IMPEACHMENT DA

NEG
 1NC
Pelosi blocking impeachment now- she won’t move without a change in public opinion
Lutz, 7-25 -- Vanity Fair contributor
[Eric, "Post Mueller, Pelosi quietly shuts down another push for impeachment," Vanity Fair, 7-25-19,
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/post-mueller-pelosi-quietly-shuts-down-another-push-for-impeachment,
accessed 7-27-19]

Post Mueller, Pelosi quietly shuts down another push for impeachment
In public, the House speaker called Mueller’s testimony an “indictment” of Trump’s “cover up.” In private, she’s
still pushing a wait-and-see approach.
It seemed unlikely that Robert Mueller’s testimony Wednesday would sway Nancy Pelosi to give impeachment proceedings
against Donald Trump her stamp of approval. But after the former special counsel declined to provide the fireworks many

Democrats hoped would ignite a push to oust the president, she appears more resistant than ever to House Judiciary
Committee chair Jerrold Nadler’s impeachment dreams.

Trump policies are tough on Russia now- removing Ukraine arms sales is political suicide
on collusion
Mackinnon, 19 -- Foreign Policy staff writer
[Amy, "Trump May Like Putin. His Administration Doesn’t," 4-29-19, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/29/trump-
may-like-putin-his-administration-does-not-russia-policy-rapprochment/, accessed 7-27-19]

Yet the U.S.-Russia relationship has remained frosty throughout Trump’s presidency. That has left many in Washington and Moscow
scratching their heads over the disconnect between what Trump has said about Russian President Vladimir Putin—or just as often, hasn’t said, since Trump almost never criticizes him—and what
his administration has done.

Despite the U.S. president’s admiring words for his Russian counterpart, his administration has held a tough line on Russia,

building on his predecessor’s policies by layering on further sanctions, expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, and providing lethal weapons
support to Ukraine —a step that former President Barack Obama had been unwilling to take.
The outcome has been a disjointed Russia policy, experts say. “I would not relish the job of being the America watcher in the Kremlin right now,” said Steven Pifer, a retired career diplomat who
served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2001 to 2004.
Under Trump, the United States has had two Russia policies: what the president says and what the administration does .
Former officials and Russia experts attribute this disconnect to the chaos of the transition period, the appointment of seasoned Russia hands to high-level posts, the scrutiny of the Mueller
investigation into Trump’s Russia ties, and an assertive Congress, which have all checked the president’s desire for a rapprochement with Moscow.
The fact that the administration’s Russia policy has gone in the opposite direction from Trump’s campaign rhetoric is somewhat unusual for a president who has eagerly sought to implement his
stump pledges on other issues, such as NAFTA withdrawal and a wall along the border with Mexico.
In his first foreign-policy speech as a presidential candidate, Trump vowed to pursue closer ties with Russia if elected. The April 2016 speech was hosted by the National Interest, an international
affairs magazine published by the Center for the National Interest. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, had sought counsel from the center’s head, Dimitri Simes, earlier that year as
the Trump campaign was struggling to get buy-in from foreign-policy experts.
The special counsel report details how Simes had agreed with Kushner that he and other people associated with the Center for the National Interest would provide input for the foreign-policy
sections of the speech. Just ahead of the event, Kushner forwarded Simes a draft outline of the speech prepared by Trump’s senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, and he introduced Simes to
Miller.
A former informal advisor to President Richard Nixon, Simes was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States in 1973. The Mueller report notes how Simes’s Center for the
National Interest had previously promoted its “unparalleled access to Russian officials,” and longtime Russia watchers in Washington said that Simes was known to have opinions that closely
aligned to the Kremlin’s worldview.
The special counsel report concluded that the investigators did not find any evidence to suggest that either Simes or the Center for the National Interest had served as a conduit for
communications between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The Mueller report charts how as early as early as July 2016, Trump campaign staffers became wary of making public overtures to Russia. Campaign advisor Bo Denysyk told foreign-policy
advisor George Papadopoulos to hold off in his outreach to Russian Americans because the media had portrayed Trump as “being pro-Russian.” In his testimony to the special counsel’s office,

Simes recalled he had advised that it was bad optics for the Trump team to develop hidden Russian contacts and advised that the campaign
not highlight Russia as an issue.
Russia has become
A former senior administration official, who asked to remain anonymous so as to discuss their time with the administration, said that since Trump took office

such a political hot potato that nobody in the White House wants to broach the subject, even for routine matters. “ No one wants to put themselves in
front of that firing squad ,” this former official said.
Had there been no Mueller investigation, Trump may have felt more free to make overtures to Putin, but it would still have
taken a drastically different Congress and major changes in staff appointments to make it a reality, Russia watchers and former senior officials told Foreign Policy.

“ Congress was in no mood for a softening of policy towards Russia ,” said David Kramer, a former assistant secretary of state for
democracy, human rights, and labor under Obama. While this may have been able to constrain Trump’s instincts on Russia, Kramer said it has given him little comfort.
“This is not really a policy. Because a policy has to be matched with rhetoric,” he said. “It is not reassuring that the man at the top does not seem to be in sync with the rest of his administration.”
Presidents Obama and George W. Bush both sought to improve ties with Moscow during their tenure, but Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and electoral interference have made it impossible to
make the political case for outreach in recent years, said Daniel Fried, a former State Department coordinator for sanctions policy who until his retirement in 2017 was America’s longest-serving
diplomat.
And with Russia coming high on the list of foreign-policy concerns after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, interagency cooperation on Russia was a well-oiled machine by the time Trump won the
election. During the transition period, former senior administration officials who worked on Russia say in the absence of any clear guidance from the White House, career officials continued their
work as before.
“We were getting no guidance—well, we were getting weird guidance,” said Jeffrey Edmonds, who served the director for Russia on the National Security Council and acting senior director for
Russia during the 2017 presidential transition. Among the directions handed down by the White House, Edmonds said that officials were told to stop talking about Ukraine’s sovereignty, which
he said he found to be “disturbing.”
Where little direction was handed down by the White House, rumors filled the void, and a former senior administration official who worked on European issues said
that there was a pervasive fear that after the inauguration they would discover that a deal had been struck over
Ukraine without consulting career officials.
No such deal appeared, but in February 2017 the New York Times reported that a number of Trump’s campaign associates had worked on a peace deal that would see sanctions lifted and the
Crimean peninsula given to Russia under a long-term lease agreement. The proposal was delivered to Michael Flynn shortly before he resigned as national security advisor for misleading
officials about his interactions with the Russian ambassador.
Flynn had extensive Russian ties and had advocated for Washington to see Moscow as a partner, rather than an adversary. His successor, H.R. McMaster, came to be seen as a bulwark on Russia
policy, as his views on Russia were more in sync with the wider defense establishment.
While Trump and members of his inner circle may have sought improved ties with Russia, former administration officials and Russia experts say that this was not reflected in appointments, as
seasoned diplomats and Russia hands were selected to fill key posts.
“These are guys who hold what I would describe as traditional Republican views on Russia,” said Pifer, the retired diplomat.
This has been reflected in the administration’s national security strategies, which, for the past two years, have singled out Russia and China as America’s key competitors on the world stage.
The appointment of the well-respected Russia scholar Fiona Hill as senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council prompted a sigh of relief among many Russia
watchers.

“What we see is that Trump really gets put in a box on this issue ,” said Alina Polyakova, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

That leads to impeachment

Thomas-Devaux, 19 -- FiveThirtyEight senior writer
[Amelia, "Obstruction Of Justice Could Still Threaten Trump Politically," FiveThirtyEight, 4-12-19,
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/obstruction-of-justice-could-still-threaten-trump-politically/, accessed 7-27-19]
There are other political consequences for Trump beyond impeachment, of course. Further evidence that Trump may have tried to interfere with
Mueller’s investigation could give House Democrats another excuse to probe his motivations — for example, potential financial conflicts of
interest. But factors like intent will likely still matter for convincing the public that Trump is unfit for office or worthy of
further investigation. “It will be difficult to meet the impeachment standard without convincing the public that he’s a
bad-faith actor ,” Matz said. A new and shocking revelation — e.g., that Trump successfully interfered with Mueller’s
probe — could help make that case. But in the absence of compelling new evidence , the political bar for
obstruction of justice will likely remain high, particularly when it comes to impeachment.

Impeachment spurs diversionary lash-out against China

Danner 17 (Mark, Chancellor’s Professor of English and Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and
James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard, 3/23/17, “What He Could Do,”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/03/23/what-trump-could-do/)

One might call the resulting tactics “shock and opportunity”: Trump uses chaos to shock his opponents into varying
crouches of outrage and contempt and then lunges forward amid the tumult wherever he sees an opportunity
presenting itself. No wonder he thinks of himself as the supreme “counter-puncher.” His virtuosity is in his
opportunism. It is against this reality that we must see the likelihood of a crisis as the vital springboard of a
Trump presidency, especially an increasingly shaky, unpopular, and unstable one . The lower his poll
numbers , the more outlandish his lies, the greater the resistance from opponents within the bureaucracies, the
thicker his scandals and chaos, the likelier he will be to seek to use a crisis and all the opportunities it offers to
lever himself from a position of defensiveness to that of dominating power. It is impossible to say when such a crisis
might present itself or what it might be: A confrontation with Iran in the Persian Gulf? A dust-up with China
over its claimed possessions in the S outh C hina S ea ? A terrorist attack on American soil? There is no way of
predicting, but it is worth taking very seriously that some sort of crisis will come and that, given Trump’s past
behavior, his ruthless opportunism, and his drumbeat emphasis on “protecting the country,” such a crisis might well
serve as a turning point in a Trump presidency, particularly one that is increasingly under siege .

Extinction
Kazianis 17 (Kazianis, Harry J.. Kazianis serves as Executive Editor of The National Interest. Mr. Kazianis is also
Director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest and a Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute
(non-resident). He is the former Editor of The Diplomat. )“How America Would Try and Smash China in a War
(More Like World War III)” 3/7, accessed online 3/10/17 http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-america-
would-try-smash-china-war-more-world-war-iii-19695

Let’s not mince words: a U.S.-China war would be hell on earth. It would likely start World War III. Millions—
maybe billions— of people would die if nuclear weapons were ever used in such a conflict. The global economy
would likely face ruin— that’s what happens when the world’s biggest economic powers start shooting at each
other. Thankfully the chances are remote it will ever happen. Yet, the threat of such a conflict remains thanks to the
many different pressure points in the U.S.-China relationship. Forget the challenge of ISIS, Ukraine, Syria or
whatever the flavor of the moment is. The U.S.-China relationship— and whether it remains peaceful or not— is
the most important challenge of our time. Period. Recently in these digital pages (full disclosure: the piece was first
posted in 2015 and was reprinted thanks to reader interest) I examined in a short piece on these digital pages how
China could do great damage to U.S. and allied military forces in a war. Thanks to over twenty years of large scale
investments, the PRC has gone from being a third-rate military that could project very little offensive punch to
arguably the second most powerful military machine on the planet. And with an emphasis on weapons systems that
embrace anti-access/area-denial military doctrine (A2/AD), China seems to be developing the tools it needs if war
with America did ever come to pass. Beijing’s motto these days: be prepared.
 T/Case: Russia
Trump NATO strategy key to avoid Russia war
Kristian, 16 -- Defense Priorities fellow
[Bonnie, "Trump is right: It's time to rethink NATO," Politico, 8-3-16,
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/08/trump-right-time-to-rethink-nato-000181, accessed 4-27-18]

Trump is right: It's time to rethink NATO

In Cleveland to formally accept the Republican nomination for president two weeks ago, Donald Trump—as ever—made waves. The controversy
this time stemmed from remarks made to The New York Times in which he indicated a Trump White House might not feel
particularly bound to the United States’ NATO alliance obligations. Asked about how he would respond to hypothetical Russian
aggression in Eastern Europe, Trump said in comments he reiterated this week that his America would come to NATO allies’ defense if and only
if “they fulfill their obligations to us.” Trump conceded he would “prefer to be able to continue” existing alliances, but refused to make any
promises not dependent on allies’ good behavior. Trump is mocked for his foreign policy knowledge, and the D.C. establishment has
reacted with horror at the idea of the U.S. pulling back from the alliance. But if we dismiss him, we miss an important point: It is time for a
rethink of NATO, and the conversation shouldn’t be whether to reshape our commitment, but how. NATO has gradually become a
liability for Americans—and Europeans, too—by abandoning its original goal of defending Europe in favor of imprudent, U.S.-
funded adventures in the Middle East and on the eastern front. While it would be irresponsible to suggest that the United States
should simply ignore its treaty obligations at will, today’s geopolitical realities call for a reorientation of NATO’s priorities
toward defense, strictly defined and funded by a continent more than capable of taking care of itself. Let’s begin with burden-
sharing. NATO requires member states to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense, but as of 2015, NATO Europe averaged less than 1.5
percent even as the United States paid more than double the minimum. In fact, per capita, the U.S. devotes about $2,000 annually to military
spending, while our European counterparts average less than $500 a pop (at the low end, Bulgaria spends only $89 per capita). This ongoing
failure strikes at the heart of the alliance’s credibility and obscures the fact that Europe is no longer in a fragile, post-war state dependent on
American largesse. To be sure, there’s a strong case to be made that U.S. military spending is a mess, rife with waste, error, outdated assumptions
and facilities, and a thorough lack of accountability. Yet one need not agree that reform and reduction is needed on our end to recognize that the
present arrangement is a de facto subsidy of the European welfare state: Because America spends so much on guns, European governments can
safely allot more to butter. Arguably more important than the money, however, is the issue of NATO’s purpose in the 21st century. The alliance
was created in an era when conventional ground war against state actors was the name of the game, and the prospect of warding off the now-
extinct Soviet Union is very different from the national security challenges of 2016. Indeed, “The difference between 1949 and [today] is that
present-day Europe is more than capable of addressing today’s threat, without American assistance or supervision ,” as
military historian and veteran Andrew Bacevich has persuasively argued. “Collectively, the Europeans don’t need U.S. troops or
dollars.” This outdated arrangement has allowed NATO to shift its mission from serving as a bulwark against the Soviet Union
to acting as a bulldozer for Western democracy, pushing ever eastward in a process modern Russia
inevitably interprets as aggression . In its current formulation, NATO forces world powers
recklessly close to the precipice of outright —and unnecessary— war .

Pence ends Russia rapprochement

Amr, 17 -- Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow
[Hady, served in the Obama administration as deputy special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and as
deputy head of the Middle East Bureau at USAID, and Steve Feldstein, Boise State University public affairs chair,
served in the Obama administration as a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, "What
would US foreign policy look like under President Pence?," The Hill, 5-25-17, thehill.com/blogs/pundits-
blog/foreign-policy/335160-what-would-us-foreign-policy-look-like-under-a-president, accessed 1-23-18]

Finally, there is Russia. If Congress forces Trump out of office, it will be due in large part to charges of collusion with
Russia. Undoubtedly, this will reverse the current rapprochement that Trump is engineering. It is also a safe bet that, under
Pence, the days of sharing codeword-level intelligence with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office would be over. Most likely,
we would see a return to an icy standoff between the United States and Russia, characterized by increasingly hostile rhetoric and
mistrust.

Spurs Russia war

Heuvel, 18 -- The Nation editor
[Katrina vanden, "Why the New Cold War Is So Dangerous," The Nation, 4-5-18,
https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-new-cold-war-is-so-dangerous/, accessed 4-28-18]
Why the New Cold War Is So Dangerous It increases the chances for a catastrophic war and could damage progressive hopes
both here and in Russia. In recent weeks, the world has seen an alarming flurry of diplomatic expulsions and counter-expulsions in what has
clearly become a new Cold War. In response to the poisoning in England of Sergei Skripal, a Russian intelligence officer turned British spy, and
his daughter Yulia, the British government expelled 23 Russian diplomats. In a show of solidarity with their British ally, 23 European Union and
NATO countries announced that they would send more than 130 Russian diplomats home. Moscow responded by expelling over 50 British
diplomats. In a further step, the Trump administration announced that it would close the Russian consulate in Seattle; Russia responded by
announcing that it would close the US consulate in St. Petersburg. These tit-for-tat expulsions come at a time when Washington and
Moscow are locked in multiple crises , from Europe to the Middle East. Indeed, the new Cold War is shaping up to be
every bit as dangerous as the old one, if not more so, especially when you consider that the US and Russian militaries are
standing eye-to-eye in eastern Syria; that NATO and Russian fighter jets have come close to clashing on numerous
occasions in the Baltic region; that the simmering war in Ukraine—where the Trump administration has decided to send lethal
weapons—threatens the security of the entire region; and that Russian President Vladimir Putin just announced the development of a
new generation of nuclear cruise missiles, said to be capable of eluding the US missile-defense systems in which Washington has
invested so much. And now the extremist John Bolton—long known as a hawk on Russia—will be joining the Trump administration as national-
security adviser. Nevertheless, many political figures and media outlets are calling for the administration to take even harsher action. Calls for
tougher measures border on the irrational, given the stakes involved—not least, the threat of nuclear war . Even the New York
Times editorial page, not known in recent years to shy away from stoking US-Russian conflict, expressed concern that the
communications channels set up during Cold War I, which kept unexpected crises from spinning out of
control, either had been dismantled or had deteriorated to an alarming degree . A few senators have
recognized the danger: Bernie Sanders, Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Merkley, and Edward Markey recently sent a letter to now-ousted Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson calling for a new strategic dialogue between the two nations. As Senator Merkley told The Nation, issues such as Russia’s
violations of the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the revival of the New START nuclear accord can only be
resolved “if the two sides are engaged in talks.” Does calling for dialogue and ratcheting down tensions show a blatant disregard of Russian
interference in US elections, or the possibility that the Trump campaign—even the president himself—may have colluded with the Kremlin?
Certainly not; engaging in dialogue does not mean we have to ignore Russian malfeasance or state-sponsored criminality. Diplomacy , as
history teaches us, is absolutely essential in the relations between rival superpowers bristling with thousands of
thermonuclear weapons.

Trump ensures burden-sharing and caution- solves Russia war

Jakobsen, 17 -- Royal Danish Defence College professor
[Dr. Peter Viggo, University of Southern Denmark Center for War Studies professor, "Doomsday Cancelled: Trump
is Good News for Allies and World Peace," 3-2-17, War on the Rocks,
https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/doomsday-cancelled-trump-is-good-news-for-allies-and-world-peace/, accessed
1-25-18]

This concern is massively overblown.

Rather than weakening America’s web of alliances, Trump’s aggressive statements and erratic behavior will most likely
strengthen the American-led security architecture during his presidency. This is good news for world peace because strong American
alliances and strong American allies can deter rivals from launching destabilizing challenges to the predominant order.
Trump’s aggressive communications strategy and his “America First” approach to international negotiations have already
frightened allies into doing something his predecessors could not: increase defense spending. Fear of abandonment
has changed the nature of the defense debate in allied capitals in Asia and Europe. The question is no longer whether defense spending should
increase, but how much. U.S. allies in Europe are now scrambling to produce concrete plans for how they will increase defense spending in time for President Trump’s first visit to NATO in late
His perceived unpredictability is also making military provocations and risk-taking by America’s adversaries
May 2017..
less likely. Trumpology is Misleading The concern triggered by Trump’s election stems in no small part from the rise of what I call “Trumpology” – the incessant scrutiny of Trump’s
personality, his statements, and his tweets. Trumpology is a new growth industry and the media embraces it because it fits their definition of a newsworthy story perfectly. Trump’s
communications generate all the criteria journalists look for in a good story: conflict, anxiety, comedy, theater, and outrage. This helps media companies, even those attacked by Trump, sell
advertising like hotcakes. Many experts now spend their time putting Trump’s words under the microscope, seeking to identify all the disasters they might create. In addition, psychologists have
been busy analyzing his personality and upbringing in order to explain why he is acting so weird. The American intelligence community has used personality profiling since World War II to
better understand how leaders in closed authoritarian systems such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Russia think and act. The results have been useful on occasion, but the study of personalities
and intentions is insufficient with respect to predicting foreign policy actions and outcomes. One must also analyze the consequences and the opposition that proposed actions are likely to
generate. If one considers the consequences of undermining existing U.S. alliances and how much opposition such action would trigger, one gets a far more positive picture of Trump’s impact on
world security than the doomsday scenarios that Trumpologists have mass-produced since his election. Consequences for U.S. Allies Since the late 1940s, U.S. allies in Europe and Asia have
based their national security on the assumption that the United States will assist them in a crisis. This assumption and the post-Cold War downsizing of Europe’s military forces have rendered
Europeans incapable of conducting even relatively small-scale military operations without substantial American support. NATO’s air war against Libya (2011) and the French intervention in
Mali (2013) are two recent cases in point. Neither operation would have been possible without American logistics, lift, munitions, intelligence, and other forms of support. The situation in the
same in Asia: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have all based their defense forces and defense spending on the assumption that the U.S. cavalry will come to
their rescue if necessary. If Trump degrades or withdraws these security guarantees, the allies will face a stark choice between deterrence and appeasement. In Europe deterrence is the most likely
choice because the big three (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) are strong enough to constitute the core of a new alliance that can credibly deter Russia. In Asia, China will become so
strong that most states bordering the East China Sea will have no choice but to appease Beijing and accept its hegemony. Regardless of the outcome, both Europe and Asia would face a period
characterized by high instability and a heightened risk of war. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would seek to develop nuclear weapons. In Europe, Germany and Poland would have a strong
incentive to do the same unless France and Britain extend their nuclear umbrellas over them. Indeed, all of these countries, except Poland, either contemplated the development of nuclear
weapons (Germany and Japan) or had active nuclear weapons programs during the Cold War (South Korea and Taiwan). Consequences for the United States Prominent American scholars such
as John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt have long recommended that the United States withdraw most of its forces from Asia and Europe because the costs of the existing onshore
presence dwarf the benefits. In their view, the existing security guarantees amount to “welfare for the rich” and increase the risk of entrapment in wars that do not involve American national
interests. They believe that the United States would be much better off by copying the offshore balancing strategy that the British Empire employed in Europe before World War II. This would
involve providing support to shifting alliances and coalitions in order to prevent a single power from establishing a regional hegemony on the European continent. Offshore balancing has clear
limitations and did not serve the British well in the end: it threw them into two world wars that brought the empire to its knees. Britain’s fate highlights the weakness of offshore balancing: a loss
of the ability to shape the security politics onshore decisively. The failure of British offshore balancing dragged the United States into both world wars. America’s decisions to help its allies in
Europe defeat Germany proved costly in blood and treasure. Since then the United States has benefitted tremendously from the onshore balancing strategy it adopted after World War II in both
Asia and Europe, where it stationed its forces permanently to deter aggression. This presence, coupled with the allies’ military dependence, enabled Washington to shape development in both
regions to align with U.S. interests. Washington repeatedly gave their allies offers they could not refuse. U.S. economic assistance programs provided to allies in the wake of World War II came
with conditions that forced the recipients to buy American goods and liberalize their markets in ways that were highly beneficial to American firms. Washington forced Great Britain and France
to withdraw their troops from Egypt during the Suez Crisis (1956), coerced Germany to support U.S. monetary policy (1966 to 1969), and leaned on many allies to stop their nuclear weapons
programs and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) that made such weapons illegal, including Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan. Military dependence on the United States also
induced many allies to support U.S.-led wars in faraway places that did not affect their national security directly. The Afghan War and Iraq War are two recent cases in point. The allies closed
their eyes to issues like secret detention and extraordinary rendition programs, the use of torture, and the massive surveillance of their own citizens that has characterized the War on Terror since
9/11. Allies have given the United States access to bases, facilities, as well as their airspace and territorial waters. This facilitates U.S. power projection globally. Finally, many allies buy
American weapon systems as a way of maintain inter-operability and their security guarantees. The F-35 is the latest and greatest example of this. The consequences of a U.S. military withdrawal
from Europe and Asia would be dramatic. The United States would lose most of its military bases in Asia and Europe, American firms would find it much harder to gain access to Asian and
European markets, the American defense industry would lose billions of dollars, and European allies would stop supporting the United States militarily in faraway conflicts. As a result, the
United States would lose its global power status and be reduced to a regional power with limited say in the management of Asian and European security. This is why it will not happen. This
outcome is not only at odds with America’s economic interests, but it is also completely at odds with the widely shared belief in American exceptionalism and greatness. This is a belief that
Trump and his supporters also embrace. Most Americans continue to view their nation as the greatest power on earth with an obligation to lead and make the world safe for America’s universal
values. Trump is Scaring Allies into Spending But if the costs of abandoning allies are prohibitive, why is Trump threatening to do so? Nobel Prize
laureate Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory suggests an answer. Schelling demonstrated in his seminal Strategy of Conflict (1960) that it may be
advantageous to appear mad or unpredictable, because it may induce your negotiating partners or opponents to give greater
concessions that they otherwise would. In this perspective, Trump’s statements and seemingly erratic behavior make a lot of sense as a negotiation
tactic aimed at pressuring U.S. allies to increase their defense spending. Trump’s predecessors in the White House have tried to
do this for years without success; previous administrations have repeatedly warned its European allies that NATO was in danger of becoming irrelevant if the Europeans
continued to cut their defense spending. Yet most European allies paid scant attention to demands from the Obama administration to stop
freeriding and honor their own commitments to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. Few European governments saw a pressing need to increase defense spending because the Obama
administration reacted to the Russian annexation of the Crimea by enhancing its military presence in Europe. Trump has changed the game completely. In line with Schelling’s
expectations, his perceived unpredictability is adding credibility to the threat that he might actually withdraw U.S. forces even if it is not in the United
States best interest to do so. There is genuine concern among U.S. allies about what Trump might do if they do not take immediate steps to increase their defense
spending. Many have already taken steps in this direction, or signaled their intention to do so. In December 2016, Japan adopted a record high
defense budget, which allocated considerable funds to the procurement of American equipment, notably F-35s and missiles. The South Korean government reacted to
Trump’s election by vowing to increase defense spending significantly if he insists on it. Likewise, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen
promised to increase defense spending after his first phone conversation with Trump. In Germany Trump’s election triggered a hitherto unthinkable debate on whether
Germany should develop nuclear weapons. Trump cannot take sole credit for the newfound allied attentiveness to longstanding U.S. demands. The Japanese defense budget has been increasing in
recent years due to growing concerns about China. Russia has had a similar effect on the defense budgets of the eastern NATO members. However, Trump has made a crucial
difference by completely changing the debate on defense spending in allied capitals, significantly strengthening the hands
of the proponents of increased defense spending in allied governments. The 2016 IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets Report consequently expects
European NATO allies and partners such as Finland and Sweden to boost their defense spending by about $10 billion over the next five years. Trump’s Unpredictability
Deters Rival Risk-Taking That Schelling’s logic applies equally well to President Trump’s dealings with America’s opponents has already been pointed out by other
commentators. They have referred to Nixon’s madman theory of negotiation, which holds that America’s opponents will tread more carefully if they
perceive the president to be unpredictable or crazy. It has been debated at some length whether Trump is using this theory in a rational manner to extract concessions
from U.S. adversaries, or if he is “a madman in practice.” Regardless, the point is that President Trump’s unpredictability makes it next to impossible to calculate the risk of escalation involved in
Obama’s reluctance to threaten and use force likely emboldened
challenging the United States militarily, a concept also highlighted by Schelling. President
China and Russia to take greater military risks in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, and in the East and South China Seas. While
Beijing and Moscow could be fairly confident that Obama would not take military counter-measures, they have no way of knowing what President Trump
might do. It is very easy to imagine him giving the order to down a Chinese or Russian plane to demonstrate that “America is great again.” In this way, Trump
(intentionally or not) reduces the risk of military confrontations with China and Russia. This gives both states greater
incentive to prioritize diplomacy over coercion in their efforts to settle disputes with the United States and its allies. Similarly, Trump’s characterization of the
nuclear agreement with Iran as “the worst deal ever negotiated” gives Tehran strong incentive to honor it in both letter and spirit for fear of a
potentially much worse alternative if it collapses. Some are deeply worried that Trump versus Kim Jong-un will prove a highly explosive combination, which is
understandable since North Korea has employing the same negotiating tactics as Trump for decades with considerable success. While the outcome of this confrontation is
difficult to call, the disastrous consequences of war are likely to lead to mutual restraint . Moreover, concern about what Trump might do will induce
Beijing to redouble its efforts to persuade Pyongyang to be less provocative. Good News for World Peace
Paradoxically, Trump’s tweets and the theatrics are most likely to enhance world peace. They create unpredictability and anxiety that
the United States can use to obtain greater concessions from friends and foes. It is admittedly still early days, but all indications are that Trump will
succeed in coercing his allies in both Asia and Europe to increase their defense spending significantly. Few of them will reach 2 percent of GDP in the next year or two, but he has set in motion a
His unpredictability is also an asset in America’s dealings
process that will make most allies spend far more much faster than they otherwise would have.
with its opponents such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They will all need to think twice about provoking the United States
and its allies militarily because they have no way of calculating how President Trump will react. Neither friends nor foes can be certain that Trump will not do something that a rational
cost-benefit calculating actor would not. U.S. allies used to regard American threats to withdraw its forces as bluff because the costs of doing so would be prohibitive, and the same logic has
induced American opponents to engage in military risk-taking with little fear of U.S. military retaliation. With Trump in the White House, this logic no longer applies. This is good news because
the likely result is strengthened U.S. alliances and U.S. opponents that are more likely to favor negotiation over
provocation in their efforts to settle differences with the United States and its allies.
Impeachment forces Trump to start a war with Russia
Solomon 17 (Norman Solomon is IPA’s executive director, “Trump Can Prove He’s Not a Putin Puppet by Blowing
Up the World,” 2/22, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/27/trump-can-prove-hes-not-putin-puppet-
blowing-world *language modified)

Four weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that “nothing he has
done since the inauguration allays fears that he is in effect a Putin puppet.” The liberal pundit concluded with a
matter-of-fact reference to “the Trump-Putin axis.” Such lines of attack have become routine, citing and stoking
fears that the president of the United States is a Kremlin stooge. The meme is on the march—and where it will
end, nobody knows. Actually, it could end with a global nuclear war holocaust. The incessant goading and
denunciations of Trump as a Kremlin flunky are escalating massive pressure on him to prove otherwise. Exculpatory
behavior would involve setting aside possibilities for detente and, instead, confronting Russia —rhetorically and
militarily. Hostile behavior toward Russia is what much of the U.S. media and political establishment have been
fervently seeking. It’s also the kind of behavior that could drag us all over the brink into thermonuclear
destruction. But c’mon, why worry about that? For countless media commentators and partisan Democrats
including many avowed progressives—as well as for some Republican hawks aligned with the likes of Sens. John
McCain and Lindsey Graham—the benefits of tarring Trump as a Russian tool are just too alluring to resist.
 UQ
Pelosi doesn’t want to impeach Trump, but she’s the dam – if she breaks, the process will
begin
House 7/25 [Billy House, Congressional correspondent for Bloomberg News, 7-25-2019, "Pelosi Battles
Progressives, Thirst to Impeach Trump, and Time," Bloomberg, accessed 7-26-2019,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/pelosi-battles-progressives-thirst-to-impeach-trump-and-time
]
Two hundred days into her second stint U.S. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is waging battles on her right and her left as well as
against the calendar.
She’s the Democratic Party’s lead combatant with President Donald Trump, and will remain so until the party’s presidential
nominating convention picks a nominee.
In the House, Pelosi is trying to keep her party’s ideological fissures from becoming yawning chasms that will hobble
Democrats in the 2020 election, including throttling back growing demands among Democratic members to begin impeachment proceedings
against the president -- which she regards as a losing issue politically.
Pelosi’s ability to walk that high wire is on display this week.
She got a measure of vindication for her go-slow approach on impeaching Trump despite pressure from a
growing number of Democrats agitating to begin proceedings. More than five hours of testimony from Special Counsel Robert Mueller on
Wednesday didn’t supply the blockbuster sound bites that supporters of impeachment might have hoped. Pelosi, as she’s argued repeatedly in the
past, said Democrats must build their own case if they’re going to send articles impeachment to the Republican-controlled Senate.
“If we have a case for impeachment, that’s the place we will have to go,” she said at a news conference. “The stronger our case is, the worse the
Senate will look for just letting the president off the hook.”
Democrats Fail to Gain a Mueller Jump-Start for Trump Probes
On Thursday, the House takes up the deal she negotiated with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to set government spending levels for the next
two years and suspend the nation’s debt ceiling. Progressive Democrats complain that it gives too much to the Pentagon and not enough to
domestic programs, while the party’s more moderate members are wary of adding to yearly budget deficits that are already on track to top $1
trillion.
But no one doubts Pelosi has the votes to get it through the House.
Her strategy is focused on keeping her party in control of the House and electing a Democrat as president in 2020. By
passing legislation, even if it languishes in the Republican- controlled Senate, and minimizing conflicts, Pelosi is trying to
demonstrate that Democrats can govern and set up a clear contrast with the perpetual drama of Trump’s White House .
Also in the background is 2022. By the end of that year, Pelosi has promised to step down as House Democratic leader to make way for younger
party leaders.
“As we cross the 200-day threshold, and House Democrats are going into the August recess, they can tout a strong list of accomplishments on
issues important to the American people,” said a Pelosi spokesman, Drew Hammill. “And they will be holding Republicans accountable for their
opposition and obstruction.”
But that won’t solve the strife within Pelosi’s Democratic caucus, which has overshadowed her legislative agenda at times.
Party Friction
Much of that is driven by the high profiles and sweeping demands of a small group of progressive newcomers in the House led by Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, of New York. She and Ayanna Pressley, 45, of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar, 36, of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib,
43, of Michigan, have agitated for sweeping policies favored by the left, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Their challenges to
Pelosi mirror the early wrestling among Democratic presidential hopefuls over the direction of the party
Pelosi, 79, a San Francisco liberal and fundraising dynamo who has herself long been a favorite villain for Republicans, has both defended and
admonished them.
Still, the self-described squad of progressives are creating angst among senior Democrats as well as some of their colleagues who represent more
conservative districts and are responsible for Democrats regaining the House majority in 2018.
“They’re acting in my opinion like they are in the minority,” Representative Alcee Hastings, a senior House Democrat from Florida, said. “That’s
how you do when you are in the minority -- you raise a lot of hell.”
Republican Targets
Their stances and provocative pronouncements have made them favorite targets of Republicans and Trump, who are trying to make them the face
of the Democratic Party heading into the election.
“A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream,” said Trump at a rally in
Orlando last week. He’s kept targeting Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley at rallies and on Twitter.
Pelosi said Trump and Republicans won’t define the House Democrats’s agenda. Yet Democrats such as Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of
Illinois have concerns.
“Look, I’m a racial, ethnic and religious minority. And I’m an immigrant,” said Krishnamoorthi, who represents a safe Democratic district
northwest of Chicago. “I have a lot of small business people in my district. So, when you say socialism? They say things like, look I really dislike
Donald Trump --but I dislike socialism a lot more -- that’s why I left Eastern Europe. That’s why I left India in the 1960s. That’s why I left this or
that country because I wanted to come here and work hard and enjoy the fruits of my labor and share.”
A face-to-face meeting between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez originally set for Thursday was rescheduled for Friday to talk over differences. That
includes tensions exacerbated last month after the four freshmen women voted against a border bill supported by Pelosi they did not believe
adequately set standards for the treatment of migrants.
Impeachment Friction
The progressives also have been leading the charge to impeach Trump. With little public sentiment for such a divisive
process, Pelosi and her political strategists see impeachment as politically perilous for Democrats seeking re-election in
districts flipped from Republican control last November. Pelosi knows getting a second, two-year term as speaker hinges on protecting those
members and keeping their seats Democratic in 2020.
She’s publicly deferred to six committee probes to look into allegations of presidential abuse and obstruction, as well as pursuing court cases over
the testimony of administration officials and for Trump’s tax returns.
“This isn’t endless,” Pelosi said after the Mueller hearings ended. “It’s based on the facts and the law. That’s what
matters.”

Pelosi opposes impeachment UNLESS there’s something big

Gajanan 2/28 [Mahita Gajanan, reporter, 2-28-2019, "Nancy Pelosi Says It's 'Not Worth It' to Impeach President
Trump," Time, accessed 7-26-2019, https://time.com/5549361/pelosi-not-worth-it-impeach-trump/ ]
Nancy Pelosi has said she opposes impeachment for President Donald Trump, saying any potential proceedings
would divide the United States in a new interview with the Washington Post.
“I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to
any press person before,” the House Speaker said. “But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this:
Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming
and bipartisan , I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.”
She added: “And he’s just not worth it.”
Pelosi’s comments mark the first time the House Speaker has come down hard against impeachment. She is
speaking out as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly wrapping up his probe into Russian interference in the
2016 election. Pelosi has previously said she would wait for the results of Mueller’s report before making a decision
on impeaching Trump.
The remarks quickly sparked criticism of Pelosi from liberals on social media. Her spokesperson tweeted a defense,
telling critics to read Pelosi’s comments in full.
A recent poll has found that many Americans favor impeachment for Trump. About 48% of adults in the U.S. said
Trump should be impeached, while 40% opposed it, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published March 8. Most
Democrats favored impeachment, while most Republicans did not.

Pelosi will move to impeach, but only if significant wrongdoing is found

Cowan 6/19 [Richard Cowan, correspondent for Reuters, 6-19-2019, "U.S. House Speaker Pelosi on Trump: 'If the
goods are there, you...," U.S., accessed 7-26-2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pelosi/us-house-
speaker-pelosi-on-trump-if-the-goods-are-there-you-must-impeach-idUSKCN1TK1S7 ]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday said that if Democrats’ multiple
investigations of President Donald Trump find significant wrongdoing, the chamber would have to move to
impeach him .
“If the goods are there, you must impeach,” Pelosi told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Her remarks were in response to a question on whether there is an alternative option of simply voting to censure the president, an idea that Pelosi
said is not under consideration.
Pelosi repeated her concerns about the need for public support for any impeachment process, which could result in the
removal of Trump from office if approved by the House followed by conviction in the Senate.
No Republican senator has yet come out in favor of such an effort and House Democrats are divided about going
ahead with impeachment, which never in U.S. history has resulted in the removal of a president.

Pelosi’s supporters are pushing for Trump’s impeachment

Muñoz 7/4 [Gabriella Muñoz, 7-4-2019, "Nancy Pelosi’s allies swell number of Democrats seeking to impeach
Trump," Washington Times, accessed 7-26-2019, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/4/nancy-pelosi-
allies-back-trump-impeachment/ ]
The ranks of pro-impeachment-inquiry Democrats are growing each week, but it’s still not enough to move the
needle for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi .
As of last week, more than 80 Democrats were calling for an impeachment inquiry , which is a critical first step toward
attempting to oust the president.
Most strikingly, the count now includes some devoted Pelosi supporters. Reps. Janice D. Schakowsky of Illinois, Joseph P.
Kennedy III of Massachusetts and Eric Swalwell of California have joined the inquiry camp in the past few weeks.
But the pro-impeachment forces still make up only slightly more than one-third of the House Democratic Caucus, and they are divided over how
far and how fast to go.
“It’s still a relatively small number comparative to the totality of the Democratic Caucus,” Capri Cafaro, an executive in residence at American
University and former state senator in Ohio, told The Washington Times. “There are nuances there that people are trying to walk fine lines to
basically say they are open to impeachment without pulling the trigger.”
The impeachment movement was slow to get rolling but began picking up speed after former White House Counsel Don McGahn refused to
appear before Congress in May. Momentum grew after former special counsel Robert Mueller addressed the nation and said his report did not
exonerate the president.
Among the Democrats pushing impeachment, men outnumber women by about 50%, and support is particularly high among racial and ethnic
minorities.
More than 40 current House Democrats were in Congress in 1998 when President Bill Clinton was impeached, and seven of them are backing the
effort against Mr. Trump, according to The Washington Times’ tally.
Of those who have expressed support, some interesting dynamics have emerged.
A half dozen are lawmakers from swing districts, including five freshmen who flipped Republican-held seats last year: Reps. Katie Porter of
California, Sean Casten of Illinois, Harley Rouda of California, Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida.
Analysts said most of the lawmakers are studying poll numbers and taking the temperature of constituents, and as opinion changes, so could
support for impeachment.
“This is right for me and my district,” Rep. James A. Himes, Connecticut Democrat, told reporters last week. “One of the things that held me
back was my concern for members in districts that are more appreciative of Donald Trump than mine are, and I still worry about that.”
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell represents the southern tip of Florida, where 62% of state voters overall oppose impeachment. Among Democrats, support
is 64%, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll conducted last month.
Seven committee chairmen have endorsed full impeachment or an inquiry. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who heads the House Judiciary
Committee and would oversee any impeachment effort, reportedly argued that starting an inquiry could free up lawmakers to talk more openly
about the move without violating House rules governing disparaging a president.
Other lawmakers say that since impeachment is considered a quasi-judicial process, it could give Congress a way to get around some of the
administration’s assertions of secrecy or privilege to help ongoing investigations stalled by an uncooperative White House.
Impeachment is the House process of bringing charges against the president. It takes only a majority vote, but nearly all Democrats would have to
back the effort for it to succeed.
There is hardly any chance of the Senate marshaling the two-thirds vote needed to convict and oust Mr. Trump from
office. That weighs heavily on Mrs. Pelosi, who has said any impeachment effort won’t begin until
more public sentiment is behind it.
She instead has tried to keep her caucus focused and unified on legislation. She told reporters last month that she feels no pressure from her
caucus.
“There is so much respect for Pelosi that I think she’s being honest when she says she doesn’t feel the pressure yet,” said Jeremy Mayer, an
associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Pelosi is working towards impeachment of Trump – once enough evidence is present, it will
proceed
Shabad 7/26 [Rebecca Shabad, Former staff writer for The Hill, 7-26-2019, "Pelosi: A decision on impeachment
will be made in a 'timely fashion'," NBC News, accessed 7-26-2019,
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-decision-impeachment-will-be-made-timely-fashion-n1035051 ]
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday that a decision on whether the House pursues the
impeachment of President Donald Trump will be made in a “timely fashion” and denied the idea that she is trying to
“run out the clock” on the issue.
“No, I’m not trying to run out the clock,” Pelosi said at her final weekly press conference before she departs Washington
for the House’s six-week summer recess.
Asked how long the Democrats’ court fight might take, Pelosi would not lay out a timeline. “We will proceed when we have
what we need to proceed — not one day sooner,” she said.
Democrats are seeking to enforce subpoenas in court for certain documents in their investigation, as well as testimony from witnesses, all of
which the administration has not complied with. This includes requests for six years of the president's tax returns.
“Everybody has the liberty and the luxury to espouse their own position and to criticize me for trying to go down the path in the most determined,
positive way,” she said. “Again, their advocacy for impeachment only gives me leverage .”
Pelosi said that former special counsel Robert Mueller “confirmed” in his public testimony before two House committees Wednesday “that the
president has obstructed justice.” Democrats are pursuing information through the courts in order to investigate the president’s finances, she
added, which had not been part of the scope of the Mueller probe.
“A decision will be made in a timely fashion,” she said, appearing to refer to the impeachment process. “This isn’t endless, and
when we have the best, strongest possible case and that’s not endless either.”
According to an NBC News count, 94 Democrats and one independent support opening an impeachment inquiry of the president. This group
includes 14 of the 24 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, which has the power to initiate the inquiry.
Warren is pushing Pelosi to impeach
Easley 7/24 [Jonathan Easley, correspondent for The Hill, 7-24-2019, "Warren presses Pelosi on impeachment:
'Some things are above politics'," TheHill, accessed 7-26-2019, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/454500-
warren-presses-pelosi-on-impeachment-some-things-are-above-politics ]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday ramped up pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to begin
impeachment proceedings against President Trump, saying that the House should put aside political concerns and get
lawmakers on the record for where they stand.
At an NAACP forum in Detroit, moderator April Ryan noted that the organization had called on the House to impeach Trump a day before, and
asked Warren her thoughts.
“What say you about that, particularly because Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, is not for impeachment right now?” Ryan asked.
“I understand there are people who for political reasons say this is not where we want to be, but in my view some
things are above politics ,” Warren responded.
“One of them is our constitutional responsibilities to do what is right, and the responsibility of the Congress of the United States of America,
when the president breaks the law, is to bring impeachment charges against that president," she continued.
"My view is, whether it would pass the Senate or not ... this is a moment in history and every single person in Congress should be
called on to vote and then to live with that vote for the rest of their lives .”
Warren’s remarks come as Pelosi seeks to beat back a growing call from her caucus to begin impeachment
proceedings against Trump. As of Wednesday, more than 90 House Democrats have backed an impeachment inquiry.

Pelosi is holding back a surge of Democrat house members from starting impeachment now
Ferris and Desiderio 19 (Sarah Ferris covers budget and appropriations for POLITICO Pro. She was previously the
lead healthcare and budget reporter for The Hill newspaper, Andrew Desiderio is a congressional reporter for
POLITICO, covering investigations and oversight, "Dems move closer to impeachment in strategy shakeup,"
Politico, 7/26/2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/26/nancy-pelosi-donald-trump-impeachment-1437530)
We are continuing an investigation of the president’s malfeasances,” Nadler said. “And we will consider what we have to consider, including
whether we should recommend articles of impeachment to the House. That’s the job of our committee.”
But on the same day, Pelosi reiterated that she’s still not ready to endorse a push to launch impeachment proceedings,
and dismissed the idea that she was feeling pressure from her caucus.
“We will proceed when we have what we need to proceed. Not one day sooner,” the California Democrat said at her weekly press
conference.
House Democrats’ court petition comes two days after former special counsel Robert Mueller’s appearance’s re-energized the
campaign to open impeachment proceedings, spurring seven more Democrats — including a member of Pelosi’s inner circle — to
announce their support in the last 72 hours. At least 100 House Democrats now favor opening an impeachment inquiry.
The dual appearances by Nadler and Pelosi on Friday — which caused some confusion on Capitol Hill — underscored the challenge for the
Democratic Caucus about how, and whether, to move ahead with high-stakes legal proceedings that could be seen as a back-door to the start of
impeachment proceedings.
“We’re crossing a threshold, absolutely,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who was among 10 Democrats standing alongside Nadler
Friday who publicly support an impeachment inquiry.

Pelosi’s push for patience on impeachment is being questioned and she’s the main
driving force for it
Spiers 19 (Elizabeth Spiers is the founder of The Insurrection, a progressive digital strategy and polling firm. She is
the former editor-in-chief of The New York Observer, "Why impeachment can't penetrate the cult of D.C. savvy."
The New Republic, 07/24/2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/154523/nancy-pelosi-impeach)
Pelosi herself has done much to enforce this perception, both with her refusal to communicate her rationale—silence is often
mistaken for genius—and by periodically alluding to hypothetical wheels in motion that may or may not exist at all. When forced to
comment, she’s fearless, but only in her willingness to insult the intelligence of other Democrats. We’re told that the plan, whatever it is,
is working because Trump is “self-impeaching”—a nonsensical claim belied by the daily onslaught of cascading horrors that the
administration continues to unleash upon Americans with no consequences whatsoever. (If he is self-impeaching, however that happens, it’s
happening so slowly and incrementally that it’s not visible to the naked eye, and it’s doubtful that he’ll have completed the process before the end
of a second term.)
It’s not clear whether Pelosi even thinks people actually believe this line of reasoning. She just doesn’t seem to think
it’s her job to convince them. Voters handed Democrats a meaningful avenue for holding the executive branch accountable in 2018, but
Pelosi seems to have no interest in the hard work of doing that, except inasmuch as it means Democratic Party elites will issue public statements
condemning the president’s actions, and effectively fundraise off of those public statements. As far as she’s concerned, her assurance that she’s in
some distant fashion righting the wrongs of Trumpism by hoarding her own symbolic political power should be action enough for now.
To be fair, her behavior isn’t unusual in the context of Democratic Party leadership, where the standing expectation is that elites will make
decisions for the electorate behind closed doors, that voters are too unsophisticated to understand their political calculus, and that leadership has
no political or moral obligation to educate them. Pelosi said as much herself when she
claimed that one reason for her hesitancy to
begin impeachment proceedings was that the public did not understand how impeachment works. That assessment may in
fact be true, but if so, it implies more, not less, civic engagement on the part of party leaders. In her stolid insistence that the whole impeachment
process is simply too complicated for the electorate to comprehend, she manages to reinforce the very misperception she criticizes—that
impeachment is an up-or-down vote, and not a process designed to build a case against an unfit president accused of misconduct—by suggesting
that it’s unlikely that impeachment would, by definition, be successful, because the Senate is unlikely to convict.
This has not, of course, stopped her from fundraising off of it. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee donor inboxes
are littered with appeals signed by the speaker to, all caps, stop Trump, as if the critical brake mechanisms are being controlled
by donors and not by the officials whose elections they support. It’s like watching a person drown while the lifeguard sits in her tower,
performatively noting with alarm that someone is sinking into the sea and surely someone—someone!—must save the swimmer.
None of this is to say that Pelosi is not personally horrified by what’s happening. Perhaps she is. But whatever she’s experiencing is
obviously not compelling or severe enough to make her violate her notions of institutional decorum or consider the long-
term consequences of looking the other way when the most corrupt, bigoted, and incompetent president in modern history continually escalates
his corruptions, bigotries, and incompetence.
Those long-term consequences should be Pelosi’s primary consideration, but here she exhibits an unfortunate flaw of the entire party: the
inability to think past the next election cycle.
 Brink
Pelosi blocking impeachment now but new ev changes her mind
Lipson, 19 -- RCP contributor
[Charles, "Why Pelosi Folded on Trump's Impeachment," Real Clear Politics, 3-12-19,
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/12/why_pelosi_folded_on_trumps_impeachment_139723.html,
accessed 7-27-19]

The nation’s top elected Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has now declared publicly that her party will not impeach
President Trump. In a lengthy Washington Post interview published Monday, Pelosi left the door slightly ajar, saying her
decision could change if “compelling” new evidence emerged . Still, hers was a significant announcement, signaling a
major change in the party’s trajectory.

Mueller report got impeachment to the brink- the plan would be propellant that pushes it
over the edge
Woodward, 19 -- "Watergate" journalist
[Bob, "Bob Woodward on Mueller Report: Now We Wait For The Tapes," RealClearPolitics, 4-19-19,
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/19/bob_woodward_on_mueller_report_now_we_wait_for_the_tap
es.html, accessed 7-27-19]

BOB WOODWARD: Well, first of all, I think the report is quite amazing, and the Attorney General Barr did himself a massive disservice
because his letter quoted a portion of the report that looked like Trump was off the hook on obstruction of justice, but as we know on page 182,
Mueller makes it very clear that they did not reach this issue because of evidence, because they could not make a determination determination.
Joe may remember this, but the day Reagan was shot 1981 was it was Al Haig who rushed in and defined the way people were going to
remember him by saying 'I'm in charge here.' Of course, he wasn't.
And Barr is going to be remembered for this because it was not — it was just a deception and a misrepresentation of what this report shows.
Now, where it goes, I think it turns on the quality of evidence. In the Nixon case again, I’m sorry to go back but the tapes showed
conclusively the President of the United States ordered the payment of hush money to the Watergate burglars and their overseers. He did it again
and again, said, 'Let’s blow the safe, let’s break in.'
Now, in the case of the Trump case here, as Michael Schmidt I think was wisely pointing out, they stumbled, Trump stumbled. It was kind
of obstruction of justice-lite. And as I reported in my book, there were lots of people who said, 'I’m not going to do these things that he
ordered.' So where this goes, does somebody come up with tapes or new evidence ? I think that would be the
propellant here.
 Link
Ukraine arms sales are the key to Trump fending off the collusion narrative- the plan leads
to serious new accusations
Bertrand, 18-- The Atlantic staff writer
[Natahsa, "Ukraine’s Successful Courtship of Trump," 5-3-18,
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/ukraines-successful-courtship-of-trump/559526/, accessed 7-
26-19]

Trump has said repeatedly that “no one is tougher on Russia” than him. But his critics have accused him of challenging
Putin only superficially. Shortly after the Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats in March—48 of whom were actually intelligence officers, according to a State
Department spokesperson—the State Department acknowledged that the Kremlin would be allowed to refill the vacated positions. The Treasury Department recently sanctioned more than three
dozen Russian oligarchs, officials, and entities who “profit” from Russia’s “malign activity” and “corrupt system.” But many of the sanctioned oligarchs had four months’ notice to move their
money, thanks to a list of Russia’s wealthiest individuals released by the Treasury in January. That money might already be back in Russia. “As they say, ‘a barking dog cannot hinder a caravan’s
journey,’” Putin told Russia’s TASS news agency at the time. He mocked his own absence from the list. When UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced new sanctions against Russia over its
support for embattled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, she was contradicted by the White House hours later.
There is confusion about the Putin-Trump relationship,” Major General Volodymyr Havrylov, Ukraine’s defense attaché to the U.S., told me last month.
“
McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim
“And an element of unpredictability. But we believe in checks and balances in the United States.” Former National-Security Adviser H.R.
Mattis pushed for Trump to approve the lethal weapons sale to Ukraine, according to Havyrlov and another U.S. official familiar with the deal who
requested anonymity to discuss it freely. Trump was convinced, at least in part, by the fact that President Barack Obama—to whom Trump frequently compares himself—had balked at the sale.
The official relayed a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last year in which Trump asked why Obama had “done nothing when Russia invaded Crimea.”
(Obama sanctioned Russia over the incursion in 2014.)
Trump, ever transactional, also wanted to make sure he was not giving away something for nothing. The U.S. official said it was emphasized to the president that this would be a sale, not a gift,
and Poroshenko won favor with Trump by facilitating an $80 million coal deal—the first between the U.S. and Ukraine—that was politically expedient for both leaders. In February, Ukrainian
Railways signed a $1 billion locomotive deal with GE Transportation. Trump had promised during the campaign to revitalize the U.S. rail industry. “The Trump administration is very much
focused on jobs creation,” said Daniel Vajdich, the president of the strategic advisory firm Yorktown Solutions. “So, naturally, Ukraine has thought about its ability to help create jobs for
Americans in the context of creating leverage by feeding into Trump’s policy desires.” A Ukrainian-American lobbyist who spoke to me on condition of anonymity put it more bluntly:
“Poroshenko has become a hostage of Trump,” he told me.
In June of 2017, Poroshenko attempted to pique the administration’s interest in helping to end the war in Ukraine by offering U.S. construction firms 90 percent of all contracts to repair and
rebuild infrastructure in the disputed Donbass region, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant. It is unclear how Trump responded to the pitch, which was made to Vice President Mike
Pence, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Mattis at the White House.
The Ukrainian government hired Haley Barbour, former Republican National Committee chairman and founding partner of BGR Group, to lobby in the United States just after Trump was
elected, according to foreign-lobbying registration documents filed with the Justice Department. Ed Rogers, the chairman of BGR, was hired for the lobbying work, too. The firm has ties to this
White House: The Trump transition team held meetings with lobbyists at BGR Group’s offices, according to The Washington Post. And Rogers is “as inner-circle Jeff Sessions as they come,” a
source with knowledge of their relationship told me on condition of anonymity, referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Both men are from Alabama.) BGR also worked with Corey
Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager who still visits the White House regularly, as recently as last summer, The Daily Beast reported.
Vajdich, who previously worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he was in charge of regional issues in Europe and Eurasia, cautioned that it was unclear whether Kiev’s
engagement with the Trump administration’s policy goals had “fundamentally transformed” Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine. “The fact that the Russians have invaded a country in the heart of
Europe in the 21st century is something that hasn’t changed from one administration to the next,” he said.
In the months following the weapons sale, Poroshenko ordered Ukraine’s top anti-corruption prosecutor tasked with probing corruption under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to
stop cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work in Ukraine and ties to Russia, according to two sources
familiar with the request. The New York Times first reported on that order on Wednesday, indicating that Kiev had blocked the Manafort investigations just as the Trump administration was
finalizing the weapons deal in an attempt to stay on Trump’s good side. Trump, according to the U.S. official, saw Manafort’s legal problems as a function of Yanukovych’s regime rather than a
reflection of Poroshenko’s.
The deal was a political victory for Poroshenko—who is facing a tough reelection next March—and for Trump, who has been accused of kowtowing to Russia. But it is still largely symbolic.
“It’s a political symbol that allows others to understand that Ukrainian security is important to the U.S.,” Havrylov said. “Even just the presence of weapons on Ukrainian soil is significant.”
Balazs Jarabik, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace whose research focuses on Ukraine, agreed. “This delivery symbolizes for Kiev the ongoing support of
the U.S. for Ukraine, or actually an increased one as Obama never agreed with this step (what was proposed by the Pentagon).”
The U.S. official defended the decision to store the weapons away from the battlefield, arguing that it will allow Ukraine to maintain greater control over them. Not everyone agrees that this is
the best move, however. Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense with responsibility for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the Balkans, told me that “storing anti-tank
missiles hundreds of miles from the front lines defeats the whole purpose of using these weapons as a deterrent” and “drastically reduces their effectiveness.”
“The whole point is to make your adversary think twice about the numbers of casualties they might sustain as a result of their tanks coming under fire,” Carpenter said. Vajdich acknowledged
the Trump administration’s policies
that the weapons were “not necessarily going to change the course of things on the ground.” But he argued that, substantively,
have been “good” for Ukraine. “There obviously was quite a bit of fear in Ukraine, when Trump took office, that
there was going to be some kind of massive policy shift with regard to Ukraine and Russia,” Vajdich said. The weapons
deal, Vajdich argued, was evidence to the contrary. “His cabinet was pushing for this, and it was something that allowed him to
counter this narrative that he is in bed with the Russians ,” Vajdich said. “That leads to fewer people pointing
fingers at him .”
 AT Senate Won’t Convict
Senate is irrelevant- start of impeachment hearings triggers diversionary lashout- that’s
Danner

Impeachment process itself changes the Senate’s calculus

Applebaum, 19 -- The Atlantic senior editor
[Yoni, "Impeach Donald Trump: Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—
and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs." The Atlantic, 2019,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/impeachment-trump/580468/]
After the house impeaches a president, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove him from office. Opponents of
impeachment point out that, despite the greater severity of the prospective charges against Trump, there is little reason to believe the Senate is
more likely to remove him than it was to remove Clinton. Indeed, the Senate’s Republican majority has shown little will to break
with the president—though that may change . The process of impeachment itself is likely to shift public
opinion , both by highlighting what’s already known and by bringing new evidence to light. If Trump’s support among
Republican voters erodes, his support in the Senate may do the same. One lesson of Richard Nixon’s impeachment is
that when legislators conclude a presidency is doomed, they can switch allegiances in the blink of an eye .

Impeachment process snowballs once started

Applebaum, 19 -- The Atlantic senior editor
[Yoni, "Impeach Donald Trump: Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and
bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs." The Atlantic, 2019,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/impeachment-trump/580468/]
But this sort of vote-counting, in any case, misunderstands the point of impeachment. The question of whether impeachment is justified should not be confused with
the question of whether it is likely to succeed in removing a president from office. The
country will benefit greatly regardless of how the
Senate ultimately votes. Even if the impeachment of Donald Trump fails to produce a conviction in the Senate, it can safeguard the
constitutional order from a president who seeks to undermine it. The protections of the process alone are
formidable. They come in five distinct forms. The first is that once an impeachment inquiry begins , the president loses control
of the public conversation. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton each discovered this, much to their chagrin. Johnson, the
irascible Tennessee Democrat who succeeded to the presidency in 1865 upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, quickly found himself at odds with the
Republican Congress. He shattered precedents by delivering a series of inflammatory addresses that dominated the headlines and forced his opponents into a reactive
posture. The launching of impeachment inquiries changed that. Day
after day, Congress held hearings. Day after day, newspapers splashed the
proceedings across their front pages. Instead of focusing on Johnson’s fearmongering, the
press turned its attention to the president’s missteps,
to the infighting within his administration, and to all the things that congressional investigators believed he had done wrong. It isn’t just the
coverage that changes. When presidents face the prospect of impeachment, they tend to discover a previously
unsuspected capacity for restraint and compromise , at least in public. They know that their words can be used against them, so
they fume in private. Johnson’s calls for the hanging of his political opponents yielded quickly to promises to defer to their judgment on the key questions of the day.
Nixon raged to his aides, but tried to show a different face to the country. “Dignity, command, faith, head high, no fear, build a new spirit,” he told himself. Clinton
sent bare-knuckled proxies to the television-news shows, but he and his staff chose their own words carefully. Trump is easily the most pugilistic president since
Johnson; he’s never going to behave with decorous restraint. But if impeachment proceedings begin, his staff will surely redouble its efforts to curtail his tweeting, his
lawyers will counsel silence, and his allies on Capitol Hill will beg for whatever civility he can muster. His ability to sidestep scandal by changing the subject—
perhaps his greatest political skill—will diminish. As Trump fights for his political survival, that struggle will overwhelm other
concerns. This is the second benefit of impeachment: It paralyzes a wayward president’s ability to advance the
undemocratic elements of his agenda. Some of Trump’s policies are popular, and others are widely reviled. Some of his challenges to settled
orthodoxies were long overdue, and others have proved ill-advised. These are ordinary features of our politics and are best dealt with through ordinary electoral
processes. It is, rather, the extraordinary elements of Trump’s presidency that merit the use of impeachment to forestall their success: his subversion of the rule of law,
attacks on constitutional liberties, and advancement of his own interests at the public’s expense. The Mueller probe as well as hearings convened by the House and
Senate Intelligence Committees have already hobbled the Trump administration to some degree. It will face even more scrutiny from a Democratic House. White
House aides will have to hire personal lawyers; senior officials will spend their afternoons preparing testimony. But impeachment would raise the scrutiny to an
entirely different level. In part, this is because of the enormous amount of attention impeachment proceedings garner. But mostly, the scrutiny stems from the stakes of
the process. The most a president generally has to fear from congressional hearings is embarrassment; there is always an aide to take the fall. Impeachment puts his
own job on the line, and demands every hour of his day. The rarest commodity in any White House is time, that of the president and his top advisers. When it’s spent
watching live hearings or meeting with lawyers, the administration’s agenda suffers. This is the irony of congressional leaders’ counseling patience, urging members
to simply wait Trump out and use the levers of legislative power instead of moving ahead with impeachment. There may be no more effective
way to run out the clock on an administration than to tie it up with impeachment hearings. But
the advantages of impeachment are not merely tactical. The third benefit is its utility as a tool of discovery and discernment. At the moment, it is
often hard to tell the difference between wild-eyed conspiracy theories and straight narrations of the day’s news. Some of what is alleged about Trump is plainly false;
much of it might be true, but lacks supporting evidence; and many of the best-documented claims are quickly forgotten, lost in the din of fresh allegations. This is
what passes for due process in the court of public opinion. The problem is not new. When Congress first opened the Johnson impeachment hearings, for instance, the
committee spent two months chasing rumor and innuendo. It heard allegations that Johnson had sent a secret letter to former Confederate President Jefferson Davis;
that he had associated with a “disreputable woman” and, through her, sold pardons; that he had transferred ownership of confiscated railroads as political favors; even
that he had conspired with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The congressman who made that last claim was forced to admit to the committee
pursuing impeachment that what he possessed “was not that kind of evidence which would satisfy the great mass of men”—he had simply based the accusation on his
belief that every vice president who succeeds to the highest office murders his predecessor. There was public value, though, in these investigations. The charges had
already been leveled; they were circulating and shaping public opinion. Spread by a highly polarized, partisan press, they could not be dispelled or disproved. But
once Congress initiated the process of impeachment, the charges had to be substantiated. And that meant taking them from the realm of rhetoric into the province of
fact. Many of the claims against Johnson failed to survive the journey. Those that did eventually helped form the basis for his
impeachment. Separating them out was crucial. The process of impeachment can also surface evidence . The House Judiciary
Committee began its impeachment hearings against Nixon in October 1973, well before the president’s complicity in the Watergate cover-up was clear. In April 1974,
as part of those hearings, the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed 42 White House tapes. In response, Nixon released transcripts of the tapes that were so obviously
expurgated that a district judge approved a subpoena from the special prosecutor for the tapes themselves. That demand, in turn, eventually produced the so-called
The evidence that drove Nixon
smoking-gun tape, a recording of Nixon authorizing the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation into Watergate.

from office thus emerged as a consequence of the impeachment hearings; it did not spark them. The
only way for the House to find out what Trump has actually done, and whether his conduct warrants removal, is to start asking. That is not to say that impeachment
hearings against Trump would be sober and orderly. The Clinton hearings were something of a circus, and the past two years on Capitol Hill suggest that any Trump
hearings will be far worse. The president’s stalwart defenders are already attacking the integrity of potential witnesses and airing their own conspiracy theories; an
attempt to smear Mueller with sexual-misconduct claims collapsed spectacularly in October. His accusers, meanwhile, hurl epithets and invective. In Congress,
Trump’s most committed detractors might be tempted to follow the bad example of the Clinton impeachment, when, instead of conducting extensive hearings to
weigh potential charges, House Republicans short-circuited the process—taking the independent counsel’s conclusions, rushing them to the floor, and voting to
impeach in a lame-duck session. Trump’s opponents need to put their faith in the process, empowering a committee to consider specific charges, weigh the available
evidence, and decide whether to proceed. Hosting that debate in Congress yields a fourth benefit: defusing the potential for an explosion of political violence. This is a
rationale for impeachment first offered at the Constitutional Convention, in 1787. “What was the practice before this in cases where the chief Magistrate rendered
himself obnoxious?” Benjamin Franklin asked his fellow delegates. “Why, recourse was had to assassination in wch. he was not only deprived of his life but of the
opportunity of vindicating his character.” A system without a mechanism for removing the chief executive, he argued, offered an invitation to violence. Just as the
courts took the impulse toward vigilante justice and safely channeled it into the protections of the legal system, impeachment took the impulse toward political
violence and safely channeled it into Congress. Nixon’s presidency was marked by an upsurge in political terrorism. In just its first 16 months, 4,330 bombings
claimed 43 lives. As the Vietnam War wound down and the militant left began to lose its salience, it made opposition to the president its new rallying cry. “Impeach
Nixon and jail him for his major crimes,” the Weather Underground demanded in its manifesto, Prairie Fire, in July 1974. “Nixon merits the people’s justice.” But that
seemingly radical demand, intended to expose the inadequacy of the regular constitutional order, ironically proved the opposite point. By the end of the month, the
House Judiciary Committee had approved three articles of impeachment; in early August, Nixon resigned. The ship of state, it turned out, had the capacity to right
itself. The Weather Underground continued its slide into irrelevance, and political violence eventually receded. The current moment is different, of course. Today, the
left is again radicalizing, but the overwhelming majority of political violence is committed by the far right, albeit on a considerably smaller scale than in the Nixon
era. Trump himself has warned that “the people would revolt” if he were impeached, a warning that echoes earlier eras. When Congress debated impeachment in
1868, some likewise predicted that it would provoke Andrew Johnson’s most ardent supporters to violence. “We are evidently on the eve of a revolution that may,
should an appeal be taken to arms, be more bloody than that inaugurated by the firing on Fort Sumter,” warned The Boston Post. The predictions were wrong then, as
Trump’s are likely wrong now. The public understood that once the impeachment process began, the real action would take place in Congress, and not in the streets.
Johnson knew that inciting his supporters to violence would erode congressional support just when he needed it most. That seems the most probable outcome today as
well. If impeached, Trump would lose the luxury of venting his resentments before friendly crowds, stirring their anger. His audience, by political necessity, would
become a few dozen senators in Washington. And what if the Senate does not convict Trump? The fifth benefit of impeachment is that, even when
it fails to remove a president, it severely damages his political prospects . Johnson, abandoned by Republicans and
rejected by Democrats, did not run for a second term. Nixon resigned, and Gerald Ford, his successor, lost his bid for
reelection. Clinton weathered the process and finished out his second term, but despite his personal popularity, he left an electorate hungering for change. “Many,
including Al Gore, think that the impeachment cost Gore the election,” Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior member of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s team, told
me. “So it has consequences and resonates outside the narrow four corners of impeachment.” If Congress were to impeach Trump, whatever
short-term surge he might enjoy as supporters rallied to his defense, his long-term political fate would
likely be sealed. In these five ways—shifting the public’s attention to the president’s debilities, tipping the balance
of power away from him, skimming off the froth of conspiratorial thinking, moving the fight to a rule-bound forum, and dealing lasting damage
to his political prospects—the impeachment process has succeeded in the past. In fact, it’s the very efficacy of these past efforts that
should give Congress pause; it’s a process that should be triggered only when a president’s betrayal of his basic duties requires it. But Trump’s conduct clearly meets
that threshold. The only question is whether Congress will act.
 !: Lashout
Threat of impeachment leads to diversionary war
Tierney 6-15-17 – PhD, associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College (Dominic, The Risks of
Foreign Policy as Political Distraction, The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/trump-diversionary-foreign-policy/530079/)

On top of this, distraction has been a staple of Trump’s political strategy since he declared his intention to run for
president. When negative stories arise, his instinct is to seize the narrative with bold, even outlandish, claims—
accusing Barack Obama of wiretapping the phones in Trump Tower, for example. If the diversion sets off another
firestorm, the solution is further deflection , like a magician whose first trick goes up in smoke and then
immediately begins performing a new illusion. Trump has the flexibility to pursue a diversionary foreign policy
because he lacks a clear diplomatic doctrine. In some policy areas, such trade and immigration, he has been
consistent. But his positions on issues of war and peace have been highly mutable—he was for the Iraq war and then
against it, pro-intervention in Libya before opposing this course of action, and largely indecipherable on
Afghanistan. This gives him greater latitude to deploy smoke and mirrors when opportunities arise. What are
the core elements of a diversionary foreign policy? First of all, diplomatic moves should be attention-grabbing,
symbolic, and popular, particularly among the base. The smartest diversionary actions also have some substantive
merit, precisely so the true agenda is harder to spot. After all, giddy minds shouldn’t know they’ve been busied.
Ultimately, it’s not what the foreign policy does that matters, but what people think it does: the myths it creates, the
stories it weaves, the narratives it reinforces. In Trump’s case, the tale is one of dark enemies and unscrupulous
allies. His diplomacy seeks to establish a narrative of America First, a commitment to protect the U.S. homeland
even if—or especially if—it irritates global elites. Seen through this lens, much of Trump’s behavior seems designed
to distract, however clumsily. Just consider the diversionary tweets. The president has repeatedly picked fights for
his own political benefit by, for example, criticizing London mayor Sadiq Khan and taking his words out of context
to make him appear weak on terrorism. Trump may see Khan, a foreign Muslim, as an ideal foil given the embrace
of anti-Muslim attitudes among some in the Republican party. And then there’s Trump’s diversionary staging. When
he decided to withdraw America from the Paris climate deal, he could have given other nations maximum lead time
to help them handle the fallout. Instead, he hyped up his forthcoming announcement, leading to frenzied debate
about whether the United States would stay or go, as if his sole concern was to boost ratings on a reality television
show. But what about military force? To be clear, there is little cause to speculate that Trump plans to launch a full-
scale war solely to distract attention. For one thing, as president, the worst possible time to start a major military
campaign is when you’re deeply unpopular. And the political upside is shaky at best. Recent big wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq were politically damaging to George W. Bush. Even victory doesn’t guarantee a pay-off, as
George H. W. Bush discovered when he won the 1991 Gulf War and then lost his bid for reelection in 1992. A crisis
may arise where there are real national-security rationales for fighting, along with potential domestic gains. Here,
the payoff at home would likely enter Trump’s calculus, and even push him over the edge to fight, with the
legitimate casus belli providing a shield of plausible deniability. The most tempting use of force may be a seemingly
manageable, but still dazzling, kinetic operation, like a missile strike or a raid to kill terrorist leaders. Another option
would be to escalate a crisis where an easy win seems available: The key is to find the right enemy, one that’s both
widely hated and too weak to fight back. After all, there’s a well-established “rally ‘round the flag” effect, where
almost any military crisis temporarily juices the president’s approval ratings. In the wake of Clinton’s airstrikes in
1998, one poll found that 68 percent of Americans approved of his foreign policy. Republican House Speaker Newt
Gingrich said, “it was the right thing to do at the right time.” In a hyper-partisan era like today, military operations
offer one of the few avenues by which Trump could win backing from both sides of the aisle. In April, the White
House launched airstrikes against the Syrian regime, following its use of chemical weapons, and won praise from
Republicans and Democrats alike. Trump’s sudden decision to attack Damascus, after years of railing against such a
move, struck many as suspicious, or, in Philip Gordon’s words, “yet another effort by the president to distract the
media’s attention and change the subject from his problems at home.” But diversionary uses of force are highly
risky, and can just as easily exacerbate domestic problems. In 1982, the military regime in Argentina invaded the
British Falkland Islands in a bid to overcome its deep unpopularity at home. U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig
later wrote that there “was a widespread impression that the junta was creating a foreign distraction to give itself a
respite from domestic economic problems, including severe inflation.” Crucially, the regime never intended to wage
a war. Buenos Aires was certain that Britain wouldn’t fight for a few islands 8,000 miles away. But Margaret
Thatcher was indeed ready for a fight; Argentina lost the war, and the junta was soon kicked out of office. The
benefits of a diversionary foreign policy rarely last. A president may win a news cycle or two, but then people move
on. In 1998, Clinton received a short-term political boost from the airstrikes, but the House of Representatives still
went ahead and voted to issue Articles of Impeachment. The strikes in Afghanistan failed to kill Osama Bin Laden,
and may have brought the Taliban and al Qaeda closer together. The real victor was Wag the Dog’s production
house, Baltimore Pictures: In the wake of the U.S. attack, video rentals of the movie skyrocketed. In the end,
diversion is a fool’s errand, offering fleeting political benefit and inviting very real risks. It’s no substitute for a
foreign policy based on protecting national interests and values. Of course, the attraction of a risky wager depends
on how weak a president is, domestically. If Trump is looking at near-inevitable removal from office , either at
the ballot box or via impeachment, then gambling for resurrection through military action may be
tempting even if the odds of success are low . He has nothing to lose—although American soldiers might.
 !: Lashout: NK
Impeachment causes Noko lashout
Zenko 17 - senior fellow with the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations and is the author
of Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy (Micah, “Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Already
Swallowing His Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, Lexis)
While telegraphing its desire to instigate a crisis with North Korea, the Trump administration has publicly articulated no plan or theory of success for how the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula actually happens. And in
conversations with White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials and staffers about North Korea, I have heard nothing that indicates such a plan exists. The default course of action — tried unsuccessfully by the last two
presidents — is to further lean on Beijing to further lean on Pyongyang. This will not work. Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to attend a workshop in Beijing, where a well-connected Chinese foreign-policy scholar stated bluntly: “You
have to understand, China is more afraid of the United States than it is of North Korea.” He further indicated that China’s leaders prefer the status quo of a nuclear-armed North Korea over working with the United States to further
destabilize, or even topple, the Kim regime. When China inevitably refuses to coerce North Korea as strongly, or on the timeline, that the Trump administration demands, then what? When China inevitably refuses to coerce North
Korea as strongly, or on the timeline, that the Trump administration demands, then what? If the White House believes that North Korea has even a 10 or 20 percent probability of being able to successfully launch an intercontinental

ballistic missile mated with a nuclear warhead onto the United States, I believe thatTrump would authorize a preemptive attack against the missile-launch site (assuming it is an easily
observable, liquid-fueled missile) and perhaps against known nuclear weapons-related facilities. Military officials, including Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. forces in the Pacific, have
acknowledged that Kim would not simply absorb such an attack but would immediately retaliate against South Korea. This would trigger America’s
mutual defense treaty commitments to defend South Korea and spark a series of classified, pre-planned U.S.-South Korean military operations. When the Pentagon reviewed some version of

this scenario in 1994 (before North Korea had a nuclear arsenal of at least a dozen bombs), it was estimated that such a retaliation could “cause hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of

casualties.” But a President Trump facing ever-expanding scandals, continually low polling numbers, and even
potential impeachment proceedings may decide that a preemptive attack on North Korea is worth
the costs and consequences . The academic findings are mixed on whether heads of government facing domestic vulnerability engage in such diversionary wars — uses of force to divert public
attention and rally support for their leadership. Some analysts and scholars have examined whether George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama or Bill Clinton’s attacks on al Qaeda targets and Iraq in 1998 were examples of such

presidents are more likely to engage in such diversions when they are inherently
diversionary tactics. What seems clear, however, is that

distrustful and perceive the world in simplistic black-and-white terms — a perfect characterization of Trump .

Nuclear war
Bowden 17 – professor @ University of Delaware (Mark, “How to Deal With North Korea” accessed online
9/14/17, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-problem-on-earth/528717/)

1 | Prevention An all-out attack on North Korea would succeed. The U.S. and South Korea are fully capable of
defeating its military forces and toppling the Kim dynasty. For sheer boldness and clarity, this is the option that
would play best to President Trump’s base. (Some campaign posters for Trump boasted, finally someone with balls.)
But to work, a preventive strike would require the most massive U.S. military attack since the first Korean War—a
commitment of troops and resources far greater than any seen by most Americans and Koreans alive today. What
makes a decisive first strike attractive is the fact that Kim’s menace is growing. Whatever the ghastly toll in
casualties a peninsular war would produce today, multiply it exponentially once Kim obtains nuclear ICBMs.
Although North Korea already has a million-man army, chemical and biological weapons, and a number of nuclear
bombs, its current striking range is strictly regional. A sudden hammer blow before Kim’s capabilities go global is
precisely the kind of solution that might tempt Trump. Being able to reach U.S. territory with a nuclear weapon—
right now the only adversarial powers with that ability are Russia and China—would make North Korea, because of
its volatility, the biggest direct threat to American security in the world. Trump’s assertion of “America First” would
seem to provide a rationale for drastic action regardless of the consequences to South Koreans, Japanese, and other
people in the area. By Trumpian logic, the cost of all-out war might be acceptable if the war remains on the other
side of the world—a thought that ought to keep South Koreans and Japanese up at night. The definition of
“acceptable losses” depends heavily on whose population is doing the dying. The brightest hope of prevention is that
it could be executed so swiftly and decisively that North Korea would not have time to respond. This is a fantasy.
An American first strike would likely trigger one of the worst mass killings in human history .
“When you’re discussing nuclear issues and the potential of a nuclear attack, even a 1 percent chance of
failure has potentially catastrophically high costs ,” Abe Denmark, a former deputy assistant secretary of
defense for East Asia under Barack Obama, told me in May. “You could get people who will give you General Buck
Turgidson’s line from Dr. Strangelove,” he said, referring to the character played by George C. Scott in Stanley
Kubrick’s classic film, who glibly acknowledges the millions of lives likely to be lost in a nuclear exchange by
telling the president, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.” Kim’s arsenal is a tough target. “ It’s not
possible that you get 100 percent of it with high confidence , for a couple of reasons,” Michèle Flournoy, a
former undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration and currently the CEO of the Center for a New
American Security, told me when we spoke this spring. “One reason is, I don’t believe anybody has perfect
intelligence about where all the nuclear weapons are. Two, I think there is an expectation that, when they do
ultimately deploy nuclear weapons, they will likely put them on mobile systems, which are harder to find, track, and
target. Some may also be in hardened shelters or deep underground . So it’s a difficult target set—not something
that could be destroyed in a single bolt-from-the-blue attack.” North Korea is a forbidding, mountainous place, its
terrain perfect for hiding and securing things. Ever since 1953, the country’s security and the survival of the Kim
dynasty have relied on military stalemate. Resisting the American threat—surviving a first strike with the ability to
respond—has been a cornerstone of the country’s military strategy for three generations. And with only a few of its
worst weapons, North Korea could, probably within hours, kill millions. This means an American first strike would
likely trigger one of the worst mass killings in human history
 AT Advisors Check
Advisors don’t check Trump lashout—he’s free to act unilaterally, and they sanction his
nationalist and militaristic tendencies
Miller 17 (vice president for new initiatives at foreign policy and a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars. With Richard Sokolsky, a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and
Eurasia Program. 6/20/17, “Why Trump’s Foreign Policy Can’t Be Stopped”
http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/06/20/why-trump-s-foreign-policy-can-t-be-stopped-pub-71330)
Still, for the most part, President Trump is a relatively free agent to shape the optics and substance of his administration’s
foreign policy, for good or ill. Take his most recent trip abroad. In a scant nine days, the president invested Saudi
Arabia as the focal point of his Middle East strategy and re-energized the U.S.-Saudi relationship through
hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of intended arms sales and investment ventures. And that was just for starters.
Trump went on to deliver an anti-Iranian message that exacerbated tensions within the G ulf C ooperation
C ouncil and made more difficult the task of putting his anti-Islamic State coalition together ; tweeted his preference for
taking Saudi Arabia’s side in its conflict with Qatar, further inflaming the crisis; made clear that human rights have no serious place in his Middle East agenda; became the first sitting U.S.
insulted European allies on issues including climate change, trade, and
president to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem; offended and
defense spending; and blindsided his advisors when he failed to explicitly reaffirm America’s commitment to
NATO’s mutual defense guarantee. And all this in a mere nine days. Whether any of this reflects a coherent strategy isn’t really the point.
The larger takeaway is that the president can act unilaterally — as his withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord reveals — with
devastating strategic consequences. There are issues, specifically dealing with Russia, where the current domestic controversy will certainly constrain Trump. Indeed,
it’s hard to imagine in these circumstances lifting sanctions on Vladimir Putin or playing footsy with him on any significant or sensitive issue. But on most political issues, and perhaps also
when it comes to projecting American military power abroad, there are few if any constraints to stop him. HIS
ADVISORS GIVE HIM COVER AND LEGITIMACY The appointment of several experienced hands in the ways of government and the world — Secretary of Defense James
Mattis, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly — might have a
leavening effect on a volatile and inexperienced president. And although we don’t know what Trump’s foreign policy would look like if these experienced operators were not around,
it’s clear that on issues that are important to the president — for example, climate change and turning NATO’s Article 5 into a bargaining chip rather than a commitment — they
have not been able to restrain him . Indeed, on far too many issues these advisors seem willing to play along with if not
endorse Trump’s self-consciously self-centered nationalism. This White House operates on the premise
that nations do not have a stake in cooperating to solve problems they cannot solve by themselves or in one
another’s success; instead, Trump lives in a Darwinian dog-eat-dog world where America needs to look to
its own interests and cut the best deals it can — allies and adversaries be damned (perhaps minus Putin). When two
presumed moderates in the administration — chief economic advisor Gary Cohn and McMaster — basically
said as much in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed , they gave legitimacy to this deeply flawed view.
 AT Impeachment Good
Impeachment doesn’t solve—Pence is a war-hawk
Shahtahmasebi, 17 - Double Degree in Law and Japanese from the University of Otago, with an interest in human
rights, international law and journalism. He's a fully qualified lawyer in two separate jurisdictions, and writes about
foreign policy for Anti-Media
Darius, Is Pence the Deep State’s Insurance Policy?, Anti Media, 3-9-17, http://theantimedia.org/mike-pence-deep-
insurance-state-trump/

As most people are aware, Trump

was able to secure his seat in the White House by offering a markedly different vision for
America than Hillary Clinton, who largely mirrored Obama’s presidency. Both Clinton and Obama had very hawkish approaches to Russia and Russia’s
strategic allies in the Middle East. In contrast, Trump was clear that he respected Russia’s president and wanted to forge closer relations. The first thing to note is that
Trump has been keeping most of his campaign promises to date — even the most outlandish ones. The second is that Flynn was actually in the process of offering a
deal on economic sanctions against Russia and a ceasefire in Ukraine, suggesting there was substance behind Trump’s pro-Russia rhetoric. The issue with this, of
course, is that ultimately, there are people within the intelligence community who view a warming of relations with Russia to be a deal breaker with the Trump
administration. Evidently, there are those behind the scenes within the deep state and the intelligence community who still fear that Trump could take away their long-
held anti-Russian narrative, which has arguably been fueling the need for such a large and oversized military budget since World War II. So where is this headed? If
Trump doesn’t adopt the Cold War 2.0 approach of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and is forced out of his own administration in the same manner as Flynn, it will
become clear why once we learn who would replace him: Mike Pence. As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin observed: “Pence
is seen by many in
Washington as a figure who might stand up for the traditionally hawkish views he espoused while in Congress, a
proxy of sorts for the GOP national security establishment.” According to White House officials, lawmakers and experts, Pence, a “traditional
hawk influenced heavily by his Christian faith” is reportedly advancing a Rasputin-esque agenda in which he can appease Trump in the meantime by working within
Trump’s proposed foreign policy framework, as well as respect the prerogatives of other senior White House aides who want to play large foreign policy roles.
According to Rogin, behind the scenes, Pence will ultimately help shape Trump’s foreign policy into the traditional style witnessed under Obama: “Inside the White
House, Pence is in the room during most of the president’s interactions with world leaders. He receives the presidential
daily brief. As head of the transition, he was instrumental in bringing several traditionally hawkish Republicans into
the top levels of the administration’s national security team, including Director of National Intelligence-designate
Dan Coats, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.” It was because of Pence that the U.S.
decided to confront Russia and Syria at the U.N. over Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, despite everything
Trump has previously said regarding resetting U.S. policy with regard to Syria and Russia . However, the true extent of Pence’s
hold over Trump — and the true nature of the agenda he serves — can be seen in his role in ousting Flynn in the first place. Rogin continues: “The chief example was
when Pence personally spoke to Trump about removing national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had lied to him about conversations with Russian officials
during the transition.” [emphasis added] Since this occurrence, Pence has reportedly taken up more of the role previously occupied by Flynn. No matter what one
makes of Trump — or his administration and the policies that have been initiated thus far — the fact remains that Trump won the U.S. election. The people working
behind the scenes to oust him are not subject to democratic controls, nor are they working in the best interests of the American public. We are left to ask ourselves
exactly how renewing relations with Russia – a nuclear power – could possibly endanger American lives. Either way, we are more or less left with
two paths ahead of us. The first path involves Trump giving in and adopting an anti-Russian agenda, as is already apparent in his decision to send more
ground troops to Syria alongside Saudi troops, who will intentionally oppose the Syrian regime (a close ally of Russia). The second involves the possibility of
another direct coup within the Trump administration, this time one that may ultimately force Trump out of the White House so
he can be replaced by Mike Pence, a war hawk who will be more than happy to do the job Hillary Clinton wanted
to do.

Trump strategic ambiguity solves war- stronger allies and deterrence

Jakobsen, 17 -- Royal Danish Defence College professor
[Dr. Peter Viggo, University of Southern Denmark Center for War Studies professor, "Doomsday Cancelled: Trump
is Good News for Allies and World Peace," 3-2-17, War on the Rocks,
https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/doomsday-cancelled-trump-is-good-news-for-allies-and-world-peace/, accessed
1-25-18]

Rather than weakening America’s web of alliances, Trump’s aggressive statements and erratic behavior will most likely
strengthen the American-led security architecture during his presidency. This is good news for world peace because strong American
alliances and strong American allies can deter rivals from launching destabilizing challenges to the

predominant order . Trump’s aggressive communications strategy and his “America First” approach to international
negotiations have already frightened allies into doing something his predecessors could not: increase defense
spending. Fear of abandonment has changed the nature of the defense debate in allied capitals in Asia and Europe. The
question is no longer whether defense spending should increase, but how much. U.S. allies in Europe are now scrambling to produce concrete plans for how they will increase defense spending in
His perceived unpredictability is also making military provocations and risk-
time for President Trump’s first visit to NATO in late May 2017..
taking by America’s adversaries less likely. Trumpology is Misleading The concern triggered by Trump’s election stems in no small part from the rise of what I call
“Trumpology” – the incessant scrutiny of Trump’s personality, his statements, and his tweets. Trumpology is a new growth industry and the media embraces it because it fits their definition of a
newsworthy story perfectly. Trump’s communications generate all the criteria journalists look for in a good story: conflict, anxiety, comedy, theater, and outrage. This helps media companies,
even those attacked by Trump, sell advertising like hotcakes. Many experts now spend their time putting Trump’s words under the microscope, seeking to identify all the disasters they might
create. In addition, psychologists have been busy analyzing his personality and upbringing in order to explain why he is acting so weird. The American intelligence community has used
personality profiling since World War II to better understand how leaders in closed authoritarian systems such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Russia think and act. The results have been useful
on occasion, but the study of personalities and intentions is insufficient with respect to predicting foreign policy actions and outcomes. One must also analyze the consequences and the opposition
that proposed actions are likely to generate. If one considers the consequences of undermining existing U.S. alliances and how much opposition such action would trigger, one gets a far more
positive picture of Trump’s impact on world security than the doomsday scenarios that Trumpologists have mass-produced since his election. Consequences for U.S. Allies Since the late 1940s,
U.S. allies in Europe and Asia have based their national security on the assumption that the United States will assist them in a crisis. This assumption and the post-Cold War downsizing of
Europe’s military forces have rendered Europeans incapable of conducting even relatively small-scale military operations without substantial American support. NATO’s air war against Libya
(2011) and the French intervention in Mali (2013) are two recent cases in point. Neither operation would have been possible without American logistics, lift, munitions, intelligence, and other
forms of support. The situation in the same in Asia: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have all based their defense forces and defense spending on the
assumption that the U.S. cavalry will come to their rescue if necessary. If Trump degrades or withdraws these security guarantees, the allies will face a stark choice between deterrence and
appeasement. In Europe deterrence is the most likely choice because the big three (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) are strong enough to constitute the core of a new alliance that can
credibly deter Russia. In Asia, China will become so strong that most states bordering the East China Sea will have no choice but to appease Beijing and accept its hegemony. Regardless of the
outcome, both Europe and Asia would face a period characterized by high instability and a heightened risk of war. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would seek to develop nuclear weapons. In
Europe, Germany and Poland would have a strong incentive to do the same unless France and Britain extend their nuclear umbrellas over them. Indeed, all of these countries, except Poland,
either contemplated the development of nuclear weapons (Germany and Japan) or had active nuclear weapons programs during the Cold War (South Korea and Taiwan). Consequences for the
United States Prominent American scholars such as John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt have long recommended that the United States withdraw most of its forces from Asia and
Europe because the costs of the existing onshore presence dwarf the benefits. In their view, the existing security guarantees amount to “welfare for the rich” and increase the risk of entrapment in
wars that do not involve American national interests. They believe that the United States would be much better off by copying the offshore balancing strategy that the British Empire employed in
Europe before World War II. This would involve providing support to shifting alliances and coalitions in order to prevent a single power from establishing a regional hegemony on the European
continent. Offshore balancing has clear limitations and did not serve the British well in the end: it threw them into two world wars that brought the empire to its knees. Britain’s fate highlights the
weakness of offshore balancing: a loss of the ability to shape the security politics onshore decisively. The failure of British offshore balancing dragged the United States into both world wars.
America’s decisions to help its allies in Europe defeat Germany proved costly in blood and treasure. Since then the United States has benefitted tremendously from the onshore balancing strategy
it adopted after World War II in both Asia and Europe, where it stationed its forces permanently to deter aggression. This presence, coupled with the allies’ military dependence, enabled
Washington to shape development in both regions to align with U.S. interests. Washington repeatedly gave their allies offers they could not refuse. U.S. economic assistance programs provided
to allies in the wake of World War II came with conditions that forced the recipients to buy American goods and liberalize their markets in ways that were highly beneficial to American firms.
Washington forced Great Britain and France to withdraw their troops from Egypt during the Suez Crisis (1956), coerced Germany to support U.S. monetary policy (1966 to 1969), and leaned on
many allies to stop their nuclear weapons programs and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) that made such weapons illegal, including Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan. Military
dependence on the United States also induced many allies to support U.S.-led wars in faraway places that did not affect their national security directly. The Afghan War and Iraq War are two
recent cases in point. The allies closed their eyes to issues like secret detention and extraordinary rendition programs, the use of torture, and the massive surveillance of their own citizens that has
characterized the War on Terror since 9/11. Allies have given the United States access to bases, facilities, as well as their airspace and territorial waters. This facilitates U.S. power projection
globally. Finally, many allies buy American weapon systems as a way of maintain inter-operability and their security guarantees. The F-35 is the latest and greatest example of this. The
consequences of a U.S. military withdrawal from Europe and Asia would be dramatic. The United States would lose most of its military bases in Asia and Europe, American firms would find it
much harder to gain access to Asian and European markets, the American defense industry would lose billions of dollars, and European allies would stop supporting the United States militarily in
faraway conflicts. As a result, the United States would lose its global power status and be reduced to a regional power with limited say in the management of Asian and European security. This is
why it will not happen. This outcome is not only at odds with America’s economic interests, but it is also completely at odds with the widely shared belief in American exceptionalism and
greatness. This is a belief that Trump and his supporters also embrace. Most Americans continue to view their nation as the greatest power on earth with an obligation to lead and make the world
safe for America’s universal values. Trump is Scaring Allies into Spending But if the costs of abandoning allies are prohibitive, why is Trump
threatening to do so? Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory suggests an answer. Schelling demonstrated in his seminal Strategy of
Conflict (1960) that it may be advantageous to appear mad or unpredictable , because it may induce your negotiating partners or
opponents to give greater concessions that they otherwise would. In this perspective, Trump’s statements and seemingly erratic behavior make a lot
of sense as a negotiation tactic aimed at pressuring U.S. allies to increase their defense spending . Trump’s
predecessors in the White House have tried to do this for years without success; previous administrations have repeatedly warned its European allies that NATO was
in danger of becoming irrelevant if the Europeans continued to cut their defense spending. Yet most European allies paid scant attention to demands from the
Obama administration to stop freeriding and honor their own commitments to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. Few European governments saw a pressing need to increase
defense spending because the Obama administration reacted to the Russian annexation of the Crimea by enhancing its military presence in Europe. Trump has changed the game
completely. In line with Schelling’s expectations, his perceived unpredictability is adding credibility to the threat that he might actually withdraw U.S.
forces even if it is not in the United States best interest to do so. There is genuine concern among U.S. allies about what Trump might do if they do not take
immediate steps to increase their defense spending. Many have already taken steps in this direction, or signaled their intention to do so. In December 2016, Japan
adopted a record high defense budget, which allocated considerable funds to the procurement of American equipment, notably F-35s and missiles. The South
Korean government reacted to Trump’s election by vowing to increase defense spending significantly if he insists on it. Likewise, the Danish Prime
Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen promised to increase defense spending after his first phone conversation with Trump. In Germany Trump’s election triggered a
hitherto unthinkable debate on whether Germany should develop nuclear weapons. Trump cannot take sole credit for the newfound allied attentiveness to longstanding U.S. demands. The
Japanese defense budget has been increasing in recent years due to growing concerns about China. Russia has had a similar effect on the defense budgets of the eastern NATO members.
Trump has made a crucial difference by completely changing the debate on defense spending in allied capitals,
However,
significantly strengthening the hands of the proponents of increased defense spending in allied governments. The 2016
IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets Report consequently expects European NATO allies and partners such as Finland and Sweden to boost their defense spending by about $10 billion over the next five

years. Trump’s Unpredictability Deters Rival Risk-Taking That Schelling’s logic applies equally well to President Trump’s dealings with America’s

America’s opponents will

opponents has already been pointed out by other commentators. They have referred to Nixon’s madman theory of negotiation, which holds that
tread more carefully if they perceive the president to be unpredictable or crazy. It has been debated at some length whether Trump is using this
theory in a rational manner to extract concessions from U.S. adversaries, or if he is “a madman in practice.” Regardless, the point is that President Trump’s unpredictability makes it next to
Obama’s reluctance to threaten
impossible to calculate the risk of escalation involved in challenging the United States militarily, a concept also highlighted by Schelling. President
and use force likely emboldened China and Russia to take greater military risks in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, and in the East
and S outh C hina S eas. While Beijing and Moscow could be fairly confident that Obama would not take military counter-measures, they have no way of
knowing what President Trump might do. It is very easy to imagine him giving the order to down a Chinese or Russian plane to demonstrate that “America is great again.”
In this way, Trump ( intentionally or not ) reduces the risk of military confrontations with China and Russia. This
gives both states greater incentive to prioritize diplomacy over coercion in their efforts to settle disputes with the United States and its allies.
Similarly, Trump’s characterization of the nuclear agreement with Iran as “the worst deal ever negotiated” gives Tehran strong incentive to honor it in both letter
and spirit for fear of a potentially much worse alternative if it collapses. Some are deeply worried that Trump versus Kim Jong-un will prove a highly
explosive combination, which is understandable since North Korea has employing the same negotiating tactics as Trump for decades with considerable success. While the outcome of this
confrontation is difficult to call, the disastrous consequences of war are likely to lead to mutual restraint. Moreover, concern about what Trump might
do will induce Beijing to redouble its efforts to persuade Pyongyang to be less provocative. Good News for World

Peace Paradoxically, Trump’s tweets and the theatrics are most likely to enhance world peace . They create unpredictability and
anxiety that the United States can use to obtain greater concessions from friends and foes. It is admittedly still early days, but all indications are that
Trump will succeed in coercing his allies in both Asia and Europe to increase their defense spending significantly. Few of them will reach 2 percent of GDP in the next year or two, but he has set
His unpredictability is also an asset in America’s
in motion a process that will make most allies spend far more much faster than they otherwise would have.
dealings with its opponents such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They will all need to think twice about provoking the
United States and its allies militarily because they have no way of calculating how President Trump will react. Neither friends nor foes can be certain that Trump will not do something
that a rational cost-benefit calculating actor would not. U.S. allies used to regard American threats to withdraw its forces as bluff because the costs of doing so would be prohibitive, and the same
logic has induced American opponents to engage in military risk-taking with little fear of U.S. military retaliation. With Trump in the White House, this logic no longer applies. This is good news
the likely result is strengthened U.S. alliances and U.S. opponents that are more likely to favor negotiation over
because
provocation in their efforts to settle differences with the United States and its allies.

Pence will push an evangelical war-hawk foreign policy

Amr, 17 -- Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow
[Hady, served in the Obama administration as deputy special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and as
deputy head of the Middle East Bureau at USAID, and Steve Feldstein, Boise State University public affairs chair,
served in the Obama administration as a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, "What
would US foreign policy look like under President Pence?," The Hill, 5-25-17, thehill.com/blogs/pundits-
blog/foreign-policy/335160-what-would-us-foreign-policy-look-like-under-a-president, accessed 1-23-18]

Two major aspects would characterize Pence’s foreign policy: a re-embrace of the Republican establishment and an
aggressive uptake of Christian social conservative thought . Among the Republican establishment, particularly the
neoconservative wing, Pence has an impeccable reputation. Many describe him as a “hawk’s hawk.” He was a strong
proponent of the Iraq War, has vigorously stood up for a strong military and "American values" and, as vice president, has taken on an
informal role as an emissary to NATO and other alliances. All of this contrasts starkly to what candidate Trump said on the
campaign trail. Likewise, Pence’s evangelical Christian faith is central to his identity. He has proudly built up a reputation as one
of the most conservative lawmakers in the country and frequently describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that
order.” There is a high probability that Pence would explicitly embed religious morals in U.S. foreign policy and push
an activist social conservative agenda. For example, as the governor of Indiana, Pence signed one of the strictest abortion provisions in
the country and approved a controversial law intended to allow businesses to deny services to members of the LGBT community for religious
reasons (only after intense blowback did he backtrack). Translated into the foreign policy realm, it is not hard to imagine Pence defending
Christian minorities around the world, possibly to the exclusion of other religious groups. He will undoubtedly continue Trump’s expansion of
the “global gag rule," and it is possible he may try to push a “ clash of civilizations ” strategy, primarily seeking alliances with
countries that have a “Judeo-Christian” character.

Pence worse- triggers all their impacts

Zengerle, 17 -- Politico senior staff writer
[Jason, "What If Mike Pence Becomes President?" 8-8-17, https://www.gq.com/story/what-if-mike-pence-becomes-
president, accessed]

None of the systemic problems inside the G.O.P.—the divisions revealed in last year’s presidential primaries that helped fuel Trump’s rise—have
been solved. If anything, Trump’s presidency has only grown those fissures and emboldened a contingent of aggrieved voters. And if Pence
became president, he’d need to mollify those Trump boosters. “I expect him to serve his full term, but if not there’d be a core
group of [Trump voters] who’d forever think Trump was wronged and who’d view Trump’s exit as a coup,” says G.O.P. strategist
Ryan Williams. “Pence would need to pacify them to some extent and win them over.” Today, Pence benefits from his unearned
status as an outsider—a guy brought along by Trump to help him drain the swamp. In truth, he’s a G.O.P. loyalist who spent a dozen years in
Congress before becoming Indiana governor. Holding on to Trump’s supporters would likely require holding on to some of his
popular promises, too.
AFF
 2AC
Trump’s impeachment is inevitable
Pierce 7/24 (Charles Pierce, Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, mostly recently Idiot America, and has
been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children, "Nancy
Pelosi and Her Caucus Are Slowly Moving Towards the Inevitable", 7/24/19, https://www.esquire.com/news-
politics/politics/a28499548/robert-mueller-donald-trump-impeachment-nancy-pelosi/)
It's not about not liking the president, it's about loving democracy . It's about loving our country. It's about making a difference for
generations yet unborn. That's what this is all about. I'm begging the American people to pay attention to what is going on. Because if
you want to have a democracy intact for your children and your children's children ... we have to guard this moment. This is on our
watch.
Pelosi and her caucus are moving ever more slowly toward the inevitable—which is an impeachment inquiry—and
Wednesday's hearings gave the process a very perceptible shove. Forty-five years ago Wednesday, in a building across the street from the
Capitol, a unanimous Supreme Court told a criminal president that, no, he was not above the law, and that he had to
give up the tapes that the president knew contained his political death warrant. On Wednesday, the momentum began to build
and, sooner or later, it's going to become too hard for the cautious, the timid, and the downright cowardly to resist.

The Senate will never convict

Genovese 7/17 (Michael Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University and
Jessica Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School, "MENT A Trump impeachment would be an uncertain process.
Congress could censure him right now.", 7/17/19, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-impeachment-
would-be-uncertain-process-congress-could-censure-him-ncna1031016)
The Democrats beating the drum of impeachment got louder Wednesday when Rep. Al Green of Texas forced a
vote to be scheduled on the topic. Frustrated by President Donald Trump’s alleged violations of laws and democratic
norms, Green and his like-minded colleagues want to take concrete action now.
Others, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been holding the line against launching impeachment
proceedings, are worried about the political consequences of impeaching a president in the House of Representatives
only to have the Senate almost certainly fail to follow suit and thus leave Trump in office.

No Trump military diversion—tweets and staging instead

Tierney, 17-- Dominic Tierney, Associate Professor of Political Science @ Swarthmore, The Risks of Foreign
Policy as Political Distraction,” https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/trump-diversionary-
foreign-policy/530079/

Seen through this lens, much of Trump’s behavior seems designed to distract, however clumsily. Just consider the
diversionary tweets . The president has repeatedly picked fights for his own political benefit by, for example,
criticizing London mayor Sadiq Khan and taking his words out of context to make him appear weak on terrorism.
Trump may see Khan, a foreign Muslim, as an ideal foil given the embrace of anti-Muslim attitudes among some in
the Republican party. And then there’s Trump’s diversionary staging . When he decided to withdraw America
from the Paris climate deal, he could have given other nations maximum lead time to help them handle the fallout.
Instead, he hyped up his forthcoming announcement, leading to frenzied debate about whether the United States
would stay or go, as if his sole concern was to boost ratings on a reality television show. But what about
military force? To be clear, there is little cause to speculate that Trump plans to launch a full-scale
war solely to distract attention. For one thing, as president, the worst possible time to start a major military
campaign is when you’re deeply unpopular. And the political upside is shaky at best. Recent big wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq were politically damaging to George W. Bush. Even victory doesn’t guarantee a pay-off, as
George H. W. Bush discovered when he won the 1991 Gulf War and then lost his bid for reelection in 1992.
Impeachment prevents extinction—multiple scenarios
Seth Baum, Executive Director, Global Catastrophic Risk Institute & PhD, Penn State University, “What Trump
Means for Global Catastrophic Risk,” BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, 12—9—16,
http://thebulletin.org/what-trump-means-global-catastrophic-risk10266, accessed 3-7-17.

In 1987, Donald Trump said he had an aggressive plan for the United States to partner with the Soviet Union on nuclear non-proliferation. He was motivated by,
among other things, an encounter with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s former pilot, who convinced him that at least some world leaders are too unstable to ever
be trusted with nuclear weapons. Now, 30 years later, Trump—following a presidential campaign marked by impulsive, combative behavior—seems poised to
become one of those unstable world leaders. Global
catastrophic risks are those that threaten the survival of human civilization. Of all the
implications a Trump presidency has for global catastrophic risk—and there are many—the prospect
of him ordering the launch of the massive US
nuclear arsenal is by far the most worrisome. In the United States, the president has sole authority to launch atomic weapons. As Bruce Blair recently
argued in Politico, Trump’s tendency toward erratic behavior, combined with a mix of difficult geopolitical challenges ahead, mean the probability of a nuclear launch
order will be unusually high. If Trump orders an unwarranted launch, then the only thing that could stop it would be disobedience by launch personnel—though even
this might not suffice, since the president could simply replace them. Such disobedience has precedent, most notably in Vasili Arkhipov, the Soviet submarine officer
who refused to authorize a nuclear launch during the Cuban Missile Crisis; Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet officer who refused to relay a warning (which turned out to be
a false alarm) of incoming US missiles; and James Schlesinger, the US defense secretary under President Richard Nixon, who reportedly told Pentagon aides to check
with him first if Nixon began talking about launching nuclear weapons. Both Arkhipov and Petrov are now celebrated as heroes for saving the world. Perhaps
Schlesinger should be too, though his story has been questioned. US personnel involved in nuclear weapons operations should take note of these tales and reflect on
the only way to avoid
how they might act in a nuclear crisis. Risks and opportunities abroad. Aside from planning to either persuade or disobey the president,
nuclear war is to try to avoid the sorts of crises that can prompt nuclear launch. China and Russia, which both have large arsenals of
long-range nuclear weapons and tense relationships with the United States, are the primary candidates for a nuclear conflagration with Washington. Already, Trump
has increased tensions with China by taking a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. China-Taiwan relations are very fragile, and this sort of disruption
could lead to a war that would drag in the United States. Meanwhile, Trump’s presidency could create some interesting opportunities to improve US relations with
Russia. The United States has long been too dismissive of Moscow’s very legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion, missile defense, and other
encroachments. In stark defiance of US political convention, Trump speaks fondly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian leader, and expresses little
interest in supporting NATO allies. The authoritarianism is a problem, but Trump’s unconventional friendliness nonetheless offers a valuable opportunity to rethink
US-Russia relations for the better. On the other hand, conciliatory overtures toward Russia could backfire. Without US pressure, Russia could become aggressive,
perhaps invading the Baltic states. Russia might gamble that NATO wouldn’t fight back, but if it was wrong, such an invasion could lead to nuclear war. Additionally,
Trump’s pro-Russia stance could mean that Putin would no longer be able to use anti-Americanism to shore up domestic support, which could lead to a dangerous
political crisis. If Putin fears a loss of power, he could turn to more aggressive military action in hopes of bolstering his support. And if he were to lose power,
particularly in a coup, there is no telling what would happen to one of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. The best approach for the United States is to rethink
Russia-US relations while avoiding the sorts of military and political crises that could escalate to nuclear war. The war at home. Trump has been accused many
times of authoritarian tendencies, not least due to his praise for Putin. He also frequently defies democratic norms and institutions, for instance by
encouraging violence against opposition protesters during his presidential campaign, and now via his business holdings, which create a real prospect he may violate
the Constitution’s rule against accepting foreign bribes. Already, there are signs that Trump is profiting from his newfound political position, for example with an end
to project delays on a Trump Tower in Buenos Aires. The US Constitution explicitly forbids the president from receiving foreign gifts, known as “emoluments.” What
if, under President Trump, the US government itself becomes authoritarian? Such an outcome might seem unfathomable, and to be sure, achieving authoritarian
control would not be as easy for Trump as starting a nuclear war. It would require compliance from a much larger portion of government personnel and the public—
compliance that cannot be taken for granted. Already, government officials are discussing how best to resist illegal and unethical moves from the inside, and citizens
are circulating expert advice on how to thwart creeping authoritarianism. But the president-elect will take office at a time in which support for democracy may be
declining in the United States and other Western countries, as measured by survey data. And polling shows that his supporters were more likely to have authoritarian
inclinations than supporters of other Republican or Democratic primary candidates. Moreover, his supporters cheered some of his clearly authoritarian suggestions,
An
like creating a registry for Muslims and implying that through force of his own personality, he would achieve results where normal elected officials fail.
authoritarian US government would be a devastating force. In theory, dictatorships can be benevolent, but throughout history, they have been
responsible for some of the largest human tragedies, with tens of millions dying due to their own governments in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and
Maoist China. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, an authoritarian U nited S tates could wield overwhelming military and
intelligence capabilities to even more disastrous effect. Return to an old world order. Trump has suggested he might pull the United States back
from the post-World War II international order it helped build and appears to favor a pre-World War II isolationist mercantilism that would have the United States
look out for its unenlightened self-interest and nothing more. This would mean retreating from alliances and attempts to promote democracy abroad,
and an embrace of economic protectionism at home. Such a retreat from globalization would have important implications for catastrophic
risk. The post-World War II international system has proved remarkably stable and peaceful. Returning to the pre-World War II system risks
putting the world on course for another major war, this time with deadlier weapons. International cooperation is also essential for
addressing global issues like climate change, infectious disease outbreaks, arms control, and the safe management of emerging technologies. On
the other hand, the globalized economy can be fragile. Shocks in one place can cascade around the world, and a bad enough shock could collapse the whole system,
leaving behind few communities that are able to support themselves. Globalization can also bring dangerous concentrations of wealth and power. Nevertheless,
complete rejection of globalization would be a dangerous mistake. Playing with climate dangers. Climate
change will not wipe out human
populations as quickly as a nuclear bomb would, but it is wreaking slow-motion havoc that could ultimately be just as devastating. Trump has been
all over the map on the subject, variously supporting action to reduce emissions and calling global warming a hoax. On December 5th he met with environmental
activist and former vice president Al Gore, giving some cause for hope, but later the same week said he would appoint Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who
denies the science of climate change, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump’s energy plan calls for energy independence with development of both
fossil fuels and renewables, as well as less environmental regulation. If his energy policy puts more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere—
as it may by increasing fossil fuel consumption—it will increase global catastrophic risk. For all global catastrophic risks, it is important to remember
that the US president is hardly the only important actor. Trump’s election shifts the landscape of risks and opportunities, but does not change the fact that each of us
can help keep humanity safe. His election also offers an important reminder that outlier events sometimes happen. Just because election-winning politicians have been
of a particular mold in the past, doesn’t mean the same kind of leaders will continue to win. Likewise, just because we have avoided global catastrophe so far doesn’t
mean we will continue to do so.
 UQ Overwhelms
Dems aren’t even close to impeaching Trump
Nilsen 7/25 (Ella Nilsen, Ella Nilsen covers Congress and the Democrats for Vox. Before coming to Vox, she
worked at the Concord Monitor newspaper in New Hampshire, where she covered Bernie Sanders and Donald
Trump in the 2016 primary, "Behind closed doors, Democrats are no closer to impeachment post-Mueller", 7/25/19,
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/25/8929374/democrats-no-closer-to-impeaching-trump)
Democrats were hoping Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees would paint a
vivid picture of a lawless presidential campaign that actively sought help from the Russians for “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, and an equally
lawless president trying to cover up his actions and obstruct justice.
While the six-hour set of hearings certainly had standout moments, there was no bombshell, and Mueller at times seemed unprepared to answer
rapid-fire questions from committee members. As Vox’s Tara Golshan wrote, “Mueller, who from the outset said he would only refer
back to the report, did only that — and often not particularly clearly, allowing Republicans’ spin to go unchecked.”
Democrats went into the hearing expecting Mueller to push back on Republican spin more than he did; the dynamic let
Republicans land punches of their own and resulted in a defiant President Donald Trump declaring the hearing had “exonerated”
him. The White House is hoping Mueller’s performance will halt any momentum toward impeachment ,
Politico reported.
A wave of Democrats came out for an impeachment inquiry after Mueller gave a public statement about his report in May. Those expecting a
similar cascade of support after his testimony this week are likely disappointed; just one lawmaker came out for impeachment
on Wednesday.
Pro-impeachment inquiry Democrats especially want moderates to join their ranks. But Mueller’s testimony did nothing to convince
moderate first-term Democrat Rep. Jeff Van Drew (NJ), for one.
“I don’t think I saw anything new that makes me believe we’ve reached high crimes and misdemeanors,” Van Drew told Vox. “ If you’re
going to impeach somebody, you should have the vast majority of congresspeople on board and signifying they
agree with impeachment. And that’s not just one party.”

No impeachment – Congress will default to censure

Genovese 7/17 (Michael Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University and
Jessica Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School, "MENT A Trump impeachment would be an uncertain process.
Congress could censure him right now.", 7/17/19, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-impeachment-
would-be-uncertain-process-congress-could-censure-him-ncna1031016)
We do not, however, live in an impeachment-or-bust world. Congress has another tool in its arsenal to formally
declare its disapproval of Trump and his transgressions: It can censure the president. Censure is a process whereby
Congress formally reprimands an officeholder for what it perceives as egregious behavior. A censure is symbolic, in
that it doesn’t remove an officeholder, but it does offer a strong, formal, public rebuke of his or her actions.
It is time for Congress to do more than decry Trump’s behavior in speeches, on television and via social media. It is
time for Congress to do more than pass a narrow resolution condemning openly racist comments about four
Democratic representatives. It is time to take the broader and bolder step of censuring the president. Even if such
a rebuke doesn’t change the president’s behavior, which it almost certainly will not, the action will
still send a message to the voters and the rest of the world that Trump’s actions are beyond the
pale.

Impeachment is not a partisan issue and the Republicans won’t get on board
Bonn 18 (Tess Bonn, Journalist at the Hill, "Extent of Trump impeachment talk is unprecedented, says White House
correspondent", 10/28/18, https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/412921-trump-impeachment-talk-is-unprecedented-says-
white-house-correspondent)
New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker said on “Rising” that the length of time people have been
discussing President Trump’s impeachment is unprecedented.
“You haven’t seen a president like this who has from the very beginning been able to battle this idea of
impeachment,” Baker, who is currently promoting a new book he co-authored, told Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on
Wednesday.
“He was just barely elected and people started talking about this with Donald Trump, so in that context we wanted to try to
provide a little bit of history and a little bit of facts for people for this conversation that we’re probably going to have after this election,” he
continued.
removing Trump from office cannot be a partisan issue, emphasizing that
The journalist warned that
Republicans must be on board with impeachment proceedings in order for it to come to fruition, citing President
Clinton as just one example.
“A partisan impeachment won’t work — didn’t work under Andrew Johnson, he was acquitted in the Senate trial, didn’t work under Bill Clinton,
he was acquitted in the Senate trial,” he told Hill.TV.
 1AR: Senate
A republican controlled Congress guarantees Trump won’t get impeached
CNN 7/26 (CNN, Cable News Network, "List: The 100 House Democrats calling for an impeachment inquiry into
Trump", 7/26/19, https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/democrats-impeachment-whip-list/index.html)
Impeachment appears politically risky for Democrats for many reasons, not least of which is that even if the House could
get a majority to support impeachment, it likely would go nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate. That said,
that calculation is not stopping some Democrats from pushing for the maneuver, particularly following a series of efforts by
Trump and his White House not to comply with the requests of the House investigations.
While there are varying degrees of how far critics of the President are willing to push the process, one relatively basic litmus test is whether
lawmakers would support starting an impeachment inquiry, the first significant step in the process.
Of the 235 Democrats in the House, there are at least 100 -- according to a CNN count -- who've made public comments
advocating at least for starting the impeachment inquiry process, while some have gone further.
 1AR: No Lashout
Generals checks
Tomasky, 17-- Michael Tomasky, editor of Democracy, special correspondent for Newsweek, editor for The
American Prospect, contributor to The New York Review of Books, poli-sci grad school @ NYU, “Donald Trump’s
Paths All Lead Down,” 5/18/17, http://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-paths-all-lead-down

No, actually, it’s not. No one outside Republicans will rally to him in an obvious Wag the Dog situation. And then
there’s this to think about: Would the generals carry out his orders under such a circumstance? If it were obvious
that Trump was just doing this for political reasons, they would not. To go back to 1998 again, everybody
laughed at Bill Clinton when he ordered a bombing raid on Iraq the very night the House voted articles of
impeachment against him. But I think most people now accept that Pentagon brass would never, ever
approve a military action ordered by a president to save his political skin. They’d quit first.

Advisors check – worst-case is low-hanging fruit which won’t escalate

Kinney 17 (Brandon Kinney, an intern at FPRI, is a graduate student at Villanova University completing his
Masters in history, “In Search of a Trump Doctrine,” 7/27, https://www.fpri.org/article/2017/07/search-trump-
doctrine/)

There may also be a fear of the president entering into a diversionary war – a war for the purpose of distracting the
public, whether to combat his low approval ratings, dominate the news cycle, or challenge any investigation he
perceives as threatening to his presidency. Without a clear doctrine to adhere to, the president has some flexibility in
entering into such a war not unlike President Clinton’s strikes in Afghanistan in 1998 while under the cloud of an
investigation. By definition , a diversionary war would require a highly symbolic target unlikely to put up
much of a fight . Doing so would provide action at a low risk , perhaps to serve some merit such as a
humanitarian cause. The hope for presidents who launch such a war would be to unify the American home front and
galvanize the public behind him. It would be a huge gamble, however, and if the president were desperate enough to
consider a diversionary war, it would axiomatically mean he had little domestic support. Reassuringly, Trump is not
alone in the decision-making process: with few “Trumpists” in Washington, D.C. to choose from, he has had to rely
on more conventional, established individuals to populate his staff. H.R. McMaster, current National Security
Adviser, holds a doctorate in history and has been considered a man who speaks truth to power. There is reason for
confidence in McMaster being selected by Trump, as McMaster holds a favorable opinion of a “war of politics” over
the “kinetic” view, as shown by his experience in Iraq. Notwithstanding, it is impossible to know the extent of his
influence, but he may be trying to move Trump towards a more traditional , predictable path . Similarly, his
Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, has affirmed the U.S.’s commitment to NATO and Article 5 despite the
president’s campaign rhetoric.

2017 proves
O'Hanlon, 18 -- Brookings Institution Research and Foreign Policy Program director
[Michael, and David Gordon, Eurasia Group senior advisor, former director of policy planning at the State
Department in the George W. Bush administration, "President Trump's Twitter-fueled foreign policy: Not as bad as
you might think," 1-5-18, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/05/president-trumps-report-card-
foreign-policy-not-bad-might-think-michael-ohanlon-david-gordon-column/1004880001/, accessed 1-20-18]

President Trump's Twitter-fueled foreign policy: Not as bad as you might think. Yes, Trump is a maverick and populist. But
thanks to him, 2017 witnessed less of a dramatic departure from the norm in foreign policy than has been alleged . With
each new barrage of foreign policy tweets — most recently targeting Iran and North Korea and the Palestinians and Pakistan, President Trump
cements the idea that he is turning American foreign policy on its head, shattering 70 years of tradition and consensus. But that analysis is more
wrong than right. By focusing on Trumpian rhetoric, bombast and late-night digital tirades, Trump’s critics are missing the
surprising resilience and stability of American foreign policy and undermining critiques of the president’s potentially more
important foreign policy mistakes. Yes, Trump himself is a maverick and populist. By virtue of his style and temperament, he has complicated
U.S. diplomacy, and lowered America's standing in the world at least temporarily. And yes, 2018 could bring momentous White House decisions
on issues like North Korea and Iran that may invalidate this analysis going forward. But largely because of the strength and coherence
of the foreign policy team that Trump assembled, 2017 in fact witnessed a far less dramatic departure in American
foreign policy than has often been alleged. It was, for example, certainly less momentous than 1950, 1964-1965, or 2001-2003 when the
nation went to war. To be sure, there were unfortunate decisions last year. Notable was Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, a
nonbinding and voluntary, but nonetheless important, step towards addressing a very serious global threat. Buddying up to Vladimir Putin has not
helped right the state of U.S.-Russia relations. The controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel probably made any re-
start of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations impossible in the near term. Greenlighting strongman behavior by the likes of President Sisi of Egypt and
President Duterte of the Philippines has called American values into doubt. But in each of these cases, the likely damage is limited. The Paris
accord remains very much alive, and U.S. state and local governments as well as much of the private sector will continue to promote clean energy
usage. The Jerusalem decision did not prejudge the borders of the Israeli capital, nor did it preclude Palestinians having a capital in East
Jerusalem someday. And on the various strongmen, Trump has encountered an age-old problem in American foreign policy of squaring interests
with values. Yes, he has struggled with this dilemma. But he has not been entirely wrong to sense that it is important to preserve working
relations even with autocratic countries like Russia and China. Meanwhile, he has rightly sustained U.S. military operations near Chinese and
Russian borders — including freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, as well as continuous U.S. and NATO military
deployments in Poland and the Baltic states. Candidate Trump questioned the value of American alliances around the world, emphasizing the
need for fair burden-sharing from any nations that expected American protection, and suggesting that countries like Japan and South Korea might
be better off with their own nuclear weapons. Yet President Trump has assembled a team — starting with Vice President Pence, plus
Mattis at the Pentagon, Kelly and McMaster in the White House, Haley in New York, Tillerson at Foggy Bottom — that quickly
underscored America's commitment to its allies and took active steps to demonstrate the enduring bonds. Over time, Trump himself
largely came around to recognize that it was dangerous to sow doubt about U.S. resoluteness, and his new national security strategy makes this
point clearly. On the conflicts with terrorists and Islamic extremists, while neither of these two men might welcome the comparison, Trump’s and
Obama’s policies share far more continuities than differences. Trump effectively sustained, and reinforced, the basic approaches
Obama had finally settled on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. The basic concepts have included
building up the capacity of partners, supporting them with airpower and special forces and drones, and prioritizing the defeat of ISIS as well as
any al Qaeda affiliates above other goals. Trump increased U.S. forces in each of these places, typically by 25% to 50% or so. He also wisely
lifted restrictions on the use of American airpower in Afghanistan while also making the U.S. commitment there of indefinite duration, so as not
to give our enemies there reason to think they could outwait us.
 1AR: Impeachment Good
Impeachment’s key to foreign policy crisis escalation – SCS and North Korea uniquely go
nuclear.
Andy Schmookler, 3/26/2017. Award-winning American author, public speaker, social commentator, and radio talk
show host. “Impeachment Delayed is America Imperiled,” Blue Virginia.
http://bluevirginia.us/2017/03/impeachment-delayed-america-imperiled

It looks to me increasingly likely that the Trump presidency will end with his removal from office through
impeachment (despite the effort of the Republicans to protect him.) The question is, when?
The other day, on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, the discussion of the Trump-Russia connection arrived
at the point that the FBI investigation must of course take precedence over the investigations by Congress. That’s
because congressional hearings and investigations could interfere with the ability of the FBI to build its cases and
then to prosecute those who have committed criminal acts. Then it was said that the completion of the FBI
investigation would likely take another year or two.
But this is no time to let the mills of justice grind slowly. The passage of time compounds the danger that the Trump
presidency is posing to the nation.
The paramount danger here is the threat of war. Threatening clouds hang over the world at present, and the United
States can ill afford to have Donald Trump’s hand on the helm.
It is hardly Trump’s fault that the problem with North Korea is gradually coming to a head: American presidents
since the 1990s have been attempting to prevent North Korean weapons from posing a nuclear threat to our Asian
allies and to the United States. The agreements reached have not worked. The hope that the regime would collapse
have not been fulfilled. And over the years, the North Korean stock of nuclear bombs has increased, and it has made
great progress toward acquiring the means of delivering atomic weapons to ever more distant targets.
Soon, the American mainland itself may be vulnerable to nuclear attack from a rogue regime and its psychologically
unstable leader.
The question of how to deal with North Korea, and with the Chinese government that props up Kim’s evil regime,
poses a challenge as difficult as anything American diplomacy – and the American military — have faced in a very
long time. Literally millions of lives are at stake . And if there were easy answers, Clinton or Bush or Obama
would have come up with them.
In such a delicate situation, we cannot afford to have a man with such an attenuated connection with reality,
animated by such primitive passions of dominance and vengeance, as our commander in chief.
Another potential flashpoint concerns the South China Sea. Here, too, Trump is not responsible for the problem:
China, with its rising power, has been asserting sovereignty over waters to which other nations have legitimate
claims, and the Chinese have brushed away the finding by an international tribunal in the Hague rejecting China’s
claims.
History has shown that the most dangerous threats to world peace emerge out of the confrontation between an
established hegemon (like the United States) and an ascendant power (like China). How to navigate toward a
rebalancing of the international order that accommodates new realities in relative power is another major challenge
for diplomacy—one that the world disastrously failed in 1914 and again in 1939.
Donald Trump is hardly the man [person] on whom we can safely rely to find our way through this potential
flashpoint for major-power confrontation.
And who knows what other areas of potential conflict may arise while the FBI takes another year or two to complete
its investigation?
(There are a few clouds developing in the Middle East, where the Russians have reportedly told Israel that its
“freedom to act” regarding Syria is over. Once before, at the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, a conflict
between Israel and its Arab neighbors led the U.S. and the Soviet Union to escalate their level of nuclear alert to a
level hardly reached hardly at all otherwise during the forty years of the Cold War.)
Every day that Donald Trump is president, America is spinning the chamber in a dangerous game of Russian
roulette .
The question needs to be asked: How important is the successful prosecution of a few individuals in comparison
with the successful navigation of potential international confrontations between nuclear powers?
This is not like the slow-moving process by which a 1972 break-in led to the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon.
Nixon, for all his faults, was an intelligent person with a sophisticated knowledge of international affairs. (And at his
elbow was another adept diplomat – Henry Kissenger –and not a let’s-destroy-the-world nut-job like Stephen
Bannon.) With Nixon, unlike with Trump – at least until his drunken ravings at the very end – we had a commander-
in-chief who, for all his faults, knew what was real and what was fantasy, and knew what he was doing.
But if it is decided that the FBI’s investigation really should take precedence, even if that would delay Congress’s
learning what Congress and the people should know about the possibly treasonous collusion of the Trump campaign
in the attack on our elections by an adversary of the United States, then another route to a speedy conclusion of the
Trump crisis should be taken.
Fortunately, there is such another route: although the most spectacular reason why this President should be removed
likely lies in the collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign, that it is not the only impeachable offense
we have every reason to believe that Trump has committed. There is also the issue of the “emoluments clause.”
Just from what is publicly known, it would appear clear enough that Trump has violated that clause of the
Constitution. The Government Ethics Office gave Trump clear warning that his total divestiture was required, lest
his conflicts of interest bring him into violation of the emoluments clause. But Trump disregarded that warning. And
bit by bit, the news has added to a pile of evidence that these conflicts of interest are real, are many, and are
corrupting the presidency.
So, if the Russia-Trump scandal does not provide the means to remove this unstable and incompetent commander-
in-chief quickly – because of the FBI investigation, or for whatever other reason – the security of the nation requires
us to proceed with all deliberate speed to avail ourselves of any other means available for getting that job.
And it would seem that the violation of the emoluments clause provides that means.