Off

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The aff participates in neoliberalism’s whitewashing of structural violence through
Orientalist threat construction and offering up neoliberal rationality as the cure.
Simon Springer 11, Otago geography professor, “Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent
imaginative geographies,” Political Geography (30) pp. 90-98,
The idea that violence might be integral to cultural practice is difficult to accept. In concert with the abuse that the
concept of culture has been subjected to as of late, where in keeping with geopolitical hegemony (see Harrison & Huntington. 2000), or perhaps
more surprisingly in an attempt to argue against such hegemonic might (see Roberts. 2001). some cultures, particularly ‘Asian’,
'African', or 'Islamic' cultures, are conferred with a supposedly inherent predilection towards violence . Yet
the relationship between culture and violence is also axiomatic, since violence is part of human activity. Thus, it is not
the call for violence to be understood as a social process informed by culture that is problematic: rather it is the potential to colonize
this observation with imaginative geographies that distort it in such a fashion that deliberately or
inadvertently enable particular geostrategic aims to gain validity . The principal method of distortion is
Orientalism, which as ‘a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and
philological texts', is 'an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction’ but a whole series of 'interests’ which create,
maintain, and have the intention to understand, control, manipulate, and incorporate that which is
manifestly different through a discourse that is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various
kinds of power: political, intellectual, cultural, and moral (Said. 2003: 12). At base. Orientalism is a form of
paranoia that feeds on cartographies of fear by producing 'our' world negatively through the
construction of a perverse 'Other'. This is precisely the discourse colonialism mobilized to construct
its exploitative authority in the past. In the current context, a relatively new geostrategic aim appeals to
the same discursive principles for valorization in its quest to impose an econometric version of global
sovereignty (Hart. 2006; Pieterse, 2004: Sparke, 2004). Neoliberalism is on the move, and in the context of the
global south. Orientalism is its latitude inasmuch as it affords neoliberalism a powerful discursive space
to manuver. This paper has two interrelated central aims. First, building on the work of Arturo Escobar (2001) and Doreen Massey (2005), I
contribute to re-theorizations of place as a relational assemblage. rather than as an isolated container, by calling into question the relationship
between place and violence. Second, informed by an understanding of Orientalism as performative (Said. 2003). and power/knowledge as
productive (Foucault. 1977). I set out to challenge how neoliberalism
discursively assigns violence to particular peoples
and cultures through its employment of the problematic notions of place that I dispute. I argue that Orientalism maintains an
underlying assumption that violence sits in places, and as an affect and effect of discourse, this Orientalist
view is enabled because the production of space and place is largely a discursive enterprise (Bachelard, 1964:
Lefebvre. 1991). But while violence can bind itself to our somatic geographies and lived experiences of place, in the same way that culture is not
confined to any particular place, so too do violent geographies stretch inwards and outwards to reveal the inherent dynamism of space as
multiple sites are repeatedly entwined by violence. Thus, following Michel Foucault’s (1977. 1980) insights on power. I am not interested in the
why of violence, but rather the how and where of violence. A culturally sensitive critical political economy approach alerts us to the
power/knowledge-geometries at play (Hart. 2002; Peet. 2000: Sayer, 2001). so that while violence is clearly mediated through and informed by
local cultural norms, it is equally enmeshed in the logic of globalized capital. In the setting of the global south, where and upon which the global
north's caricatural vision of violence repeatedly turns, authoritarian leaders may appropriate neoliberal concerns for market security as a
rationale for their violent and repressive actions (Canterbury. 2005: Springer. 2009c). At the same time, because of the performative nature of
Orientalism, an exasperated populace may follow their ’scripted’ roles and resort to violent means in their attempts to cope with the festering
poverty and mounting inequality wrought by their state’s deepening neoliberalization (Uvin, 2003). Far from being a symptom of an innate
cultural proclivity for violence, state-sponsored
violence and systemic social strife can be seen as outcomes of
both a state made 'differently powerful' via the ongoing Toll-out' of neoliberal reforms (Peck. 2001: 447). and
the discourses that support this process (Bourdieu & Wacquant. 2001: Springer, 2010b). Thus, when applied to the
context of ’the Other’, neoliberalism maintains - in the double sense of both incessant reproduction and the construction of
alterity - a 'Self-perpetuating logic. Through the circulation of a discourse that posits violence as an
exclusive cultural preserve, and by inextricably linking itself to democracy, neoliberalism presents itself
as the harbinger of rationality and the only guarantor of peace. Yet neoliberalism’s structural effects
of poverty and inequality often (re)produce violence (Escobar. 2004: Springer. 2008), and as such, neoliberalism
perpetually renews its own license by suggesting it will cure that which neoliberalization ails .
To be clear from the outset, this paper is decidedly theoretical. While writing about violence directly in empirical terms is a
worthwhile endeavor to be sure, it is one that - without significant
attention and attachment to social theory -
risks lending itself to problematic and even Orientalist readings of place. Thus, the purpose here is to critique the
limitations of a placed-based approach to violence that merely catalogs in situ, rather than appropriately recognizing the relational geographies
of both violence and place. Accordingly. I do not offer empirical accounts of particular places, as my intention is to call such particularized
interpretations of‘place’ into question. The punctuation in the title is very much purposeful in this regard. While violence sits in places in terms
of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is
reconsidered as a relational assemblage. This re-theorization opens up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to recognize it
instead as always co-consti-tuted by. mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place
fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated ‘event’ or localized
‘thing’, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, arising from the broader geographical phenomena and
temporal patterns of the social world. In short, through such a reinterpretation of place, geographers are much better positioned to dismiss
Orientalist accounts that bind violence to particular peoples, cultures, and places, as was the mandate of colonial geography. We can
instead initiate a more emancipatory geography that challenges such colonial imaginings by questioning
how seemingly local expressions of violence are instead always imbricated within wider socio-spatial
and political economic patterns. This allows geographers to recognize with more theoretical force how ongoing (neo)colonial
frameworks, like neoliberalism. are woven between, within, and across places in ways that facilitate and (re)produce violence. Following this
introduction. I begin by establishing why an exploration of the discursive contours of Orientalism, neoliberalism. and violence, and their
intersections with space and place necessitates a theoretical analysis. 1 argue that the confounding experience of violence makes it a difficult
phenomenon to write about using a direct empirical prose. This does not negate that there are instances where we should attempt to do so. as
I have done in my other work (see Springer. 2009a. 2009b, 2009c. 2010a. 2010b). but the purpose of this article is to focus explicitly on theory
so that a more critical approach to understanding the relationship between violence and place might be devised. The following section draws
on Massey’s (2005) re-conceptualization of space and place to argue that, although violence is experienced through the ontological priority of
place, these experiences are inseparable from the relational characteristic of space as a unitary and indivisible whole. This renders accounts of
violence as the exclusive preserve of particular cultures untenable, a point that is expanded upon in the next section where I argue that all
violence is rational because of the cultural meaning it evokes. The notion that violence is ever ’irrational' is an ascription
applied to individuals and cultures in an attempt to mark them as ’Other', which is effected through the
invocation of very specific kinds of imaginative geographies. The section that follows shifts the focus to neoliberalism and
its relationship with Orientalism. Mere I contend that neoliberalism came to prominence out of a concern for violence
in the wake of the two world wars, and based on its call for a return to the principles of the
Enlightenment, neoliberalism was able to construct itself as the sole providence of nonviolence
and the lone bearer of ’reason’ and ’civilization’ in our world. Before concluding. I tease out some of the spatial and
temporal fallacies underscoring neoliberalism and its intersections with Orientalism. In particular. I examine how the fictions of
neoliberalism position it as a 'divine' salvation to ’backwards' peoples, thereby obscuring both the structural
and ’mythic' violence neoliberalism is premised upon. The conclusion reminds readers that despite their relationship.
Orientalism and neoliberalism do not presuppose each other. However, because neoliberalism can be understood as a contemporary
incarnation of’empire' (Hardt & Negri. 2000: Hart. 2006; Pieterse. 2004: Sparke. 2005). and since Orientalism is at base an imperial endeavor
(Said. 1993; Gregory. 2004a). recognizing their convergence is vital to conceiving an emancipatory politics of refusal. My overarching concern in
this paper is for the ways that neoliberal ideology employs Orientalist discourses to tie violence to specific cultures and particular places. Thus. I
conclude by proposing that, while the interactions of violence with space and place are of course material, they are also very much imaginative.
Out of this understanding. I suggest that perhaps peace is. as the late John Lennon once intuitively sang, something we must
imagine. A perennial complication of discussions about human suffering is the awareness of cultural differences. In the wake of the damage
wrought by Samuel Huntington (1993), some might contend that the concept of culture is beyond reclamation (Mitchell. 1995). especially with
respect to discussions of violence. There is. however, still a great deal of resonance to the concept that can. and perhaps must be salvaged if we
are to ever make sense of violence. If culture is defined as a historically transmitted form of symbolization upon which a social order is
constructed (Geertz. 1973; Peet. 2000). then understanding any act. violent or otherwise, is never achieved solely in terms of its physicality and
invariably includes the meaning it is afforded by culture (Scheper-Hughes & Bourgois. 2004). An account of the cultural dimensions of violence
is perhaps even vital, as focusing exclusively on the physical aspects of violence transforms the project into a clinical or literary exercise, which
runs the risk of degenerating into a ‘pornography of violence’ (Bourgois. 2001) where voyeuristic impulses subvert the larger project of
witnessing, critiquing, and writing against violence. While violence in its most fundamental form entails pain, dismemberment. and death,
people do not engage in or avoid violence simply because of these tangible consequences, nor are these corporeal outcomes the reason why
we attempt to write or talk about violence. Violence as a mere fact is largely meaningless . It takes on and gathers
meaning because of its affective and cultural content, where violence is felt as meaningful (Nordstrom. 2004). To write poetry after Auschwitz is
barbaric’. Theodor Adorno (1981: 34) once famously wrote. Confounded by the atrocities that had occurred under the Nazis, he failed to
understand how a humanity capable of causing such catastrophic ruin could then relate such an unfathomable tale. Although struck by the
emotional weight of violence. Adorno was wrong, as it is not poetry that is impossible after Auschwitz, but rather prose: Realistic prose fails,
where the poetic evocation of the unbearable atmosphere of a camp succeeds. That is to say. when Adorno declares poetry impossible (or.
rather, barbaric) after Auschwitz, this impossibility is an enabling impossibility: poetry is always ’about' something that cannot be addressed
directly, only alluded to (Zizek, 2008: 4-5). For victims, any retelling of violence is necessarily riddled with inconsistency and confusion. The
inability to convey agony and humiliation with any sense of clarity is part of the trauma of a violent event. Indeed, ‘physical pain does not
simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a
human being makes before language is learned’ (Scarry, 1985: 4). As such, the chaotic bewilderment of experiencing violence makes
understanding it an unusually mystifying endeavor. Thus, what can we say about violence without being overwhelmed by its unnerving horror
and incapacitated by the fear it instills? How can we represent violence without becoming so removed from and apathetic towards its
magnitude that we no longer feel a sense of anguish or distress? And in what ways can we raise the question of violence in relation to victims,
perpetrators, and even entire cultures, without reducing our accounts to caricature, where violence itself becomes the defining, quintessential
feature of subjectivity? To quote Adorno (1981: 34) once more, ‘Even the most extreme consciousness of doom threatens to degenerate into
idle chatter’. The confounding effects of violence ensure that it is a phenomena shot through with a certain perceptual blindness. In his
monumental essay ‘Critique of Violence’, Walter Benjamin (1986) exposed our unremitting tendency to obscure violence in its institutionalized
forms, and because of this opacity, our inclination to regard violence exclusively as something we can see through its direct expression. Yet the
structural violence resulting from our political and economic systems (Farmer, 2004; Galtung, 1969), and the
symbolic violence born of our discourses (Bourdieu 2001; Jiwani, 2006), are something like the dark matter of physics,
‘[they] may be invisible, but [they have] to be taken into account if one is to make sense of what might
otherwise seem to be ‘irrational’ explosions of subjective [or direct] violence’ (Zizek, 2008: 2). These seemingly
invisible geographies of violence including the hidden fist of the market itself e have both ‘nonillusory
effects’ (Springer, 2008) and pathogenic affects in afflicting human bodies that create suffering (Farmer, 2003), which can be seen if one
cares to look critically enough. Yet, because of their sheer pervasiveness, systematization, and banality we
are all too frequently [ignore] blinded from seeing that which is perhaps most obvious. This itself marks
an epistemological downward spiral, as ‘the economic’ in particular is evermore abstracted and its
‘real world’ implications are increasingly erased from collective consciousness (Hart, 2008). ‘The clearest
available example of such epistemic violence’, Gayatri Spivak (1988: 24e25) contends, ‘is the remotely
orchestrated, far- flung, and heterogeneous project to constitute the colonial subject as Other’, and it is
here that the relationship between Orientalism and neoliberalism is revealed. Since Orientalism is a
discourse that functions precisely due to its ability to conceal an underlying symbolic violence (Tuastad,
2003), and because the structural violence of poverty and inequality that stems from the political
economies of neoliberalism is cast as illusory (Springer, 2008), my reflections on neoliberalism, Orientalism, and
their resultant imaginative and material violent geographies are, as presented here, purposefully
theoretical. As Derek Gregory (1993: 275) passionately argues, ‘human geographers have to work with social theory. Empiricism is
not an option, if it ever was, because the “facts” do not (and never will) “speak for themselves”,
no matter how closely. we listen’. Although the ‘facts’ of violence can be assembled, tallied, and
categorized, the cultural scope and emotional weight of violence can never be entirely captured through
empirical analysis. After Auschwitz, and now after 9/11, casting a sideways glance at violence through the poetic abstractions of theory
must be considered as an enabling possibility. This is particularly the case with respect to understanding the
geographies of violence, as our understandings of space and place are also largely poetic (Bachelard,
1964; Kong, 2001). Despite the attention space and place receive in contemporary human geography, Massey (2005) has convincingly argued
that there is a prevailing theoretical myopia concerning their conceptualization. Space and place are typically thought to counterpose, as there
exists an implicit imagination of different theoretical ‘levels’: space as the abstract versus the everydayness of place. Place, however, is not ‘the
Other’ of space, it is not a pure construct of the local or a bounded realm of the particular in opposition to an overbearing, universal, and
absolute global space (Escobar, 2001). What if, Massey (2005: 6) muses, we refuse this distinction, ‘between place (as meaningful, lived and
everyday) and space (as what? the outside? the abstract? the meaningless?).’ By enshrining space as universal, theorists have
assumed that places are mere subdivisions of a ubiquitous and homogeneous space that is ‘dissociated
from the bodies that occupy it and from the particularities that these bodies len[d] to the places they
inhabit’ (Escobar, 2001: 143). Such disregard is peculiar since it is not the absoluteness of space, but our inescapable immersion in place via
embodied 92 S. Springer / Political Geography 30 (2011) 90e98perception that is the ontological priority of our lived experience. Edward Casey
(1996: 18) eloquently captures this notion in stating that, ‘To live is to live locally, and to know is first of all to know the places one is in.’ The
inseparability of space and time entails a further recognition that places should be thought of as
moments, where amalgamations of things, ideas, and memories coalesce out of our embodied
experiences and the physical environments in which they occur to form the contours of place . As such,
Massey (2005) encourages us to view space as the simultaneity of storiesso-far, and place as collections of these stories, articulations within the
wider power-geometries of space. The production of space and place is accordingly the unremitting and forever unfinished product of
competing discourses over what constitutes them (Lefebvre, 1991). Violence
is one of the most profound ongoing stories
influencing the (re)production of space. Similarly, individual and embodied narratives of violence woven out of a more expansive
spatial logic may become acute, forming constellations that delineate and associate place. Accordingly, it may be useful to begin to think about
‘violent narratives’, not simply as stories about violence, but rather as a spatial metaphor analogous to violent geographies and in direct
reference to Massey’s (2005) re-conceptualization of space and place. Allen Feldman (1991: 1) looks to bodily, spatial, and violent practices as
configuring a unified language of material signification, compelling him to ‘treat the political subject, particularly the body, as the locus of
manifold material practices.’ To Feldman approaching violence from its site of effect and generation (agency) is to examine where it takes
place, thereby embedding violence in the situated practices of agents. Violence is bound up within the production of social space (Bourdieu,
1989), and because, by virtue of spatiality, social space and somatic place continually predicate each other, the recognition of violence having a
direct bearing on those bodies implies a geography of violence. Foucault (1980: 98) has argued that ‘individuals are the vehicles of power, not
its points of application’, and this is precisely how power and violence depart, as individuals are at once both the vehicles of violence and its
points of application. In the end, because the body is where all violence finds its influence e be it direct and thus obvious to the entangled
actors, or structural and thus temporally and spatially diffused before reaching its final destination at and upon the embodied geographies of
human beings e place is the site where violence is most visible and easily discerned. Yet violence is only one facet of the multiple, variegated,
and protean contours of place. So while violence bites down on our lived experiences by affixing itself to our everyday geographies and by
colonizing our bodies, violence itself, much like culture, is by no means restricted to place, nor is place static. Thus, the place-based dynamics of
violence that seemingly make it possible to conceive a ‘culture of violence’ actually render this notion untenable precisely because of place’s
relationality and proteanism. The embodied geographies of experience (including violence) that exist in places stretch their accounts out
through other places, linking together a matrix of narratives in forming the mutable landscapes of human existence (Tilley, 1994). This porosity
of boundaries is essential to place, and it reveals how local specificities of culture are comprised by a complex interplay of internal constructions
and external exchange. In the face of such permeability an enculturation of violence is certainly conceivable. All
forms of violence are
not produced by the frenzied depravity of savage or pathological minds, but are instead cultural
performances whose poetics derive from the sociocultural histories and relational geographies of the
locale (Whitehead, 2004). Violence has a culturally informed logic, and it thereby follows that because culture
sits in places (Basso, 1996; Escobar, 2001), so too does violence. Yet the grounds on which some insist on affixing and bounding violence so
firmly to particular places in articulating a ‘culture of violence’ argument are inherently unstable.1 The shifting, kaleidoscopic nature of space-
time demonstrates the sheer impossibility of such attempts. So while it is important to highlight the emplacement of all cultural practices
(including violence), whereby culture is carried into places by bodies engaged in practices that are at once both encultured and enculturing
(Escobar, 2001), it is only through a geographical imagination constructed on a parochial agenda, rooted in colonial modes of thought, and
dislocated from the dynamic material underpinnings of place that a culture itself can be caricatured as violent. In short, while violence forms a
part of any given culture, it is never the sole defining feature. The rationality of violence: power, knowledge, and ‘truth’ That violence has
meaning, albeit multiple, complex, and often contradictory (Stanko, 2003), infers that so too does it have a particular sense of rationality.
Contra what we typically hear about violence in the media, sadly most violence is not ‘senseless’ at all (Scheper-Hughes & Bourgois,
2004). According to Foucault (1996: 299) all human behavior is scheduled and programmed through rationality, where violence is no exception,
What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality . Of course violence itself is terrible. But the deepest root of violence and
its permanence come out of the form of rationality we use. The idea had been that if we live in the world of reason, we can get rid of violence.
This is quite wrong. Between violence and rationality there is no incompatibility. Sanctioning
certain acts of violence as
‘rational’, while condemning others as ‘irrational’ can be discerned as a primary instrument of power
insofar as perceived rationality becomes misconstrued with legitimacy. Equally problematic is that such
a dichotomy becomes a dividing line between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’, one that is given spatial license through
imaginative geographies (Said, 2003). The power to represent and imagine geography and its subjects like this rather than like that, is thus at
once both a process of articulation and valorization (Gregory, 2004b). Drawing on Foucault’s (1972) recognition that the exercise of power and
the sanction of particular knowledges are coterminous, Edward Said (2003) identifies imaginative geographies as constructions that fuse
distance and difference together through a series of spatializations. They operate by demarcating conceptual partitions and enclosures
between ‘the same’ and ‘the Other’, which configure ‘our’ space of the familiar as separate and distinct from ‘their’ unfamiliar space that lies
beyond. Gregory (2004a) interprets this division e wherein ‘they’ are seen to lack the positive characteristics that distinguish ‘us’ e as forming
the blackened foundations of the ‘architectures of enmity’. Informed by Gregory’s understandings, I use the descriptor ‘virulent’ to mean three
things in qualifying particular imaginative geographies. First, I seek to emphasize those imaginative geographies that invoke a profound sense of
hostility and malice, which may thereby produce tremendously harmful effects for those individuals cast within them. Second, through
the
simplicity of the essentialisms they render, some imaginative geographies may be readily and uncritically
accepted, thus making them highly infectious and easily communicable among individuals subjected to
their distinct brand of ‘commonsense’, and in this way they operate as symbolic violence .2 Finally, the
etymology of the Latin word for ‘virulence’ (virulentus) is derived from the word man (vir), and as related concept metaphors in contemporary
English, ‘virulence’ and ‘virility’ are informed by masculinist modes of response and engagement. The
cultural coding of places as
sites of violence is thus imbricated in gendered ideas about mastery, colonial control, and e drawing on
the Orientalist ‘mature west/juvenile east’ trope e boyish resistance. Although a detailed inquiry into the various
activations of Orientalist projections of violence on to groups of ‘Oriental’ males is beyond the scope of this paper, it is imperative to recognize
how virulent imaginative geographies employ a sense of ‘virility’ to code ‘Oriental’ males as pre-oedipal and/or feminine. Such
discursive
emasculation, which is itself a form of symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 2001), renders ‘Others’ incapable of
managing violence with ‘patriarchal reason’, and here again, neoliberal rationalism becomes the
salve. In short, virulent imaginative geographies are those geographical imaginations that are premised
upon and recapitulate extremely negative, racially derogatory, and gender-laden pejorative
assumptions, where the notion of a ‘culture of violence’ represents a paradigmatic case in point ( see
Springer, 2009a). Through virulent imaginative geographies, the primary tonality ‘they’ are seen to lack is rationality,
which is a claim to truth that is mounted through the production, accumulation, circulation, and
functioning of a discourse (Foucault, 1980) that declares irrationality as the sine qua non of ‘their’ cultures,
and is in turn used to explain why ‘they’ are violent. Such allusions, sanctioned by the accretions of Orientalism, are
performative. In a substantial sense, the categories, codes, and conventions of Orientalism produce the effects that they name (Gregory,
2004a). So if
violence is said to be the ‘truth’ of a particular culture, and ipso facto the places in which that
culture sits, then power decorates this truth by ensuring its ongoing recapitulation in the virulent
imaginative geographies it has created. In a very real sense then, violent geographies are often
(re)produced and sustained by a cruel and violent Orientalism. Space is endowed with an imaginative or
figurative value that we can name and feel, acquiring ‘emotional and even rational sense by a kind of
poetic process, whereby the vacant or anonymous reaches of distance are converted into meaning for
us here’ (Said, 2003: 55). Places are accordingly transformed through fabrications where narratives inform us
of meaning through the inflective topographies of desire, fantasy, and anxiety (Gregory, 1995). Thus, whether
we recognize a place as ‘home-like’ or ‘prison-like’, a ‘utopia’ or a ‘killing field’, is dependent upon the
stories-so-far to which we have participated in forming that place, but equally, and indeed wholly for
places we have never visited, the imaginings that have been circulated, rendered, and internalized or
rejected in forming our cartographic understandings. The experience, threat, or fear of violence in a
particular place is perhaps the single most influential factor in our pronouncements of space (Pain, 1997),
bringing a visceral and emotional charge to our ontological and epistemological interpretations.
Likewise our attitudes towards particular geographies frequently fold back onto the people who comprise them. For example, if domestic
violence is part of an individual’s lived experience or resonant memory, that person’s geographical imagination of her or his objective house (its
corners, corridors, rooms) is transformed from a place of sanctuary, to a place of terror (see Meth, 2003). It
is the actors who live in
and thereby (re)produce that place who have facilitated this poetic shift in meaning, and as such they
are imbricated in the reformulated geographical imaginings. Similarly, the fear of ‘Other’ spaces is not
based on an abstract geometry. Rather, such apprehension is embedded in the meanings that have been
attached to those spaces through a knowledge of ‘the Other’ that is premised on the bodies that draw
breath there, and importantly, how those bodies fall outside a typical understanding of ‘Self’, or what
Foucault (1978: 304) referred to as ‘normalizing power’. We are ‘subjected to the production of truth
through power, and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth’ (Foucault, 1980: 93),
but the discourse of Orientalism claims that the truth about ‘ourselves’ is vastly different from the truth
of ‘the Other’. This knowledge is productive in the sense that ‘it produces reality; it produces domains of
objects and rituals of truth’ (Foucault, 1977: 194) concerning the supposed aberrance of ‘the Other’, and
Orientalism functions to validate our anxieties (and fantasies and desires ). Of course this knowledge is an
imagined partitioning of space, as the feared constellations of violence that swell in any one place are
never constructed in isolation from other sites of violence. Instead, violent narratives are collected from
a wider matrix of the stories-so-far of space . So while it may seem intuitive to associate particular violent geographies with
individual or even cultural actors, as they are the agents that manifest, embody, and localize violence, it
is an Orientalist
imagining of these geographies as isolated, exclusive, and partitioned that makes possible the
articulation of discourses like the ‘culture of violence’ thesis.
Capitalism ensures biological and ontological extinction—the complete annihilation of
all life on earth.
Simonovic 07 [Ljubodrag Simonovic, Ph.D., Philosophy; M.A., Law; author of seven books, 2007, A
New World is Possible, “Basis of contemporary critical theory of capitalism.”]
The final stage of a mortal combat between mankind and capitalism is in progress. A specificity of
capitalism is that, in contrast to "classical" barbarism (which is of destructive, murderous and
plundering nature), it annihilates life by creating a "new world" – a "technical civilization" and an
adequate, dehumanized and denaturalized man. Capitalism has eradicated man from his (natural)
environment and has cut off the roots through which he had drawn life-creating force. Cities are
"gardens" of capitalism where degenerated creatures "grow". Dog excrement, gasoline and sewerage
stench, glaring advertisements and police car rotating lights that howl through the night - this is the
environment of the "free world" man. By destroying the natural environment capitalism creates
increasingly extreme climatic conditions in which man is struggling harder and harder to survive –
and creates artificial living conditions accessible solely to the richest layer of population, which cause
definitive degeneration of man as a natural being. "Humanization of life" is being limited to creation
of micro-climatic conditions, of special capitalistic incubators - completely commercialized artificial
living conditions to which degenerated people are appropriate. The most dramatic truth is: capitalism
can survive the death of man as a human and biological being. For capitalism a "traditional man" is
merely a temporary means of its own reproduction. " Consumer-man" represents a transitional phase
in the capitalism-caused process of mutation of man towards the "highest" form of capitalistic man: a
robot-man. "Terminators" and other robotized freaks which are products of the Hollywood
entertainment industry which creates a "vision of the future" degenerated in a capitalist manner,
incarnate creative powers, alienated from man, which become vehicles for destruction of man and
life. A new "super race" of robotized humanoids is being created, which should clash with "traditional
mankind", meaning with people capable of loving, thinking, daydreaming, fighting for freedom and
survival - and impose their rule over the Earth. Instead of the new world, the "new man" is being
created - who has been reduced to a level of humanity which cannot jeopardize the ruling order.
Science and technique have become the basic lever of capital for the destruction of the world and
the creation of "technical civilization". It is not only about destruction achieved by the use of
technical means. It is about technicization of social institutions, of interpersonal relations, of the
human body. Increasing transformation of nature into a surrogate of "nature", increasing
dehumanization of the society and increasing denaturalization of man are direct consequences of
capital's effort, within an increasingly merciless global economic war, to achieve complete
commercialization of both natural and the social environment. The optimism of the Enlightenment
could hardly be unreservedly supported nowadays, the notion of Marx that man imposes on himself
only such tasks as he can solve, particularly the optimism based on the myth of the "omnipotence" of
science and technique. The race for profits has already caused irreparable and still unpredictable
damage to both man and his environment. By the creation of "consumer society", which means
through the transition of capitalism into a phase of pure destruction, such a qualitative rise in
destruction of nature and mankind has been performed that life on the planet is literally facing a
"countdown". Instead of the "withering away" (Engels) of institutions of the capitalist society, the
withering away of life is taking place. [sic]

Collapse of industrial society is inevitable—forcing a transition is key to avoid a total

collapse that ends civilization
Ahmed 17 Nafeez M. Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, Failing
States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence, 2017, pp. 11-13
Today, human civilization under late capitalism maintains its increasing distance from thermodynamic
equilibrium via the throughput of vast quantities of increasingly depleted fossil fuel reserves, along with
other finite and increasingly scarce resources such as metal ores, radionucleotides, rare earth elements,
phosphate fertilizer, arable land, and fresh water (Nekola et al. 2013). One indicator of the system’s
growing complexity today is the measure of material throughput, or economic growth—Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). Under capitalist social-property relations, GDP must continuously increase through the
maximization of private sector profits, simply for businesses to survive in the competitive marketplace
and for the economy to maintain its ability to meet the consumption requirements of a growing
population. However, as the complexity of human civilization has advanced, the continual growth in
material throughput is correlated with an escalating rate of depletion of energy and raw materials , as
well as an acceleration in the dissipation of energy through intensifying greenhouse gas emissions.
Robust scientific assessments now demonstrate that the continuation of those biophysical processes of
environmental degradation in a business-as-usual scenario will, before the end of the twenty-first
century, fundamentally undermine the biophysical basis of human civilization in its current mode of
material organization and structural complexity. Further, the uncontrolled energy releases generated by
these biophysical processes are manifested in climate change, extreme weather events, and natural
disasters (Earth System Disruption); and drives geopolitical competition, social unrest, and violent
conflict (Human System Destabilization). These manifestations of dissipative energy release can be seen
as distinctive feedback processes resulting from human civilization’s accelerating exploitation of fossil
fuel energy sources within the context of the biophysical limits of the environment. In turn, these two
strands of systemic feedbacks—Earth System Disruption (ESD) and Human System Destabilization (HSD)
—are occurring within a single, overarching human-environment system, and thus are already
inherently interconnected, therefore feeding back into each other. This mutual feedback process creates
an amplifying global systemic feedback in which: (1) ESD drives HSD, which in turn generates ‘security’
issues perceived through the lens of ‘threat’ and ‘risk’ analysis; (2) this invites traditional securitized
human responses that focus on the expansion of existing military, political and economic power to
stabilize existing structures of authority and advance prevailing mechanisms of energy extraction and
mobilization; (3) the entrenchment and expansion of existing structures undermines human civilization’s
capacity to pursue structural modifications to ameliorate, mitigate or prevent ESD, thus intensifying ESD;
(4) the feedback process continues as ESD drives further HSD. The trajectory of this amplifying global
systemic feedback, carried to its logical conclusion and assuming no intervening shift, is simply the
protracted, cascading collapse of human civilization in its current form toward increasingly less complex,
and therefore less resource-intensive configurations, corresponding to available resources and
constrained within the environmental limits imposed by accelerating climate change (Tainter 1990).
Within this amplifying global systemic feedback, one fundamental obstacle to the systemic restructuring
required to avert this outcome is knowledge access, distribution, and processing. In much the same way
that an integral factor in an organism’s capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions is its
genetic ability to absorb environmental information and process it through genetic modification that can
result in new adaptive biological configurations, human civilization must be capable of absorbing and
processing accurate information about the human-environment system, and converting this into
actionable knowledge, in order to be empowered to enact the key structural modifications capable of
effecting a phase-shift to a more stable adaptive configuration in relation to the Earth System. The
difference here, of course, is that while evolutionary biological genetic modifi cation is a question of
random mutations, human civilization consists of a collection of conscious agents who can make
deliberative decisions on the basis of the information available to them, which must be integrated into
knowledge that is capable of informing adaptive behaviors. This raises the question of a pivotal system-
wide structural defi ciency in the knowledge processing capacity of human civilization. In short,
inaccurate, misleading or partial knowledge bears a particularly central role in cognitive failures
pertaining to the most powerful prevailing human political, economic and cultural structures, which is
inhibiting the adaptive structural transformation urgently required to avert collapse. The most obvious
locus of this global systemic information defi cit is, of course, the global media system— or perhaps
more accurately, the Global Media-Industrial Complex (GMIC), and related organs of communication
and transnational information dissemination. The GMIC, in effect, currently operates as the information-
knowledge architecture of human civilization. The implications of this analysis are stark: scientific data
demonstrates that the rapid convergence of multiple global crisis in coming years and decades is
pushing a vast array of interconnected sub-systems toward a threshold of simultaneous tipping points .
From a complex adaptive systems perspective, this feedback threshold signifies a global system that is
on the brink, if not in the midst, of a fundamental phase-shift to a new structural configuration.
However, the evolutionary context of this process suggests that the nature and outcome of this global
civilizational phase-shift will determine the ultimate fate of civilization. Rapidly changing environmental
conditions and the escalating breach of biophysical limits are compelling human civilization to either
adapt through fundamental structural reorganization, or face a cascading and uncontrolled series of
structural regressions.

The alternative is the envisioning of a communist utopia as a form of optimistic

epistemic reorientation and ruthless criticism that delegitimizes the system.
Herod 04 – James Herod author of several books on capitalism and social activist since 1968 Getting
Free 2004 http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm
It is time to try to describe, at first abstractly and later concretely, a strategy for destroying
capitalism. This strategy, at its most basic, calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of
capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image then is one of
emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth, power, and meaning out
of them until there is nothing left but shells. This is definitely an aggressive strategy. It requires great
militancy, and constitutes an attack on the existing order. The strategy clearly recognizes that
capitalism is the enemy and must be destroyed, but it is not a frontal attack aimed at overthrowing
the system, but an inside attack aimed at gutting it , while simultaneously replacing it with something
better, something we want. Thus capitalist structures (corporations, governments, banks, schools,
etc.) are not seized so much as simply abandoned. Capitalist relations are not fought so much as they
are simply rejected. We stop participating in activities that support (finance, condone) the capitalist
world and start participating in activities that build a new world while simultaneously undermining
the old. We create a new pattern of social relations alongside capitalist relations and then we
continually build and strengthen our new pattern while doing every thing we can to weaken capitalist
relations. In this way our new democratic, non-hierarchical, non-commodified relations can
eventually overwhelm the capitalist relations and force them out of existence. This is how it has to be
done. This is a plausible, realistic strategy. To think that we could create a whole new world of decent
social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called revolution, or during the
collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy. Our new social world must grow within the old, and in opposition
to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations. Such a revolution will
never happen automatically, blindly, determinably, because of the inexorable, materialist laws of
history. It will happen, and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re
doing and know how we want to live, and know what obstacles have to be overcome before we can
live that way, and know how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs. But we must not
think that the capitalist world can simply be ignored, in a live and let live attitude, while we try to
build new lives elsewhere. (There is no elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage-slavery, that we
can’t imply stop participating in (but even here there are ways we can chip away at it). Capitalism
must be explicitly refused and replaced by something else. This constitutes War, but it is not a war in
the traditional sense of armies and tanks, but a war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday
life, by millions of people. It is a war nevertheless because the accumulators of capital will use
coercion, brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try to block any rejection of
the system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue doing so.
Nevertheless, there are many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut
capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly. We must always keep in mind how we became slaves;
then we can see more clearly how we can cease being slaves. We were forced into wage-slavery
because the ruling class slowly, systematically, and brutally destroyed our ability to live
autonomously. By driving us off the land, changing the property laws, destroying community rights,
destroying our tools, imposing taxes, destroying our local markets, and so forth, we were forced onto
the labor market in order to survive, our only remaining option being to sell, for a wage, our ability to
work. It’s quite clear then how we can overthrow slavery. We must reverse this process. We must
begin to reacquire the ability to live without working for a wage or buying the products made by
wage-slaves (that is, we must get free from the labor market and the way of living based on it), and
embed ourselves instead in cooperative labor and cooperatively produced goods. Another
clarification is needed. This strategy does not call for reforming capitalism, for changing capitalism
into something else. It calls for replacing capitalism, totally, with a new civilization. This is an
important distinction, because capitalism has proved impervious to reforms, as a system. We can
sometimes in some places win certain concessions from it (usually only temporary ones) and win
some (usually short-lived) improvements in our lives as its victims, but we cannot reform it
piecemeal, as a system. Thus our strategy of gutting and eventually destroying capitalism requires at
a minimum a totalizing image, an awareness that we are attacking an entire way of life and replacing
it with another, and not merely reforming one way of life into something else. Many people may not
be accustomed to thinking about entire systems and social orders, but everyone knows what a
lifestyle is, or a way of life, and that is the way we should approach it. The thing is this: in order for
capitalism to be destroyed millions and millions of people must be dissatisfied with their way of life.
They must want something else and see certain existing things as obstacles to getting what they
want. It is not useful to think of this as a new ideology. It is not merely a belief-system that is needed,
like a religion, or like Marxism, or Anarchism. Rather it is a new prevailing vision, a dominant desire,
an overriding need. What must exist is a pressing desire to live a certain way, and not to live another
way. If this pressing desire were a desire to live free, to be autonomous, to live in democratically
controlled communities, to participate in the self-regulating activities of a mature people, then
capitalism could be destroyed. Otherwise we are doomed to perpetual slavery and possibly even to
extinction. The content of this vision is actually not new at all, but quite old. The long term goal of
communists, anarchists, and socialists has always been to restore community. Even the great peasant
revolts of early capitalism sought to get free from external authorities and restore autonomy to
villages. Marx defined communism once as a free association of producers, and at another time as a
situation in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all.
Anarchists have always called for worker and peasant self-managed cooperatives. The long term
goals have always been clear: to abolish wage-slavery, to eradicate a social order organized solely
around the accumulation of capital for its own sake, and to establish in its place a society of free
people who democratically and cooperatively self-determine the shape of their social world.
 CP
The United States federal government should create a quasi-legislative independent
commission for Criminal Justice. That Criminal Justice Commission should recommend
that the United States federal government should enact a reduction of federal policing
predicated on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-derived evidence kept secret from
security-cleared defense counsel
Solve the aff– an interaction model of research practitioner partnerships establishes
long term connections with policy makers that builds more successful and appropriate
future legislation
Park, 18 (Yunsoo Park, Yunsoo Park, Ph.D., has broad scientific expertise in neurobiological and psychological risk factors in the etiology of
psychopathology. Specifically, her research interests focus genetic markers, impact of early trauma and stress, and various psychosocial
influences (e.g., parenting style) that are associated with the development of externalizing behaviors (e.g., aggression). Park currently supports
two U.S. Department of Education (ED) Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded projects, including an efficacy trial of Foundations, a
positive and proactive approach to schoolwide discipline, in middle school students and an effectiveness trial of Tools for Getting Along (TFGA),
a social problem-solving intervention for upper elementary school students. Before joining SRI, Park was a Society for Research in Child
Development (SRCD)/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Executive Branch Fellow at the National Institute of Justice
(NIJ), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). At NIJ, she was involved in managing and coordinating various research, evaluation, and dissemination
activities focusing on a range of topics related to crime and victimization (e.g., teen dating violence, children exposed to violence, elder abuse).
For example, she co-led the federal interagency working group on teen dating violence and provided guidance to grantees and federal partners
on a national evaluation of a project focusing on linking systems of care for child and youth victims. Park earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology
from Emory University and completed her clinical internship at SUNY Upstate Medical University. She also holds a B.A. in psychology with a
minor in philosophy from New York University,"How Research Is Translated to Policy and Practice in the Criminal Justice System,"
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/how-research-translated-policy-and-practice-criminal-justice-system, 8-31-2018)//ILake-NC
Kinds of evidence and research used by practitioners Review of the policy case summaries showed that there was little evidence on the use of
academic research in official legislative documents and public testimony. However, the interviews with research use,
suggesting that official public documents may not be the sole or best resource to turn to when
exploring research translation for a given policy. Interviewee responses identified six main ways that
policymakers and practitioners acquired evidence to inform their decision making, which included (in descending order from the
most to least frequently mentioned): (1) government-sponsored or conducted research, (2) peer networking (e.g., other state
practitioners), (3) intermediary policy and research organizations , (4) policy taskforces and councils, (5) peer
reviewed research and (6) expert testimony. Survey results also showed that researcher/practitioner partnerships were the most
effective mechanism of knowledge translation and academic journals and social media were the least effective. The
interaction
model: Most successful for research translation The study’s researchers found that the process model most
often linked to successful research knowledge translation in corrections was the interaction model, which
involves relationships, partnerships and bidirectional communication between researchers and
practitioners. An example of this model is researcher/ practitioner partnerships (RPPs). Participants of the study
stated that long-term relationships and RPPs were among the most effective ways to translate research
knowledge into correctional policy and practice. How researchers and practitioners can improve research translation Six main
effective facilitators Interview results pointed to six main facilitators that make it easier to increase and improve the use of research to inform
policy/practice, which included (in descending order from the most to least frequently mentioned): Relationships (e.g., trust, reciprocity).
Involvement in the evidence-based movement (e.g., focus on using data to figure out best practices). Leadership’s support of research use in
decision making. Research that makes concrete recommendations or is easy to understand (e.g., randomized control trials). Scarcity of budget,
which pushes policymakers/practitioners to focus on evidence-based methods. Cross-training (e.g., researchers, engaging in policy research).
Five effective strategies The
interviews also pointed out five strategies to help improve the use of research, including:
Increased investment in research. Support for research/practitioner partnerships. Ongoing task forces
comprised of a range of individuals (e.g., researchers, criminal justice agency members and
community agency members). Academics reaching out to practitioners (e.g., via practitioner- focused
conferences). Cross-training researchers and practitioners. Concluding remarks This study shed light on how research is
translated to correctional policy and practice, as well as methods to improve this process, with three important take-away points. First ,
the
study found that government research, peer networking and policy/research organizations were the most
frequently used sources for the research translation process, rather than academic publications and expert testimony.
This is most likely because the aforementioned types of evidence are easier to understand, seen as more credible and can more easily be
the study found that successful research translation is most likely to occur
applied to local settings. Second,
when researchers and practitioners build meaningful relationships and regularly interact and
communicate to establish trust, credibility and reciprocity. Lastly, the study had important policy
implications, especially for academics, specifically that academic researchers should be proactive in
reaching out and working with policymakers and practitioners, as well as becoming involved in correctional
policy and practice (e.g., through graduate courses that train students in conducting policy research).

Congress will listen to quasi-legislative independent commissions and implements

their policies – these commissions are political shields from partisanship and other
pressures
Ross et al. 12 (Ross, Steven R. and Prober, Raphael A. and Gillett, Gabriel, Steven Ross has extensive public- and private-sector
experience in representing corporations, institutions, boards and individuals in all manner of investigations, including congressional, criminal
and regulatory proceedings and related civil litigation. He concentrates on congressional investigations, internal investigations, governmental
ethics, federal election law, white collar criminal defense and constitutional issues. Assists with all aspects of governmental investigations and
related regulatory matters, with a focus on congressional investigations. Ralph served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ). Is co-head of the firm’s congressional investigations practice. Practice Throughout his career in private practice
and the public sector, Rafi Prober has advised companies, institutions and in dividuals in some of the most high stakes, complex and
consequential congressional and governmental investigations. He also assists with internal investigations, compliance audits, etc. Gillett is a
member of the firm's Appellate and Supreme Court Practice, as well as the Complex Commercial Litigation, Securities Litigation and
Enforcement, and Media and First Amendment Practices, The Rise and Permanence of Quasi-Legislative Independent Commissions (Spring
2012). Journal of Law and Politics, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, Spring 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1942573 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1942573) //ILake-NC
As Congress confronted these myriad challenges, creating quasi-legislative independent commissions
became a way to delegate complex policy investigation and development to outside experts while retaining
legislative control. As a possible solution to political, communications, and calendar pressures, scholars have noted that such
commissions “[enable] deliberative, expert, and independent consideration of a controversial issue”
on which Congress lacks sufficient time, will, or expertise.114 Moreover, such commissions are “generally
the most inexpensive way for Congress to solve complex and technical problems.”115 By empanelling a non-
congressional commission to investigate controversial issues and recommend reform, Congress can delegate intricate policy
development to knowledgeable private citizens , thereby freeing time for Members to tackle other issues .
116 In addition, delegation to an independent commission theoretically allows commissioners to reach
potentially politically controversial conclusions without being subject to typical interest group and other
pressures.117 As a result, Members can sidestep potential allegations of inaction or influence , 118 while
simultaneously choosing which commission recommendations to accept. 119 Members can also gain cover from any
resulting political fallout.120 And such commissions can quickly earn the public’s trust by
endowing respected elder statesmen, among others, with powerful tools and expert staff to
complete the given task.121 Creating independent commissions also allows Congress to raise awareness of a
particular issue122 and provides a productive outlet for former politicians and senior officials still seeking an
opportunity to shape policy. 123 In sum, independent commissions provide an opportunity to alleviate some of the
political, communications, and scheduling pressures that have increasingly confronted congressional investigators. B. Since 2001,
Congress Has Increasingly Turned to Quasi-Legislative Independent Commissions To Conduct Investigations. In
response to major twenty-first century challenges, Congress began supplementing its own investigations by creating
quasi-legislative independent commissions . This section looks more closely at this phenomenon by exploring the creation of
three such commissions: first, the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), which investigated the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001; second, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC), which investigated waste,
fraud, and abuse in contingency contracting; and third, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), which examined the causes of the recent
global economic and financial crisis. This discussion sets the stage for Part III, which scrutinizes the specific characteristics of these three
commissions to determine why some were considered more successful than others. Case Study: TheCommission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) The 9/11 Commission was almost never created. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001,
President Bush favored continuing the joint inquiry being done by the House and Senate without precedent; although Members of Congress
compared the new entity to various inquiries established throughout American history,133 the
examples they cited were
either legislative or executive commissions, but not quasi-legislative independent
commissions.134 In fact, “none of the other commissions appointed to study a particular event [had] been explicitly legislative
bodies.”135 In sum, Congress had responded to the terrorist attacks like never before . Ultimately,
though, the 9/11 Commission may be remembered as much for its success as for its uniqueness. While the Commission was
criticized for being slow at the outset of its investigation , it eventually held nineteen days of hearings, took testimony from
160 people, and reviewed millions of pages of documents.136 The comprehensive 9/11 Commission Report was
“widely hailed as a bipartisan success” and was positively received by policy makers and
experts. 137 The paperback version of its report sold more than one million copies.138 Congress quickly began working
on implementing the Commission’s legislative proposals, even cutting short its August recess to conduct
hearings.139 By 2007, more than eighty percent of the Commission’s recommendations had been
enacted, including reorganizing the nation’s telligence agencies, enhancing airport screenings, and reallocating funding based on risk.140
And the 9/11 commissioners continued to be consulted as national security experts for years after the release of their report.141 In practice,
the 9/11 Commission operated exactly as Congress had hoped when it empanelled this quasi-legislative independent commission. 2. Case
Study: The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) Following the model of the 9/11 Commission, Congress created
a quasi-legislative independent commission to study contingency contracting during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the war in Iraq,
Members of Congress and others had proposed creating independent commissions to investigate allegations of torture and harsh interrogation
techniques.142 After a series of high-profile investigations into Defense Department procurement and the conduct of military contractors,143
Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Jim Webb (DVA) proposed a commission to study wartime contingency contracting and contractors in Iraq
and Afghanistan, in the mold of the Truman Committee. 144 Congress and the President agreed on its creation, and the CWC was statutorily
empowered, albeit without subpoena power, to hold hearings, take testimony, and gather evidence.145 It was given two years to complete an
interim report and a final report that covered six particular subjects, which all fell within the relatively narrow area of contracting in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and the power to complete other reports as appropriate.146 For the second time in recent memory, Congress had delegated a
critical investigation to an independent commission. The CWC was widely considered a successful quasi-legislative independent commission.
Senator Webb described the CWC as “the way that Congressional commissions should work. It was bi-partisan, high energy, comprised of highly
qualified people who were brought in for a specific period of time . . . and who will continue to be able to maintain very high profile careers out
in the community once this is over.”147 News accounts of the release of CWC’s final report focused on the quantification of alleged contracting
fraud and the Commission’s recommendations for reform.148 The accounts also lauded the experience of the commissioners and their ability
to reach a unanimous, bipartisan agreement.149 Although it is too early to know whether the CWC recommendations will be enacted, in full or
in part, some legislators have signaled support for various of the Commission’s proposals. 150 And legislation introduced by Representative
John F. Tierney (D-MA) to create an Office of the Special Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations, based on a CWC
recommendation, has already gained some support in Congress. 151 At this point, it appears that history will likely view the CWC as a generally
successful quasi-legislative independent commission. 3. Case Study: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) After the economy faced
unprecedented challenges in 2008 and 2009, Congress again used a quasi-legislative independent commission to help shape its response to the
crisis. As part of the legislation that authorized the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP), Congress created the Congressional Oversight Panel
(COP) to review the state of the financial markets and regulations, and the Treasury Department's management of the TARP.152 COP was
empowered to hold hearings and swear-in witnesses, and was charged to complete a special report on financial regulatory reform by January
20, 2009. 153 Although COP was similar to the previous quasi-legislative investigative commissions, it was not responsible for uncovering the
root of the crisis. As a result, COP more closely resembled an advisory commission,154 leaving the deep investigation of the crisis to another
entity. In an attempt to get to the heart of the economic turmoil, Congress created another quasilegislative independent commission – the
FCIC. Members of Congress had proposed at least six versions of such a commission, of varying sizes, powers, duties, and funding, to conduct
the investigation.155 Proponents wanted the entity to conduct a modern-day Pecora investigation,156 and promised to model the entity’s
membership and structure after the 9/11 Commission.157 Such
a quasi-legislative body, supporters said, would avoid
becoming an “antagonistic [and] adversarial” investigation, foster thoughtful reforms, and be “divorced from
partisan pressures.”158 By the spring of 2009, the House of Representatives and the White House had gone on record
supporting an independent investigation.159 Then, on May 20, 2009, Congress officially created the FCIC, charging it “to examine
the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis,”160 and to return a wide-ranging report covering twentytwo
specified economic and regulatory subtopics by December 15, 2010.161 As supporters had promised, the FCIC was created as an amalgam of
the Pecora and 9/11 Commissions.162 With the FCIC, Congress created another quasi-legislative independent commission, this time to
investigate economic affairs.
 CP
"The United States federal government should publicly announce to the Russian
Federation that should evidence come out that it engaged in interference with the
2020 United States presidential election in any manner, it will initiate a nuclear first
strike against the Russian Federation"
 CP
The United States federal government should create a security-cleared staff of special
advocates to challenge Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications in criminal
court, expand the permanent staff of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court special
advocates, and authorize these advocates to intervene in any case they deem
necessary with any arguments they deem relevant.
The CP creates a robust adversarial process without incorporating defense counsel.
Patrick Walsh 16, Senior Instructor, Legal Division, United States Department of Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center; LL.M., University of Virginia School of Law, 2016, “Foreign Intelligence, Criminal Prosecutions, and Special Advocates Symposium Issue:
The Fragile Fortress: Judicial Independence in the 21st Century,” University of Memphis Law Review, vol. 47, no. 4, 2017/2016, pp. 1011–1046
IV. Foreign Intelligence in Criminal Cases
The next step to ensuring the intelligence community pursues only appropriate collection programs is to
create a panel of cleared defense counsel who can act as special advocates to litigate pretrial
FISA motions. Having a handful of amicus curiae cleared to appear before the FISC in some limited
proceedings has value, but the greater need is to have meaningful representation at the trial level for
defendants that will have foreign intelligence evidence presented against them . Robust procedures have
been developed over time to allow defendants a meaningful ability to challenge the evidence against
them in criminal [*1041] cases. But, the procedures are significantly modified to the defendant's
detriment in cases involving foreign intelligence. These modifications contribute to a structure that
will permit the intelligence community and the FISC to again pursue programs outside of their mandate.
The resulting diminishment to a true adversarial process will hamper judicial independence.
Special advocates at the trial level can restore each defendant's right to challenge the introduction
of evidence against her and to ensure that intelligence collection programs are legal and appropriate.
This section will outline how these special advocates should be created and what authority they should have.
A. Creation of the Federal Public Defender's Office of the FISA Special Advocate
The first step in providing defendants a meaningful ability to challenge the evidence being used against
them is to create a staff of defense counsel that (1) have the appropriate clearance to review FISA
applications and affidavits and (2) can legally represent defendants in criminal cases all over the country.
This can be accomplished by creating a national office of the FISA Special Advocate that litigates FISA-
related pretrial motions for defendants. This national level organization would function as the counterpart to the Litigation
Section of the Office of Intelligence in the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. The Litigation Section assists federal
prosecutors across the country in responding to pretrial motions of defendants in FISA cases. These experts add value to each case and bring a
wealth of experience to help ensure that the court benefits from an experienced advocate who is highly educated in this specialized area of the
law. The Office of FISA Special Advocate can do the same.

Disclosures to defense counsel cause leaks because defense counsel work closely with
surveillance targets, turning the case---special advocates avoid this.
Matthew Howell 18, J.D., Temple University Beasley School of Law, 2018, “ALLEVIATING THE POWER OF SECRET EVIDENCE: AN ANALYSIS
OF NO FLY AND SELECTEE LIST DETERMINATIONS AND REDRESS PROCEEDINGS,” 90 Temp. L. Rev. Online 1, 2018, Lexis
Another solution involves a model that would allow litigants' attorneys to have access to certain
classified information, even if disclosure of that information were not possible. Attorneys in this setting
would need to receive security clearances at the necessary levels to be able to review any information, and protective orders
would be issued to prevent any disclosure by the attorney. This would also require that defense counsel be permitted to attend the hearing in
which classified information is discussed. Obtaining security clearances could follow a similar path as under CIPA, where one security [*27]
clearance permits the attorney to review documents at all levels of classification. The protective order would likely be necessary because the
TSA is generally unwilling to release any information to the public. An unseemly side effect of this system is that a client would still not have
access to information, and his attorney would be barred from disclosing any information to him.
If an attorney cannot discuss any of the potential classified information with her client, then it
will remain difficult to mount a viable defense because strategy will be limited . This situation
would also place attorneys in a difficult ethical dilemma, because an attorney would be forced to
refuse disclosure of information while also crafting a strategy based on that classified information. It
would appear that the implementation of any strategy could lead to an inadvertent disclosure. As one
author notes:
There is no simple resolution of this ethical dilemma. Perhaps, the only viable result of the appropriate
balancing of the defendant's constitutional rights against the government's national security concerns may be to provide access to
the information to security cleared defense counsel who is not permitted to share the information
with his client.
One way to resolve this ethics problem is to remove the adversary nature of the defense counsel
from the proceeding and instead implement an independent counsel that is paid for by the
government. Similar to the security-cleared defense counsel mentioned previously, this independent
counsel would possess proper security clearance and could "view and challenge [the] classified evidence
on behalf of his client." The client would retain his own attorney, but the compensatory counsel acts as a
substitute advocate during in camera hearings to determine whether or not classified information is pertinent to the
defense's case and should therefore be disclosed. This setting would work in a similar manner to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC),
which reviews the deportation of resident aliens in cases involving secret evidence, often involving terrorism claims. In that setting, special
attorneys receive security clearance to [*28] access classified information and those attorneys agree to represent permanent resident aliens
when looking at the information. Attorneys with clearance in the ATRC are prohibited from disclosing any information to the client or to any
attorney representing the client in the matter, subject to fines and imprisonment.
The development of either security-cleared attorneys or a compensatory counsel system would rectify many of
the issues in applying the Mathews test to watch list proceedings. Attorneys who are able to be present during in
camera proceedings could question contentions made by the government or point out factual
errors that have led to watch-list placement. Additionally, these attorneys are much more likely to zealously
advocate for their client's interests, at least more so than a judge or prosecutor would under a statute like CIPA.
However, the notion of state secrets continues to loom over the proceedings even if there is sufficient counsel for a litigant in a No Fly List
proceeding. Indeed, the assertion of state secrets, or of national security, may force a judge's hand in determining that disclosure of
information is not proper in a specific case.

The mere prospect of leaks from the AFF wrecks the five eyes
Ellen Nakashima 3/12, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering intelligence and national security matters for The
Washington Post, “FISA policy changes that address issues unearthed in review of Carter Page wiretap are a modest step forward, analysts say:
The Senate is expected to pass the reform package, which drew bipartisan support,” The Washington Post (Online), 03/12/2020, ProQuest
Nicholas Lewin, a former federal terrorism prosecutor, said the issue was a difficult one "as there are fundamental values on
both sides of the scale — liberty and security."
Baker, a former Justice Department attorney who handled FISA applications, cautioned that allowing such
disclosure would have
"a substantial negative impact" on the usefulness of FISA as a counterintelligence tool and would
pose a "greater national security risk" to the nation.
"Foreign partners and sensitive human sources located overseas would be quite reticent to either
share information with the FBI or allow information they generated to be used in FISA applications ," he
said, "because they would be quite concerned about the prospect that some defense attorney down
the road could see that information."
Solves Russian nuclear miscalculation
James Rogers 14, co-founder and a Senior Editor of European Geostrategy, Lecturer in European Security in the Department of Political
and Strategic Studies at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, “The geopolitics of the Atlantic Alliance,” European Geostrategy, 6-8-2014,
http://www.europeangeostrategy.org/2014/06/geopolitics-atlantic-alliance/ via WebArchive
But NATO is only part of the story; incidentally, so is the EU – a project kick-started with the Schuman Declaration of 1950 to reconcile West
Germany and France after the horrors of occupation and war. What
is important is that all of these institutions are, in
one way or another, part of a wider geopolitical constellation enabled and underpinned by the
military, industrial and financial power of the UK and US . After all, the Euro-Atlantic structures are capped
by a range of mutual UK-US intelligence sharing treaties, including the BRUSA Agreement and the UKUSA Agreement,
both of which predate NATO. The former was inaugurated in 1943 during the height of the Second World War, while the latter was founded in
1946. These agreements facilitated the creation of the so-called Five Eyes’ intelligence network, recently
brought to prominence by the leaks of the notorious Edward Snowden. The ‘Five Eyes’ includes the UK and US, along with Canada, Australia and
New Zealand. Eachof the five English-speaking countries takes responsibility for monitoring signals
intelligence in different parts of the world , with the UK-based Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the US-
based National Security Agency (NSA) operating as the hubs for the exchange and processing of knowledge and information. Other trusted
nations, like Belgium, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, also gain access to this network on an ad-hoc basis.
But UK-US cooperation goes further than intelligence sharing. Although both allies had already signed up to the North
Atlantic Treaty – and thus NATO’s Article Five – there was nevertheless concern that, should push come to shove (for example, in the event
of a general European war), one side of the Atlantic would not help the other. While the British were somewhat worried about the US
commitment, some mainland European allies questioned – in the event of nuclear escalation with the Russians – whether Washington really
would risk the sacrifice New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles for Amsterdam, Oslo or Paris. The US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement, signed in
1958, was one step in solving that problem. Although it did not contain any formal declaration of solidarity, Washington and London
nevertheless agreed to the first step of a mutual defence pact that remains, paradoxically, even deeper than that provided by NATO. The
reason for this is because the treaty began the process of binding together the UK’s strategic nuclear forces with those of the US.
Of course, it is well-known that the British, Canadians and Americans came to work closely with one another during the Second World War to
generate a viable atomic bomb, first under the aegis of the British-led ‘Tube Alloys’ programme and later in the much larger American-led
‘Manhattan Project’. This resulted in the ‘Gadget’, which was detonated over the deserts of New Mexico with a mighty flash in 1945, ushering
in the ‘Atomic Age’ – possibly the defining moment of the twentieth century (and even, all time). After the war, however, and despite initially
agreeing with the UK to continue nuclear cooperation, the US sought a nuclear monopoly, shutting London (and Ottawa) out of bilateral nuclear
development through the McMahon Act of 1946. The British were furious, and set about pursuing a new atomic weapons project of their own,
using the knowledge gleaned by their scientists working on the Manhattan Project during the war. The UK succeeded in developing its own
‘Gadget’ in 1952, unleashing it off the Australian coast, thus becoming the world’s third nuclear power (Russia exploded its first device in 1949).
This was followed five years later by the successful test of a British hydrogen bomb.
In developing a full-scale nuclear capability, London’s real objective was not only the acquisition of the means to inflict massive and
unacceptable damage on any enemy. Additionally, the British were also seeking a geopolitical outcome: the UK understood that Europe was
becoming an increasingly contested space in a geopolitical context, not least as the Cold War took hold and intensified. London realised that
Russia’s growing power, augmented by its many satellite states, annexed during the Second World War, could only be ‘balanced’ by drawing
together the strength of the democracies on either side of the North Atlantic into one cohesive bloc. Moreover, the UK understood that by the
late 1950s, better means of delivery were needed for its own nuclear weapons: the Vulcans, Victors and Valiants – the Royal AirForce’s strategic
bombers – were already starting to become obsolete. Russia was starting to develop powerful new ballistic missiles with intercontinental reach;
and for Britain to develop an effective response by itself would be extremely costly. London looked to Washington for help.
But this would require even deeper UK-US nuclear collaboration. At first, however, the US sensed an opportunity to regain its nuclear
monopoly, at least within the West. The US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, wanted to render the UK dependent on his country’s own
capabilities: Washington therefore tried to force London into accepting a dual-use policy, i.e. that the US would retain a veto over Britain’s
capacity for deployment. The British, however, realised that this would diminish their influence, both in Washington, but particularly in relation
to their European allies, meaning they wanted to hold onto their own nuclear autonomy. The opportunity for a breakthrough came with the
Nassau Agreement in 1962, effectively the second step in UK-US mutual defence. After tough negotiations, and after a quiet stroll between the
British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and American President, John F. Kennedy, a deal was struck whereby the US would lease the UK its
own delivery system – Polaris missiles – which the British would cap with their own thermonuclear warheads. These would then be carried by a
new generation of Royal Navy nuclear submarines, powered by reactors modelled on American designs.
Apart from the enormous cost savings for the British, the ability to fire Polaris missiles was critical. Although any enemy with sufficiently
sophisticated air surveillance
systems would still be able to detect the speed and trajectory of any missiles in
the event of a nuclear exchange (meaning it might realise who was firing them), it would not be able to readily determine
whether the missiles were British or American in origin. That is to say, if
the UK was attacked by Russia and London initiated
a nuclear response, Moscow would not know whether it was being hit by the UK or the US (or both). This
forced the Russians – as well as others – to factor uncertainty into their own nuclear warfighting and
deterrence doctrines, making the cost of miscalculation ever greater, and the British-American
ability to deter thus even stronger. In effect, it ensured that the Atlantic Alliance gained a material as well as an ideological
tether, to keep the two sides together, even in the event of a European conflict in which the North American side did not really want to become
involved.
Today, while Polaris has been replaced by the even-more lethal Trident, the
UK-US backed geopolitical constellation known
as the Atlantic Alliance is very much still alive. Of course, many other European countries continue to believe that their
political and economic links with Washington will ensure the Americans shall come to their aid in the event of any future hostilities, and they
may be right. The US knows that European security is vital, but only London has the capability to act as the final insurance policy
for other Europeans. In short, it – and only it – retains the physical capacity to ultimately oblige the US to become involved in any general
European conflict. And because of Britain’s close geographic proximity to mainland Europe and the fact that British geostrategy is decidedly
liberal – in other words, to prevent the continent falling under a universal tyrant – the UK’s intervention is practically guarenteed should a
surrounding great power make a bid for European hegemony.
So, due to the de-facto binding together of the British and American intelligence-gathering capabilities and nuclear deterrents, the enormous
material resources of the US (and Canada) will likely always be at the disposal of the UK. Conversely, as the US continues to ‘pivot’ or
‘rebalance’ to the Indo-Pacific, for similar reasons – albeit reversed – Washington will automatically acquire the means to compel London, and
by extension, other European capitals, into any conflict it may get drawn into in the Indo-Pacific. Thus, so
long as the UK and US
continue to cooperate with one another with intelligence gathering and sharing and nuclear
deterrence, the Atlantic Alliance will retain its strategic relevance, irrespective of its geostrategic
focus. If other European countries are serious about supporting the Atlantic Alliance, they would do well to increase their military spending.
This will help London and Washington should the international situation turn more volatile in the twenty-first century, providing them with the
means to continue to assert the Pax Atlantica and thus maintain a durable peace.
 DA
Biden is set to beat Trump, but small shifts in battleground states can flip the
election
Paton 20 [Calum Paton. Deputy Managing Director at The Speaker, former research at the London Think Tank (IARS) International
Institute. BA from University of Warwick. “Will Trump Win The 2020 Election? - Trump Vs Biden.” May 29, 2020.
https://speakerpolitics.co.uk/us/2121-biden-vs-trump-who-wins-the-2020-election]
With Biden securing the Democratic nomination and November fast approaching, the pundits are gearing up to predict the outcome of the
2020 election - it does not look good for President Trump. Four years ago Donald Trump managed to secure an Electoral College victory with
304 votes to Hillary Clinton's 227, despite losing the popular vote by more 2.5 million votes, the largest negative votes margin for a winning candidate in American
history. Trump did this by securing small victories in some of the key swing states, flipping six states from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 - some by the finest
margins, with Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all decided by less than 50,000 votes. This amounts to less than 1 per cent of the voters in each state, showing
just how close the margins were - if Clinton had won these three states instead, she would have won the Electoral College and likely be gearing up for her re-
key rust belt states, with
election. It is no surprise then, that most of the analysis of what could happen in 2020 is focusing on these

Biden currently leading Trump in every

state Trump flipped, bar Iowa. Current statewide polling shows that Biden holds a lead not
just in the key states, but in states that Clinton failed to gain any traction in, such as Nebraska, which Trump won by more
than 15 percentage points. If the election were held tomorrow, it is thought that Biden would win 29 of the 50 states, securing an Electoral
College victory of 357-181 - a historic landslide. However, at this point in 2016, Clinton held an equally unassailable lead over Trump. With just
days to go, her lead nationally was in the double digits and she was widely expected to not just hold on to the seats Obama won, but gain even more ground. As
Trump's campaign CEO Steve Bannon said: the "hidden Trump voter" saw him win in 2016. This projection includes states like Nebraska, which although Biden holds
a lead in polling, have consistently fallen to the Republican party - it is unlikely that Biden will flip a 15 point margin from 2016 in his favour this time around.
Equally, manyof the rust belt states that Trump managed to flip in 2016 are still extremely close in the
polls. Although Biden leads them currently, it is perhaps likely that come election day, this significant
lead will struggle to materialise. That leaves a map with Arizona and Nebraska remaining in Republican hands, with an Electoral College total of
little path for a Trump victory, especially given the ongoing pandemic is sending
341-197 in Biden's favour. Current polling shows
his approval ratings hurtling towards their lowest levels yet and with unemployment rocketing to over 40 million. Clinton was indeed further
ahead in 2016, and if Trump can replicate a similar campaign to last time, which compared and contrasted
him against Clinton, winning over the voters who favoured neither candidate. These were predominantly in the white working-class - a group who had
suffered the sharpest relative economic decline since the 2008 financial crisis and were crying out for change. If there is a similar break in 2020,

it is not impossible to perceive Trump retaining some of those rust-belt states where the white working class are
concentrated. This would likely see him win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio; Biden still winning back Wisconsin. In this case, Trump would still be short. 287-251
for Biden. Trump needs Florida too. Polling gives Biden a small lead in Florida at present, averaging around 3 per cent. With the state favouring conservative social
policy - such as pro-life and tough on drugs stances, along with strong support for the second amendment - it is not impossible that a strong anti-Biden campaign
could see Trump retain the state.

The plan fires up GOP base voters

Picket 20 – senior campaign reporter for the Washington Examiner and fill-in radio host at SiriusXM Patriot 125; cites John Thune,
Republican Senator from South Dakota
Kerry, 5/26. “Republicans see opportunity to fire up 'high-interest' voters over Flynn case .”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/republicans-see-opportunity-to-fire-up-high-interest-voters-over-flynn-case
Republicans will try to use the three-year Justice Department case against retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn as an election
cycle issue to motivate their base.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that has crushed a once thriving economy under the Trump administration, Republicans
see an opportunity to tell their constituents that the president and his allies were spied on by the
previous administration. And according to this narrative, it was done with the help of an out-of-control
FBI, the intelligence community, and Obama-era holdovers who stayed in the federal government during President
Trump’s first term in office.
Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, was fired in February 2017 after a Washington Post column penned by David Ignatius
suggested that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his discussions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn’s phone conversations with Kislyak were intercepted by the federal government during the Obama administration, and he pleaded guilty
to giving false statements to federal agents in 2017 regarding those calls with the Russian envoy. However, he filed to withdraw his guilty plea
earlier this year after the Justice Department recently requested the judge issue a sentence of up to six months in prison.
As a result of a flood of declassified documents, along with Justice Department documents turned over to Flynn’s attorney Sydney Powell,
questions have arisen in the minds of Trump supporters who see a justice system treating individuals
associated with the 2016 Trump campaign and transition team in an unfair way , Republicans say.
“I think ... there's a constituency out there that cares a lot about it, and the Republican base voters, for
example — they want to know that. They want transparency . They want to know what happened, and
they want to know that the government's not abusing its powe r,” South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune told the
Washington Examiner.

That flips the outcome—an enthusiasm gap can win Trump the election
Enten 20 – Senior Writer and Analyst for CNN Politics, where he specializes in data-driven journalism, covering politics with a focus on poll
numbers and electoral trends
Harry, 5/16. “Why Trump's enthusiasm edge over Biden could matter.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/16/politics/trump-biden-enthusiasm-
2020-analysis/index.html
This split is potentially a good sign for Trump because the
candidate who has led on enthusiasm (or a closely related question)
has won every presidential election since 1988, though there are reasons to think Biden could break this streak.
Importantly for Trump, the leader on enthusiasm has gone on to win in close elections as well as ones
with wider margins.
One of those close elections was four years ago. Trump had a consistent edge over Hillary Clinton in
enthusiasm. His voters were 4 points more likely to say they were very enthusiastic in voting for him
than Clinton's were for her in the final ABC News/Washington Post poll, even as Clinton led overall. That enthusiasm
advantage should have been one of the warning signals to the Clinton campaign .

Trump re-election triggers every catastrophic impact and makes damage irreversible
Starr 19 – professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton, Pulitzer Prize winner Paul, May. “Trump’s Second Term.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/trump-2020-second-term/585994/
Three areas—climate change, the risk of a renewed global arms race, and control of the Supreme Court—
illustrate the historic significance of the 2020 election. The first two problems will become much harder to
address as time goes on. The third one stands to remake our constitutional democracy and undermine
the capacity for future change. In short, the biggest difference between electing Trump in 2016 and reelecting
Trump in 2020 would be irreversibility. Climate policy is now the most obvious example. For a long time, even many of
the people who acknowledged the reality of climate change thought of it as a slow process that did not demand immediate action. But today,
amid extreme weather events and worsening scientific forecasts, the costs of our delay are clearly mounting, as are the
associated dangers. To have a chance at keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius—the objective of the
Paris climate agreement—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that by 2030, CO2 emissions must drop some 45
percent from 2010 levels. Instead of declining, however, they are rising. In his first term, Trump has announced plans to cancel existing
climate reforms, such as higher fuel-efficiency standards and limits on emissions from new coal-fired power plants, and he has pledged to pull
the United States out of the Paris Agreement. His reelection
would put off a national commitment to decarbonization
until at least the second half of the 2020s, while encouraging other countries to do nothing as well. And
change that is delayed becomes more economically and politically difficult . According to the Global Carbon Project,
if decarbonization had begun globally in 2000, an emissions reduction of about 2 percent a year would have been sufficient to stay below 2
degrees Celsius of warming. Now it will need to be approximately 5 percent a year. If we wait another decade, it will be about 9 percent. In the
United States, the economic disruption and popular resistance sure to arise from such an abrupt transition may be
more than our political system can bear. No one knows, moreover, when the world might hit irreversible
tipping points such as the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which would likely doom us to a
catastrophic sea-level rise. The 2020 election will also determine whether the U.S. continues on a course
that all but guarantees another kind of runaway global change—a stepped-up arms race, and with it a
heightened risk of nuclear accidents and nuclear war. Trump’s “America first” doctrine, attacks on
America’s alliances, and unilateral withdrawal from arms-control treaties have made the world far more
dangerous. After pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement (in so doing, badly damaging America’s reputation as both an
ally and a negotiating partner), Trump failed to secure from North Korea anything approaching the Iran deal’s terms, leaving Kim Jong Un not
only unchecked but with increased international standing. Many world
leaders are hoping that Trump’s presidency is a
blip—that he will lose in 2020, and that his successor will renew America’s commitments to its allies and to the principles of
multilateralism and nonproliferation. If he is reelected, however, several countries may opt to pursue nuclear
weapons, especially those in regions that have relied on American security guarantees, such as the
Middle East and Northeast Asia. At stake is the global nonproliferation regime that the United States and
other countries have maintained over the past several decades to persuade nonnuclear powers to stay that way. That this regime has largely
succeeded is a tribute to a combination of tactics, including U.S. bilateral and alliance-based defense commitments to nonnuclear countries,
punishments and incentives, and pledges by the U.S. and Russia—as the world’s leading nuclear powers—to make dramatic cuts to their own
arsenals. In his first term, Trump has begun to undermine the nonproliferation regime and dismantle the remaining
arms-control treaties between Washington and Moscow. In October, he announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. While the Russian violations of the treaty that Trump cited
are inexcusable, he has made no effort to hold Russia to its obligations—to the contrary, by destroying the treaty, he has let Russia off the hook.
What’s more, he has displayed no interest in extending New START, which since 2011 has limited the strategic nuclear arsenals of Russia and
the United States. If the treaty is allowed to expire, 2021 will mark the first year since 1972 without a legally binding agreement in place to
control and reduce the deadliest arsenals ever created. The prospect of a new nuclear arms race is s uddenly very real. With
the end of verifiable limits on American and Russian nuclear weapons, both countries will lose the right to inspect each other’s arsenal, and will
face greater uncertainty about each other’s capabilities and intentions. Already, rhetoric has taken an ominous turn: After Trump suspended
U.S. participation in the INF Treaty on February 2, Vladimir Putin quickly followed suit and promised a “symmetrical response” to new American
weapons. Trump replied a few days later in his State of the Union address, threatening to “outspend and out-innovate all others by far” in
weapons development. The treaties signed by the United States and Russia beginning in the 1980s have resulted in the elimination of nearly 90
percent of their nuclear weapons; the end of the Cold War seemed to confirm that those weapons had limited military utility. Now—as the U.S.
and Russia abandon their commitment to arms control, and Trump’s “America first” approach causes countries such as Japan and Saudi Arabia
to question the durability of U.S. security guarantees—the stage is being set for more states to go nuclear and for the U.S. and Russia to ramp
up weapons development. This breathtaking historical reversal would, like global warming, likely feed on itself, becoming more and more
difficult to undo. Finally, a
second term for Trump would entrench changes at home , perhaps the most durable of
which involves the Supreme Court. With a full eight years, he would probably have the opportunity to replace two more justices:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be 87 at the beginning of the next presidential term, and Stephen Breyer will be 82. Whether you regard the prospect
of four Trump-appointed justices as a good or a bad thing will depend on your politics and preferences—but there is no denying that the impact
on the nation’s highest court would be momentous. Not since Richard Nixon has a president named four new Supreme Court justices, and not
since Franklin D. Roosevelt has one had the opportunity to alter the Court’s ideological balance so decisively. In Nixon’s time, conservatives did
not approach court vacancies with a clear conception of their judicial objectives or with carefully vetted candidates; both Nixon and Gerald Ford
appointed justices who ended up on the Court’s liberal wing. Since then, however, the conservative movement has built a formidable legal
network designed to ensure that future judicial vacancies would not be squandered. The justices nominated by recent Republican presidents
reflect this shift. But because the Court’s conservative majorities have remained slim, a series of Republican appointees—Sandra Day O’Connor,
Anthony Kennedy, and most recently John Roberts—have, by occasionally breaking ranks, held the Court back from a full-scale reversal of
liberal principles and precedents. With a 7–2 rather than a 5–4 majority, however, the Court’s conservatives could no longer be checked by a
lone swing vote. Much of the public discussion about the Court’s future focuses on Roe v. Wadeand other decisions expanding rights, protecting
free speech, or mandating separation of Church and state. Much less public attention
has been paid to conservative
activists’ interest in reversing precedents that since the New Deal era have enabled the federal
government to regulate labor and the economy . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, conservative justices regularly
struck down laws and regulations such as limits on work hours. Only in 1937, after ruling major New Deal programs unconstitutional, did the
Court uphold a state minimum-wage law. In the decades that followed, theCourt invoked the Constitution’s commerce
clause, which authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, as the basis for upholding laws regulating virtually any
activity affecting the economy. A great deal of federal law, from labor standards to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to
health and environmental regulation, rests on that foundation. But the Court’s conservative majority has
recently been chipping away at the expansive interpretation of the commerce clause , and some jurists on
the right want to return to the pre-1937 era, thereby sharply limiting the government’s regulatory powers . In 2012,
the Court’s five conservative justices held that the Affordable Care Act’s penalty for failing to obtain insurance—the so-called individual
mandate—was not justified by the commerce clause. In a sweeping dissent from the majority’s opinion, four of those justices voted to strike
down the entire ACA for that reason. The law survived only because the fifth conservative, Chief Justice Roberts, held that the mandate was a
constitutional exercise of the government’s taxing power. If the Court had included seven conservative justices in 2012, it would almost
certainly have declared the ACA null and void. This is the fate awaiting much existing social and economic legislation and regulation if Trump is
reelected. And that’s to say nothing of future legislation such as measures to limit climate change, which might well be struck down by a Court
adhering to an originalist interpretation of our 18th-century Constitution. Democracy
is always a gamble, but ordinarily the
stakes involve short-term wins and losses. Much more hangs in the balance next year . With a second
term, Trump’s presidency would go from an aberration to a turning point in American history. But
it would not usher in an era marked by stability. The effects of climate change and the risks
associated with another nuclear arms race are bound to be convulsive. And Trump’s reelection would leave
the country contending with both dangers under the worst possible conditions , deeply alienated from
friends abroad and deeply divided at home . The Supreme Court, furthermore, would be far out of line with public opinion and
at the center of political conflict, much as the Court was in the 1930s before it relented on the key policies of the New Deal
Case
 Politicization
1. Hybrid wars are designed not to escalate
Alexander Lanoszka 18, Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City, University of London and Non-Resident Fellow at
West Point’s Modern War Institute, 5-24-2018, "Stop Calling Every Potential Act Of Russian Aggression ‘Hybrid Warfare’," Medium,
https://medium.com/international-affairs-blog/stop-calling-every-potential-act-of-russian-aggression-hybrid-warfare-e980b3b888a9
Hybrid warfare is thus not a new form of conducting war or engaging in coercion nor is it a particularly
proficient tactic as waging hybrid warfare carries with it significant risk. After all, a bluff lies at the heart of this type of strategy .
By resorting to using ‘little green men’ in Crimea — that is, the use of soldiers bearing no markings or insignia that indicate their origin — 
Russia showed itself averse to military escalation. It had to disguise its aggression in such a way that would pre-emptively
confuse those audiences that could put together a robust response.
Had Russia been so powerful to do what it pleased with
immunity, it might not have gone through the theatrics associated with hybrid warfare. That is why the
best response to the tactics that make up this aggressive strategy involves force . Any hesitation in the face of the
uncertainty created by the aggressor allows hybrid warfare to succeed. Grey zones only exist if they are allowed to be grey. To be sure, force need not mean
violence: if agitators appear to be fomenting local unrest or spreading inflammatory propaganda at the behest of an adversary, then they should be apprehended
The manner that Poland recently dealt with two alleged instances
and, when appropriate, returned to their origin.

of Russian hybrid tactics is instructive. Rather than being cowed by Russia’s military strength, Polish
intelligence agencies identified the individuals seeking to incite hatred between Poles and Ukrainians
before banning them from the country. Similarly, the Baltic countries have already exercised scenarios in
which their national guards retake sites from ‘little green men.’ Failing to undertake these basic steps would only invite more
brazen efforts of aggression. Gratuitous invocations of ‘hybrid warfare’ not only creates uncertainty over what the term really means, but could also cloud our
judgement as to what can be done about instances of actual hybrid warfare. Electoral interference is simply electoral interference. Killing a former spy abroad is
extraterritorial (and extrajudicial) murder. If
hybrid warfare is used to refer to any sort of provocation, then the result
could be a misunderstanding of the broader strategic context in which such aggressive behaviour takes
place and of the manner in which to deal with this behaviour . After all, hybrid warfare is not
necessarily a strategy of the powerful. If anything, it is an admission of weakness.

2. no risk of resource war

Emily Meierding 16, assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., 5-19-2016, "Oil wars: Why nations aren’t
battling over resources," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/19/oil-wars-why-nations-arent-
battling-over-petroleum-resources/?utm_term=.b334c10dbcbd
The confrontation died down, but a critical question remains: Do countries fight over oil resources? The question isn’t just pertinent to the
South China Sea. The Arctic, Caspian, East China Sea and eastern Mediterranean have all been identified as potential “hot spots” for international oil conflicts.
Numerous conflicts, including Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Japan’s invasion of the Dutch East Indies in World War II, Germany’s attacks against the Russian Caucasus in
the same war, the Iran-Iraq War, the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, and even the Falklands War, have been described as international “oil wars.”
However, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the risk of international oil wars is slim. Although oil is
an exceptionally valuable strategic and economic resource, fighting for it does not pay. The belief that
countries fight for oil rests on a flawed foundational assumption: Countries reap the same benefits from foreign o il

resources as from domestic oil resources. In reality, profiting from oil wars is hard. Countries face at least four
sets of obstacles that discourage them from fighting for oil: invasion costs, occupation costs, international costs and
investment costs. Invasion costs are the damage that wars inflict on oil fields and infrastructure. Occupation costs arise from local resistance to foreign
occupation, which can target oil industry infrastructure and personnel. International costs are imposed by the international community, which can respond to oil
grabs with economic sanctions and military interventions. Investment costs are the challenges of attracting foreign capital and technical expertise to occupied oil
fields. Collectively,
these four sets of costs dramatically reduce the payoffs of fighting for oil and the appeal
of oil wars. When the many other costs of war, including manpower and materiel, are taken into
account, fighting for oil becomes even less attractive . From a purely rational standpoint, countries
shouldn’t launch oil wars. But, countries don’t always act rationally. To test the oil war hypothesis, we
have to take another look at historical so-called oil wars. Closer examination shows that oil has not
been the fundamental cause of any international wars. The Falklands War in 1982 was triggered by national pride and
Argentine officials’ fear that their window of opportunity for retaking the islands was closing. Rather than fight over oil, Britain and Argentina tried to use it as a
catalyst for cooperation. In the 1970s and 1990s, they tried to jointly develop the Falklands’ oil resources. The Iran-Iraq War, from 1980 to 1988, was also not an oil
war. Iraq initially aimed only to gain control over the Shatt al-Arab waterway and 130 square miles of contested territory. In the early stages of the war, Iraq
repeatedly offered to withdraw from Iran, if Tehran would accept those demands. However, Iranian officials accused the Iraqis of fighting for oil in order to discredit
them internationally. The Chaco War, from 1932 to 1935, was also launched for other reasons. Bolivia and Paraguay knew that oil discoveries in the Chaco region
were unlikely. They fought because of national pride and to avoid further territorial dismemberment, after major losses in the 19th century. The oil explanation
didn’t appear until the war bogged down, when leaders tried to transfer responsibility for the devastating conflict onto international oil companies. On
three
occasions, countries have launched major military campaigns targeting oil resources. However, these
were fundamentally wars for survival, not for oil. In World War II, Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies and Germany attacked
the Russian Caucasus because leaders realized that, without more oil, their regimes would collapse. Japan would have to withdraw from China, which was
“tantamount to telling us to commit suicide,” as Japanese Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori put it. Hitler was even more succinct: “Unless we get the Baku oil,” he
stated, “the war is lost.” Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a war for survival. Contrary to popular beliefs, Saddam Hussein was not attempting to greedily grab
more oil resources. Instead, he was afraid that the United States was trying to overthrow his regime. The United States had supported the Kurds’ rebellion in the
1970s, perpetrated the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, and by 1990, seemed to be squeezing Iraq economically. According to Hussein, the United States was
driving down oil prices by directing Kuwait to exceed its OPEC production quota. Hussein believed that seizing Kuwait offered the only means of eluding the United
States’ hostile designs. By controlling his neighbor, Hussein could raise oil prices, escape his economic crisis and regain domestic support. He knew that the
maneuver was a long shot. Regime records show that Hussein expected the United States would try to force him out of Kuwait. Still, it was either that or regime
collapse. As Hussein’s deputy, Tariq Aziz, said after the war, “You will either be hit inside your house and destroyed, economically and militarily. Or you go outside
and attack…” Japanese,German and Iraqi leaders believed that they were fighting wars for survival.
Participants in other so-called oil wars were fighting for additional reasons, like national pride. None of
the conflicts were driven by oil ambitions. This is good news for contemporary international relations.
Oil competition in areas like the South China Sea is not a serious threat to international security.
Countries may engage in minor oil spats, like China and Vietnam’s rig confrontation, to reinforce their
resource claims. However, these incidents will not escalate into international wars. There is also
little risk of oil imperialism. Countries like China will not satisfy their oil needs by seizing foreign oil fields .
Historically, leaders have only initiated oil grabs when they believed that their survival depended on it.
This condition is exceedingly rare, even in wartime. And, it’s unrelated to the price of oil. The United
States considered grabbing Middle Eastern oil in 1975, after the first energy crisis drove up prices. However, the Ford administration refrained, because the costs of
Lastly, oil won’t inspire great power wars. The United States and China may
aggression were too high.
eventually come to blows. Some of their military campaigns may target oil resources, if controlling them
seems necessary for regime survival. However, oil will not be the fundamental cause of a Sino-American
conflict. It’s not worth fighting for.

3. Andregg flows neg---proves that intel can’t solve wars AND that capitalist crises are
the root cause---their ev
c. Examples of Syria and Myanmar Other papers have described in detail how such forces contributed to the collapse of Syria
(growth rate in 2010 = 2.4% preceded by four years of climate change-driven drought that intersected with a very corrupt
and authoritarian regime, and rising militant religion). 23 That collapse spread population pressure to many other nations including much of
Europe. Myanmarfaces a similar dilemma, where even genocide of southeastern Rohingya brought no lasting peace, while civil
wars fester to the north. Tactical
intelligence to “win Myanmar’s wars” does nothing to help it solve its long-
term problems, which are becoming profound.

4. The problem is not a lack of intelligence---but a lack of will to listen---9/11 proves

structural incentives prevent action---their authors Gill and Pythian
The 9/11 Commission Report: Explaining Intelligence Failure?
There was never any doubt that the events of 9/11 represented the kind of surprise attack that the CIA had been created to secure
against, and was hence a catastrophic intelligence failure. The task of the 9/11 Commission was essentially to identify the source of
the failure and make recommendations to prevent further catastrophe. A close reading of the report shows clearly where
failures occurred, although the evidence that policymakers failed to act on intelligence warnings was not
translated into criticism of the principals in the Bush administration . Perhaps fearing criticism for failure to heed
intelligence warnings, the Bush administration was initially reluctant to establish the Commission, and once it had done so was hardly
enthusiastic in its cooperation. It attempted to prevent NSA Condoleezza Rice from testifying, and insisted that the president himself would
only testify if he could be accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney and not be required to testify on oath. As with the later Butler Inquiry in
the UK, a compromise agreement kept any individual blame out of the report.
In terms of timely intelligence warnings and the political failure to act on them, chapter 8 of the report,
‘The System Was “Blinking Red”’, is key, with its headings (‘The Drumbeat Begins’, ‘High Probability of Near-
Term “Spectacular” Attacks’, ‘The Calm Before the Storm’, and ‘Government Response to the Threats’ ) effectively
conveying the same story that former Clinton and Bush administration terrorism coordinator Richard
Clarke had already told of serial warnings but no policy response.58 In part, this reflected the dominant
assumptions among the foreign policy experts relied upon by the new president . These were still shaped by
the experience of the Cold War, and their view of threats as being essentially state-centric meant they
were insufficiently flexible to make the cognitive adjustments required in order to recognize the
warnings. The key document that should have alerted the administration was a President’s Daily Brief (PDB) of 6 August
2001 containing an item headed ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US’ . It was the thirty-sixth time in 2003 that bin
Laden or al-Qaeda had figured in a PDB. The analysts who produced the item were responding to an inquiry by the
president about whether any threats to the US existed, and, to them, ‘represented an opportunity to
communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Laden attack in the United States remained both current
and serious’. The president told the inquiry that the report ‘was historical in nature’ and that ‘if his
advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it’. 59
However, the PDB contained a number of potential warnings, including the fact that FBI information
‘indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or
other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York’ .

5. Can’t solve hybrid threats---there’s too much information---it’s not a problem of

IC---Treverton
Challenges across Intelligence Disciplines
hybrid threats comes as the same time as intelligence services are adjusting to a digital world.11 That entails
The challenge of

coping with packet switched networks, and it requires better access to the huge amounts of data out
there, including bulk access. It means doing so in the context of near-constant interference from hacking
and computer network attack (CNE), so securing systems from attack is critical. All that data requires enormous
storage; because data not relevant today may be tomorrow, intelligence has to create virtual “time machines.” Then, dealing with that data requires both
advanced search algorithms, and deep training on the web and its business model, especially in order to
do data mining of bulk personal data. Intelligence services are having to adapt to new threats and new methods at the same time.
The main challenge for collection is sheer volume in a world awash with information . It is detecting signals

from the pervasive noise when adversaries can swamp, when fake news propagates faster that “real”
news and when bluster makes it hard to distinguish what is a real threat since everything is exaggerated
online. Many of the networks are disembodied, with individuals only connected online – limited traffic, with no real-world group, lone wolves that have brief encounters but do not make
a pack.

A digital underground is emerging, and the more fake news and noise there are in open channels, the more outliers and quality sources will look for spaces to hide
– and not just from hacking communities. Fragmentation will increase . In closed societies, where expectation of total digital surveillance is a reasonable expectation, the
instinct might be to go offline completely. In any case, sheer magnitude will drive intelligence into artificial intelligence (AI) both to curate information and then to make sense of it.

official collaboration is
Working with partners is very necessary, and both new partners and forms of partnership abound – a critical point for opportunities. Yet

increasingly burdened by fears of leaks and the misuse of shared intelligence . In any case, relationships can rely less and less on
the Cold War legacy. The new partnerships necessarily will take intelligence services outside their comfort zones, and underestimating the value of what counterparts, including new ones,
provide will be even more counterproductive than in previous periods.
Ideology is still a tool for adversaries, and in that respect the message of the March 2018 nerve agent attack on a former Russian intelligence officer in Salisbury, England, presumably by
Russian intelligence, is chilling: even Cold War norms are off. Still, here as in other aspects of responding to hybrid threats, the last thing the Western countries want to do is emulate Putin’s
Russia. Rather, it is imperative to stick to values, retain some humility and cast a wider net. Brutality instantly takes away all the remnants of the moral high ground, or if it is conceded that the
business is a brutal one, then the question for potential sources becomes “who is scarier?” which is likely to be a self-defeating approach.
For propaganda, placing material in newspapers in the past was harder, but targeting was easier – newspapers had known circulation numbers, known leanings, and known audiences. Cost
and ease of publishing are much lower now, but the predictability of audience is less and the task of estimating results harder. Targeting is more complex and fragmented. Message control is
more tenuous than in previous periods. In particular, and uncomfortably, intelligence has to know what it wants from SM, even if that answer evolves, recognizing, too, that some of the
answers will begin at home – what, for instance, is the effect of Trump’s tweets on other countries?
[[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]]

For analysis, too, the main challenge, too, will be coping with all that information (and misinformation) out there. As figure 2
suggests, a fake news ecosystem surrounds mainstream media, and the objective of hybrid threats, like Russian propaganda in the 2016 U.S. and French elections, is to get that fake news to

the structure of most intelligence agencies is still mostly a Cold War

“trend” and thus be taken seriously by mainstream media. Yet

legacy, based on the over-arching presumption that information is scarce, and the agencies find it hard
to deal with ubiquitous data. Thus, the first challenge for analysis is automating analysis of social
media/online content, which will require advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deal with fake videos,
sarcasm, irony, snark, memes, gifs, emoticons, stickers, and the like . To be sure, there will also be a need for more and better trained
humans, to make sure that analysts remain at the center of the process.

At the same time, noticing second and third-order effects is critical , and, as always with intelligence, low likelihood should not mean less
attention if the stakes are high enough. Coping with volatility is a challenge, especially on SM; an item may be viral today

but gone tomorrow. Because adversaries are opportunistic, systematically studying their TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) is all the more
important, granting that whatever picture emerges should not be considered stable or complete. Finally, it will be important to do strategic analysis amid opportunistic behavior –
fundamentals may change more slowly than it appears from all the chaos on the web.
 Intel Gathering
1. The blame-shifting capabilities of FISA courts are used as a diversionary tool
which legitimizes the state and prevents us from ever addressing root causes---
Pletka et al 3/11
John Yoo: Yeah, look. The way it was before Nixon, and maybe Nixon was a one-time only or a rare case. But before Nixon, what would happen
is that presidents would order its use. But you couldn't really use it in court to prosecute anybody. The point was you would gather this
intelligence. The President would order it under his own authority, and you would use it to try to stop a
direct and immediate attack on the country or stop a dire threat to the national security. If it had to
become public, if it had to be used in court, then the President would have to take personal
responsibility for it. He could appoint ... If you think about the FISA Court, it's a great responsibility shifting
mechanism. Look at what's going on now. Everyone can say, "Oh, it was the FBI. It was those FISA
judges," and so it's not really President Obama and Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General under President
Obama. Or, Eric Holder, the previous Attorney General, who's responsible. The FISA Court just defuses
responsibility by shifting the blame to the bureaucracy and the courts.
Marc Thiessen: If the FISA Court didn't exist, Barack Obama would have to order the surveillance ?
John Yoo: Right. He would have had to order the surveillance himself personally and then, and his National
Security Advisor Susan Rice and the Attorney General, they would be responsible for it. I mean, imagine
what Trump would make of that.

2. That means they don’t solve for deluge leaking---shifting the blame onto the
FISA Courts from the FBI is just a circumvention trick with no real implications

3. Kwoka lists a bunch of secretive programs with lack of adversarial process---

those are all alt causes to deluge leaks, including the Classified Information
Procedures Act “CIPA represents a congressionally-created set of exceptional procedures
that significantly depart from traditional adversarial testing of claims for the need for secrecy in
a particular case and, in some instances, eliminate the possibility for inquisitorial oversight as
well.” As well as the freedom of information act and PRISM.

4. Their internal link to prolif lists two examples from 1995 and 1998 which were
before the 9/11 Patriot Act and FISA expansion AND Snowden leaks prove
leakers aren’t targeting satellite imagery.

5. Alt cause – Trump leaks satellite imagery about prolif sites

6. No bioweapons
Filippa Lentzos 17. Senior research fellow jointly appointed in the Departments of War Studies and of Global Health and Social Medicine at
King’s College London. 07-03-17. "Ignore Bill Gates: Where bioweapons focus really belongs." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
http://thebulletin.org/ignore-bill-gates-where-bioweapons-focus-really-belongs10876
I disagree. At
a stretch, terrorists taking advantage of advances in biology might be able to create a viable
pathogen. That does not mean they could create a sophisticated biological weapon, and certainly not a
weapon that could kill 30 million people. Terrorists in any event tend to be conservative. They use
readily available weapons that have a proven track record—not unconventional weapons that are
more difficult to develop and deploy. Available evidence shows that few terrorists have ever even
contemplated using biological agents, and the extremely small number of bioterrorism incidents in the
historical record shows that biological agents are difficult to use as weapons. The skills required to
undertake even the most basic of bioterrorism attacks are more demanding than often assumed.
These technical barriers are likely to persist in the near- and medium-term future. Gates does a disservice to the
global health security community when he draws media and policy attention to amateurs such as terrorists. Where biological weapons are
concerned, the focus should remain on national militaries and state-sponsored groups. These are the entities that might have the capability,
now or in the near future, to develop dangerous biological weapons. The real threat is that sophisticated biological weapons will be used by
state actors—or by financially, scientifically, and militarily well-resourced groups sponsored by states. So far, state-level use of
biology to deliberately inflict disease or disrupt human functions has been limited by the strong
international norm against biological weapons enshrined in the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention. These two biological cornerstones of the rules of war uphold the international prohibition against the development,
production, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons. But this norm may not survive indefinitely.

7. No cyber war or retaliation

Jasmine Rodet 18, Master’s Degree in Cyber Security, Strategy, and Diplomacy from the University of New South Wales, Cyber Security
Program Manager at Fortescue Metals Group, “The Threat of Cyber War is Exaggerated”, 11/11/2018, linkedin.com/pulse/threat-cyber-war-
exaggerated-jasmine-rodet/
For the regular person on the street, the term ‘cyber war’ is more likely to bring to mind the 1983 movie “WarGames” and the doomsday
articles that appear regularly in the media about the ‘cyber battlefield’ and an impending World War III. This
essay argues that the threat of cyber war is exaggerated and although it can, by definition, be stated that we are already in a
state of cyber war, the impact on states is negligible compared to conventional war domains.
The argument is presented in 3 steps. The first step is to define cyber war and cyber weapons, referencing scholars and experts in the area of conventional war and the cyber domain. The
second step is to explore who has been exaggerating the threat of cyber war and what their motivations might be. The third is to explore the evidence and quantify the probability and impact
that cyberwar has had on states to date.
‘Cyber war’ is a term often used interchangeably in media with cyber-crime, cyber-attacks, cyber-conflict and cyber-incidents, creating confusion amongst the public and scholars alike.
Clausewitz (1989, 75), in his book, On War, defines war as ‘an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will’. Rid (2012, 7) on the other interprets Clausewitz use of ‘force’ as meaning
‘violent’ force. According to Rid, if an act is not potentially violent, it is not an act of war. However, Stone (2013, 107) describes ‘cyber war’ as a politically motivated act of force, not necessarily
lethal and not necessarily attributable. The definition by Powers and Jablonski states more simply that cyber war is the utilisation of digital networks for geopolitical purposes (Nocetti 2016,
464). Neither of the latter two definitions requires violence to qualify as cyber war. Under these definitions, the Stuxnet cyber-incident in 2010 and the Estonia incident in 2007 would
constitute an act of cyber war, and as such we could say that nations have been at cyber war in the past and are likely to continue to engage in cyber war in years to come.
For this essay, I will use Stones definition to argue that even though states may engage in cyber war, the concept of cyber war is exaggerated. It
war is deliberately exaggerated in the media and by politicians for financial and
seems that cyber
political gains. There are countless examples in the media and in politics of the exaggeration of the threat of cyber war and the language
used plays a big factor in creating a sense of fear in the community.
The Four Corners report, Hacked, is a classic example where the reporter, Andrew Fowler describes the current situation in Australia as ‘… a secret war where the body count is climbing every
day’ (Fowler 2013). The documentary reveals nothing violent or lethal about cyber incidents. The documentary is actually about hackers working from locations overseas, having targeted key
Federal Government departments and major corporations in Australia.
In another example, NATO may be interpreted as exaggerating the threat of Cyber War when they invited Charlie Millar to present at their Conference for Cyber Conflict at the NATO
Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in 2017. Millar is an independent security evaluator, and his presentation was titled ‘Kim Jong-il and me: How to build a cyber army to attack
the US’. He later presented similar content at Def Con 2018. His presentation described the steps he would take to mount a cyber war, including the types of people he would engage, how
much he would pay them, what his strategy would be and how much it would cost in total.

Who stands to gain from the exaggeration and hype? Logically, one
group would be those that gain financially from the
sale of cyber protective services and software . According to Valerino, 57% of technical experts surveyed said that we are
currently in a cyber arms race and 43% said that the worst-case scenarios are inevitable (Valeriano and Ryan 2015). Translate this into sales and
Gartner projects worldwide security spending will reach $96 Billion in 2018, up 8 Percent from 2017 and to top $113 billion by 2020 (Gartner
2017).
Additionally, there may be political motivations to exaggerate the threat of cyber war . Cyberspace is not well
understood by the general public and fear is natural. In the US’s cyber security debate, observers have noted there is a tendency for
policymakers, military
leaders, and media, among others, to use frightening ‘cyber-doom scenarios’ when
making a case for action on cyber security (Dunn 2008, 2).
There is some evidence to suggest that more recently in the political arena; we may be maturing in our understanding of the real threat of cyber war. The Tallinn Manual, an academic, non-
binding study on how international law applies to cyber conflicts and cyber warfare, was written at the invitation of the Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. It
was first published in 2013 with the title ‘The Tallinn Manual on the International Law of Cyber War’. In 2017, it was re-released with the revised title ‘Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International
Law of Cyber Operations’. The change in title from ‘war’ to ‘operations’ signifies a more moderate use of language from NATO and is an acknowledgement that cyber incidents generally fall
below the threshold at which International Law would declare them to be a formal act of war. Experience over the 4 short years from 2013 to 2017 has demonstrated that cyber incidents tend
to have a low-level impact on the target state. As the book’s authors put it ‘the focus of the original Manual was on the most severe cyber operations, those that violate the prohibition of the
use of force in international relations, entitle states to exercise the right of self-defence, and/or occur during armed conflict’ while the new version ‘adds a legal analysis of the more common
cyber incidents that states encounter on a day-to-day basis and that fall below the thresholds of the use of force or armed conflict’ (Leetaru 2017).
To get a better sense if cyber war is exaggerated, we must also consider the probability of cyber war in the future. The probability of cyber war should be weighed up against the probability of
conventional war. Where tensions are already high, for example, between North Korea and the US or Russia and Estonia, I would argue that cyber war is more likely than conventional war.
This is due to factors including; cyber warfare is less costly than conventional warfare, states are less rational in their decision space in the cyber realm, states find cyber attribution very
difficult to achieve so attacks can be undertaken covertly and cyber war is considered ‘a challenge’ and central to the hackers’ ethos (Junio 2013, 128). Further, Sanger describes in his book,
The Perfect Weapon, cyber weapons (such as cyber vandalism, Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), intrusions and advanced persistent threat (APT)) as the ‘perfect weapons’ for the following
reasons;
They are cheap: When compared to Nuclear weapons, there are only a handful of nations globally that can afford the technology to create a nuclear weapon.
They are easily accessible: Unlike a Nuclear bomb that requires uranium, a highly protected metal, in the production process, a cyber weapon can be created with minimal investment and
highly available IT infrastructure.
They can be dialled-up or dialled-down relatively easily. A ballistic missile, the force of the explosion cannot be adjusted as easily as a DDOS attack. A DDOS attack can be adjusted to last an
hour, a few days or a few weeks.
They have a huge range in how they are used: Sabotage as with Stuxnet, Espionage as with the Chinese industrial spying on the US, North Korea’s infiltration of Sony, the Iranians attack on Las
Vegas Sands Corp. casino operators.

The significant factor is that cyber weapons can and are being used every day for discrete, low-level
cyber conflicts to undermine and
disrupt rivals, but historically it has not progressed to open conflict, nor has it warranted a military response
(Sanger 2018). Additionally, massive cyber operations would necessarily impact the civilian population and
violate the immunity of non-combatants. The conditions of war dictate that this is “taboo” and to date,
rival states have shown restraint in their use of cyber weapons for this reason (Valeriano and Ryan 2015). It
appears that the threat that cyber weapons represent to national security is overstated and the threat
of cyber war is overstated.
The US and likely other highly networked nations appear reticent about using cyber weapons for significant cyber
conflict given their vulnerabilities . Ironically, NSA programs such as PRISM have made the US more of a target given the sheer
volume of sensitive information stored in one place. Regardless of US defences, there is no way to make this information completely secure
from intrusion, and as such, the very act of storing the information makes them more vulnerable.
Rid (2012) is among some academics who argue that cyber war has never and will likely never eventuate. The benefits of being
on this side of the debate mean that public funding can be allocated away from offensive cyber security initiatives to other, potentially more
important initiatives, such as public health and housing. The government is constantly under pressure to prioritise public spending and it is
imperative that they have realistic, accurate projections regarding the risk of cyber war, the probability and the impact, to allow them to focus
spending on the most important areas.

8. No nuke terror – laundry list of warrants

 Two decades of threats haven’t panned out
 Too many things can go wrong:
Getting trusted collaborators
Stealing and transporting guarded material
Getting the top technicians in the world
No ability to test
Skilled detonation crew
All that while attracting zero attention
 Weapons have safety devices, are stored in pieces in different places
 Terrorists are like Bond villains that scheme instead of accomplishing anything
 Most attacks are bombs which don’t even work
Mueller and Stewart 10/29/18 [John Mueller is Woody Hayes Senior Research Scientist, Mershon Center for International
Security Studies, and adjunct professor of Political Science, at Ohio State University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in
Washington. Mark G. Stewart is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at The
University of Newcastle in Australia. Terrorism and Bathtubs: Comparing and Assessing the Risks. October 29, 2018.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546553.2018.1530662?journalCode=ftpv20]
However, there is of course no guarantee that things will remain that way, and the 9/11 attacks inspired the remarkable
extrapolation that, because the terrorists were successful with box cutters, they might soon be
able to turn out weapons of mass destruction— particularly nuclear ones—and then detonate them in
an American city. For example, in his influential 2004 book, Nuclear Terrorism, Harvard’s Graham Allison relayed his “considered
judgment” that “on the current path, a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more
likely than not.”11 Allison has had a great deal of company in his alarming pronouncements. In 2007, the distinguished physicist Richard
Garwin put the likelihood of a nuclear explosion on an American or European city by terrorist or other means at 20 percent per year, which
would work out to 91 percent over the eleven-year period to 2018.12
Allison’s time is up, and so is Garwin’s. These off-repeated warnings have proven to be empty. And it is
important to point out that not only have terrorists failed to go nuclear, but as William Langewiesche, who has assessed
the process in detail, put it in 2007, “The best information is that no one has gotten anywhere near this. I mean,
if you look carefully and practically at this process, you see that it is an enormous undertaking full of
risks for the would-be terrorists.”13 That process requires trusting corrupted foreign collaborators
and other criminals, obtaining and transporting highly guarded material, setting up a machine
shop staffed with top scientists and technicians, and rolling the heavy, cumbersome, and
untested finished product into position to be detonated by a skilled crew, all the while attracting
no attention from outsiders.
Nor have terrorist groups been able to steal existing nuclear weapons—characteristically burdened with
multiple safety devices and often stored in pieces at separate secure locales—from existing arsenals as
was once much feared. And they certainly have not been able to cajole leaders in nuclear states to palm one
off to them—though a war inflicting more death than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined was launched against Iraq in 2003 in major part
under the spell of fantasies about such a handover.14
More generally, the actual terrorist “adversaries” in the West scarcely deserve accolades for either
dedication or prowess. It is true, of course, that sometimes even incompetents can get lucky, but such instances, however tragic, are
rare. For the most part, terrorists in the United States are a confused, inadequate, incompetent,
blundering, and gullible bunch, only occasionally able to get their act together. Most seem to be
far better at frenetic and often self-deluded scheming than at actual execution. A summary assessment by
RAND’s Brian Jenkins is apt: “their numbers remain small, their determination limp, and their competence
poor.”15 And much the same holds for Europe and the rest of the developed world .16 Also working against terrorist
success in the West is the fact that almost all are amateurs: they have never before tried to do something like this . Unlike
criminals they have not been able to develop street smarts.
Except perhaps for the use of vehicles to deliver mayhem (though this idea is by no means new in the history of terrorism), there
has been
remarkably little innovation in terrorist weaponry or methodology since 9/11.17 Like their predecessors,
they have continued to rely on bombs (many of which fail to detonate or do much damage) and bullets.18
 Solvency
1. No solvency---the plan only mandates the defense counsel gets access to
falsified evidence---but that doesn’t provide a method in which they can
challenge it---it is impossible to get an alibi since only the prosecution gets
classified surveillance footage which they can edit---but the defense counsel
only gets the final version and has no way of getting its own footage to prove
innocence.
2. They don’t solve for the majority of FISA cases---Vladeck and Chesney cede that
most cases don’t have security cleared defense counsel which circumvents the
aff
Robert Chesney 32:40
So would you feel equally comfortable if, so, the status quo is that it's clear, the judge certainly has authority to consider it - it's a question of
whether the judge does it ex parte which is what always happens, or if instead the judge actually allows some adversariality in the review of the
file. Would you be more or less satisfied if there was an amicus in that context so that it was not the defendant's own lawyer? Because
you
put the defendant's own lawyer in a pretty impossible position if they get exposed - first of all, the majority of
these cases, they're not going to be in a position to have the clearances, and it's going to gum up the
works to try to get them to that position.
Steve Vladeck 33:18
Is that true? Is that true that in a majority of these cases, the defendant doesn't have the security clear
defense counsel?

3. And even if you buy that they all have security clear defense counsel---Vladeck
and Chesney identify back-end checking mechanisms as being crucial to the
process which the aff doesn’t fiat---that means the aff shifts the blame but
doesn’t provide a way for the security counsel to check the FISA evidence.