been produced as a field of
knowledge, essentializing their difference in a process that represents a ‘caricature of the feminist
project’. Black feminists have accused white feminists of adding on difference at the margin ‘without
leaving the comforts of home’ so as to support ‘the seeming homogeneity, stability, and self-evidence of
its experience based epistemology’. Trinh T. Minh-ha identifies this neutralized difference as ‘the very
kind of colonized anthropologised difference the master has always granted his subordinates’. Audre
Lorde’s response to the universalized picture of oppression in Mary Dali’s Gym/Ecology reproaches her
for failing: “to recognize that, as women… differences expose all women to various forms and degrees of
patriarchal oppression, some of which we share, some of which we do not… The oppression of women
knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean that it is identical within those
boundaries… to imply… that all women suffer the same oppression simply because we are women is to
lose sight of the many varied tools of patriarchy. It is to ignore how these tools are used by women
without awareness against each other .” These statements amount to descriptions of an
epistemologically totalizing and culturally disruptive feminist. And to the extent that feminist theory’s
claim to relevance is based upon its claim to represent the meaning of women’s social experience in all
its heterogeneity, these critiques point to some fundamental problems. The original consciousness
raising approach of traditional feminist – what Catherine MacKinnon has called its critical method –
involved a project of theorizing the collective expression of the social constitution of sexed identities.
This was informed by a political understanding that gender was not an inalienable description of human
reality; an understanding derived from the insights of a traditional feminist ideology whose analysis of
the political meaning of experience was concerned with deconstructing the legitimating surface of
women’s oppression. Theorizing the social construction of subjectivity produced an understanding of
the mechanisms of sexist oppression. In practice, and as seen above, particularly in the context of WID
practice, that collective critical reconstitution of women’s experiences in traditional feminist movements
has tended to reproduce the situational consciousness of the white, bourgeois, heterosexual feminist,
developing a set of certainties structured around that specific subjectivity. Such certainties in liberal or
Marxist feminist ideologies tended to inform the cross-cultural investigations of sexual subordination,
producing a certain myopia with respect to the details of sexual subordination in different societies. The
failure to guide practice with reference to the processes that shape human perceptions and norms
promoted the disintegration of feminist pronouncements on women in development into a norm
setting activity by a counter-elite.

Violence is proximately caused – root cause logic is poor scholarship

Sharpe, lecturer, philosophy and psychoanalytic studies, and Goucher, senior lecturer, literary and
psychoanalytic studies – Deakin University, ‘10

(Matthew and Geoff, Žižek and Politics: An Introduction, p. 231 – 233)

We realise that this argument, which we propose as a new ‘quilting’ framework to explain Žižek’s
theoretical oscillations and political prescriptions, raises some large issues of its own. While this is not
the place to further that discussion, we think its analytic force leads into a much wider critique of
‘Theory’ in parts of the latertwentieth- century academy, which emerged following the ‘cultural turn’ of
the 1960s and 1970s in the wake of the collapse of Marxism. Žižek’s paradigm to try to generate all his
theory of culture, subjectivity, ideology, politics and religion is psychoanalysis. But a similar criticism
would apply, for instance, to theorists who feel that the method Jacques Derrida developed for
criticising philosophical texts can meaningfully supplant the methodologies of political science,
philosophy, economics, sociology and so forth, when it comes to thinking about ‘the political’. Or,
differently, thinkers who opt for Deleuze (or Deleuze’s and Guattari’s) Nietzschean Spinozism as a new
metaphysics to explain ethics, politics, aesthetics, ontology and so forth, seem to us candidates for the
same type of criticism, as a reductive passing over the empirical and analytic distinctness of the
different object fields in complex societies.

In truth, we feel that Theory, and the continuing line of ‘master thinkers’ who regularly appear
particularly in the English- speaking world, is the last gasp of what used to be called First Philosophy. The
philosopher ascends out of the city, Plato tells us, from whence she can espie the Higher Truth, which
she must then bring back down to political earth. From outside the city, we can well imagine that she
can see much more widely than her benighted political contemporaries. But from these philosophical
heights, we can equally suspect that the ‘master thinker’ is also always in danger of passing over the
salient differences and features of political life – differences only too evident to people ‘on the ground’.
Political life, after all, is always a more complex affair than a bunch of ideologically duped fools staring at
and enacting a wall (or ‘politically correct screen’) of ideologically produced illusions, from Plato’s
timeless cave allegory to Žižek’s theory of ideology.

We know that Theory largely understands itself as avowedly ‘post- metaphysical’. It aims to erect its
new claims on the gravestone of First Philosophy as the West has known it. But it also tells us that
people very often do not know what they do. And so it seems to us that too many of its proponents and
their followers are mourners who remain in the graveyard, propping up the gravestone of Western
philosophy under the sign of some totalising account of absolutely everything – enjoyment, différance,
biopower . . . Perhaps the time has come, we would argue, less for one more would- be global,
allpurpose existential and political Theory than for a multi- dimensional and interdisciplinary critical
theory that would challenge the chaotic specialisation neoliberalism speeds up in academe, which
mirrors and accelerates the splintering of the Left over the last four decades. This would mean that we
would have to shun the hope that one method, one perspective, or one master thinker could single-
handedly decipher all the complexity of socio- political life, the concerns of really existing social
movements – which specifi cally does not mean mindlessly celebrating difference, marginalisation and
multiplicity as if they could be suffi cient ends for a new politics. It would be to reopen critical theory
and non- analytic philosophy to the other intellectual disciplines, most of whom today pointedly reject
Theory’s legitimacy, neither reading it nor taking it seriously.

Equating warfare with patriarchy essentializes women and destroys critique

TICKNER, 2 [J. Ann, professor at the School of International Relations at USC; “Feminist Perspectives on
9/11,” International Studies Perspectives, 2002: 3]
Given the massive sense of insecurity generated by the first foreign terrorist attack on American civilians at home, there is something
reassuring about “our men” protecting us from “other men.” 21 However, even though the war exceeded all expectations in its swift
destruction of the Taliban and al Qaeda networks, and despite increased attention to homeland security, the
U.S. remains uncertain
about its ability to deter future terrorist attacks. In light of these continued fears, the U.S. Congress passed
the USA Patriot Act, legislation that allows the Attorney General to detain aliens on mere suspicion and without a hearing. Prior to its
passage, the U.S. had already detained more than 1,200 young men without charge; Arab men have been subject to ethnic, as well as gender,
profiling under the excuse that we are “at war.” These measures have received strong support from across the political spectrum. Criticism is
seen as unpatriotic.22 Equally
disturbing is a political climate, typical of countries at war, that fosters intolerance of
alternative points of view. Illustrations of this intolerance have been prevalent in media discussion as well as in political discourse. In
an article in the New York Times, Edward Rothstein ~2001! articulated his hope that the attacks of September 11 might challenge the
intellectual and ethical perspectives of postmodernism and postcolonialism thus leading to their rejection. Chastising adherents to these modes
of thought for their extreme cultural relativism and rejection of objectivity and universalism, Rothstein expressed hope that, as it comes to be
realized how closely the 9/11 attacks came to undermining the political and military authority of the U.S., these ways of thinking will come to
be seen as “ethically perverse.” While the author did not mention feminism, feminists
are frequently criticized on the same
terms; women and feminists often get blamed in times of political, economic, and social uncertainty .
Kurth’s fear of feminists’ destruction of the social fabric of society is one such example and the association of patriotism with “hegemonic”
masculinity challenges women, minorities, and “aliens” to live up to this standard. It is the case that postcolonialists and feminists have
questioned objectivity and universalism; but they do so because they claim these terms are frequently associated with ways of knowing that
are not objective but based only on the lives of (usually privileged) men. Many feminists are sympathetic with postcolonialism, a body of
knowledge that attempts to uncover the voices of those who have been colonized and oppressed. It is a form of knowledge-seeking that
resonates with attempts to recover knowledge about women. In a rather different piece, which acknowledged the recognition accorded to
women of Afghanistan since 9011, Sarah Wildman (2001) chastised American feminists on the grounds of irrelevance. Claiming that feminists
have an unprecedented public platform because of the attention focused on women in Afghanistan, Wildman accused them of squandering
their opportunity by refusing to support the war. Equating what she called “feminist dogma” with pacifism, Wildman asserted
that there is no logical reason to believe that nonviolent means always promote feminist ends. Wildman has
fallen into the
essentialist trap of equating feminism with peace which I discussed earlier; this has allowed her to
dismiss feminist voices as irrelevant and unpatriotic. The feminists she selected to quote may have voiced reservations
about the war, but feminism encompasses a wide range of opinions many of which include fighting for
justice, particularly gender justice. And feminist voices are not all Western as is often assumed. In
Afghanistan, women have been fighting a war that began well before September 11, a war against
women.

Enloe also votes neg—the aff is compatible with realism

Enloe 05 (Cynthia, Feminist and Women Studies, “Of Arms and the Women”
http://feminism.eserver.org/of-arms-and-the-woman.txt)

The first thing that must be said about the feminist critique of realism is that it is by no means
incompatible with realism, properly understood. In fact, realist theory can hardly be recognized in the
feminist caricature of it. Take the idea of the innate human propensity for conflict. Although some realist
thinkers such as Hans Morgenthau have confused the matter (often under the influence of Reinhold
Niebuhr) with misleading talk of "original sin," the controlling idea of realism is that there is an
ineradicable potential for conflict between human beings--"men" in the inclusive, gender-neutral sense-
- when they are organized in groups. Realism is not about conflict between individual men, that is,
males; if it were, it would be a theory of barroom brawls or adolescent male crime. It is about conflict
between rival communities, and those communities include women and men alike. Feminist critics of
realism, then, begin by attacking a straw man, or a straw male. Even worse, they tend to indulge in the
stereotypes that they otherwise abhor: aggression is "male," conciliation is "female." To their credit,
most feminist theorists are aware of this danger, ever mindful of their dogma that all sexual identity is
socially constructed, ever fearful that they will hear the cry of "Essentialist!" raised against them. Thus
Enloe, in an earlier book called Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International
Politics, struggles with how to answer what she calls "the `What about Margaret Thatcher?' taunt."
Her answer is that women like Margaret Thatcher and Jeane Kirkpatrick reinforce the patriarchy by
making international conflict look "less man-made, more people-made and thus more legitimate and
harder to reverse." Enloe applies this analysis consistently--right-wing women like Phyllis Schlafly are
pawns of the patriarchal-militarist power structure, while left-wing women like the Greenham
Common Women are disinterested proponents of the good of humanity. Still, Enloe is troubled enough
to return to the question: "some women's class aspirations and their racist fears lured them into the
role of controlling other women for the sake of imperial rule." Admit that, however, and you are close
to conceding the point about collective human behavior made by realists. Then there is "the state."
Here, too, there is nothing in realism that cannot accommodate many feminine observations about the
particular patriarchal features of particular historic states. The realist definition of "the state" as a
sovereign entity with an existence and a strategy distinct from that of individuals is very broad,
including medieval duchies and ancient empires-- and, perhaps, female biker gangs. Realist theory
holds no preference for the modern nation-state, though a word might be spoken in its defense. Again
and again in feminist writings one encounters the claim that the modern nation- state is inherently
"gendered," as though its predecessors--feudal dynastic regimes, theocratic empires, city-states, tribal
amphictyonies--were not even more rigidly patriarchal. Completely missing from such an analysis is
any acknowledgement that the successes of feminism have been largely based on appeals to the
universal norms governing citizens of the impersonal, bureaucratic nation-state. Those appeals would
have made no sense in any previous political system. Notwithstanding this, feminist scholars tend to join
free marketeers, multiculturalists and Wilsonians in their approval of the (mostly imaginary) dissolution
of the nation-state in a new world order. If the nation-state is "gendered," Enloe reasons, then perhaps
the post-national nonstate need not be: "Perhaps effective u.n. soldiering will call for a new kind of
masculinity, one less reliant on misogyny, less insecure about heterosexual credentials." (If the recent
"peacekeeping" of u.n. forces in Bosnia and Somalia shows anything, however, it is that a little more of
the old masculinity may be necessary to prevent mass slaughter--and mass rape, too.) Though realist
theory can survive, and perhaps even accommodate, many of the arguments of feminism with respect
to collective conflict and state sovereignty, realism must reject the third aspect of the feminist criticism:
the redefinition of security to mean social justice. From the Marxist left, feminists have picked up the
argument that interstate violence is just one genre of "structural violence," which includes the economic
oppression of lower classes by upper classes (Marxism) and the subordination of women to men by
custom and by violence (feminism). But this notion merely disguises a change of subject as a change of
approach. To say that mass rape by soldiers in wartime and wife-beating in societies at peace (excuse
me, at "peace") are parts of the same phenomenon is to abandon any pretense of engaging in serious
thinking about international relations. The result may be feminist theory, but it is not a theory of world
politics. It is a theory of human society in general. When, as in "ecofeminism," the mistreatment of
women by men in all societies, in peace and at war, is fused, as a subject of analysis, with the
mistreatment of the ecosystem by humanity, one has a theory of everything, and a theory of everything
is usually not very much. If you don't know where you are going, as the old saw has it, any road will get
you there. Hence Enloe's decision to understand the Gulf war by beginning with the experiences of
Filipina maids in Kuwait. "I might get back to George Bush, Fran�ois Mitterrand, King Fahd and
Saddam Hussein eventually." Or maybe not. The results of combining an abandonment of the idea of
international politics as something that can be understood by abstracting certain aspects of reality
from the blooming, buzzing confusion of fact with an abandonment of a "positivist" effort to establish
chains of causation are amply on display in The Morning After, as in the earlier Bananas, Beaches and
Bases. These rambling exercises in free association have less in common with a monograph on a
diplomatic or military subject than with the associative and politicized writings of, say, Adrienne Rich;
they amount to a compendium of vignettes linked only by vague humanitarian sentiment and the
writer's consciousness. Enloe is grandiose in her employment of "I": "I've become aware now of the
ways in which men have used nationalism to silence women...." "Those like myself who believe that
militarism is separable from masculinity are especially interested in conscription...." "For instance, I
realize now that I know nothing--nothing--about Kurdish women." (Such personal observations, one
must admit, are refreshing compared to sentences like these: "Sexual practice is one of the sites of
masculinity's--and femininity's--daily construction. That construction is international. It has been so for
generations." Or: "Thinking about militarism in this way reminds us that we all can be militarized, as
girlfriends, fathers, factory workers or candidates.") Resolutely ignoring the world of high politics--
dictators, presidents, chanceries, general staffs--Enloe devotes attention to various feminist political
groupuscles far out of proportion to their actual significance in shaping events. Thus she dwells on a
Serbian women's party that "called for respect for cultural diversity within Yugoslavia." She salutes
Danish women for voting against Maastricht and Iranian women for working to depose the Shah.
"Women Against Fundamentalism is a group formed in Britain by women who included Jews, Arab and
Asian Muslims, Hindus, white and Afro-Caribbean Protestants and Irish Catholics. It was formed in 1989,
in the turbulently gendered wake of the threats against Salman Rushdie's life...." "The first National
Conference of Nicaraguan Women was held in January 1992...." This recurrent focus on little
sisterhoods, mobilizing against "gendered" nation-states, multinational capitalism and racial and
religious prejudice, owes a lot to the Marxist dream of a transnational fraternity of workers (in a new
form, as a transnational sorority of feminists) and even more to the hope of early twentieth-century
peace crusaders such as Jane Addams that the women of the world can unite and put an end to war and
exploitation. Enloe tries to justify the attention paid to quite different groups of women in various
countries with the claim that "no national movement can be militarized"--or demilitarized?--"without
changing the ways in which femininity and masculinity infuse daily life." Even if "militarization," however
defined, does result in certain kinds of gender relations, it does not follow that altering masculine and
feminine roles will, in itself, do much to reverse the process. Something may, after all, be an effect
without being a cause. Rejecting the feminist approach to international relations does not mean
rejecting the subjects or the political values of feminist scholars. Differing notions of masculinity and
femininity in different societies, the treatment of women and homosexuals of both sexes in the armed
forces, the exploitation of prostitutes by American soldiers deployed abroad, the sexual division of labor
both in advanced and developing countries: all of these are important topics that deserve the attention
that Enloe awards them. She shows journalistic flair as well as scholarly insight in detailing what
abstractions like the Caribbean Basin Initiative mean in the lives of women in particular Third World
countries. Still, such case studies, however interesting, do not support the claim of feminist international
relations theorists that theirs is a new and superior approach. One thing should be clear: commitment to
a feminist political agenda need not entail commitment to a radical epistemological agenda. Ideas do
not have genders, just as they do not have races or classes. In a century in which physics has been
denounced as "Jewish" and biology denounced as "bourgeois," it should be embarrassing to denounce
the study of international relations as "masculinist." Such a denunciation, of course, will not have
serious consequences in politics, but it does violence to the life of the mind. The feminist enemies of
empiricism would be well-advised to heed their own counsel and study war no more.

Turns the case answers their framing—nuclear war would obviously be terrible for
women around the world and outweighs because it irreversible and destroys the
possibility for a better future
Their reliance on gender binaries to explain violence is essentialist and wrong
Harvis, professor of government and IR – University of Sydney, 2K
(Darryl, “Feminist revisions of international relations,” International Relations and the Challenge of
Postmodernism, p. 162-3)

Critical research agendas of this type, however, are not found easily in International Relations. Critics
of feminist perspectives run
the risk of denouncement as either a misogynist malcontent or an androcentric keeper of the gate. At
work in much of this discourse is an unstated political correctness, where the historical marginalization of
women bestows intellectual autonomy, excluding those outside the identity group from legitimate
participation in its discourse. Only feminist women can do real, legitimate, feminist theory since, in the mantra of
identity politics, discourse must emanate from a positional (personal) ontology. Those sensitive or sympathetic to the identity
politics of particular groups are, of course, welcome to lend support and encouragement, but only on terms delineated by the groups
themselves. In this way, they enjoy an uncontested sovereign hegemony oyer their own self-identification,
insuring the group discourse is self constituted and that its parameters, operative methodology, ,uu\ standards of
argument, appraisal, and evidentiary provisions are self defined. Thus, for example, when Sylvester calls lor a "home.steading" does so
"by [a] repetitive feminist insistence that we be included on our terms" (my emphasis). Rather than an invitation to engage in dialogue, this is
an ultimatum that a sovereign intellectual space be provided and insulated from critics who question
the merits of identity-based political discourse. Instead, Sylvester calls upon International Relations to "share space, respect,
and trust in a re-formed endeavor," but one otherwise proscribed as committed to demonstrating not only "that the secure homes constructed
by IR's many debaters are chimerical," but, as a consequence, to ending International Relations and remaking it along lines grounded in feminist
postmodernism.93 Such stipulative provisions might be likened to a form of negotiated sovereign territoriality
where, as part of the settlement for the historically aggrieved, border incursions are to be allowed but may not be met with resistance or
reciprocity. Demands for entry to the discipline are thus predicated on conditions that insure two sets of rules, cocooning postmodern feminist
spaces from systematic analyses while "respecting" this discourse as it hastens about the project of deconstructing International Relations as a
"male space." Sylvester's
impassioned plea for tolerance and "emphatic cooperation" is thus confined to like-minded
individuals, those
who do not challenge feminist epistemologies but accept them as a necessary means of
reinventing the discipline as a discourse between postmodern identities—the most important of which
is gender.94 Intolerance or misogyny thus become the ironic epithets attached to those who question
the wisdom of this reinvention or the merits of the return of identity in international theory.'"' Most strategic
of all, however, demands for entry to the discipline and calls for intellectual spaces betray a self-imposed, politically motivated marginality.
After all, where are such calls issued from other than the discipline and the intellectual—and well established—spaces of feminist International
Relations? Much like the strategies employed by male dissidents, then, feminist postmodernists too deflect as illegitimate
any criticism that derives from skeptics whose vantage points are labeled privileged. And privilege is
variously interpreted historically, especially along lines of race, color, and sex where the denotations white and male, to name but two,
serve as generational mediums to assess the injustices of past histories. White males, for example, become generic signifiers for historical
oppression, indicating an ontologicallv privileged group by which the historical experiences of the "other" can then be reclaimed in the context
of their related oppression, exploitation, AND exclusion. Legitimacy, in this context, can then be claimed in terms of one's group identity and
the extent to which the history of that particular group has been “silenced.” In this same way, self-identification or “self-situation”
establishes one’s credentials, allowing admittance to the group and legitimating the “authoritative”
vantage point from which one speaks and writes. Thus, for example, Jan Jindy Pettman includes among the introductory pages to
her most recent book, Worlding Women, a section titled “A (personal) politics of location,” in which her identity as a woman, a feminist, and an
academic, makes apparent her particular (marginal) identities and group loyalties.96 Similarly, Christine Sylvester, in the introduction to her
book, insists, “It is important to provide a context for one’s work in the often-denied politics of the personal.” Accordingly, self-declaration
revelas to the reader that she is a feminist, went to a Catholic girls school where she was schooled to “develop your brains and confess
something called “sins” to always male forever priests,” and that these provide some pieces to her dynamic objectivity.97 Like territorial
markers, self-identification permits entry to intellectual spaces whose sovereign authority is “policed” as
much by marginal subjectivies as hey allege of the oppressors who “police” the discourse of realism, or who are said to
walk the corridors of the discipline insuring the replication of patriarchy, hierarchical agendas, and “malestream”
theory. If Sylvester’s version of feminist postmodernism is projected as tolerant, perspectivist, and encompassing of a multiplicity of
approaches, in reality it is as selective, exclusionary, and dismissive of alternative perspectives as mainstream
approaches are accused of being. Skillful theoretical moves of this nature underscore the adroitness of postmodern feminist theory
at emasculating many of its logical inconsistencies. In arguing for a feminist postmodernism, for example, Sylvester employs a double
theoretical move that, on the one hand, invokes a kind of epistemological deconstructive anarchy cum relativism in an attempt to decenter or
make insecure fixed research gazes, identities, and concepts (men, women, security, and nation-state), while on the other hand turning to the
lived experiences of women as if ontologically given and assuming their experiences to be authentic, real, substantive, and authoritative
interpretations of the realities of international relations. Women at the peace camps of Greenham Common or in the cooperatives of Harare,
represent, for Sylvester, the real coal face of international politics, their experiences and strategies the real politics of “relations international.”
But why should we take the experiences of these women to be ontologically superior or more insightful than the experiences of other women
or other men? As Sylvester admits elsewhere, “Experience … is at once always already an interpretation and in need of interpretation.” Why,
then are experience-based modes of knowledge more insightful than knowledges derived through other modes of inquiry?98 Such
espistemologies are surely crudely positivistic in their singular reliance on osmotic perception of the facts as they impact upon the personal. If,
as Sylvester writes, “sceptical inlining draws on substantive everydayness as a time and site of knowledge, much as does everyday feminist
theorizing,” and if, as she further notes, “it understands experience…as mobile, indeterminate, hyphenated, [and] homeless,” why should this
knowledge be valued as anything other than fleeting subjective perceptions of multiple environmental stimuli whose meaning is beyond
explanation other than as a personal narrative?99 Is this what Sylvester means when she calls for a re-visioning and a repainting of the
“canvases of IR,” that we dissipate knowledge into an infinitesimal number of disparate sites, all equally valid, and let loose with a mélange of
visceral perceptions; stories of how each of us perceive we experience international politics? If this is the case, then Sylvester’s version of
feminist postmodernity does not advance our understanding of international politics, leaving untheorized and unexplained the causes of
international relations. Personal narratives do not constitute theoretical discourse, nor indeed an explanation of the systemic factors that
procure international events, process, or the actions of certain actors. We might also extend a contextualist lens to analyze Sylvester’s
formulations, much as she insists her epistemogical approach does. Sylvester, for example, is adamant that we can not really know who
“women” are, since to do so would be to invoke an essentialist concept, concealing the diversity inherent in this category. “Women” don’t
really exist in Sylvester’s estimation since there are black women, white women, Hispanic, disabled, lesbin, poor, rich, middle class, and
illiterate women, to name but a few. The point, for
Sylvester, is that to speak of “women” is to do violence to the
diversity encapsulated in this category and, in its own way, to silence those women who remain
unnamed. Well and good. Yet this same analytical respect for diversity seems lost with men. Politics and
international relations become the “places of men.” But which men? All men? Or just white men, or rich,
educated, elite, upper class, hetero-sexual men? To speak of political places as the places of men ignores the
fact that most men, in fact the overwhelming majority of men, are not in these political places at all, are not decision
makers, elite, affluent, or powerful. Much as with Sylvester’s categories, there are poor, lower class, illiterate, gay, black, and white men, many
of whom suffer the vestiges of hunger, poverty, despair, and disenfranchisement just as much as women. So why
invoke the category
“men” in such essentialist and ubiquitous ways while cognizant only of the diversity of in the category “women.” These are
double standards, not erudite theoretical formulations, betraying, dare one say, sexism toward men by invoking male
gender generalizations and crude caricatures. Problems of this nature, however, are really manifestations of a deeper, underlying
ailment endemic to discourses derived from identity politics. At base, the most elemental question for identity discourse, as Zalewski and Enloe
note, is “Who am I?”100 The personal becomes the political, evolving a discourse where self-identification, but also one’s identification by
others, presupposes multiple identities that are fleeting, overlapping, and changing at any particular moment in time or place. “We have
multiple identities,” argues V. Spike Peterson, “e.g., Canadian, homemaker, Jewish, Hispanic, socialist.”101 And these identities are variously
depicted as transient, polymorphic, interactive, discursive, and never fixed. As Richard Brown
notes, “Identity is given neither
institutionally nor biologically. It evolves as one orders continuities on one’s conception of oneself.”102 Yet, if we accept this, the
analytical utility of identity politics seems problematic at best. Which identity, for example, do we choose from
the many that any one subject might display affinity for? Are we to assume that all identities are of equal importance or
that some are more important than others? How do we know which of these identities might be transient and less consequential to one’s sense
of self and, in turn, politically significant to understanding international politics? Why, for example, should we place
gender identity
ontologically prior to class, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, ideological perspective, or national
identity?103 As Zalewski and Enloe ask, “Why do we consider states to be a major referent? Why not men? Or women?”104 But by the
same token, why not dogs, shipping magnates, movie stars, or trade regimes? Why is gender more constitutive of global
politics than, say, class, or an identity as a cancer survivor, laborer, or social worker? Most of all, why is
gender essentialized in feminist discourse, reified into the most preeminent of all identities as the
primary lens through which international relations must be viewed? Perhaps, for example, people
understand difference in the context of identities outside of gender. As Jane Martin notes, “How do we know that
difference…does not turn on being fat or religious or in an abusive relationship?”105 The point, perhaps flippantly made, is that
identity is such a nebulous concept, its meaning so obtuse and so inherently subjective, that it is near meaningless as a conduit
for understanding global politics if only because it can mean anything to anybody.

Gender can’t be an overarching theory of conflict

Catharine A. MacKinnon, J.D., Ph.D., Professor of Law @ University of Michigan and Visiting Professor
@ University of Chicago Law School, [“Symposium on Unfinished Feminist Business: Points Against
Postmodernism,” 75 Chi.-Kent. L. Rev. 687; 2K]

Feminism has also never, to my knowledge, had what is called a "monocausal" narrative, at least I
haven't. We do not say that gender is all there is. We have never said it explains everything. We have
said that gender is big and pervasive, never not there, that it has a shape and regularities and laws of
motion to it, and that it explains a lot--much otherwise missed, unexplained. It is a feature of most
everything, pervasively denied. That does not mean that everything reduces to gender, that it is the
only regularity or the only explanation for things, the single cause of everything, or the only thing there.
It is also worth repeating that sexual politics, in feminism, is not an overarching preexisting general
theory that is appealed to in order to understand or explain, but a constantly provisional analysis in
the process of being made by the social realities that produce(d) it.
 Advantage
Young evidence is about development aid and troops, not military aid
Military aid isn’t the crucial internal link to shutting down movements—authoritarian
dictatorships shut down women regardless
They don’t end military aid to non-authoritarian regimes like Argentina and Indonesia
which is what their evidence is in the context of

Fill-in takes out the aff

Peel and Stacey 18
Michael Peel and Kiran Stacey, Writers for the Financial Times, “Pakistan turns to Russia and China after
US military aid freeze,” The Financial Times. January 28, 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/81aea830-
0238-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5//RJP

Pakistan is deepening its relationships with Russia and China , the country’s defence minister has said, as the
fallout continues from the US decision to suspend $2bn in military aid to Islamabad . Khurram Dastgir Khan
told the Financial Times that his government was engaged in a “regional recalibration of Pakistan’s foreign and
security policy” that threatens to undermine the US war effort in Afghanistan . Mr Khan said Pakistan would
look to Russia and China — as well as Europe — for new military supplies, as the US had “chosen castigation over co-operation”. “We
have
already bought some Russian helicopters in the past three years,” he said. “This is what we call a regional
recalibration of Pakistan’s foreign and security policy. It’s because of the unfortunate choice the
United States continues to make.” The US said this month that it would suspend security assistance to Pakistan worth $2bn
because of what Washington sees as Islamabad’s refusal to do enough to tackle terrorism, particularly around the Afghan border. President
Donald Trump has reversed the policy of removing US troops from Afghanistan, in an effort to restore security to the country, which has
suffered a string of deadly attacks in recent years — some apparently originating from across the Pakistani border. Earlier this month Mr Trump
tweeted that Pakistan had taken $33bn of US aid over 15 years and given back “nothing but lies and deceit”. Mr Khan called his comments
“deeply offensive” and “counterproductive”. Mr Khan added: “It is unfortunate that we are even discussing the numbers [the amount of aid]
while Afghanistan slowly spirals out of the American and Afghan control.” Listen: China acts as peacemaker in Pakistan's Balochistan The row
has become one of the biggest rifts in the 70-year alliance between the US and Pakistan, with Islamabad warning it would buy weapons from
other countries. Mr Khan said Pakistan and the US still shared many interests but in Washington “lately the focus has been on areas of
divergence”. Asked about reports that Islamabad could buy a batch of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, Mr Khan said “not yet”, but added:
“We have opened a dialogue with Russia, which traditionally we have never had, because we were firmly in the western camp.” The backbone
of the Pakistan air force currently consists of F-16 jets made by Lockheed Martin of the US, although Mr Khan said Islamabad had not received
spare parts from the US for several years. “We are using our own ingenuity and using other sources to keep the fleet up in the air,” he said. “It
has been very difficult.” Recommended Afghanistan blames militant group for Kabul hotel attack Pakistan defends move not to take military
action against Haqqan Trump takes aim at Pakistan’s duplicity Mr Khan added that there was “a discussion” about taking the more drastic step
of cutting off US access to land and air routes into Afghanistan — though Pakistani officials have told the FT they were more likely to increase
the fees instead. Islamabad has already stopped sharing key parts of the intelligence it gathers from close to Afghanistan with the US.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s burgeoning relationship with Beijing is also causing concern in Washington, where officials are strengthening alliances
with other countries in the region — including India — as a bulwark against Chinese regional ambitions. China
plans to spend $55bn
in Pakistan on infrastructure projects as part of its plan to build a network of trade routes across the
world, sparking concerns in the US that it could turn Pakistan into a client state of its northern
neighbour. Officials in Islamabad have been emboldened in their row with Washington by backing from Beijing. Mr Khan said: “The fact
that we have recalibrated our way towards better relations with Russia, deepening our
relationship with China, is a response to what the Americans have been doing . And they have their
own reasons. They want to use India, in our view, to contain China.”

US military aid is key to allow states to effectively target rebels and reduces civilian violence
Amira Jadoon 17 [PhD Political Science, Assistant Prof. of Social Sciences @ West Point], “Persuasion
and Predation: The Effects of U.S Military aid & International Development Aid on Civilian Killings,”
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2017, DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2017.1353355

Beyond enhancing incentives, U.S. military aid’s persuasion effect is also rooted in its capacity effect.
Military aid includes a wide variety of military support including weapons, technology and intelligence
capability. Governments use collective punishment against communities perceived to be supportive of
rebel groups, or to counter guerrilla warfare that is more difficult and expensive to tackle through
conventional means. 43 Strategic explanations of onesided violence argue that armed actors employ
violence against civilians to change their strategic environment 44 and that shifts in the capability
balance between actors triggers changes in actors’ tactics in war. For example, the Pakistani army
relied on the use of excessive force for counterinsurgency operations where it lacked logistical and
precision abilities and had shortcomings in technical intelligence. 45 General Tarik Khan, who has led
the fight against the TTP, has said, “any kind of military operation that seeks to take out individuals is an
intelligence-driven operation that requires a lot of technology, a lot of surveillance capacity.” 46

As such, military aid will help states overcome the capability deficiencies that previously may have
necessitated the use of collective violence. Improved counterinsurgency ability allows governments to
target rebels more precisely, offset costs of increased efforts against rebels, harden soft targets and
thus engage in more selective violence. U.S. military funding to Pakistan has identified priority areas
such as precision strike capability, air mobility, combat search and rescue, counter improvised explosive
device and survivability, battlefield communications and night operations. 47 The Pakistani military has
used F-16s for precise targeting of rebels in civilian areas 48 and intelligence-based operations have
helped the state pre-empt backlash against military operations in North Waziristan. 49 Although, such
improvements are not expected to completely eliminate the use of civilian targeting by governments,
they will reduce the need to do so if governments are better able to locate legitimate targets.

It should also be noted that military aid compared to development aid is less fungible, and thus less
susceptible to leakage through rent-seeking behavior and corruption. And because it is provided for a
specific purpose such as targeting and capturing rebels rather than being linked to broad development
goals, its threatened withdrawal by the donor is also a more realistic threat for recipients. U.S.
military aid flows can thus enhance recipient states’ military capability to use force in a way, which is
in line with their overall moderately coercive objectives of countering internal rebel activity. Overall,
military aid not only increases the political will of governments to increase efforts against rebel
strongholds, it also enhances the capacity of governments to target rebels and avoid civilian killings.
This leads to the following hypothesis: HYPOTHESIS 1A: Higher levels of U.S. military aid flows will be
associated with lower levels of civilian killings by recipient state actors.