DoS CP

The United States federal government should:

• abolish its security cooperation activities, transferring all relevant resources and
responsibilities to the State Department;
• expand and train the security assistance workforce at the State Department;
• review and optimize the State Department’s security assistance structure for
interagency prioritization, planning, and dispute resolution.
• increase security assistance with NATO on cyber

Shifting responsibility for aid and reforming the State Department solves better
Bergmann & Schmitt 21 [Max Bergmann and Alexandra Schmitt, * senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress; served in the U.S. Department of State in a number of different positions, “A Plan To
Reform U.S. Security Assistance,” 03/09/21, Center for American Progress,
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/plan-reform-u-s-security-assistance/, Accessed: 05/17/22]

To change this, there is a straightforward solution: give the State Department the money. A new
administration and new Congress should redirect almost all of the DOD’s security assistance resources
to the State Department and build up the State Department’s capacity to administer assistance .
Clearly, such a transfer must be accompanied by swift and far-reaching internal reforms at the State
Department to enable this expanded role, but such reforms are long overdue and should not deter this
bold step.

This proposal would help to fix many of the challenges of a duplicative, bifurcated security assistance
system that spans multiple U.S. agencies and involves thousands of personnel. It would enable more
coherent overall policy on American security assistance, allowing aid decisions to be guided by general
foreign policy concerns and current priorities. It would better allow for ensuring that U.S. assistance
comports with American values, including working closely with democratic states and prioritizing
respect for human rights.

Otherwise, militarized foreign policy sparks war thru miscalculation

Bergmann & Schmitt 21 [Max Bergmann and Alexandra Schmitt, * senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress; served in the U.S. Department of State in a number of different positions, “A Plan To
Reform U.S. Security Assistance,” 03/09/21, Center for American Progress,
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/plan-reform-u-s-security-assistance/, Accessed: 05/17/22]

As a result, as the
United States sought to provide more security assistance to partners, it did so through the DOD.
This has created a bifurcated bureaucratic structure for administering security assistance that marginalizes
the State Department. The current system is both inefficient and ill-suited for the present foreign policy
environment. The new era of great power competition and today’s threats of climate change,
pandemics, and other nontraditional challenges demand a new and more integrated, agile, and wholistic
approach to U.S. assistance efforts. The foreign policy environment has shifted greatly over the last decade. Today’s security
assistance system emerged in the 9/11 era and was built for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, with a focus on confronting threats from
nonstate actors.5 This was encapsulated in the “building partnership capacity” strategy, outlined by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in
2010, which called for increasing the capabilities of developing states to better police and patrol their neighborhoods and to close off space for
insurgent groups.6 U.S. aid was often provided to nondemocratic states or partners that violated human rights but were considered critical
partners in the “war on terror.” Decisions were viewed as primarily operational, and aid was provided as needed to help partners tackle
imminent terrorist or insurgent threats. Almost all U.S. security aid provided year over year is driven by a strategic rationale that is centered on
building better counterterrorism partners. Today, U.S. aid to build up a partner’s military should be viewed through
the lens of competition between states, in addition to the ongoing counterterrorism concerns and state fragility challenges,
with much higher stakes for U.S. foreign policy and national interests . This renewed geopolitical competition is at its
core an ideological competition between states. China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence require the United States to realign its foreign policy
toward strengthening relations and bolstering democratic states. Security assistance is a tool to do so: It strengthens America’s
closest partners and fosters closer relationships with other states . When a country accepts U.S. military equipment or
enters into a long-term procurement or acquisition of U.S. defense equipment, they are tying their country to the United States. The U.S.
decision, for instance, to provide military aid to the United Kingdom through the lend-lease program in
the 1940s was not a simple military consideration but a foreign policy consideration with enormous
consequences.7 Today, U.S. decisions to provide weapons or support tie American officials to how that support is used—whether they like
it or not—as the case of U.S. support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen demonstrates. Moreover, countries that receive U.S.
military systems are not just buying equipment off the shelf; they are entering into a longer-term relationship with
that country for training, maintenance, and sustainment. This is similar to when a consumer buys a smart phone, as they
are not simply buying a piece of hardware; they are reliant on the company to access its broader ecosystem of apps and software and trusting
the company to safeguard important data. Over time, a consumer becomes locked in and dependent on a particular provider. Similarly, when a
state commits to expanding military-to-military ties—often the most sensitive area for a country—they are making a diplomatic bet on that
country. As they base their military on U.S. equipment and U.S. training and engagement, they similarly become locked in to the United States.
This sets the ground for more productive American partnerships to tackle a range of geopolitical challenges. For example, U.S. security
assistance has been key to building ties with Vietnam after the war between the two countries. American assistance provided to clear
unexploded ordnance has helped repair diplomatic relations between Hanoi and Washington, while the recent provision of a retired Coast
Guard ship to the Vietnam military can help strengthen military ties and potentially open the door to more U.S. assistance and security
cooperation, which will further strengthen bilateral relations.8 There are several reasons that today’s security assistance system must change: •
Current security policy decision-making perpetuates the status quo. The current system perpetuates an ineffective status quo, whereby the
United States often fails to effectively exert significant diplomatic leverage that it has through security assistance because the bureaucratic
structure to administer it—both within the State Department and between the State Department and the DOD—is not designed to advance
diplomatic efforts but merely to administer appropriated funds.9 This makes it challenging to change security assistance programs given shifting
foreign policy dynamics or changes in a partner’s behavior that may make them a less suitable recipient of U.S. security aid, such as democratic
backsliding or a pattern of human rights abuses. • U.S.
engagement with partners could be dominated by military
issues if foreign officials turn to DOD counterparts instead of diplomats for assistance resources.
Because the DOD controls its own security assistance accounts, other foreign policy concerns may get
trumped if partners go around the State Department to get aid from the Pentagon. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)
worried at a 2017 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the shift to increasing DOD authorities could “send a
fundamental message that the United States considers security relationships over all other U.S. foreign
policy objectives or concerns, including human rights or good governance.”10 Under the current framework, the State Department’s
ability to put the brakes on security assistance or military cooperation under DOD authorities is highly limited because the State Department
does not control implementation and can often only approve or disapprove of DOD proposals. While
State Department officials and
ambassadors can and sometimes do halt or temper problematic efforts, doing so requires exerting significant
political capital that is in short supply .11 Centralizing control at the State Department would help to fix this
bureaucratic imbalance between diplomacy and the Pentagon. • Defense priorities often undervalue
democratic and human rights concerns. Compared with the State Department, the DOD is less equipped to
effectively weigh human rights concerns in its decision-making. This makes it harder to leverage U.S.
military cooperation for economic or political concessions or changes that might bolster democratic goals. For
example, U.S. military objectives to counter terrorist groups in Somalia called for continuously supplying
Uganda with U.S. assistance despite growing human rights and democracy concerns.12 Putting the State
Department in charge would make it easier to realign U.S. security assistance toward democratic states and
effectively consider human rights issues in every security assistance decision. • Security
assistance in a tense era of great
power competition is extremely sensitive and can increase tension and lead to miscalculation. The risk
in today’s geopolitical environment is that providing sensitive and potentially provocative assistance will not
receive the same scrutiny from policymakers and will become the norm for the administering agency, the DOD.
In the last era of great power competition, the Cold War, security assistance often stoked tension between the
United States and the Soviet Union and led to spiraling commitments. For instance, Soviet provision of
nuclear missiles to Cuba led to a nuclear standoff, while U.S. military support for Vietnam led to
deepening U.S. engagement. As competition with China and Russia increases, security assistance could
once again prove a major source of tension and cause miscalculation. Providing aid in this environment is not
a mere technical military matter, but ultimately a political and diplomatic concern that is highly
sensitive. Yet today, it is the DOD that is driving assistance to countries such as Ukraine and regions such as
Southeast Asia.13 When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the National Security Council became significantly involved in policymaking and
limited types of assistance that could be provided, including lethal aid.14 Such unique scrutiny was warranted because there was a crisis
involving a U.S. partner and a nuclear-armed state. But the nature of White House intervention was necessary in large part because the security
assistance process—for both decision-making and for providing assistance—was broken. • A
military-led response can
overprioritize military engagement and could unintentionally steer American engagements into high-
risk confrontations. Without careful calibration and understanding of broader political context, there is
real concern that the DOD could get ahead of U.S. policy or drive it in a more military-centric direction.
For example, China could interpret the DOD’s provision of some security assistance through the agency’s
Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative as an act of aggression if it is not carefully and effectively
calibrated against broader political concerns in the region .15 Given the political sensitivities of great
power competition, responsibility and oversight for security assistance decisions should rest with the
agency most in tune with broader U.S. foreign policy concerns and diplomatic developments: the State
Department. Reforming security assistance by centralizing it at the State Department would help to
elevate the diplomatic considerations of this policy area, while reducing the military-first priorities of the
current system that are ill-suited to today’s geopolitical challenges.
 Tradeoff DA
The upcoming budget is a major win for tech R&D, BUT it requires avoiding
competition and tradeoffs with other priorities.
Sean Carberry, 5-31-2022 [Managing Editor at National Defense. "Budget Matters: 2023 Science,
Technology Budget a Mixed Bag," National Defense ||
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/5/31/2023-science-technology-budget-a-
mixed-bag]

The fiscal year 2023 Defense Department budget proposal is a big win for research, development, test and
evaluation — particularly the science and technology portion of the funding — according to senior officials. However, a closer
analysis of the request and the impact of inflation indicates the proposal is less than the fiscal year 2022 enacted budget. The 2023 budget
proposal includes $130 billion for RDT&E , a 16 percent increase above the 2022 proposed defense budget.
The portion for science and technology — budget activity codes 6.1 through 6.3 — includes $16.5 billion , a 12 percent
increase, said Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu during a National Defense Industry Association-hosted
webinar April 20. Shyu’s office would receive $1.6 billion in science-and-technology funding, a 21 percent increase. “So, it’s a huge jump,”
said Shyu. Basic research for the entire Defense Department is nearly $2.4 billion, a 4 percent increase, and Shyu’s office
would receive $244 million, a 23 percent increase, under the proposed 2023 budget. In terms of investment priorities, funding for Shyu’s
office aligns with the 14 “critical technology areas” she outlined in a Feb 1 memo. Microelectronics — particularly onshoring
— 5G, hypersonics, directed energy and integrated sensing and cyber top the list based on funding. Rear Adm.
Lorin Selby, chief of naval research in the Office of Naval Research stated in the webinar that one-third of the Navy’s science-and-technology
priorities align with the research and engineering office’s critical technology areas, and the rest are Navy-centric. Some of the Navy’s science-
and-technology priorities for its proposed $2.6 billion funding include unmanned systems, sonar buoys, electric laser systems and tools to
collect and fuse live and virtual training data. “We need tools that help us prioritize and focus on what the humans should focus on and let the
machines do the things the machines can do,” said Selby. “This is one I’m doubling down on.” The Air Force’s $3.15 billion science-and-
technology budget is split with 25 percent for enduring Air Force priorities — such as munitions, engines, aircraft power, nuclear systems and
low observable technologies — and 75 percent for the critical technology areas. Space Force priorities include combat power projection,
information mobility and space security. For 2023, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking $896
million for microelectronics — which is largely driven by the next phase of the agency’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative to promote
onshoring — $414 million for biotechnology, $412 million for artificial intelligence , $184 million for cyber, and
$90 million for hypersonics. The Army’s $2.7 billion science-and-technology budget focuses on six longstanding modernization
priorities — such as long-range precision fires, future vertical lift and soldier lethality. Within that are priority research areas, including
disruptive energetics, hypersonic flight, autonomy, additive manufacturing and synthetic biology . “There is a
world beyond 2030, and so we have to really start swinging the pendulum back just a little bit and focusing on those enabling technologies … to
look and mature technologies for what’s next,” said Jeffrey Singleton, director for technology in the office of the assistant secretary of the
Army. Panelists stressed efforts to expand the pool of technology partners and invest in future workforce. The research and engineering office’s
budget for Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs climbs to $191 million in the 2023 proposal.
The officials also noted increased funding for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and for historically Black colleges
and universities. Selby argued money is important, but there are structural problems that need to be addressed
to ensure programs are achieving objectives and moving technology forward. “Part of this has to do with the fact that we have got many,
many people that get a say in what happens to these different pots of money … there’s no single conductor,” he
said. “So, you have multiple conductors that are trying to compete with each other … because we’re all
operating under different incentives, different priorities, different budget timelines, different acquisition timelines,
we have these missed opportunities left and right,” he added.
The plan’s security cooperation trades off – info asymmetry and related cooperation
magnify the link.
Angela O’Mahony et al., 2018 [Angela (Angel) O'Mahony is associate dean for academic affairs at
Pardee RAND Graduate School and a senior political scientist at RAND. “Assessing, Monitoring, and
Evaluating Army Security Cooperation” RAND ||
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2100/RR2165/RAND_RR2165.pdf]
AM&E for Army security cooperation activities is key to understanding and maximizing impact. The framework for assessing, monitoring, and
evaluating Army security cooperation presented in Chapter Six develops an AM&E process for understanding individual security cooperation
activities. However, Army security cooperation planners are faced with the challenging task of prioritizing
security cooperation activities across strategic objectives—that is, of how to craft effective security cooperation
portfolios. In particular, there are three main factors that make security cooperation portfolio planning difficult . There is the
problem of determining the relative priority of theater objectives while seeking also to balance the requirements
of the short-term against the long-term interest. This problem often results not from lax practice but rather genuine
trade-offs difficult to resolve definitively across government departments, across services, and among DoD
civilian leadership. Further, it is difficult to ascribe direct causal relationships between security cooperation activities and the outcomes they
produce. Finally, there is the problem of uncertainty itself. Planners neither possess full information of sufficiently
consistent quality on all relevant factors nor can they fully anticipate future trends and occurrences that could profoundly
affect security cooperation outcomes. The problem becomes even more complicated if we recognize that any single
security cooperation activity is rarely pursued in isolation from other activities within a partner country. Even within the
Army’s security cooperation plan for a partner there will usually be a number of activities being conducted
simultaneously. As a result, Army security cooperation activities are better thought of as components within an integrated security
cooperation portfolio designed to achieve broader strategic objectives.

Military emerging tech investment is the key decider of international competitiveness.

US has the advantage, but consistent funding is key to retain it.
Kelley M. Sayler, 4-6-2022 [Analyst in Advanced Technology and Global Security for CRS. “Emerging
Military Technologies: Background and Issues for Congress” Congressional Research Service ||
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R46458.pdf]

Members of Congress and Pentagon officials are increasingly focused on developing emerging military
technologies to enhance U.S. national security and keep pace with U.S. competitors. The U.S. military has
long relied upon technological superiority to ensure its dominance in conflict and to underwrite U.S.
national security. In recent years, however, technology has both rapidly evolved and rapidly proliferated—largely as a
result of advances in the commercial sector. As former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel observed, this development has threatened
to erode the United States’ traditional sources of military advantage. The Department of Defense (DOD) has undertaken a
number of initiatives to arrest this trend. For example, in 2014, DOD announced the Third Offset Strategy, an effort to exploit emerging
technologies for military and security purposes as well as associated strategies, tactics, and concepts of operation. In support of this strategy,
DOD established a number of organizations focused on defense innovation, including the Defense Innovation Unit and the Defense Wargaming
Alignment Group. More recently, the 2018 National Defense Strategy echoed the underpinnings of the Third Offset Strategy, noting that U.S.
national security will likely be affected by rapid technological advancements and the changing character of
war…. New technologies include advanced computing, “big data” analytics, artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics,
directed energy, hypersonics, and biotechnology—the very technologies that ensure we will be able to fight
and win the wars of the future. The United States is the leader in developing many of these technologies. However,
China and Russia—key strategic competitors—are making steady progress in developing advanced military
technologies. As these technologies are integrated into foreign and domestic military forces and deployed, they could hold
significant implications for the future of international security writ large , and will have to be a
significant focus for Congress, both in terms of funding and program oversight.

Decline of US tech leadership causes nuclear war.

Kroenig 18, Deputy Director for Strategy, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Associate
Professor of Government and Foreign Service, Georgetown University (Matthew, Nov 12, 2018, “Will
disruptive technology cause nuclear war?” BAS, https://thebulletin.org/2018/11/will-disruptive-
technology-cause-nuclear-war)

You may see where this is going. New

technologies threaten to create potentially destabilizing shifts in the
balance of power. For decades, stability in Europe and Asia has been supported by US military power. In
recent years, however, the balance of power in Asia has begun to shift , as China has increased its military
capabilities. Already, Beijing has become more assertive in the region, claiming contested territory in the
South China Sea. And the results of Russia’s military modernization have been on full display in its ongoing intervention in Ukraine.
Moreover, China may have the lead over the United States in emerging technologies that could be decisive
for the future of military acquisitions and warfare, including 3D printing, hypersonic missiles, quantum
computing, 5G wireless connectivity, and artificial intelligence (AI). And Russian President Vladimir Putin is building
new unmanned vehicles while ominously declaring, “Whoever leads in AI will rule the world.” If China or Russia are able to incorporate new
technologies into their militaries before the United States, then this could lead to the kind of rapid shift in the balance of power that often
causes war. If
Beijing believes emerging technologies provide it with a newfound, local military advantage
over the United States, for example, it may be more willing than previously to initiate conflict over
Taiwan. And if Putin thinks new tech has strengthened his hand, he may be more tempted to launch a
Ukraine-style invasion of a NATO member. Either scenario could bring these nuclear powers into direct
conflict with the United States, and once nuclear armed states are at war, there is an inherent risk of
nuclear conflict through limited nuclear war strategies, nuclear brinkmanship, or simple accident or
inadvertent escalation. This framing of the problem leads to a different set of policy implications. The concern is not simply
technologies that threaten to undermine nuclear second-strike capabilities directly, but, rather, any technologies that can result in a meaningful
shift in the broader balance of power. And the solution is not to preserve second-strike capabilities, but to preserve prevailing power balances
more broadly. When it comes to new technology, this means that the United States should seek to maintain an innovation edge. Washington
should also work with other states, including its nuclear-armed rivals, to develop a new set of arms control and nonproliferation agreements
and export controls to deny these newer and potentially destabilizing technologies to potentially hostile states. These
are no easy
tasks, but the consequences of Washington losing the race for tech nological superiority to its autocratic
challengers just might mean nuclear Armageddon.
 Turkey PIC
The United States Federal Government should increase its security cooperation with
Albania

Belgium

Bulgaria

Canada

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Montenegro

Netherlands

North Macedonia

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia
Spain

United Kingdom

in [insert plan language].

The counterplan solves. It has 29 NATO states jointly cooperate. Excluding Turkey PICs
out of the spoiler.
Bandow 21, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute (Doug, “Eight reasons why the U.S. should ditch Turkey
as a military partner,” Responsible Statecraft, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/23/eight-
reasons-why-the-u-s-should-ditch-turkey-as-a-military-partner/)//BB

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed his country and its relationship with America — but not
for the better. President Donald Trump’s personal ties to Erdogan may have disguised the widening divergence in interests, but a
chasm has now truly opened between the two governments, requiring a much tougher approach
toward Ankara than in the past. The Republic of Turkey grew out of the ramshackle Ottoman Empire, which collapsed at the end of World
War I. Ankara joined NATO in 1952, controlling access to the Black Sea and serving as the alliance’s southeast foundation. The Pentagon
was always Ankara’s strongest booster, since Incirlik and Izmir Air Bases extended Washington’s military reach in the Middle East.
Turkey also was presented as a model of Islamic democracy, despite the military’s ruthless intervention in the illiberal political system, staging
soft and hard coups, and invading the Republic of Cyprus in 1974. For America, the Cold War was more important than human rights. Erdogan’s
Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the 2002 election and began to transform Turkey. After a decade of modest reform and good press,
Erdogan turned Turkey in an authoritarian, corrupt, and Islamist direction. Repression accelerated after a failed coup in July 2016, months
before Trump was elected, provided Erdogan with a Turkish version of the Reichstag fire. Freedom House rates Turkey as not
free, reporting that the government “has pursued a dramatic and wide-ranging crackdown on perceived opponents” since that attempted
coup event. Based on scant evidence, Erdogan accused the Hizmet movement’s Fethullah Gulen of being behind the putsch. He has tried, but so
far unsuccessfully, to have Gulen extradited from his exile in Pennsylvania. Erdogan then turned his country into a prison
state. Even the slightest connection — teaching at a Hizmet school, or using a bank owned by a Hizmet member — resulted in dismissal,
arrest, and/or imprisonment. Journalists and opposition politicians remain frequent targets, especially when Erdogan’s poll ratings dip.
Reported Freedom House: Opposition gains and economic troubles “have given the government new incentives to suppress dissent and limit
public discourse.” Moreover, Turkish foreign policy is increasingly at odds with U.S. policy. The challenge is not that
Erdogan is taking independent positions, but rather is actively undermining U.S. policies. Among the problem areas:
One: Treating another NATO ally, Greece, and a European Union member, Cyprus, as adversaries. Unhappy over Greece’s
possession of islands near Turkey’s coast, Ankara refuses to recognize Greek airspace and territorial waters, leading to dangerous military
confrontations. The Erdogan government continues to resist efforts to end the partition of Cyprus and interfere with efforts by the
internationally recognized government of Cyprus to develop nearby hydrocarbons. Some observers fear a Turkish-Greco war. Two: Forging a
military relationship with Russia. Ankara purchased Moscow’s S-400 air defense system, resulting in Turkey’s ouster from the F-35
program. The Erdogan government plans to buy additional S-400 missiles. Turkey also has reached accommodations with Moscow involving
Syria and other regional issues, though the two governments’ alignment is not perfect. Erdogan has negatively contrasted his relationship with
President Joe Biden to that with Putin. Ozgur Unluhisarcikli of the German Marshall Fund opined that Erdogan seeks “a counterbalancing
alliance with Russia against the US.” If
Ankara was forced to choose between NATO and Russia in a conflict, the
allies could not be confident that Turkey would fulfill its alliance commitments . Three: Adopting an expansive,
neo-Ottoman maritime doctrine known as Blue Homeland, which seeks to dominate the Mediterranean . Once stuck at
the policymaking fringe, this strategy envisions controlling waters claimed by Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel. Clashes over contending
territorial claims have increased chances of violent confrontation. Ankara’s desire to strengthen its maritime position spurred its intervention in
Libya’s civil war. Four: Arming
Azerbaijan and encouraging it to restart hostilities with Armenia over the
disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The result was a bitter fight and abundant war crimes. There were unverified claims
that Ankara shot down an Armenian aircraft and deployed Syrian mercenaries on Azerbaijan’s behalf. A side impact was to deepen Russia’s role.
Five: Intervening in Libya’s civil war . Ankara backed the Islamist Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, violating the United
Nations weapons embargo. Turkish vessels confronted French and German ships tasked with preventing arms smuggling. In return the Tripoli
authorities accepted a maritime boundary agreement privileging Ankara in waters also claimed by Greece and Cyprus. Six: Treating the
Islamic State and other radical groups operating in Syria as co-belligerents if not allies. Ankara brazenly facilitated ISIS
border crossings and oil sales; charges of corruption tainted Erdogan’s family. Even Vice President Joe Biden inconveniently acknowledged
Ankara’s role. Seven: Targeting the Kurdish-dominated People’s Defense Units , or YPG, in Syria. The Erdogan government
twice invaded Syrian Kurdish territory, utilizing U.S.-supplied weapons and employing jihadist forces previously active elsewhere in Syria.
Amnesty International cited “a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and
unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians, during the offensive into northeast Syria.” The YPG was Washington’s main ally fighting
ISIS on the ground, yet Ankara is threatening to invade again. Eight: Using Syrian fighters as mercenaries via private military companies, in
particular, the SADAT International Defense Consultancy, to meddle in conflicts abroad, including Libya and the Caucasus. These forces are
essentially accountable to no one. Despite this terrible record, Ankara’s ambassador to the US, Hasan Murat Mercan, recently argued that
“Turkey stands as a reliable ally that can deliver at the moment of crisis — a friend in need.” However, policy differences have been
exacerbated by Erdogan’s personal hostility. He recently went before the Turkish National Assembly to denounce “those who ignored our
country in the region for years — and confronted us with maps and demands that would imprison us into our coasts — irst tried the language of
threat and blackmail after the steps we took.” Moreover, Erdogan’s ambitions have grown increasingly radical. As he told the National
Assembly: “There is no chance left for this distorted order, in which the entire globe is encumbered by a handful of greedy people, to continue
to exist the way it currently does.” There was little doubt about who he meant. The
greater his domestic political problems,
the more aggressive his foreign policy is likely to become. Which is dangerous to the US . In 2015 the Erdogan
government recklessly downed a Russian warplane that briefly entered Turkish airspace. Had Russia’s Vladimir Putin responded with force
America and Europe could have ended up at war. Today Moscow’s and Ankara’s respective proxies, the Syrian government, and Idlib-area
insurgents, also couldspark a conflict. So could Ankara’s increasingly aggressive activities elsewhere — North Africa,
Mediterranean, Mideast, and Central Asia — which often are at variance with NATO’s interest. Turkey’s band of American friends
is diminishing. Some are stuck in the past, remembering the ally Ankara once was. Other analysts prefer to wait for Erdogan’s passage across
the River Styx, given rumors about his health. However, in two decades he would still be younger than Joe Biden. The political waters at home
have grown rougher, but so far he has surmounted every challenge with increasing force. Nor would a new president and parliamentary
majority necessarily transform Ankara’s policies. Turkish public opinion is nationalistic, conspiracy-minded, and ever more hostile toward the
U.S. Indeed, a recent poll found that six of ten Turks viewed America as the greatest threat to Turkey, compared to just 19 percent who
fingered Russia. Today Ankara could not enter the transatlantic alliance. Washington should minimize its reliance on Turkey
and the latter’s threat to U.S. interests. The U.S. should remove its nuclear weapons stored at Incirlik Air Base, and downgrade use of
the facility, access to which remains under Erdogan’s erratic control. If Washington intervened in the Mideast less often, the base would matter
less. In any case, there are alternatives: In response to Ankara’s
policies U.S.-Greek military ties have recently expanded. The
Pentagon should limit arm sales, building on the F-35 sales ban. Finally, the Biden administration should begin NATO
discussions on options ranging from limiting Turkey’s role in decision-making to ousting Ankara from the transatlantic
alliance. Two months ago Erdogan admitted: “I cannot say that a healthy process is running in Turkish-American ties.” Yet
Washington’s policy reflects the continuing illusion that Turkey remains a loyal and reliable U.S. ally ,
European partner, and NATO member. None of these are true. A change in policy is long overdue .

Treating Turkey as a normal ally is bad

Kardaş 19 (Şaban Kardaş, Professor of International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and
Techology. Uncertainty, Power, and Rethinking Turkish-U.S. Relations after S-400 Debacle, German
Marshall Fund of the United States, 2019, Pg. 1-5 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep21246.pdf) –
ED

Turkey’s determination to move ahead with the procurement of the Russian S-400 missile-defense
system at the risk of sanctions by the United States has revived the debate on the future of its relations
with its long-term ally. There has been a flourishing array of views on how things got to this point and where they might be heading. While much
responsibility is put on Turkey’s unyielding strategic choices, the United States is also complicit for its
inability to handle the relationship. Moving beyond the blame game, Nicholas Danforth identifies two broad narratives to explain Turkish conduct: “frustration”
with an insensitive ally and “fear” from the threatening actions of an adversarial power. These two narratives correlate with the levels-of- analysis framework academics use to explain state
behavior. In it, different factors at the individual, state, or systemic levels account for why states act the way they do, including forming alliances. Danforth’s “frustration” narrative is grounded
in a state or systemic level of analysis, whereas the “fear” one relates mainly to the individual level of analysis. Until the recent delivery of components of the Russian weapons platform in
Turkey, system- and state-level analyses prevailed in evaluations of the unfolding crisis. Many in Turkey and abroad had assumed that by opening new channels of communication the United
States would convince, if not pressure, Turkish decision-makers to make a last-minute deal and change course. In addition to various mutual visits by official delegations, for instance, Senator
Lindsay Graham and other lawmakers met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss issues affecting the Turkish-U.S. relationship. But this did not suffice to affect the outcome. President
Erdoğan, having emphasized on many occasions his promises to his Russian counterpart, showed his strong conviction to go ahead with a “done deal” despite pressure to change course.
Moreover, he stressed his unease with Turkey’s Western partners especially after failed coup attempt of 2016. In that respect, taking delivery of the S-400s turned out to be a counterintuitive
move by Turkey, reflecting how individual-level considerations can shape state behavior and override systemic imperatives. Perhaps what enabled the individual-level—or “fear”— factor to

Systemic transformations weakened the

carry the day in Turkish decision-making is its coalescence with the system-level—or “frustration”— factor.

fundamentals of the Turkish-U.S. alliance and created an environment within which a new thinking came
to dominate Turkey’s external conduct. Since the structural causes of divergence were already there, it is no surprise to see the “frustration” argument being
widely embraced in Turkey to justify the S-400 decision. What is striking, however, is that it is not only adopted by the bureaucracy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by moderate
commentators, as suggested by Danforth, but also by the major opposition parties. For instance, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, reacted to the
pressure by the U.S. Congress on President Donald Trump to impose sanctions by arguing that the risks posed by Turkey’s geography justified the S-400 purchase. What Went Wrong? The root
causes of the divergence between Turkey and the United States long predate the S-400 saga. They foreshadowed the fracturing of the relationship throughout the Syrian crisis, which many

At least for a decade now, the Turkish-U.S.

analysts mistakenly treated as the main trigger for the strategic decoupling by the two allies.

relationship has required a proper redefinition, if not a new guiding framework. There was no scarcity of
calls for this to happen either. For example, I argued in 2010 that “It might be time for the United States
to abandon the search for redefining the relationship [with Turkey] on ‘partnership’ models .” The sea change
in the relationship is the product of various factors. Harboring a regionally driven understanding of international relations in the post- Cold War era, Turkey has opted to base its external
conduct on the quest for strategic autonomy. Likewise, a desire to adjust to global power transitions has lurked in the background. In its strategic thinking, especially with the AK Party at the
helm, Turkey already lives in a world of multipolarity and seeks flexibility when it comes to alliance choices. Moreover, a deliberate attempt to challenge the power asymmetry inherent in the
relationship with the United States shapes the worldview of Turkey’s current leadership. Consequently, every foreign policy issue has been framed as yet another battleground for correcting
the “unequal” and “unfair” treatment by the United States and for breaking the dependence on Turkey’s senior partner. Furthermore, the cycle of insecurity following the Arab Spring of 2011
overwhelmed Turkey’s strategic thinking to such an extent that concerns for state and regime survival came to the forefront. The fragmentation of states and collapse of central authority in
the region posed direct challenges to Turkey, and a concern to prevent spillover effects came to dominate its thinking. Last but not the least, the reconfiguration of Turkey’s domestic political
scene—in terms of governance model and body politic—under the pressures of the post-Arab Spring regional turmoil brought about a new political culture, altering the normative fabric and
personal dimensions of the relationship with the United States. In particular, the redesign of the domestic political system into a presidential one and the reconfiguration of the governing bloc
with the alliance between the AK Party and the Nationalist Action Party to cater to the needs of the ruling elite precipitated a search for new external allies and weakened the traditional
domestic pillars and constituencies of the alliance with the United States. Uncertainty, Leadership, and Alliances in a Post-U.S. World Largely ignored in the debate in the United States on “who
lost Turkey” is the question of how the S-400 crisis relates to the wider debate on the role of “ What allies such as Turkey see is a deep structural uncertainty about the grand strategy of the
United States and its inability to make credible commitments. alliances in today’s international system. What has been fundamentally altered in the post-Cold War era is not just the
foundations of the Turkish-U.S. relationship, but the very meaning and mechanics of alliance behavior. Amid the endless arguments about retrenchment, rebalancing, offshore balancing, the
decline of U.S. primacy, liberal internationalism, and patriotism, what U.S. allies such as Turkey see is a deep structural uncertainty about the grand strategy of the United States and its

It is no secret that the United States had no easy ride in building or maintaining
inability to make credible commitments.

alliances in the unipolar era. Likewise, it has been far from perfect in exercising constructive and
cooperative leadership that satisfies the needs of its allies. These two problems have been aggravated as
the United States had to find ingenious ways to deal with allies that are less willing to abide a top-down
partnership model. Perhaps equally problematic has been Washington’s handling of adversaries. It has
failed to exercise its power to change the behavior of these through a mix of rewards or punishment. As
has been demonstrated repeatedly, U.S. power has not automatically yielded the outcomes desired. For
example, the inability of the United States to counter Russia’s assertiveness since the war in Georgia in
2008, despite threats and sanctions, and to build a coalition to contain it has been noted by its allies and adversaries alike. Reacting to U.S Power There have been at least two distinct
reactions by second-tier powers like Turkey to the travails of U.S. preponderance. First, uncertainty has bred frustration as many still expect the United States to exercise leadership of some
sort. Its failure to offer a shared vision to allies, let alone signaling its strategic priorities in a post-U.S. world, forces many of them to look for ways to guard their interests through unilateral
action or strategies of hedging. Second, many countries still view the United States as too powerful despite the erosion of unipolarity. At least since the 2003 Iraq War, scholars like Stephen
Walt have warned about the potential dangers involved in untamed exercise of U.S. power. Since then the United States’ allies and adversaries alike have engaged in acts of “soft balancing”—
that is, actions “that use nonmilitary tools to delay, frustrate, and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies”. The accumulation of such practices arguably precipitates
counterbalancing behavior on the part of second-tier powers, including building alliances with like-minded countries. Turkey’s S-400 decision has elements of both factors, which is nicely
captured in the “fear and frustration” analogy. Its developing strategic relationship with Russia serves as a hedge against “the United States as an unreliable ally” and as a counterbalancing tool
against “the United States as a threatening adversary.” It further illustrates how alignment behavior is driven by leaders’ attributes, including their worldviews and survival calculations as much
as national strategic considerations. Turkey’s decision to forge closer ties with Russia cannot be fully explained without taking into account how perceptions of threat at the individual level can
come to dominate decision- making. As for the United States, it has watched—if not allowed—the sea change in Turkey happen without undertaking preemptive steps to address the root
causes of the flourishing Turkish-Russian relationship. Instead, in Washington’s lexicon, Turkey has gone from being an “intrinsically strategically important ally” to “too strategically important
to be lost to the other side.” But even the latter view, which has kept many frictions from escalating, no longer holds as Turkey increasingly has become the subject of punitive language and
sanctions. The country’s slide further toward the status of “dispensable ally” raises intriguing questions. Going beyond the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration in
Washington, there probably is a systemic logic behind the ease with which the United States has downgraded Turkey’s status. It may be part of a deliberate policy of rebalancing global U.S.

There seems to be a deep belief in Turkey that the onus of

commitments, rather than the mishandling of the relationship. The Way Forward

mending ties lies with the United States. Just as the country’s leadership has insistently advocated in the
S-400 crisis, it expects the United States to understand Turkey’s concerns and to act accordingly . In moving
beyond the crisis, the thinking in Ankara will continue to challenge the inequality inherent in the very nature of the transatlantic alliance and remain bent on reconfiguring the relationship on a

It is far from certain, however, the United States is ready to revise its cognitive map to
new notion of alliance.

accommodate Turkish concerns in a new structured partnership model. As I have argued before, this
would “connote long-term commitments and cooperative behavior on the part of Turkey that might
prove impossible to sustain. Instead, both parties might consider letting the relationship evolve on an
ad hoc basis involving The United States has to find ways to address the structural uncertainty about its grand strategy, which, if unattended, may breed more distrust in
Turkey. different degrees of cooperation and competition as interests overlap or diverge.” Moreover, at
this stage, the problem may not lie so much in the lack of dialogue as much as in the incompatibility of
strategic visions. Perhaps it would be better for both countries to brace themselves for a continued
volatile period in their relations. Nonetheless, the United States still has to find ways to address the
structural uncertainty about its grand strategy, which, if unattended, may breed more distrust in Turkey.
It has to continue looking for ways to exercise its power more judiciously , as this remains a major
prism for how others define their relations with it. Otherwise, the United States risks not only the
decades-old alliance relationship with Turkey but also alliance solidarity in NATO.

That kills NATO and EU credibility

Kogan 18 (Eugene Kogan, held research fellowships at Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Auswaertige Politik,
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, the Swedish Defence Research Agency, the Swedish National Defence
College, and the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Was a researcher for Harvard.
Russian-Turkish Relations and their Impact on NATO and the EU, European Security and Defense. 6-26-
18. http://gpf-europe.com/upload/esd_02-2018-2-30-32_kogan.pdf) – ED 
The Black Sea region is one of the re- gions in which Turkey has lost its influ- ence to Russia. NATO and the EU have no influence
on relations between Rus- sia and Turkey, as the Presidents of both countries either ignore the EU's efforts or, as in the case of
Erdogan, despise their at- tempts to appease him. In addition, NATO has no mechanism for excluding Turkey as a
member state. Although the EU has implicitly suspended negotiations on Tur- key's possible EU
membership, it is not prepared to make a clear statement that Turkey will not join the Union in the fore-
seeable future. The leaders of both organ- izations continue to hope that Erdogan will change the
authoritarian course of the country and return to a European way and reconsider the comfortable
relations with Putin. Erdogan has other plans, and as a result the leaders of NATO and the EU are likely
to wait in vain. It must be emphasised that Erdogan was and is not an equal partner in the Turkish– Russian relationship, although both
Presi- dent Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Er- dogan have a similarly authoritarian style of government. Erdogan called Putin "my
dear friend Vladimir" at a press confer- ence in St. Petersburg on 9 August 2016, shortly after the restoration of bilateral relations,
which were damaged by a Turk- ish F-16 fighter plane on 24 November 2015 after the launch of a Russian Su-24 bomber. But Putin did not call
Erdogan "my dear friend" Tayyip. There is a saying that Russia has no friends. As the Russian Tsar Alexander III previously said: has only two
allies – the army and the navy." And in the 21st century, Russia also has nuclear deterrence and the right of veto in the UN Security Council. It
can therefore be said that Putin does not regard Erdogan as a friend, but as an unequal counterpart. In addition, Murat Bilhan, former head of
the Turkish Foreign Ministry's Strategic Re- search Centre, said: "Behind Putin's smile, Russia remains a great state and can show its talons
whenever it suits him. Turkey could never compete with Russia. Russia is a superpower, while Turkey is a regional power." Turkey should not be
under any illusions about its role in relations, namely that of the second fiddle. While Erdogan's authoritarian rule has alienated allies in Europe
and the United States, it has strengthened Putin's control over Turkey and embarrassed Erdogan. Pu- tin's economic sanctions against Turkey in
November 2015 caused serious damage to the Turkish economy when Russian tour- ists stayed away from Turkey. Putin can im- pose these
economic sanctions and travel Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with representatives of the Russian
Defence Ministry to discuss Russian “counter-terrorism operations” in Syria. On 13 November 2017, Vladimir Putin met with President of
Turkey Re- cep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi to discuss bilateral relations and current issues on the international agenda. 28 European Security &
Defence · March 2018 Photo: Kremlin.ru Photo: Kremlin.ru have received unconditional support from Russia. The cost of unconditional support
from Russia remains high and has a long- term impact. In addition, the renewed co- operation between Ankara and Moscow is to take place on
Russian terms, and Turkey reluctantly accepts this reality." The
never-ending story of Erdogan's deci- sion to buy the S-
400 air defence system from Russia is an example of Putin's view of Moscow's support for Turkey.
Turkey buys a system that is not compatible with NATO standards and cannot be integrated into
NATO's air defence system. That is why Turkey must confine itself to its own archi- tecture. Even if Russia is ready to carry out
maintenance work, maintenance is carried out by Russian and not by Turkish workers. At the same time, Russia is not prepared to supply
software codes, IFF systems, joint production with Turkey and certainly no technology transfer to Turkey. And this de- spite the Turkish side's
persistence to gain access to the software codes and the IFF system. In addition, the system cannot be delivered to Turkey before 2020. This is a
high price paid by Turkey for unconditional support from Russia. The statement by Ca- SECURITY POLICY  restrictions on Turkey if he feels that
Er- dogan is not listening to him. In addition, Putin can impose sanctions at any time and without warning, which he can promise. Therefore, the
relationship is one of senior and junior partners, even though Erdogan does not see this reality. But as Atilla Yesi- lada of Global Source
Partners, a consul- tancy firm based in Istanbul, said in January 2017: "The Turkish government has com- pletely decoupled itself from reality.
This is not the case with Putin, who is playing a tough, well-calculated and manipulative game against Erdogan and at the same time knows how
to deal with the volatile Erdogan correctly, compared to the rather timid attitude of Turkey's Western allies." There is no doubt that Turkey did
not only push itself into Russian orbit in 2015, but al- ready in 2008, because Turkey was already dependent on 60 percent of gas supplies from
Russia at that time. Today, the figure is 55 percent. Turkey has no choice but to rely on Russia's good will, and Turkey pays in hard currency. The
idea that Turkey must diversify its gas imports away from Russia and become a gas hub has remained an idea. In 2014, according to Turkey's
foreign trade statistics, exports to Russia amount- ed to US$5.9Bn, while imports from Rus- sia amounted to US$25.2Bn. The first six months of
2016 were Turkey's worst export result since 2004, and the most striking as- pect of trade with Russia is that it has been in favour of Russia
from the outset. Russia sells more to Turkey than Turkey sells to Russia. Turkey's dependence on Russian gas and oil (10 percent of oil comes
from Russia) is a major factor in this imbalance. The current situation is unlikely to change, as Turkey's energy requirements will dou- ble in the
next decade. Another factor in this imbalance is the increasing number of Russian tourists in Turkey. In addition to Turkey's dependence on Rus-
sian gas and Russian tourists, the Russian- Georgian war in August 2008 sent a clear message to Ankara, namely that Ankara can only increase
its influence in its imme- diate neighbourhood, namely in the Black Sea region, by coordinating with Moscow and not with its NATO allies. And
that is exactly what has happened since then. Turkey's failed coup d'état on 15 July 2016 has further consolidated relations between Russia and
Turkey. In a telephone call with Erdogan on 17 July 2016, Putin stressed the "categorical inadmissibility of anti-consti- tutional acts and violence
in state life" and reaffirmed his intention to meet Erdogan in Russia. Putin's reaction was in stark con- trast to that of the Western allies. Turkish
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on 25 July 2016: "Unlike other countries, we A Russian S-400 Air Defence System on a BAZ trailer
chassis On 24 November 2015, a Turkish F-16 fighter aircraft shot down a Rus- sian Su-24 aircraft near the Syrian-Turkish border. The Turkish Air
Force claimed that the Russian aircraft violated Turkish airspace. The Russian pilot Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin said on Russian TV there was "no
way" the jet could have violated Turkish airspace. Turkey says the pilots were warned 10 times before the plane was shot down. Capt.
Murakhtin was rescued from rebel-held territory in Syria in a 12-hour operation involving Russian Special Forces. The incident strained Russian-
Turkish relations. March 2018 · European Security & Defence 29 Graphics: Donor Furfur, Wikipedia CC Photo: Vitaly Kuzmin, Wikipedia CC
vusoglu that "Ankara can refuse to buy the S-400 if Moscow refuses to stop joint production in Turkey on 9 October 2017" should be taken with
a grain of salt. Cavusoglu is not the one who decided to buy the S-400. Cavusoglu's attempt to put the Russians under pressure is not taken
seriously by Moscow and the Russians laugh behind Cavusoglu's back. After all, the Turkish cash deposit of around US$100M for the purchase
of the S-400 will not be repaid. Finally, General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the Military Committee, said on 25 October 2017: "Although the
principle of sovereignty obviously consists in the procurement of defence equipment, as the nations are sovereign in decision-making, they are
also sovereign in coping with the consequences of this decision.” It remains to be seen whether Pavel's statement can be interpreted as an
explicit warning to Erdogan, but it is obvious that NATO is not satisfied with Erdogan's decision to buy the S-400. The unequal bilateral
relations are a major headache for NATO and the EU, as relations between Turkey and its Western allies
have deteriorated since the failed coup d'état in Turkey. Let us recall the state of bilateral relations
between Germany and Tur- key, and in particular the USA and Turkey, as well as the bitter relations
between Austria and The Netherlands and Turkey. It is obvious that relations between Turkey and its
Western allies will not change as long as Erdogan remains president. Although Turkey remains an ally of
NATO, Turkey has become a difficult ally. Erdogan is fully aware of this fact and will not change his
behaviour, making the NATO and EU response difficult. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's polite statement that
Turk- ish officials told him that "Ankara remains a strong NATO ally" is without substance. Erdogan is acting in bad faith, knowing
that Western allies cannot punish Turkey in the present circumstances . On the other hand, Putin behaves like a
spectator and enjoys the confusion without moving a finger. As long as NATO does not succeed in including an article on
the right of expulsion and penalties for misconduct of a member of NATO in the North Atlantic Treaty,
Erdogan will continue to be- have boldly. As long as the EU heads of state and government dis- agree on
the fate of Turkey's possible membership and therefore do not take a unanimous decision, Erdogan will
treat these heads of state and government with contempt. It is an opportunity for Putin to bind the
Turkish Gulliver to the land of the Lilliputians, to continue his policy of changing the military balance in
the Black Sea region (with intensive militarisation of the Crimean peninsula) in his favour and to scorn
the NATO alliance.NATO and the EU are in an unprofitable position because of consensus and
compromise, while Putin and Erdogan continue to behave with impunity, knowing the internal
weaknesses of the EU, which is unable to make a final decision on Turkey's EU membership. As long as
NATO's language remains vague and ambiguous, Erdogan will not do anything to shake NATO's boat, but
will enjoy the protection of NATO and Russia's embrace. Whether the Turkish formula of NATO protection and Russian
embrace can also apply to other NATO member states goes beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it can be said that other NATO
members are carefully evaluating the Turkish experience. Putin will continue to draw Turkey into its sphere of influence by offering smaller
trade, energy and tourism concessions and with the unresolved conflict in Syria, as Erdogan is also in an unprofitable position. The author can
only repeat what Bilhan said above: "Behind Putin's smile Russia remains a great state and can show its claws whenever it suits it." And this is
something that Erdogan and his government should remember well.

EU is key to international climate policy but unity and credibility are crucial
Oberthür and Dupont 21 (Sebastian Oberthür, professor of environment and sustainable
development at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and professor of environmental policy and law at the
University of Eastern Finland and Claire Dupont, assistant professor of European and international
governance at the Department of Public Governance and Management at Ghent University, “The
European Union’s international climate leadership: towards a grand climate strategy?”, Journal of
European Public Policy, 5/4/21,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13501763.2021.1918218?needAccess=true)
//ghs-eo

The EU’s international policy goals, goal achievement and resulting outcomes The EU has consistently
pursued the most ambitious science-based international climate policy objectives of the major
economies. It advocated a binding obligation for industrialized countries to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000 in the
negotiations on the UNFCCC. It then pushed for a 15 per cent GHG emission reduction by these countries by 2010 in the discussions on the
1997 Kyoto Protocol. This was in line with scientific knowledge that highlighted that developed countries should take the lead in curbing
emissions. For
the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, the EU called on developed countries to reduce GHG
emissions by 25–40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and on major developing countries to reach a 15–
30 per cent deviation below business as usual. These objectives were directly taken from the IPCC fourth
assessment report (van Schaik & Schunz, 2012, p. 175). Finally, the EU requested substantial mitigation
commitments from all parties under the 2015 Paris Agreement and a strong mechanism to enhance
ambition over time to align it with science – and has subsequently urged parties to upgrade their
mitigation ambitions accordingly (see Table 1 for an overview of the EU’s eventual targets, which at times diverged from its
negotiation objectives) (European Council, 2020; Oberthür & Pallemaerts, 2010; Oberthür & Groen, 2018; Parker et al., 2017; Schreurs, 2016).
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 1101 The EU increasingly achieved its international leadership objectives
from the 1990s, before crashing in Copenhagen in 2009 and recovering modestly in the 2010s. While binding mitigation obligations for
developed countries did not make it into the UNFCCC, they did become the core of the Kyoto Protocol, although at a much lower level than the
EU had promoted (with reduction targets of 8, 7 and 6 per cent for the EU, the US and Japan, respectively) (Oberthür & Roche Kelly, 2008). EU
goal achievement collapsed in Copenhagen, which resulted in a non-binding pledge and review system (Groen & Niemann, 2013; van Schaik &
Schunz, 2012). It recovered in the 2010s when the Paris Agreement did reflect the EU’s main, moderated policy objectives (Oberthür & Groen,
2018; Parker et al., 2017). The international outputs achieved may have contributed to the significant development of national climate policies
especially in the twenty-first century, although so far with limited effect on global GHG emissions. While the US did not join the Kyoto Protocol,
all Kyoto parties except Canada complied with their emission targets. Under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord and the 2010 Cancun Agreements,
73 countries made mitigation pledges toward 2020, including all developed countries and most emerging economies. Under the 2015 Paris
Agreement, more than 190 countries submitted climate plans towards 2025/30. In parallel, national climate legislation has spread especially
among larger emitters (Iacobuta et al., 2018). However, this policy progress has so far only resulted in tempering global emission growth rather
than the urgently required steep emission reduction (Höhne et al., 2020; UNEP, 2020). Framework conditions We here address the institutional
framework and the international context of EU external climate policy (see also above). Two of the five contemporary ‘crisis trends’, identified
by von Homeyer et al. (2021) and underlying the EU polycrisis, come into focus. Most
importantly, the international context
captures core elements of the climate-related ‘geopolitical shifts’, whereas the domestic legal-
institutional framework concerns the EU’s ‘governance constraints’ . Table 1. EU GHG emission reduction targets. Year
adopted (related UN climate development) GHG emission reduction target (base year 1990) Status 1990 (1992 UNFCCC) stabilisation by 2000
(CO2 only) achieved 1997/98 (1997 Kyoto Protocol) 8% by 2008–2012 achieved 2007 (2009 Copenhagen COP 15) 20% by 2020 24% in 2019
2009 (2009 Copenhagen COP 15) 80–95% by 2050 add. measures required 2014 (2015 Paris Agreement) 40% by 2030 add. measures required
2019 (2021 Glasgow COP 26) climate neutrality by 2050 add. measures required 2020 (2021 Glasgow COP 26) 55% by 2030 add. measures
required Source: Authors’ compilation and data from EEA, 2020. 1102 S. OBERTHÜR AND C. DUPONT The relevant legal-
institutional framework puts particular demands on EU coordination for coherence and unity in EU
external climate policy. First of all, climate and energy policy are areas of mixed competence so that
both the EU institutions and its member states need to be aligned. This is further reinforced by the
crosscutting nature of the climate challenge that requires climate policy integration in various other
sectoral policies with varying EU and member state competences (e.g., agriculture, development, trade, etc.; see von
Homeyer et al., 2021). While the application of the ordinary legislative procedure in principle enables majority
decision-making in the core of climate policy, some aspects (e.g., taxation) require unanimity. Also, the
European Council, that generally decides by unanimity, has increasingly become involved in climate
decision-making (Dupont, 2019). Not least, since decisionmaking on external climate policy in the Council
has generally required consensus, effective mechanisms for coordination of EU external climate policy
are needed (e.g., Delreux & Happaerts, 2016). Furthermore, three particular developments in international climate politics and its
institutional framework have significantly transformed the international opportunity structure for EU climate leadership over the past decades.
First, international climate governance in the twenty-first century has become ‘polycentric’. Increasingly recognized as requiring integration into
many other policy fields, climate change has become a prominent issue in a variety of international fora, including – to name just a few
examples – the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the World Trade Organization,
and the G7/G20. Furthermore, the limited capacity and progress of multilateral climate policy under the UNFCCC has driven the rise of a
multitude of transnational climate initiatives involving private and subnational actors. Consequently, EU
climate leadership requires
engagement far beyond the multilateral UNFCCC process in a variety of intergovernmental and
transnational fora and processes (Bulkeley et al., 2014; Jordan et al., 2018). Second, the landscape of international climate politics
has undergone tectonic changes. In particular, the rise of China and other emerging economies has changed the political balance. With
industrialized country emissions in focus, the conflict line between the US and the EU as the two biggest industrialized players structured
international climate politics in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since the Copenhagen conference, international climate politics has become
increasingly multipolar, with the US and China as two privileged poles, and the focus has shifted to emissions from all countries. As a result of its
declining shares in world population, GDP and global GHG emissions, and further weakened by Brexit, the EU has become a more medium-sized
climate power ranking clearly behind the US and China – even though with significant historical responsibility, capabilities to provide financial
assistance to developing countries and increasing political, economic and technological JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 1103 capacity
to mitigate GHG emissions (Dupont & Moore, 2019; Oberthür, 2016; Vogler, 2016). Third, climate
change has become an issue
of geopolitics. While climate policy only occasionally attracted the attention of heads of state in the
1990s, it has increasingly become embedded in the agenda of European and world leaders in the
twenty-first century across bilateral, minilateral and multilateral encounters , including the G7, the G20, the UN
Security Council and others (Kirton & Kokotsis, 2015). Over time, it has become a firm part of geopolitical competition
and has thus increasingly moved into the realm of ‘grand strategy’. Grand strategizing implies the
highest political level giving integrated consideration to the pursuit of highest priorities across policy
fields through domestic and external action in a long-term perspective (e.g., Silove, 2018; van Hooft, 2017). With its
elevation to the highest echelons of international statecraft, climate policy has become part of grand strategizing – and hence also susceptible
to great power competition in a zero-sum logic (Dupont, 2019; Kuzemko et al., 2020; Vogler, 2016; Van de Graaf & Sovacool, 2020). Exemplary
leadership The EU has made important headway on domestic climate policy thereby filling an early gap of
its international credibility in the 1990s (e.g., Oberthür & Roche Kelly, 2008; see also Parker & Karlsson, 2010). To start with,
the EU has regularly strengthened its domestic GHG emission reduction targets in step with the
development of multilateral climate policy (see Table 1). Although the targets have not necessarily fully reflected advancing
scientific knowledge, they have consistently been the most ambitious among the major economies and have
increasingly aligned towards mid-century climate neutrality (Torney & O’Gorman, 2020; von Homeyer et al., 2021). The
progress in climate policy occurred in a turbulent internal context that featured the emergence of a strong East–West cleavage around 2010
(Bocquillon & Maltby, 2017; Skovgaard, 2014) as well as rising populism and Euroscepticism (Huber et al., 2021), and was balanced with public
support and societal mobilization for action on climate change (see also Buzogány & Ćetković, 2021; Petri & Biedenkopf, 2021). The
EU has
also strongly developed its climate policy framework, including climate policy integration in other policy
fields. The development of EU climate policy especially took off in the 2000s. Since 2007/2008, climate policy has
advanced under the umbrella of decadal frameworks for climate and energy policy for 2020 and 2030, including key implementing legislation
on the EU emissions trading scheme (for power and industry), member-state emission targets for other sectors, renewable energy and energy
efficiency. The
2030 framework also introduced a cyclical governance system that is 1104 S. OBERTHÜR AND C.
DUPONT roughly aligned with the quintennial cycles under the Paris Agreement (Torney & O’Gorman, 2020). Other
EU climate policies have addressed various sources of emissions (e.g., cars, fluorinated GHGs, etc.) and other
policy fields (especially energy, transport, buildings and finance/investments). The desire to abide by international
commitments and support the EU’s international role has consistently been a major motivation in the
legislative processes. Overall, EU climate policy development has, despite growing competition,
remained leading by international comparison and today includes a thick mix of regulatory, market-based and procedural
instruments (e.g., Delbeke & Vis, 2019; Delreux & Happaerts, 2016; Iacobuta et al., 2018; Skjærseth et al., 2016; von Homeyer et al., 2021). As a
result, the EU has so far delivered on, or overachieved, its domestic mitigation targets. With
emissions down about 24 per cent
from 1990 levels in 2019, the EU as a whole is on track to exceeding its 20 per cent emission reduction
target for 2020 (facilitated by the economic recession of 2008/ 09 and reinforced by the Covid-19 crisis in 2020). However, the EU is not
yet on track to meeting its emission targets for 2030 and 2050 which will require considerable additional efforts (EEA, 2020). The European
Green Deal, launched in 2019 as a European Commission strategy and policy programme for transforming the EU’s economy for a sustainable
future, promises such additional efforts. Next to anchoring the increased 2030 emission reduction target of 55 per cent and the 2050 climate
neutrality goal, it foresees a suite of proposals for implementing legislation mainly in 2021, prioritizes climate policy objectives across all other
EU policy fields, and includes a Just Transition Mechanism and Fund to assist regions and sectors particularly dependent on fossil fuels or
carbon-intensive processes (European Commission, 2019). Whereas the EU recovery programme from the global Covid-
19 pandemic is meant to synergise with the European Green Deal, the Deal’s effectiveness will depend
on its implementation (Dupont et al., 2020). In addition to enhancing the EU’s international credibility, EU climate policies
have increasingly become a benchmark and a source of inspiration for others. Since international
policy diffusion also hinges on the fit of EU policies with domestic conditions in recipient countries, the
considerable expansion of the EU’s climate policy portfolio , including a diversified set of marketbased, regulatory and
procedural instruments, has enhanced the diffusion potential. It has also created potential for more diversified climate diplomacy efforts to
support policy diffusion (so far with a strong focus on selected key instruments such as emissions trading) (Biedenkopf et al., 2017; Adelle et al.,
2018). Finally,
the overall importance of domestic climate policy as a source of international influence has
increasingly come to the fore. Climate policy has come to be understood as shaping access to the
sizeable European JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 1105 market, building the regulatory and technological
capacity to address climate change, and supporting international competitiveness (Oberthür, 2016; Tomlinson,
2019). Prime examples include the inclusion of international aviation in the emissions trading scheme and
the regulation of biofuels affecting related imports (Birchfield, 2015; Daugbjerg & Swinbank, 2015). The European
Green Deal – which includes an industrial strategy, plans for a carbon border adjustment mechanism,
and a hydrogen strategy as key elements – signals increasing awareness of the geopolitical clout of
domestic climate policy (European Commission, 2019). Having said that, there is little evidence that this is given systematic
consideration as part of an overall EU leadership strategy across EU institutions and member states, as also seen in the analysis of diplomatic
leadership. Diplomatic leadership The
EU has significantly enhanced its coordination for coherence and unity in
international climate diplomacy. It consolidated its system of coordination and external representation in the 1990s and early
2000s, especially for multilateral climate governance. Coordination has occurred in a dedicated Council Working Party, and the EU moved to
officially ‘speak with one voice’ in multilateral climate negotiations from the mid-1990s, led by the rotating Council Presidency. Reforms in the
early 2000s streamlined internal coordination to facilitate external outreach and ensured the appointment of capable ‘lead negotiators’ (next to
a stronger acknowledgement of the role for the European Commission). Furthermore, the Green Diplomacy Network, created in the early
2000s, has served to coordinate climate diplomacy initiatives and strategy across national and EU foreign services, since 2010 with the support
of the European External Action Service (EEAS) established under the Lisbon Treaty. Furthermore, the Council (foreign/general affairs) has
enacted a rolling climate diplomacy action plan since 2015 and a climate ambassador was appointed to the EEAS in 2019 (Schunz, 2019).
Although the EU at times suffered from internal discord (e.g., at the 2009 Copenhagen conference: see Groen & Niemann, 2013), progress on
domestic climate policy, ahead of international discussions, has increasingly supported substantive unity (see above; overall, see Delreux & Van
den Brande, 2013; Hoffmeister, 2017; Oberthür & Pallemaerts, 2010; van Schaik, 2013). Furthermore, the
EU has adapted its
diplomatic leadership to the advancing polycentricity of international climate governance. It has hence
broadened its climate diplomacy beyond the UN process (as also reflected in the aforementioned climate diplomacy action
plan). In the early 2000s, the EU, following the US withdrawal from the Kyoto process in 2001, increasingly engaged on climate change in other
multilateral and intergovernmental fora, including the G20, the US-initiated Major Economies Forum, ICAO, the 1106 S. OBERTHÜR AND C.
DUPONT IMO and the Montreal Protocol for the protection of the ozone layer. Together with Canada and China, the EU established the
Ministerial on Climate Action in 2017 replacing the Major Economies Forum that was abandoned by the US administration under President
Trump. The failed Copenhagen conference in 2009 spawned increased engagement with the growing number of transnational climate
initiatives, such as the Covenant of Mayors, which was launched by the European Commission in 2008, and new emphasis on bilateral climate
partnerships (Torney, 2015; Belis et al., 2018). Climate
and the environment have also become prominent parts of
bilateral and inter-regional trade negotiations and have begun to reshape external energy relations
(Goldthau & Sitter, 2015; Musch & De Ville, 2019). Overall, the EU has shifted from a strong focus on the multilateral
UNFCCC process in the 1990s towards engagement in a variety of minilateral, multilateral, transnational
and bilateral fora and relations (Oberthür & Pallemaerts, 2010; Wurzel et al., 2017). Having said that, the aforementioned
coordination efforts have so far primarily focused on the key intergovernmental processes (UNFCCC, G7/20, etc.), leaving room for
improvement regarding other policy fields and transnational initiatives. The
EU has also adapted its diplomatic leadership
to the changing landscape of international climate politics . In response to the EU’s failure at the 2009
Copenhagen conference and reflecting its declining international weight, the EU recalibrated towards a
‘leadiator’ role characterized by more moderate policy objectives and greater emphasis on coalition and
bridgebuilding (Bäckstrand & Elgström, 2013), that has remained valid since (Oberthür & Groen, 2015). In this context, the EU
has also recalibrated support for capacity building and climate finance, key elements of its climate
diplomacy toolbox, towards (potential) allies, including African developing countries, least developed
countries, and small island developing states. This has entailed paying more attention to adaptation and
loss and damage as issues particularly close to the hearts of developing country allies . The 2019
European Green Deal reconfirmed the focus on supporting alliance-building, especially with Africa and the
European neighbourhood (European Commission, 2019, pp. 20–22). Overall, the stronger reflection on the international context and the clearer
definition of ends has amounted to a ‘more strategic’ approach (Schunz, 2019, p. 353). The EU seems less advanced in realizing the full
implications and potential of the turn towards climate geopolitics. This
turn calls for an integrated and permanent
consideration of climate policy across governance levels and policy fields in an overarching long-term
perspective at highest political level (‘grand strategy’ – see above). Given mixed EU-member state competences
across relevant policy fields, the definition and pursuit of a joint EU grand climate strategy requires
coordination across EU institutions (especially the Parliament and Commission) and EU member states at highest
level. The JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 1107 European Council has increasingly addressed climate change but has so far in
particular addressed discrete issues (such as the 2030 Framework) (e.g., European Council, 2020). Other fora such as the Council Working Party
on international climate policy and the general/foreign affairs Council are only mandated to consider part of the overall picture. The EGD signals
a more strategic approach, acknowledging the need for more progress in integrating EU policies (e.g., trade and other external policies)
(European Commission, 2019). However, it represents a Commission strategy rather than a framework for strategic coordination across the EU
and its member states. Overall, the EU so far lacks an obvious centre for regular and sustained grand climate strategizing.

Warming causes food shortages, extreme and deadly weather events, and mass
migration – the risk cannot be overstated
Kareiva, 2018
(Peter - Ph.D. in ecology and applied mathematics from Cornell director of the Institute of the
Environment and Sustainability @ UCLA, Pritzker Distinguished Professor in Environment &
Sustainability @ UCLA, “Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back,” Futures, 102)
In summary, six of the nine proposed planetary boundaries (phosphorous, nitrogen, biodiversity, land use, atmospheric aerosol loading, and chemical pollution) are unlikely to be associated with existential risks. They all correspond

climate change, global freshwater cycle, and

to a degraded environment, but in our assessment do not represent existential risks. However, the three remaining boundaries (

ocean acidification) do pose existential risks. This is because of intrinsic positive feedback loops, substantial lag times
between system change and experiencing the consequences of that change, and the fact these different boundaries interact with one another in

ways that yield surprises. In addition, climate, freshwater, and ocean acidification are all directly connected to
the provision of food and water, and shortages of food and water can create conflict and social unrest. Climate
change has a long history of disrupting civilizations and sometimes precipitating the collapse of cultures or mass
emigrations (McMichael, 2017). For example, the 12th century drought in the North American Southwest is held responsible for the collapse of the Anasazi pueblo culture. More recently, the infamous potato famine
of 1846–1849 and the large migration of Irish to the U.S. can be traced to a combination of factors, one of which was climate. Specifically, 1846 was an unusually warm and moist year in Ireland, providing the climatic conditions
favorable to the fungus that caused the potato blight. As is so often the case, poor government had a role as well—as the British government forbade the import of grains from outside Britain (imports that could have helped to

redress the ravaged potato yields). Climate change intersects with freshwater resources because it is expected to
exacerbate drought and water scarcity, as well as flooding. Climate change can even impair water quality because it is associated with heavy rains that overwhelm sewage treatment
facilities, or because it results in higher concentrations of pollutants in groundwater as a result of enhanced evaporation and reduced groundwater recharge. Ample clean water is not a luxury—it is

essential for human survival. Consequently, cities, regions and nations that lack clean freshwater are vulnerable to social disruption and disease. Finally, ocean acidification is linked to climate
change because it is driven by CO2 emissions just as global warming is. With close to 20% of the world’s protein coming from oceans (FAO, 2016), the potential for severe impacts due to acidification is obvious. Less obvious, but

Climate
perhaps more insidious, is the interaction between climate change and the loss of oyster and coral reefs due to acidification. Acidification is known to interfere with oyster reef building and coral reefs.

change also increases storm frequency and severity. Coral reefs and oyster reefs provide protection
from storm surge because they reduce wave energy (Spalding et al., 2014). If these reefs are lost due to acidification
at the same time as storms become more severe and sea level rises , coastal communities will be
exposed to unprecedented storm surge—and may be ravaged by recurrent storms . A key feature of the risk associated with climate
change is that mean annual temperature and mean annual rainfall are not the variables of interest. Rather it is extreme episodic events that place nations and entire regions of the world at risk. These extreme events are by
definition “rare” (once every hundred years), and changes in their likelihood are challenging to detect because of their rarity, but are exactly the manifestations of climate change that we must get better at anticipating

(Diffenbaugh et al., 2017). Society will have a hard time responding to shorter intervals between rare extreme events
because in the lifespan of an individual human, a person might experience as few as two or three extreme events. How likely is it that you would notice a change in the interval between events that are separated by decades,
especially given that the interval is not regular but varies stochastically? A concrete example of this dilemma can be found in the past and expected future changes in storm-related flooding of New York City. The highly disruptive

every 25 years, but is

flooding of New York City associated with Hurricane Sandy represented a flood height that occurred once every 500 years in the 18th century, and that occurs now once

expected to occur once every 5 years by 2050 (Garner et al., 2017). This change in frequency of extreme floods has profound implications for the measures New York City
should take to protect its infrastructure and its population, yet because of the stochastic nature of such events, this shift in flood frequency is an elevated risk that will go unnoticed by most people. 4. The combination of positive

Humans are remarkably ingenious, and have adapted to crises

feedback loops and societal inertia is fertile ground for global environmental catastrophes

throughout their history. Our doom has been repeatedly predicted, only to be averted by innovation (Ridley, 2011). However, the many stories of human
ingenuity successfully addressing existential risks such as global famine or extreme air pollution represent environmental
challenges that are largely linear, have immediate consequences, and operate without positive
feedbacks. For example, the fact that food is in short supply does not increase the rate at which humans consume food—thereby increasing the shortage. Similarly, massive air pollution episodes such as the London fog
of 1952 that killed 12,000 people did not make future air pollution events more likely. In fact it was just the opposite—the London fog sent such a clear message that Britain quickly enacted pollution control measures (Stradling,
2016). Food shortages, air pollution, water pollution, etc. send immediate signals to society of harm, which then trigger a negative feedback of society seeking to reduce the harm. In contrast, today’s great environmental crisis of
climate change may cause some harm but there are generally long time delays between rising CO2 concentrations and damage to humans. The consequence of these delays are an absence of urgency; thus although 70% of

unlike past environmental

Americans believe global warming is happening, only 40% think it will harm them (http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2016/). Secondly,

challenges, the Earth’s climate system is rife with positive feedback loops. In particular, as CO2
increases and the climate warms, that very warming can cause more CO2 release which further
increases global warming, and then more CO2, and so on . Table 2 summarizes the best documented positive feedback loops for the Earth’s climate system. These
feedbacks can be neatly categorized into carbon cycle, biogeochemical, biogeophysical, cloud, ice-albedo, and water vapor feedbacks. As important as it is to understand these feedbacks individually, it is even more essential to
study the interactive nature of these feedbacks. Modeling studies show that when interactions among feedback loops are included, uncertainty increases dramatically and there is a heightened potential for perturbations to be
magnified (e.g., Cox, Betts, Jones, Spall, & Totterdell, 2000; Hajima, Tachiiri, Ito, & Kawamiya, 2014; Knutti & Rugenstein, 2015; Rosenfeld, Sherwood, Wood, & Donner, 2014). This produces a wide range of future scenarios. Positive
feedbacks in the carbon cycle involves the enhancement of future carbon contributions to the atmosphere due to some initial increase in atmospheric CO2. This happens because as CO2 accumulates, it reduces the efficiency in
which oceans and terrestrial ecosystems sequester carbon, which in return feeds back to exacerbate climate change (Friedlingstein et al., 2001). Warming can also increase the rate at which organic matter decays and carbon is
released into the atmosphere, thereby causing more warming (Melillo et al., 2017). Increases in food shortages and lack of water is also of major concern when biogeophysical feedback mechanisms perpetuate drought conditions.
The underlying mechanism here is that losses in vegetation increases the surface albedo, which suppresses rainfall, and thus enhances future vegetation loss and more suppression of rainfall—thereby initiating or prolonging a
drought (Chamey, Stone, & Quirk, 1975). To top it off, overgrazing depletes the soil, leading to augmented vegetation loss (Anderies, Janssen, & Walker, 2002). Climate change often also increases the risk of forest fires, as a result

The expectation is that forest fires will become more frequent and severe
of higher temperatures and persistent drought conditions.

with climate warming and drought (Scholze, Knorr, Arnell, & Prentice, 2006), a trend for which we have already seen evidence (Allen et al., 2010). Tragically, the increased severity and risk
of Southern California wildfires recently predicted by climate scientists (Jin et al., 2015), was realized in December 2017, with the largest fire in the history of California (the “Thomas fire” that burned 282,000 acres,

This catastrophic fire embodies the sorts of positive feedbacks

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/27/16822180/thomas-fire-california-largest-wildfire).

and interacting factors that could catch humanity off-guard and produce a true apocalyptic event. Record-
breaking rains produced an extraordinary flush of new vegetation, that then dried out as record heat waves and dry conditions took hold, coupled with stronger than normal winds, and ignition. Of course the record-fire released
CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to future warming. Out of all types of feedbacks, water vapor and the ice-albedo feedbacks are the most clearly understood mechanisms. Losses in reflective snow and ice cover drive
up surface temperatures, leading to even more melting of snow and ice cover—this is known as the ice-albedo feedback (Curry, Schramm, & Ebert, 1995). As snow and ice continue to melt at a more rapid pace, millions of people
may be displaced by flooding risks as a consequence of sea level rise near coastal communities (Biermann & Boas, 2010; Myers, 2002; Nicholls et al., 2011). The water vapor feedback operates when warmer atmospheric conditions
strengthen the saturation vapor pressure, which creates a warming effect given water vapor’s strong greenhouse gas properties (Manabe & Wetherald, 1967). Global warming tends to increase cloud formation because warmer
temperatures lead to more evaporation of water into the atmosphere, and warmer temperature also allows the atmosphere to hold more water. The key question is whether this increase in clouds associated with global warming
will result in a positive feedback loop (more warming) or a negative feedback loop (less warming). For decades, scientists have sought to answer this question and understand the net role clouds play in future climate projections
(Schneider et al., 2017). Clouds are complex because they both have a cooling (reflecting incoming solar radiation) and warming (absorbing incoming solar radiation) effect (Lashof, DeAngelo, Saleska, & Harte, 1997). The type of
cloud, altitude, and optical properties combine to determine how these countervailing effects balance out. Although still under debate, it appears that in most circumstances the cloud feedback is likely positive (Boucher et al.,
2013). For example, models and observations show that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations reduces the low-level cloud fraction in the Northeast Pacific at decadal time scales. This then has a positive feedback effect and

The key lesson from the long list of potentially

enhances climate warming since less solar radiation is reflected by the atmosphere (Clement, Burgman, & Norris, 2009).

positive feedbacks and their interactions is that runaway climate change, and runaway perturbations
have to be taken as a serious possibility . Table 2 is just a snapshot of the type of feedbacks that have been identified (see Supplementary material for a more thorough explanation of
positive feedback loops). However, this list is not exhaustive and the possibility of undiscovered positive feedbacks portends

even greater existential risks. The many environmental crises humankind has previously averted (famine, ozone depletion, London fog, water pollution, etc.) were averted because of political will
based on solid scientific understanding. We cannot count on complete scientific understanding when it comes to positive feedback loops and climate change.
 T – SC
“Security cooperation” requires the DOD.
Quinn ’19 [Major Jason A. Quinn; 2019; Judge Advocate in the United States Army; the Military Law
Review, “Other Security Forces Too: Traditional Combatant Commander Activities Between U.S. Special
Operations Forces and Foreign Non-Military Forces,” vol. 227]
Under this definition, “security sector assistance” includes the relevant policies, programs, or activities of any executive agency. Complicating
matters, though, Congress has considered a proposed definition for “security sector assistance” that, in contrast to the presidential policy
definition,130 encompasses DoS programs, but not DoD or other executive agency programs.131 In addition, Congress has defined
“security cooperation” as DoD specific,132 but it has not defined “security assistance.”

The DoD adheres to the presidential policy definition and further defines “security cooperation” as all its relationship
building and foreign partner development activities, including “security assistance,” which the DoD
defines as a subset of security cooperation that is funded and authorized by the DoS and administered by the
Defense Security Cooperation Agency.133 The DoS, on the other hand, uses the term “security assistance” in a manner that contradicts the
DoD's definition, employing it to describe any DoS or DoD assistance to foreign military or other security forces.134