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The fifty states and relevant subnational actors, including the National Governors
Association, should suspend their cooperation in the administration of federal
programs until the federal government adjusts the first Primary Insurance Amount
formula factor for Social Security to 93% using the Consumer Price Index for the
Elderly to calculate Cost of Living Adjustments for Social Security; adjust the Special
Minimum Primary Insurance Amount for Social Security to at least 125% of the federal
poverty guidelines; apply taxes for Social Security to earnings over $400,000; adjust
taxes for Social Security upwards by .1% a year for twenty four years.
It solves---conditioning the plan never fiats it, but results in federal adoption AND
aggressively expands dual sovereignty.
Bloomberg ’21 [Scott; September 17; Associate Professor of Law, University of Maine School of Law;
Social Science Research Network, “Frenemy Federalism,” Draft Manuscript, p. 2-40]
i. Uncooperative Federalism

Dean Heather Gerken and Professor Jessica Bulman-Pozen have categorized state legalization of marijuana as an instance of uncooperative
federalism.108 In their influential 2009 essay, Uncooperative Federalism, Gerken and Bulman-Pozen observe that scholars had traditionally
conceived of our system of federalism through one of two lenses. Under the “ state autonomy ” model of federalism, the
states and the fed eral government are dual sovereign s who act as autonomous rivals , allowing states
to act as dissenters to federal policies they deem undesirable. 109 In contrast, under the “cooperative federalism” approach, the
states are like agents or servants of the federal government, dutifully carrying out a federal program to achieve a shared objective.110

Uncooperative federalism presents a third type of relationship between the states and the federal government, one that
recognizes a principal’s or master’s dependence on their agents or servants, and the concomitant power of an
embedded agent or servant to push back against their superior. 111 Sometimes, the states do not dutifully
cooperate in administer ing a federal program, but actively seek to change or undermine that
program. They are uncooperative .
Gerken and Bulman-Pozen identify three categories of state actions that constitute uncooperative federalism. The first is “licensed” dissent,
which occurs when “Congress explicitly contemplates that states will deviate from federal norms in implementing federal policy, but states take
that invitation in a direction the federal government may not anticipate.”112 State efforts to catalyze federal welfare reform provide an
example. In the 1980s, states such as Wisconsin and Michigan utilized a waiver provision of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children
welfare program (“AFDC”) to “recast an entitlement for poor families struggling to raise children into a temporary grant for recipients who
would quickly move into the private workforce.”113 Departing from the existing federal policy, the states began enacting welfare-to-work
requirements that required welfare recipients to actively seek employment and terminated AFDC benefits after a set period of time.114
These uncooperative state s largely succeed ed in changing federal welfare law when Congress passed the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.115

The second form of uncooperative federalism occurs when states exploit gaps in federal regulatory schemes. In such cases,
“the federal government does not contemplate state variation but states have sufficient discretion that they find ways to
contest federal policy .”116 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen offer California’s efforts to regulate air pollution more stringently than the EPA
as an example of this strain of uncooperative federalism. The
state has successfully exploited a narrow exception to the
Clean Air Act’s preemption provision to drive federal emissions standards for decades.117
The third, and “strongest,” form of uncooperative federalism is civil disobedience, where states “simply refuse to comply with
the national program or otherwise obstruct it .”118 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen cite state pushback to the Patriot Act as an
example. After Congress passed the Act, several states enacted resolutions that prohibited their agencies from assisting the federal government
in enforcing the Act.119 This uncooperative action had real effect , as “the fed eral government relies on the
states for enforcement assistance .”120
In early 2009, the federal-state relationship regarding marijuana fit within the uncooperative federalism framework, falling into the civil
disobedience bucket.121 At that point, thirteen states had legalized medical marijuana, a costly blow to the federal government due to its
dependence on the states for assistance in enforcing marijuana prohibition.122 The DEA, meanwhile, was “actively working to undermine the
decriminalization efforts underway in California, the state with the most nationally visible decriminalization policy.”123 Indeed, federal
prosecutions of individual medical marijuana users and marijuana businesses in California were commonplace in the early 2000s.124

ii. Increased Federal Cooperation

There is a great deal more cooperation in the federal-state marijuana relationship than there was when Gerken and Bulman-Pozen originally
described it as uncooperative federalism. Since 2009, dozens more states have legalized medical marijuana and many have also legalized the
drug for recreational use. In conjunction with these state policy change s , the fed eral government ’s policy
changed as well: It became far more cooperative with the states.

Though the fed eral government indisputably has the constitutional authority to prosecute marijuana businesses
and users operating in states where marijuana is legal, over the years it has agreed – expressly at times and tacitly at others – to allow
those businesses and users to avoid prosecution. This form of federal cooperation began with a series of DOJ memoranda instructing U.S.
Attorneys not to prosecute marijuana businesses and users acting in compliance with state law.

In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued a policy memorandum to U.S. Attorneys titled “Investigations and Prosecutions in States
Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana.”125 The “Ogden Memo,” as it has become known, instructed U.S. Attorneys in states that legalized
medical marijuana to deprioritize the enforcement of federal marijuana law against individuals who use medical marijuana in compliance with
state law.126 As a result, the federal government stopped prosecuting medical marijuana users unless the user failed to comply with
state law in a manner that implicated one of several “potential federal interest[s]” listed in the Ogden Memo.127

Reasserting state sovereignty counterbalances governance failures from federal

encroachment---extinction.
Mihalakas ’19 [Nasos; May 21; Global Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, LL.M. from
University College London, J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; The Federalism Project,
“The Need for Governance Reform – Symptoms vs. Cause,”
https://the-federalism-project.org/2019/05/21/the-need-for-governance-reform-symptoms-vs-cause/]
There is no doubt that we live in “challenging” times. We face ‘social challenges,’ from racial discrimination to gender inequality, women’s
rights (reproductive or otherwise) that will have to be addressed, LGBTQ issues (recognition of gay marriage), a gun violence epidemic due to
both inadequate gun control laws but also excessive violence in our society, etc. We also face ‘ economic challenge s ,’ like
stagnant salaries and low wages, job insecurity (due to automation or outsourcing), taxes that are too high for some and not high
enough for others, mounting student debt, and yes massive income inequality. And, of course, we do face ‘ external challenges ’,
from nuclear prolif eration in the Korea n peninsula, to ISIS and religiously motivated global terror ism, to
global warming and climate change!

Yet, most of these issues are but symptoms of a greater cause . Their existence, or our inability to overcome them, is
being caused by a much greater problem in our society that unless we address soon we risk permanent societal
failures within the next 20 to 30 years.
This greater cause is our very own failing system of governance !!!
Though brilliant in its original construction by the founding fathers, our Federal system of governance (separation of powers, check and
balances, separate Federal and State governments) is grossly off track and highly unbalanced. During
the past 200 years, we
witnessed a steady transfer of power away from the States and into the Fed eral government, and within the
Federal government we saw a similar steady concentration of power in the hands of the Executive (the singular President), and to a certain
extend the Supreme Court (due to Congressional acquiescence).

This did not happen due to some conspiracy by the ‘powerful elite’ or through interference by foreign powers. It happened gradually (almost
naturally), as a response to major failures at the State level: in dealing with slavery and racial discrimination (see Civil War and Jim Crow laws in
the south), in dealing with market failures and the need to regulate business and provide a safety net (see Great Depression, The New Deal and
the Great Society), in fighting a Cold War with the Soviet Union (see expansion of military and intelligence services to advance US foreign
policy).

Today, power and authority to deal with issues and solve problems is highly concentrated at the Federal level, away from ordinary people and
their ability to monitor let alone influence elected politicians.

There is so much power concentrated at the Fed eral level, and in particular in the hands of one person (the President)
that it makes Washington politicians constant targets of special interests and lobbying organizations, makes
negotiations for compromise impossible because there is so much at stake, and it has created a highly
unbalanced system (where “checks and balances” are not fully implemented and more often can’t work effectively).
Washington gridlock, dysfunction, polarization, and partisanship have led to the inability to pass a budget (balanced or otherwise), or address
the need for immigration reform, or provide for adequate healthcare coverage and affordable prescription drugs, or even implement proper tax
reform. Therefore, unless we address these ‘ systemic ’ failures of our system of governance, unless we implement
institutional changes and fix the process , we will never get lasting solutions to our current and future
societal challenges .
Unfortunately, there is no one thing we can do, no ‘magic bullet’ that can fix the dysfunction of our Federal system of governance (because it’s
not just ‘the Federal government’ that needs reform, but also/primarily Congress and the Judiciary). Rather, there are several things (from
specific process changes through laws/regulations to Constitutional amendments) that we will have to changes now, in order to see
improvement in the function of our system of governance in the next 20 to 30 years.

There is a parallel example to this system of governance failures, and it’s that of ‘global warming.’ Global temperatures have been rising, due to
greenhouse gases (caused by human activity – burning fossil fuels like coal and oil), presenting an existential threat to our planet and our way of
life. However, fossil fuels are not inherently evil, used by certain people bent on the destruction of humanity! Energy from fossil fuels was
instrumental in facilitating the industrial revolution, which brought progress and technological innovations during the past 150 years, that
helped the whole world to advance, prosper, and better connect. It was not until recently that we realized that the constantly expanding use of
fossil fuels by humans is contributing to rising temperatures, and if we don’t do something now to ‘bent the curve’, then in 20 to 30 years from
now temperatures will rise to levels that can be devastating to the planets ecosystem, and by extension us humans.

Concentration of power at the Federal level, over the past 200 years, though not inherently evil (downright necessary and proper
during some critical periods), has reached a point of pure dysfunction . The proof of the unsustainable nature
of our current system (like rising temperatures are a proof of global warming) is income inequality. During the past 50 years, we
have witnessed a steady concentration of wealth at the hands of the top 10% (and primarily the top 1%).

And although one can look at our society today statically and say: “things are still ok: there are rich people and poor people, and we are still the
most powerful and wealthy nation in the world – so what’s the problem?”… the trend keeps going upwards: currently over 70% of our national
wealth is concentrated at the hands for the top 10%. When do we need to do something to stop this trend? When it gets to 80%, or 90%?

Democrats and Republicans (now thanks to Donald Trump) both agree on the existence of a ‘powerful elite, in cahoots with the political
establishment, bent on exploiting the middle class’… yet both party’s solution is the same: win political power and cut or raise taxes, regulate
more or less, appoint some type of judges… in essence, deal with the symptoms and not the underlying cause!

If we want to address the underlying cause of income inequality (and outsourcing of jobs, health-care failures, racial tensions,
education funding, women’s rights, public housing, etc.), then we need to reform our system of governance, before we can consider
specific policy priorities. By fixing the legislative process, restoring proper checks, correcting the imbalance within the government branches
and return ing powers back to the States … we can get on a path where we see real results within the next 20 to 30 years.

Otherwise, gridlock and dysfunction at the Federal level will only get worse !
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T

‘Expanding’ requires ‘increasing enrollment’ in Social Security

ESEA 65, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. (https://oese.ed.gov/files/2019/11/Statute-for-
website.pdf)

(7) EXPAND.—The term ‘‘ expand ’’, when used with respect to a high-quality charter school, means to significantly increase
enrollment or add one or more grades to the high-quality charter school.

Violation---the plan only increases taxes.

Vote NEG for limits and ground---just increasing taxes eliminates core ground and
there are infinite tax proposals that create overwhelming research burdens.
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Advantage CP

Upon assuming office, Donald J. Trump, president should:

---unilaterally declare to not pressure Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cede land, not
withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not withdraw United States
troops from South Korea, not cut aid to Ukraine, increase arms sales to the Republic of
China.
---not start a nuclear war.
---declare an end to the Korean war and pursue a peace treaty.
The United States federal government should restrict the Executive’s authority to
---withdraw from NATO and/or withdraw troops from South Korea
---start a nuclear war.
Resolving unilateral exit authority solves.
NYT 18 (Editorial Board, “Trump Got From NATO Everything Obama Ever Asked For,” New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/opinion/editorials/trump-nato-obama.html)

Now that the smoke has cleared from the NATO summit meeting, the most tangible result is apparent :
President Trump advanced President Barack Obama’s initiative to keep the allies on track to shoulder a more equitable share of NATO’s costs. Mr. Trump even signed on to a tough statement

whether Mr. Trump himself is clear about the strategy he’s

directed at Russia. For once he saw eye to eye with his predecessor. Yet

pursuing, or whether he in fact has one, remains as mysterious as ever . Mr. Obama persuaded NATO leaders to increase their
military spending at a meeting in Wales in 2014, after a newly aggressive Russia invaded Ukraine. Back then, alliance members pledged to work toward raising spending levels to 2 percent of
their gross domestic products by 2024. All 29 allies have begun to increase their military budgets in real terms, and two-thirds of them have plans to reach the 2 percent target by 2024. And
they reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to these targets in the communiqué issued at the end of the two-day summit in Brussels this week. Of course, two days of gratuitous and self-

defeating Trump bombast and threats preceded this resolution. ADVERTISEMENT The president publicly browbeat and insulted allies as
deadbeats taking advantage of American generosity. He then raised the ante, demanding that they meet the 2 percent target — it’s a target, not some specific legal obligation — by
January and then go on to raise spending to 4 percent of G.D.P. Why that much? What strategic objective, what threats to the alliance, is Mr. Trump worried about? He didn't say. Since he
came into office, Mr. Trump’s urging has gotten some allies to accelerate spending increases. The response to his latest remonstrations, though, was mainly bafflement. Even after a military
spending increase under President Trump, American military spending is only 3.2 percent of G.D.P. this year. What’s more, it’s expected to fall to 2.8 percent in 2024, leaving it unclear as to
how even the United States would meet the 4 percent figure. As Mr. Trump, and Mr. Obama before him, have argued, Europe can do more to help itself. The allies rely too heavily on the
Americans to transport troops and equipment, for instance, and the fact that France ran out of bombs during the 2011 Libya operation demonstrated a crucial weakness. There may be other
shortcomings, too — NATO is not transparent with its data. Greater spending by American allies might mean the United States could lower its own spending and bring thousands of troops
home. Mr. Trump didn’t make that argument, but he has often talked about withdrawing forces and closing bases, whether in Germany or Syria or somewhere else. So would the president
then push for cuts in the Pentagon budget, which now stands at roughly $700 billion, more than the next eight countries in the world spend together, and use it for, say, badly needed
infrastructure? Don’t bet on it. Mr. Trump has relentlessly pushed for a bigger military, seemingly mesmerized by the flashy hardware and the show of hard power that it projects. Even so, the
spending metric is a narrow measure of what NATO needs to meet today’s challenges, and it may need to be discarded. One example is Denmark, which has made important contributions to
alliance operations in Afghanistan and has sacrificed considerable trade with Russia because of sanctions — yet spends less than 2 percent of G.D.P., according to a study by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Other allies could better advance their own security, and NATO’s, by spending more to solve the migration crisis and other problems that have fanned
nationalism and authoritarianism, and weakened democratic institutions, especially in Turkey, Hungary and Poland. This trend, encouraged insidiously by Russia, may be the biggest threat,

eroding the alliance from within. Such sensible discussions weren’t possible in Brussels, as allies were left instead with angst over Mr. Trump’s hint
that he may withdraw from NATO if the military spending targets are not met. He said on Thursday that he could probably withdraw from NATO on
his own authority . This threat seems more in line with Mr. Trump’s broader interests. He has made clear that Russia’s attack on Ukraine and seizure of Crimea are of little
matter to him. He’s spoken more warmly of President Vladimir Putin than of any ally, even disputing the Russian leader’s role in undermining the 2016 election. For these reasons, it’s

imperative that Congress, which has abdicated to Mr. Trump on many crucial issues, pass immediately
legislation prohibiting him from leaving NATO unilaterally . The Senate had to ratify the treaty when America created NATO, and it
should block any move to destroy the alliance that has been an anchor of trans-Atlantic stability over
seven decades.
Outreach under Biden fails.
Roche ‘23 [Darragh Roche, reporter covering U.S. politics. “Why Biden Is Wrong About North Korea”,
Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/why-biden-wrong-about-north-korea-1773499, 1/13/23]

Those missile launches are likely to be on the agenda on Friday, but the
Biden administration may be taking the wrong
approach, according to Frank Aum, the senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace .
The U.S. Institute of Peace is a nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by Congress.

"Over the last decade, various U.S. administrations have grown tired of Pyongyang's propensity for brinkmanship and its unwillingness to
denuclearize. Today, Washington appears to have resigned itself to managing the North Korea problem rather than trying to solve it," Aum told
Newsweek

He said that the Biden administration's "policy has been ineffective when measured against national security goals."

Diplomatic Relations

"North Korea is advancing its nuclear weapons capabilities both quantitatively and qualitatively through unabated missile testing and fissile
material production," Aum warned. "Kim Jong Un has even called for an 'exponential increase' in the country's nuclear weapon arsenal."

At the same time, the

U.S. is "failing at improving diplomatic relations and enhancing mutual understanding
with North Korea."
"Between 1992 and 2008, the United States and North Korea used to have consistent, productive engagement at many levels – diplomatic,
humanitarian, academic, cultural, and even parliamentary. Today, there is no diplomatic engagement and U.S. citizens are banned from going
to North Korea with few exceptions," Aum said, noting that "there have been zero U.S. congressional delegations to North Korea since 2008."

"The U.S. military likes to define 'threat' as a function of intent and capabilities. If North Korea's capabilities have become intractable, then it is
crucial that Washington intensify its efforts to mitigate North Korea's negative intent," he said.

Building Mutual Trust

Aum told Newsweek that Washington should be less focused on "hardline elements" of policy and show more openness to dialog.

"Since Pyongyang is insecure, isolated, and impoverished - but also nuclear armed - the United States
should be doing everything it can to strengthen engagement, reduce misperceptions, and build mutual
trust to lower the risks of a nuclear war," Aum said.

"Forthese goals, isolation, pressure, and deterrence are ill-suited tools. But it seems like Washington is
overly focusing on these hardline elements – to poor effect," he said.

"The administration has stated that it is seeking diplomacy and deterrence with North Korea, and that it
has reached out to Pyongyang multiple times to no avail," he went on.

"But U.S.outreach may appear disingenuous to North Korea when the overall U.S. posture signals
hostility, " Aum said.

Formally ending the war spills over to arms control----otherwise war is inevitable.
Bernal ‘23 [Gabriela Bernal, North Korea analyst, PhD scholar @ University of North Korean Studies.
“Korean war must formally end to break the dangerous nuclear impasse”, South China Morning Post,
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3228815/korean-war-must-formally-end-break-
dangerous-nuclear-impasse¸7/27/23]
Today, most consider the security situation and the division of the peninsula normal, and the international community seems to have become
comfortable with the status quo. Such
perceptions, however, come with major risks, since every year that goes by
without ending the war results in North Korea continuing to expand its nuclear and missile programmes.
Not to mention how the trend of recent military provocations by the two Koreas could result in
escalations that trigger the resumption of all-out conflict.

While the US waits for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, the
unresolved status of the Korean war fuels tensions
between North and South Korea and contributes to the instability of the entire region.

As such, it
is imperative for the parties concerned to declare an end to the Korean war and take steps
towards signing a legally binding peace treaty. Such a treaty would become a positive condition for improvements on various
levels, including security, humanitarian and economic fronts.

In Pyongyang’s eyes, without a peace treaty, the US could attack North Korea at any time. This
motivates it to develop and maintain a nuclear weapons programme to safeguard the security of its
regime.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons don’t just pose a threat to South Korea or Japan; since they can now reach the US mainland, the threat has
become a global problem.

Besides security issues, humanitarian concerns also abound. The war solidified the division of the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel, which
resulted in the separation of thousands of families. The absence of a peace treaty means that North and South Korea remain enemies and that
movement of people across the border is strictly forbidden. Many families remain separated, with little chance of hearing from their loved ones
unless peace is attained.

According to South Korean government data, more than 3,600 South Koreans died last year without having a chance to reunite with their family
members in North Korea. In total, around 134,000 South Koreans were registered for family reunions but only 42,624 remain alive, with almost
66 per cent of them now aged 80 or older.

A continued state of war has also directly affected the quality of life of ordinary North Koreans due to
the government’s disproportionate allocation of resources to the military. This has left the North Korean
population vulnerable to food shortages, malnutrition and inadequate healthcare.

The lack of peace also further limits international aid and development efforts, compounding the difficulties faced
by the North Korean people. A well-negotiated peace treaty would remove the government’s need for
continuous military build-up and open the doors for much-needed external investment that would
improve the lives of North Korean citizens.
The current status quo hinders the peninsula’s potential to become an economic hub in Northeast Asia. With peace, inter-Korean economic
projects that have been in the planning for years could finally be implemented or resumed, marketisation in the North could flourish to new
levels, cross-continent railways could be built, and new trade opportunities and greater regional economic integration and cooperation would
be possible.

Allowing the war to go on for the foreseeable future brings zero benefits and comes with hefty risks. The armistice signatories – North Korea,
the US (representing the UN Command) and China – as well as South Korea (a direct warring party), must prioritise the long-term stability and
security of the region and the world and pursue a diplomatic process that will result in an end-of-war declaration and ultimately a peace treaty.

The first course of action should be to implement confidence-building measures between the parties, especially between the North and South
and the US and North Korea. Measures could include people-to-people exchanges, cooperation on humanitarian issues, sports diplomacy and
academic exchanges, and limited tourism programmes. This would help set a strong foundation for consistent diplomacy.

Next, it is important for the US to drop its unrealistic requirement for the complete and verifiable
denuclearisation of North Korea and instead pursue an arms control strategy that sees Pyongyang
reduce its weapons stockpiles, stop all weapons testing, allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, and pursue the gradual
dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programme.
Extinction.
Ward 18 [Alex Ward, foreign affairs reporter, “This is exactly how a nuclear war would kill you”, Vox,
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/19/17873822/nuclear-war-weapons-bombs-how-kill,
10/19/18]
1) US vs. North Korea war

The potential nuclear conflict between the United States and North Korea worries most experts — and likely most
people on Earth.

That makes sense: Trump and Kim, the North Korean premier, spent most of 2017 threatening to bomb each other with nuclear weapons. Kim actually gained a missile capable enough of reaching the entirety of the United States,
although questions remain about whether it could make it all the way with a warhead on top and detonate.

there remains a genuine fear — perhaps slightly allayed now following Washington and Pyongyang’s
Still,

diplomatic thaw — that the leaders might escalate their public squabble into a nuclear conflict.

In February, Yochi Dreazen wrote for Vox that “ a full-blown war with North Korea wouldn’t be as bad as you think. It would be
much, much worse,” in part because “millions — plural — would die.”

the US would likely have to send in around 200,000 troops to destroy Kim’s nuclear arsenal. Seoul,
As Dreazen recounts,

South Korea’s capital, would soon — if not already — lie in ruins due to North Korea’s large artillery
capabilities.
None of that may even be the worst part:

Bruce Klingner, a 20-year veteran of the CIA who spent years studying North Korea, told me that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had stood by in 2002 as the US methodically built up the forces it used to invade the country — and oust

He said there was little chance that Kim would follow in Hussein’s footsteps and patiently
Hussein — the following year.

allow the Pentagon to deploy the troops and equipment it would need for a full-on war with North
Korea.

“The conventional wisdom used to be that North Korea would use only nuclear weapons as part of a last
gasp, twilight of the gods, pull the temple down upon themselves kind of move ,” said Klingner, who now works for the conservative
Heritage Foundation. “But we have to prepare for the real possibility that Kim would use nuclear weapons in the

early stages of a conflict, not the latter ones.”

any attempt to overthrow the Kim regime would prompt North Korea to launch nukes at the United
In effect,

States. Washington would almost certainly respond in kind, leading to one of the worst wars in world
history.
2) US vs. Russia war

Few experts discounted the idea that the US and Russia could yet engage in a nuclear war despite a decades-long standoff. After all, they’ve come close a few times.

Here are just two examples: In September 1983, a missile attack system made it seem like the US had launched weapons at the Soviet Union. One man, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, decided it was a false alarm and didn’t report
the alert. Had he done so, Moscow likely would’ve responded with an actual nuclear strike.

Two months later, a too-real NATO war game — Able Archer 83 — made the Soviets believe Western forces were preparing for an actual attack. Moscow put its nuclear arsenal on high alert, but ultimately, neither side came to
nuclear blows.

Today, two main reasons explain why a US-Russia nuclear fight is a major concern.

The first is the most obvious: Moscow just has so many nuclear weapons. Russia is the only country that could match the US bomb-for-bomb in any conflict. The longer Moscow has its weapons, the thinking goes, the higher the
chance it uses them on the US — or vice versa.

The second reason is the most troublesome: Washington and Moscow may be on a collision course. Russia is expanding further into Europe and encroaching on NATO territory. There’s even fear that Putin might authorize an
invasion of a Baltic country that once was a part of the Soviet Union but is now in NATO. If that happens, the US would be treaty-bound to defend the Baltic country, almost assuredly setting up a shooting war with Moscow.

Experts disagree on what would happen next. Some, including the Trump administration, claim Russia would use nuclear weapons early in a fight as a way to “escalate to deescalate” — do something so brash at the start of a
conflict that it has to end before it gets even worse. Others say Russia would use the weapons only if its forces are on the brink of defeat.

But Olga Oliker and Andrey Baklitskiy, experts on Russia’s nuclear strategy, wrote at War on the Rocks in February that Moscow’s “military doctrine clearly states that nuclear weapons will be used only in response to an adversary
using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction,” or if the country’s survival is in doubt. In other words, they say Russia would only use nukes in retaliation or to avoid certain extinction.

Washington, of course, would likely respond with its own nuclear strikes after Moscow dropped its bombs. At that point, they’d be in a full-blown nuclear war with the potential to destroy each other and much of the world (more
on that below).
3) India vs. Pakistan war

India and Pakistan have gone to war four times since 1947, when Britain partitioned what had been a single colony into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The worry today, though, is that a fifth conflict could go
nuclear.

After decades of testing, India officially became a nuclear power in 1998. Islamabad, which had started a uranium enrichment program in the 1970s, soon joined New Delhi in the nuclear club.

Two of their fights — the 1999 Kargil War and the 2001-’02 Twin Peaks Crisis — happened with fully functioning nuclear arsenals, but ultimately, neither country chose to use them.

But the opportunity keeps presenting itself. Each side claims the other has violated an ongoing ceasefire in the contested, but India-administered, Kashmir region. The region continues to be roiled by violence; for instance, six
people were killed in separate instances on September 27.

The dispute over Kashmir is a key reason for current India-Pakistan tensions — and has the potential to spiral out of control.

Some fear that India and Pakistan may reach for the proverbial nuclear button sooner rather than later. Here’s just one reason why, according to an April report by Tom Hundley for Vox:

The Pakistan navy is likely to soon place nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on up to three of its five French-built diesel-electric submarines. ... Even more disturbing, Pakistani military authorities say they are considering the possibility of
putting nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on surface vessels. ...

Pakistan says its decision to add nuclear weapons to its navy is a direct response to India’s August 2016 deployment of its first nuclear submarine, the Arihant. A second, even more advanced Indian nuclear submarine, the Arighat,
began sea trials last November, and four more boats are scheduled to join the fleet by 2025. That will give India a complete “nuclear triad,” which means the country will have the ability to deliver a nuclear strike by land-based
missiles, by warplanes, and by submarines.

In effect, India and Pakistan are in a nuclear arms race, and historical enemies will soon patrol dangerous waters in close proximity with nuclear weapons aboard their vessels.

While there’s no real indication a fifth India-Pakistan war is on the horizon, it’s possible one flare-up puts both countries on the path to a nuclear crisis.

Wild card: Trump’s temperament

Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, told me the risk of nuclear war is increasing because of one factor: Trump.

“He is the greatest nuclear risk in the world, more than any person, any group, or any nation,” he said. “The policies he is pursuing are making most of our nuclear risks worse, and he is tearing down the global institutions that have
reduced and restrained nuclear risks over the last few decades.”

Here’s what he means: The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, released in February, lowered the threshold for dropping a bomb on an enemy. Basically, the US said that it would launch low-yield nuclear weapons — smaller,
less deadly bombs — in response to nonnuclear strikes, such as a major cyberattack. That was in contrast with previous US administrations, which said they would respond with a nuke only in the event of the most egregious
threats against the US, like the possible use of a biological weapon.

The document also calls for more, smaller weapons on submarines and other platforms to attack enemies. Many experts worry that having tinier nukes makes them more usable, thereby increasing the chance of a skirmish turning
into a full-blown nuclear war. (Think, for example, of the US-China trade war escalating to the point that Trump thinks his only option is to launch a smaller nuke, or how Trump could respond to Beijing after a devastating
cyberattack on US infrastructure.)

Plus, increasing the arsenal in this way would partially undo decades of the US’s work to stop nuclear proliferation around the world.

Some experts, like Georgetown’s Kroenig, say having smaller tactical weapons is actually a good idea. Our current arsenal, which prioritizes older and bigger nukes, leads adversaries to think we would never use it. Having smaller
bombs that America might use, then, makes the chance of a nuclear conflict less likely. “It gives us more options to threaten that limited response,” Kroenig told me. “We raise the bar with these lower-yield weapons.”

But the Trump risk may have less to do with what kinds of bombs he has and more to do with his temperament. Take his tweet from January 2 toward the end of his spat with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader:

While tensions with North Korea were high early on in Trump’s presidency, he has yet to face a situation, like his predecessors did, where it seemed nuclear war was likely.

The 13-day Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, where the Soviet Union had secretly placed missiles in Cuba — just 90 miles from the US mainland — comes to mind. Members of President John F. Kennedy’s team, especially his
military advisers, called for airstrikes on Cuba and even an invasion.

But Kennedy decided to set up a blockade of the island and try to work out a diplomatic settlement with the Soviets, in part because a military confrontation might turn nuclear. Ultimately, the situation ended when they agreed on
a deal: The Soviets would withdraw the missiles from the island, and the US would take out its missiles in Turkey. Before that conclusion, both sides came as close to nuclear war as ever.

How would Trump handle himself in a similar situation? Would he resist the urges of some in his military brass to strike an enemy — perhaps with a lower-yield nuke — or would he simply tweet out a threat in a hair-trigger
moment?

The fact is we don’t know — but what we do know about Trump makes his demeanor in such a situation a potential, even if very small, nuclear risk.

Here’s what happens in a nuclear attack

The theory around whether someone might drop a nuclear bomb takes away from the most serious matter in these discussions: the human and physical toll. Simply put, a nuclear strike of any magnitude would unleash suffering on
a scale not seen since World War II. And with the advances in nuclear technology since then, it’s possible the devastation of the next nuclear strike would be far, far worse.

It’s hard to picture what the effect of a modern-day nuclear attack would actually look like. But Wellerstein, the nuclear historian, created a website called Nukemap that allows users to “drop” a specific bomb — say, the roughly
140-kiloton explosive North Korea tested in September 2017 — on any target.

So I did just that, detonating that North Korean device on the Capitol building in the heart of Washington, DC — and, well, see for yourself:

Roughly 220,000 people would die from this one attack alone, according to the Nukemap estimate, while another 450,000 would sustain injuries. By comparison, America’s two nuclear attacks on Japan in 1945 killed and injured a
total of around 200,000 people (granted, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had smaller populations than the Washington metro area).

It’s very likely that North Korea wouldn’t launch just one bomb, but multiple at DC and likely some at
New York City, the West Coast, and possibly US military bases in Guam and/or Hawaii.
But for simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on the effects of this one horrible attack.

The center yellow circle is the fireball radius — that is, the mushroom cloud — which would extend out about 0.25 square miles. Those within the green circle, approximately a 1.2-square-mile area, would face the heaviest dose of
radiation. “Without medical treatment, there can be expected between 50% and 90% mortality from acute effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks,” according to the website.

Radiation poisoning is a horrible way to die. Here are just some of the symptoms people sick with radiation get:

Nausea and vomiting

Spontaneous bleeding
Diarrhea, sometimes bloody

Severely burnt skin that may peel off

The dark grey circle in the middle is where a shock wave does a lot of damage. In that 17-square-mile area, the bomb would flatten residential buildings, certainly killing people in or near them. Debris and fire would be everywhere.

People in the bigger yellow circle, a 33.5-square-mile area, would receive third-degree burns. “There’s a bright flash of light,” Brian Toon, a scientist and expert on nuclear disasters at the University of Colorado Boulder, told me
about when the bomb goes off. Those exposed to the light, which would stretch for miles, would get those burns if their skin were exposed. The light would also “easily ignite fires with flammable objects like leaves, twigs, paper, or
your clothing,” he added.

The victims may not feel much pain, however, because the burn will destroy pain nerves. Still, some will suffer major scarring or have the inability to use certain limbs, and others might require amputation, according to
Wellerstein’s site.

The biggest circle encompasses the near entirety of the air-blast zone: a 134-square-mile area. People can still die, or at least receive severe injuries, in that location. The blast would break windows, and those standing near the
glass might be killed by shards, or at least shed blood from myriad cuts.

Those who survive the bombing and its effects will have to walk through burning rubble and pass lifeless, charred bodies to reach safety. Some of them will ultimately survive, but others will succumb to sustained injuries or
radiation. The wind, meanwhile, will carry the irradiated debris and objects — known as fallout because they drop from the sky — far outside the blast zone and sicken countless others.

As for Washington, it will likely take decades and billions of dollars not only to rebuild the city but clean it of radiation entirely.

An actual nuclear war would have much wider and more

It’s worth reiterating that all of the above are estimates for one strike on one location.

devastating consequences. And if that war spiraled out of control, the effects after the conflict would be
much worse than the attacks themselves — and change the course of human history.

“ Almost everybody on the planet would die”

 1NC
Econ

Confidence is soaring.
COC 9/20. U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Small Business Index Reaches Post-Pandemic High as Business
Owners See Improving Economy.” https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/small-business-index-
reaches-post-pandemic-high-as-business-owners-see-improving-economy/micahw

Washington, D.C. — The Q3 MetLife and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index , released today, hit its highest
score since the start [of] the pandemic as small business owners see an improving economy. The Index
score, which measures small business owner confidence , jumped this quarter to 69.2 from 63.1 thanks to a
nine-percentage point increase in the share of small businesses (33%) that say the economy is in good
health . Sixty-six percent of small businesses also report that their business is in good health and 72% say they are comfortable with their
cash flow. Both measures jumped several points from last quarter.

“Main Street employers are showing remarkable resiliency in the face of high inflation and a shortage of
workers ,” said Tom Sullivan, Vice President of Small Business Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “With fears of a recession
likely in
the rearview mirror and inflation starting to ease , small businesses owners are feeling a lot better
than they were a year ago.”

Increasing the payroll tax cap to $400,000 collapses the economy.

Andrew G. Biggs 11-22-2021, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies Social
Security, former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, PhD from the
London School of Economics. "Progressive Social Security Reform Meets Reality." American Enterprise
Institute. https://www.aei.org/articles/progressive-social-security-reform-meets-reality/. DL

Changes to the 2021 version of the Social Security 2100 Act, released on October 26, acknowledge that difficulty. But in doing so,
they also clarify the true choice Americans face: If they want higher Social Security benefits, they’ll have to pay for those benefits themselves —
and they may choose differently than progressive lawmakers prefer.

Previous versions of Larson’s proposal included two types of tax increases.

First, the
12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax, which currently applies to yearly earnings up to
$147,000, would be applied to yearly earnings up to $400,000. Because the current law’s payroll-tax
ceiling is indexed to wage growth while the new $400,000 threshold would be unindexed , this “ donut
hole ” would shrink each year until eventually, all workers would pay the Social Security tax on all of
their wages . This would immediately increase the effective top marginal tax rate on earned income
by twelve percent age points, giving the U.S. one of the highest such rates in the world .
Prior versions of Larson’s plan also gradually increased the Social Security-payroll-tax rate, from the current 12.4 percent up to 14.8 percent
over the next two decades, so every worker, regardless of his salary, would pay more. In return for higher taxes, Americans would receive two
things: a Social Security program that was solvent for 75 years or more, and increased Social Security benefits.

Under the 2021 version of the plan, however, Americans would receive neither of those things. In a belated acknowledgment of political
reality, the plan eliminates the payroll-tax-rate increase that would have hit low- and middle-income workers. This in turn has dramatic knock-
on effects. The payroll-tax-rate increase supplied nearly half of the additional revenues in previous iterations of the plan. Without it, the 2021
version would only be able to add four years , rather than 75, to the life of the Social Security trust funds, and
instead of being permanent, the benefit increases that Larson has long promised Americans would last only five
years and then be repealed in full.

While marrying temporary solvency to temporary benefit increases is an obvious gimmick designed to
leverage further tax increases down the road, it also presents ordinary Americans with a clear choice: If they want higher
Social Security benefits, they’re going to have to pay for those benefits themselves. Larson’s proposal
already hits high earners
harder than our political system is likely to accept . In fact, almost no developed countries fund their
pension systems with an uncapped payroll tax.

Extinction.
Dr. Hal Brands 21, history PhD from Yale, Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and Dr. Michael Beckley, political
science PhD from Columbia, associate professor of political science at Tufts University; 9/24/2021,
“China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem,” https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-
great-power-united-states/, pacc <3 Stras

Slowing growth makes it harder for leaders to keep the public happy . Economic underperformance
weakens the country against its rivals. Fearing upheaval, leaders crack down on dissent. They maneuver
desperately to keep geopolitical enemies at bay. Expansion seems like a solution —a way of grabbing economic
resources and markets , making nationalism a crutch for a wounded regime , and beating back foreign
threats.

Many countries have followed this path. When the United States’ long post-Civil War economic surge ended,
Washington violently suppressed strikes and unrest at home, built a powerful blue-water Navy, and engaged in a fit of belligerence and
imperial expansion during the 1890s. After a fast-rising imperial Russia fell into a deep slump at the turn of the 20th century,
the tsarist government cracked down hard while also enlarging its military, seeking colonial gains in East Asia and sending around 170,000 soldiers to occupy

Manchuria. These moves backfired spectacularly: They antagonized Japan, which beat Russia in the first great-power war of the 20th century.

A century later, Russia became aggressive under similar circumstances. Facing a severe, post- 2008 economic slowdown , Russian President
Vladimir Putin invaded two neighboring countries , sought to create a new Eurasian economic bloc, staked
Moscow’s claim to a resource-rich Arctic, and steered Russia deeper into dictatorship. Even democratic France engaged in anxious aggrandizement
after the end of its postwar economic expansion in the 1970s. It tried to rebuild its old sphere of influence in Africa, deploying
14,000 troops to its former colonies and undertaking a dozen military interventions over the next two decades.

All of these cases were complicated, yet the pattern is clear . If a rapid rise gives countries the means to act boldly, the fear of decline serves
up a powerful motive for rasher, more urgent expansion. The same thing often happens when fast-rising powers cause their own
containment by a hostile coalition. In fact, some of history’s
most gruesome wars have come when revisionist powers
concluded their path to glory was about to be blocked.
Retirement
 Populism---1NC
Workers of all income levels are better off without the plan
Grezsler 22, is Senior Research Fellow for Budget and Entitlements in the Grover M. Hermann Center
for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. (Rachel, 11-18-2022, “A Permanent “Social Security
2100: A Sacred Trust” Would Exacerbate Shortfalls and Hasten Insolvency,” Heritage Foundation,
https://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/permanent-social-security-2100-sacred-trust-would-
exacerbate-shortfalls-and)

Even with SS-AST’s massive tax hikes on high er- income earners , the proposal’s expansion of benefits
would still require a 34 percent , across-the-board payroll tax increase, bringing the current 12.4 percent tax to 16.67
percent. A permanent version of SS-AST would require an extra $3,000 per year in Social Security taxes , and
$11,800 per year in total Social Security taxes for the median household .

A Heritage Foundation analysis

of the personal impacts of the SS-AST’s predecessor bill (the 116th Congress version,
which massively increased taxes but achieved solvency) found that workers of all income levels would be
better off , with higher incomes in retirement , if they were allowed to keep the money they would
have to pay for the proposed tax hikes and instead save that money in a personal account.15 That same
analysis holds true for SS-AST, but the magnitude of the potential losses to workers’ future financial well-being would be even greater
considering the larger tax increases needed to sustain SS-AST.

Alt causes to retirement poverty---low wages, inflation, and housing shortages cause
inequality that can’t be resolved by the plan.
 Trade---1NC
Globalization is resilient and alt causes like interest rates, debt, and climate policy
outweigh the plan
Gourinchas 23, is the Economic Counsellor and the Director of Research of the IMF. He is on leave
from the University of California at Berkeley where he is the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global
Management in the Department of Economics and at the Haas School of Business. (Pierre-Oliver, 7-25-
2023, “Global Economy on Track but Not Yet Out of the Woods,” IMF Blog,
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/07/25/global-economy-on-track-but-not-yet-out-of-the-
woods, JSEM)

The global economy continues to gradually recover from the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine . In the near term, the signs of progress are undeniable .

supply-chain disruptions have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

The COVID-19 health crisis is officially over, and
Economic activity in the first quarter of the year proved resilient, despite the challenging environment, amid
surprisingly strong labor markets . Energy and food prices have come down sharply from their war-induced
peaks, allowing global inflation pressures to ease faster than expected. And financial instability following the March banking turmoil
remains contained thanks to forceful action by the US and Swiss authorities.
Yet many challenges still cloud the horizon, and it is too early to celebrate.

Under our baseline forecast growth will slow from last year’s 3.5 percent to 3 percent this year and next, a 0.2 percentage points upgrade for
2023 from our April projections. Global inflation is projected to decline from 8.7 percent last year to 6.8 percent this year, a 0.2 percentage
point downward revision, and 5.2 percent in 2024.

The slowdown is concentrated in advanced economies, where growth will fall from 2.7 percent in 2022 to 1.5 percent this year and remain
subdued at 1.4 percent next year. The euro area, still reeling from last year’s sharp spike in gas prices caused by the war, is set to decelerate
sharply.

By contrast, growth in emerging markets and developing economies is still expected to pick-up with year-on-year growth accelerating from 3.1
percent in 2022 to 4.1 percent this year and next. (The corresponding annual growth, shown on the chart below, is 4 percent for 2022 and 2023
and 4.1% for 2024.)

This average, however, masks significant differences between countries, with emerging and developing Asia growing strongly at 5.3 percent this
year, while many commodity producers will suffer from a decline in export revenues.

Risks

Stronger growth and lower inflation than expected are welcome news, suggesting the global economy is headed in the right direction. Yet,
while some adverse risks have moderated, the balance remains tilted to the downside.

First, signs are growing that global activity is losing momentum. The global tightening of monetary policy has brought policy rates into
contractionary territory. This has started to weigh on activity, slowing the growth of credit to the non-financial sector, increasing households’
and firms’ interest payments, and putting pressure on real estate markets. In the United States, excess savings from the pandemic-related
transfers, which helped households weather the cost-of-living crisis and tighter credit conditions, are all but depleted. In China, the recovery
following the re-opening of its economy shows signs of losing steam amid continued concerns about the property sector, with implications for
the global economy.

Second, core inflation, which excludes energy and food prices, remains well above central banks’ targets, and is expected to decline gradually
from 6 percent this year to 4.7 percent in 2024, a 0.4 percentage points upward revision. More worrisome, core inflation in advanced
economies is expected to remain unchanged at a 5.1 percent annual average rate this year, before declining to 3.1 percent in 2024. Clearly, the
battle against inflation is not yet won.

Key to inflation’s persistence will be labor market developments and wage-profit dynamics. Labor markets remain a particularly bright spot,
with unemployment rates below, and employment levels above, their pre-COVID levels in many economies. Overall wage inflation has
increased but remains behind price inflation in most countries. The reason is simple and has little to do with so-called ”greedflation”: prices
adjust upward faster than wages when nominal demand far exceeds what the economy can produce. As a result, real wages have declined, by
about 3.8 percent between the first quarter of 2022 and 2023 for advanced and large emerging market economies.

Lower real wages translate to reduced labor costs. This may explain part of the strength of the labor market despite slowing growth. But in
many countries, the observed increase in employment goes beyond what the decline in labor costs would suggest. It is fair to say that the
reasons are not fully understood.

If labor markets remain strong, we should expect—and welcome—real wages recovering lost ground. This means nominal wage growth will
remain strong for a while even as price inflation declines. Indeed, the gap between the two has started to close. Because average firms’ profit
margins have grown robustly in the last two years, I remain confident that there is room to accommodate the rebound in real wages without
triggering a wage-price spiral. With inflation expectations well-anchored in major economies, and the economy slowing, market pressures
should help contain the pass-through from labor costs to prices.

These labor market developments matter enormously. In the near term, should economic conditions deteriorate, the risk is that firms might
reverse course and sharply scale down employment. Separately, the strong recovery in employment, coupled with only modest increases in
output, indicates that labor productivity—the amount of output per hour worked—has declined. Should this trend persist, this would not bode
well for medium-term growth.

Despite monetary policy tightening and the slowdown in bank lending, financial conditions have eased since the banking stress in March. Equity
market valuations surged, especially in the artificial intelligence segment of the tech sector. The dollar depreciated further, driven by market
expectations of a more benign path for US interest rates and stronger risk appetite, providing some relief to emerging and developing
countries. Going forward, there is a danger of a sharp repricing—should inflation surprise to the upside or global risk appetite deteriorate—
causing a flight toward dollar safe assets, higher borrowing costs and increased debt distress.

Policies

Hopefully, with inflation starting to recede, we have entered the final stage of the inflationary cycle that started in 2021. But hope is not a
Risks to inflation are now more balanced and most major
policy, and the touchdown may prove quite tricky to execute.
economies are less likely to need additional outsized increases in policy rates. Rates have already peaked in some
Latin American economies. Yet, it is critical to avoid easing rates prematurely, that is, until underlying inflation
shows clear and sustained signs of cooling. We are not there yet. All the while, central banks should continue to
monitor the financial system and stand ready to use their other tools to maintain financial stability.

After years of heavy fiscal support in many countries, it is now time to gradually restore fiscal buffers , and put debt
dynamics on a more sustainable footing . This will help to safeguard financial stability and to reinforce the
overall credibility of the disinflation strategy. This is not a call for generalized austerity: the pace and composition of this fiscal
consolidation should be mindful of the strength of private demand, while protecting the most vulnerable. Yet, some consolidation measures
seem entirely appropriate. For instance, with energy prices back to their pre-pandemic levels, many fiscal measures, such as energy subsidies,
should be phased out.

Fiscal space is also key to implement many needed structural reforms, especially in emerging and developing economies. This is especially
important since prospects for medium-term growth in income per capita have dimmed over the past decade. The slowdown is sharper for low-
and middle-income economies relative to high-income ones. In other words, prospects for catching up to higher living standards have
diminished markedly. At the same time, elevated debt levels are preventing many low income and frontier
economies from making the investments they need to grow faster, with high risks of debt distress in
many places. Recent progress toward debt resolution for Zambia is encouraging, but faster progress for other highly indebted countries is
urgently needed.

Some of the slowdown in growth reflects the spillover of harmful policies. The rise of geoeconomic fragmentation with the global economy
splitting into rival blocs, will most harm emerging and developing economies that are more reliant on an integrated global economy, direct
investment, and technology transfers. Insufficient progress on the climate transition will leave poorer countries
more exposed to increasingly severe climate shocks and rising temperatures, even as they account for a small
fraction of global emissions. On all these issues, multilateral cooperation remains the best way to ensure a safe and
prosperous economy for all.
Recessions inevitable. Future supply shocks drive inflation and turn the case.
White ’22 [William White, former chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at
the OECD, Senior Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute; Reykjavik Conference Working Paper, “What Next
for the Post Covid Global Economy: Could Negative Supply Shocks Disrupt Other Fragile Systems?”
https://williamwhite.ca/2022/12/07/what-next-for-the-post-covid-global-economy-could-negative-
supply-shocks-disrupt-other-fragile-systems/, yao]

Further negative supply side shocks and the implications for future inflation

It must first be recognized that the recent, negative supply shocks to the global economy are likely to have significant
effects that linger over time. Moreover, a new and rather different set of negative shocks can also be anticipated. Unlike shocks
deemed “stagflationary” in the past, many of these shocks will make investment more attractive and strengthen aggregate demand rather than
reduce it. This implies that central banks in the future will face even greater difficulties in keeping inflation
under control . In turn, this raises the likelihood and the costs of future economic and financial crises .
All significant downturns have scarring (hysteretic) effects31, and the covid pandemic seems especially likely to do so. While supply chain
bottlenecks have been mostly overcome, companies have become much more aware of the need to balance resilience against efficiency. In
consequence, many old supply structures will have to be written off and replaced with new ones. Further, as long as China continues with its
zero covid policy, the reliability its production processes will be suspect, aggravating the need for change in global supply chains. Labour
supply effects also seem likely to be long lasting . The working age dead are no longer in the work force and
covid ” is increasingly mentioned as the probable cause of the recent decline in labour force participation
“long
rates in many countries.

While the Russian- Ukrain ian war aggravated the price rise of many commodities, it is important to note that prices
were rising well before the conflict, perhaps reflecting underlying secular trends . A still rising (if decelerating)
global population is putting food security at risk. As well, the future supply of both food and other commodities (like
lumber) could be threatened by climate change. The production of metals will also be threatened by low levels of past
investment , and the reality that most promising mining sites have already been exploited.

The need to confront climate change will impose another negative economic shock , since both mitigation
and adaptation will prove costly . Mitigation requires reducing the use of fossil fuels and expanding the use of alternative sources of
energy. If the supply of fossil fuels declines (as it has done due to low investment levels) before alternatives can fill the gap, then
the price of fossil fuels must rise in the interim. As well, the Investments required to provide alternative fuels and the new infrastructure to use
them will also put a heavy demand on resources in aggregate32. More specifically, a fossil-free-future is also likely to be a
metal- heavy future, putting extended price pressure on particular commodities.33. Adaptation will also require heavy
investment for relocations, flood barriers , stricter building codes and the like. Finally, in spite of efforts both to mitigate and
adapt to climate change, huge losses seem certain to occur regardless34. Rebuilding destroyed property and
infrastructure will put another heavy strain on global supply capacity .
A recent book by Goodhart and Pradhan (2020 ) reminds us of yet another emerging supply side problem. The global supply of people of
working age has started to decline. This trend started in Europe and Japan but is now evident in China , Korea and many other
countries. Goodhart and Pradhan suggest that the shortage of workers will cause real wages to rise , after many years
of stagnation linked to more positive demographic trends. Higher real wages for those working, together with a high marginal propensity to
consume (out of income) on the part of pensioners, will support future consumption35. With this expectation in mind, companies will invest
more to replace more expensive workers. The need for higher investment will be compounded by the need for
institutional care for the growing proportion of older people affected by dementia. Goodhart and Pradhan
project that real interest rates will have to rise for an extended period to lower aggregate demand to meet
aggregate supply and resist inflationary tendencies.

Finally, two other negative supply side developments could also contribute to higher prices in the future. First, in
recent years, zombie companies 36 and companies selling at subsidized prices to gain market share have
proliferated in an era of easy financing. Should financing conditions tighten , and these companies disappear ,
prices will rise directly . Further, growing market concentration in recent years in many jurisdictions will make it easier for other
companies to maintain or even raise profit margins. Second, geopolitical tensions , especially between the US and China ,
are a further significant threat to the efficiencies provided by global supply chains and global competition in pursuing
technological progress. Recalling the earlier discussion of complex adaptive systems, and the degree to which the Chinese and
American economies are already integrated , the economic damage caused by these developments should not
be underestimated .

Negative supply shocks in recent years are already threatening to trigger underlying economic instabilities . Future
shocks , possibly more varied and more long lasting , could have even more dangerous economic effects.
Both depression (accompanied by deflation) and high inflation are extreme opposite outcomes that are both
plausible. In complex , adaptive systems, outcomes arise from feedback processes that are essentially
impossible to predict ex ante. However, what we do know is that high debt levels increase economic
vulnerability in both good times and bad37, and that many countries now have very high levels of both private and public
debt. Highly respected economists have in fact given concrete descriptions of the processes through which high private sector debt can lead to
debt-deflation38 and how high public sector debt can end in hyperinflation39. The fact that private sector debt often gets transferred to the
public sector would seem to tilt the balance in favour of an eventual inflationary outturn40.

Whatever the outcome, some form of serious economic crisis now seems possible and even likely. In the event of such an economic
crisis, the effects on other fragile systems might be quite negative . Potentially, there could be a “ cascade of
tipping points ” between systems41, similar to the potential cascades that scientists have already identified within the
environmental system42.
Elections
 Democracy---1NC
Democracy has no impact.
Daina Chiba & Erik Gartzke 21. Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of
Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau, Ph.D in Political Science from Rice
University, LL.M in Jurisprudence and International Relations from Hitotsubashi University; Professor of
Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, PhD in Political Science from the University of
Iowa; Office of Naval Research, “Make Two Democracies and Call Me in the Morning: Endogenous
Regime Type and the Democratic Peace,” February 19. p. 1-44]

The dem ocratic peace —the observation that democracies are less likely to fight each other than are other pairings of states— is one
of the most widely acknowledged empirical regularities in international relations. Prominent scholars have even characterized the
relationship as an empirical law (Levy 1988; Gleditsch 1992). The discovery of a special peace in liberal dyads stimulated enormous
scholarly debate and led to, or reinforced, a number of policy initiatives by various governments and international organizations. Although a
broad consensus has emerged among researchers regarding the empirical correlation between joint democracy and peace, disagreement
remains as to its logical foundations. Numerous theories have been proposed to account for how democracy produces peace, if only dyadically
(e.g., Russett 1993; Rummel 1996; Doyle 1997; Schultz 2001).

At the same time , peace appears likely to foster or maintain democracy (Thompson 1996; James, Solberg,
andWolfson 1999). A vast swath of research in political science and economics proposes explanations for the origins of liberal government
involving variables such as economic development (Lipset 1959; Burkhart and Lewis-Beck 1994; Przeworski et al. 2000; Acemoglu and Robinson
2006; Epstein et al. 2006) and inequality (Boix 2003), political interests (Downs 1957; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), power hierarchies (Moore
1966; Lake 2009), third party inducements (Pevehouse 2005) or impositions (Peceny 1995; Meernik 1996), geography (Gleditsch 2002b), and
natural resource endowments (Ross 2001), to list just a few examples. Each of these putative cause s of democracy is also
associated with various explanations for international conflict. Indeed, some as yet poorly defined set of canonical factors may
contribute both to democracy and to peace, making it look as if the two variables are directly related, even if possibly

they are not .

We seek to contribute to this literature, not by proposing yet another theory to explain how democracy vanquishes war, but by estimating the
causal effect of joint democracy on the probability of militarized disputes using a quasi-experimental research design. We begin by noting that
some of thecommon causes of democracy and peace may be unobservable , generating an endogenous
relationship between the two. Theories of democracy and explanations for peace are at a formative state; it is not possible to utilize
detailed, validated and widely accepted models of each of these processes to assess their interaction. Indeed, to a remarkable degree
democracy and peace each remain poorly understood and weakly accounted for empirically , despite their
central roles in international politics. We address the risk of spurious correlation by applying an i nstrumental v ariables
a pproach. Having taken into account possible endogeneity between democracy and peace, we find that joint
democracy does not have a n independent pacifying effect on interstate conflict. Instead, our findings show
that dem ocratic countries are more likely to attack other democracies than are non -democracies. Our
results call into question the large body of theory that has been proposed to account for the apparent pacifism of
democratic dyads.

Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns win over the Global South.
Brands 22 [Hal Brands, political scientist. “China and Russia's Lies Are Winning Over the Global South”,
Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-09-08/china-and-russia-s-lies-are-
winning-over-the-global-south, 9/8/22]
What US officials once called the Third World was a crucial swing bloc during the Cold War, and it is again in the new cold wars underway.
Russia and China see the developing regions as areas where the US position is weak and they can
expand their influence. The two autocratic powers are increasingly doing so through aggressive
disinformation campaigns that the US has struggled to counter.
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the developing world is the last refuge of the diplomatic scoundrel. Russian relations with the advanced
democracies are in free fall thanks to a series of outrages culminating with the invasion of Ukraine. This makes the Middle East, Africa and Latin
America more important to Moscow.

Putin has long seen opportunity there. He has fished in troubled waters, using arms sales, mercenaries and even direct military intervention to
make Russia a player in conflicts in Syria and Libya. Moscow has created distractions for the US by cultivating military and intelligence ties with
autocratic states in the Western Hemisphere such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Amid the war in Ukraine, Putin is seeking to rally
developing countries against the punishments the US and its allies have imposed on Russia, in part by blaming those sanctions — rather than
Moscow’s aggression — for worldwide economic turmoil.

China is looking for advantage in similar places. Developing countries from Pakistan to Argentina have been the primary recipients of the loans
and infrastructure deals of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. African, Latin American and Middle Eastern nations figure prominently in Chinese
strategy as providers of natural resources, recipients of Chinese-made technology, and a potentially sympathetic voting bloc in the United
Nations.

Amid growing tensions with America and other leading democracies, China is aiming to outflank its rivals by building a sphere of economic and
diplomatic influence in the developing world.

Disinformation is one of the critical tools. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union sought to blacken America’s image by spreading
the lie that the Pentagon had cooked up the AIDS virus. The modern-day echoes are powerful: In 2020-21, a Chinese disinformation campaign
claimed that Covid was a US bioweapon gone awry.

That myth spread through Chinese-owned or -financed media outlets from South Africa to South America, sometimes drawing on information
provided by the Chinese state or media entities with close ties to it, and often amplified by Chinese government officials. Russian state-funded
media outlets such as RT amplified such allegations, while firing off falsehoods about everything from racial violence in the US to the supposed
Nazi leanings of the Ukrainian government.

Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns frequently work in parallel, as when Chinese outlets mimicked Russian claims about nonexistent
US bioweapons facilities in Ukraine. Or perhaps the coordination is more direct: Since 2013, the two governments have signed agreements to
strengthen their joint propaganda work.

Disinformation aimed at the developing world is more pervasive than many Americans realize. A report by
the Atlantic Council revealed how China uses a network of seemingly independent websites, newspapers and TV
channels to launder fake news into the information ecosystem, where it can be promoted as objective
truth by the Chinese regime. RT has created a global media empire: It is ubiquitous in Latin America, is
expanding operations in Africa, and its messages are often fanned by Russian diplomats and a veritable army of bots.

While Beijing and Moscow use disinformation nearly everywhere, the

developing world is a particularly attractive target.
Long legacies of anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism create a receptive information environment.
Whereas many advanced democracies are now cracking down on RT and Chinese influence operations, those endeavors enjoy freer rein in
poorer parts of the globe.

The Soviets pumped disinformation into such nations during the Cold War because it was fairly effective. “A single press article containing
sensational facts of a ‘new American conspiracy’ may be sufficient,” one KGB operative reported. “Other papers become interested, the public
is shocked and government authorities … have a fresh opportunity to clamour against the imperialists while demonstrators hasten to break
American embassy windows.” Putin and Xi hope for equally good returns today.

There are some signs this strategy is working. US officials report that they have returned from recent
trips to Africa and Latin America sobered by the degree to which Moscow’s narrative about Ukraine has
taken root. Covid was a soft-power catastrophe for China in developed countries, but its Covid-related disinformation appears to have left a
mark in the global south.
 Proliferation---1NC

No impact to proliferation.
Dr. Jonas Schneider 20, Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies, Former Post-Doctoral
Fellowship at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, PhD in Political Science from
the University of Kiel, Former Research Associate at the Institute for Security Policy at the University of
Kiel, “Nuclear Proliferation and International Stability”, in Understanding Global Politics: Actors And
Themes In International Affairs, Ed. Larres and Wittlinger, p. 418-419
Subsequent research has detailed the conditions under which new nuclear powers adopt these courses of action. Bell (2016) has argued that
only those few new nuclear states who face severe territorial threats , such as Pakistan, opt for aggress ion,
using their nuclear weapons as shields to deter nuclear and extensive conventional retaliation. Similarly drawing on Pakistan’s increased conflict
propensity following its nuclear acquisition, Kapur’s (2007) research suggests that it is the
rare combination of revisionist
ambitions and conventional inferiority that leads new nuclear powers to pursue aggressive military
policies toward their rivals. Importantly, while they offer different explanations, the two studies concur that aggression is a
fairly unlikely effect of nuclear acquisition.
Meanwhile, according to Bell (2016), new nuclear states undertake an expansion of their foreign policy interests if their territory is not
threatened and their relative material power is rising. Historically, such expansions have been more common than
aggression : upon acquiring nuclear weapons, the US, South Africa, Israel and the Soviet Union all initiated several militarised disputes
targeting states with whom they had no previous conflict (Bell and Miller, 2015: online appendix). Despite the mostly low intensity
of these disputes, such expansive conflict behaviour can hardly be considered stabilising. Overall, then,
new nuclear states seem to have a moderately destabilising influence on world politics: they initiate
new disputes and take greater risks. At the same time, however, acquiring nuclear weapons rarely
facilitates severe aggression.
Reconsidering nuclear accidents and nuclear terrorism

The notion that the spread of nuclear weapons would someday lead to tragic nuclear accidents or even nuclear
terrorism has long been among proliferation pessimists’ foremost concerns. However, as reliable datasets on all
(attempted) nuclear terrorism plots and on nuclear safety incidents in all nuclear states and proliferators have proved elusive, empirical
scholarship has not kept pace with theoretical work. Hence, research has been limited to deductive analyses, buttressed
by empirical illustrations. Even so, the more sophisticated of those studies have called the pessimists ’ claims into
question.

For instance, Cohen (2016, pp. 432–434) revealed that the

vast majority of the gravest nuclear accidents that Sagan (1993, p. 9)
points to as support for his logic occurred during global crises in 19 62 or 19 73 , when leaders sought to leverage their

nuclear arsenals for coercive bargaining . It was, in other words, not organisational pathologies that raised the
specter of accidental nuclear war, as Sagan holds, but rather the deliberate attempts at nuclear compellence. These accidents,
then, represent the actual ‘effects’ of nuclear compellence: while the compellent threats did not affect the trajectory of either crises (Sechser
and Fuhrmann, 2017, pp. 207, 220–224), they led to precarious nuclear safety incidents.

Other critics have rightly pointed out that, seven decades in to the nuclear age, the fact – however fortunate it is – that the
world has still no t experienced a catastrophic fatal nuclear accident should give proliferation
pessimists pause (Sechser, 2013, pp. 184–186). Obviously, the bounded rationality of such organisations alone
does not make tragic nuclear accidents nearly as likely as the pessimists contend. Their fear, hence,
seems to be overstated .

The same must probably be said about nuclear terror ism. Determinate predictions that a terrorist
attack involving nuclear weapons was bound to occur soon (Allison, 2004, p. 15; Graham, 2008, p. VI) have come
and gone without anything happening. Sceptical experts have argued that this outcome is not surprising at all,
given the formidable practical obstacles such a terrorist scheme would encounter (Levi, 2009). Moreover,
to the extent that fissile materials from nuclear weapons can now be traced back to specific state
arsenals, the idea that a nuclear power could willingly share its arsenal with terrorists and hope to
remain anonymous has been challenged as lacking plausibility (Lieber and Press, 2013).

Trump can’t undo the alliances (South Korea and Japan) threats are empty and leaders
are resilient
Baker and Kanno-Youngs 23, * is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last five
presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. ** is a White House correspondent covering a range
of domestic and international issues in the Biden White House, including homeland security and
extremism. (Peter & Zolan, 8-18-2023, “Looming Over a New Security Pact: China, North Korea and
Donald Trump,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/biden-japan-south-
korea-summit.html, JSEM)

The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea
at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible
factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump.

While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of
the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the
Indo-Pacific region.

Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back
longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a
three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, Mr. Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic
architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next.
“This is not about a day, a week or month,” Mr. Biden said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. “This is about decades and decades of relationships that we’re building.” The goal, he added, was to “lay in place
a long-term structure for a relationship that will last.” Asked by a reporter why Asia should be confident about American assurances given Mr. Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency on a so-called America First platform, Mr. Biden offered a testimonial to the value of alliances in
guaranteeing the nation’s security in dangerous times. “There’s not much, if anything, I agree on with my predecessor on foreign policy,” Mr. Biden said, adding that “walking away from the rest of the world leaves us weaker, not stronger. America is strong with our allies and our alliances
and that’s why we will endure.” The meeting at the getaway in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland was a milestone in Mr. Biden’s efforts to stitch together a network of partnerships to counter Chinese aggression in the region. While the United States has long been close to Japan and
South Korea individually, the two Asian powers have nursed generations of grievances that kept them at a distance from one another. The alignment at Camp David was made possible by Mr. Yoon’s decision to try to put the past behind the two countries. His rapprochement with Tokyo
has not been universally popular at home with a public that harbors long memories of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, but both sides made clear they are dedicated to a fresh start. “That’s a long, bitter colonial wound that President Yoon has to jump over,
and Kishida as well,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. “That I think is a consonant expression of the degree to which China’s rather belligerent, punitive behavior has driven together allies, partners and friends within Asia.” Mr. Biden
hoped to capitalize on that by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders together for the first stand-alone meeting between the three nations that was not on the sidelines of a larger international summit. He repeatedly praised Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida for “the political courage”
they were demonstrating. He chose the resonant setting of Camp David for the talks to emphasize the importance he attaches to the initiative, inviting the leaders to the storied retreat that has been the site of momentous events over the decades, including most memorably Jimmy
Carter’s 13-day negotiation in 1978 brokering peace between Israel and Egypt. “This is a big deal,” Mr. Biden said, noting that it was the first time he had invited foreign leaders to the camp since taking office. “This is a historic meeting.” The others echoed the sentiments. “Today will be
remembered as a historic day,” Mr. Yoon said. Mr. Kishida agreed, saying the fact that the three could get together “means that we are indeed making a new history as of today.” The leaders agreed to establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications, enhance ballistic missile
cooperation and expand joint military exercises. They issued a written “commitment to consult” in which they resolved “to coordinate our responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.” The commitment is not as far-reaching as
NATO’s mutual security pact, which deems an attack on one member to be an attack on all, nor does it go as far as the defense treaties that the United States has separately with Japan and South Korea. But it cements the idea that the three powers share a special bond and expect to
coordinate strategies where possible. China has derided the idea of a “mini-NATO” in Asia, accusing Washington of being provocative, but aides to Mr. Biden stressed the difference from the Atlantic alliance. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security
adviser. Mr. Biden and his aides maintained that the collaboration sealed at Camp David should not be seen as aimed at China or any other country. “This summit was not about China. This was not the purpose,” the president said. “But obviously China came up.” Instead, he said, “this
summit was really about our relationship with each other and defining cooperation across an entire range of issues.” Still, no one had any doubt about the context against which the meeting was taking place. The Camp David Principles issued by the leaders did not directly mention China,
but it did “reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a warning against aggressive military actions by Beijing. The documents released were more explicit about nuclear-armed North Korea and the joint efforts they will take to counter its military, cyber and
cryptocurrency money laundering threats.

Looming in the backdrop was Mr. Trump , whose mercurial actions and bursts of hostility while president flummoxed Japanese and South
Korean leaders accustomed to more stable interactions with Washington.

At various points, he threatened

to withdraw from the U.S. defense treaty with Japan and to pull all American
troops out of South Korea. He abruptly canceled joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of
North Korea and told interviewers after leaving office that if he had a second term he would force Seoul to pay
billions of dollars to maintain the U nited S tates military presence.
The Asian leaders hope that the three-way accord fashioned by Mr. Biden will help avoid wild swings in the future. The president and his guests
sought to institutionalize their new collaboration by committing to annual three-way meetings in the future by whoever holds their offices.

“There’s definitely risk-hedging when it comes to political leadership,” said Shihoko Goto, acting director of the Asia program at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars.”

By deepening the cooperation below the leader level through various new mechanisms, she said, the governments may be able to
maintain functional ties even if a volatile president occupies the White House.

“If a new U.S. president were to avoid going to international conferences or had no interest in engaging ,
the trilateral institutionalization of ties should be strong enough so that working relations between the
three countries would continue ,” she said. “So it won’t matter if a president didn’t show up since the working-level military or
economic coop eration would be well-established .”
It is not the first time allies have questioned the United States’ commitment to its partners. Despite Mr. Biden’s promise at the NATO summit
last month that Washington would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine and western allies, some leaders openly asked whether the U.S.
foreign policy agenda would be upended by the outcome of the next election.

Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President
Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit.

Mr. Biden in Finland was also asked about whether the U.S. support of NATO would endure. “No one can guarantee the future, but this is the
best bet anyone could make,” Mr. Biden said then.

At Camp David on Friday, neither Mr. Yoon nor Mr. Kishida mentioned Mr. Trump directly in their public comments, but they seemed intent on
ensuring that their agreement persists beyond their tenures. Mr. Yoon said the nations were focused on building an alliance that could last for
years to come. The three nations will hold a “global leadership youth summit to strengthen ties between our future generations,” he said.

Endurance was a running theme throughout the day. “We’re opening a new era,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters
shortly before the meetings opened, “and we’re making sure that era has staying power.”
 Turn---1NC
Concede Trump reelection means he pulls out of NATO---that’s 1AC Tannehill.
NATO is an unsustainable paper tiger. US security cooperation with NATO causes
brinkmanship, escalation and miscalculation while undermining European collective
defense.
Barndollar ’19 — Gil; Senior Research Fellow at CSS and a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities. He was
Director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest. He holds an AB in history from
Bowdoin College and MPhil and PhD degrees in history from the University of Cambridge. April 8, 2019;
“NATO Is 70 and Past Retirement Age”; National Interest; https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nato-70-
and-past-retirement-age-51482; //CYang

It is appropriate to judge post–Cold War NATO a failure. The alliance is a paper tiger , beset with slashed European
defense budgets and hollow forces . It has become a social club and an appetizer, a prelude to European Union
membership for the formerly-communist states of eastern and southern Europe. What it is not is a credible military alliance . Nor
is it making America more secure.

NATO’s performance in the foolish limited wars of the past two decades has demonstrated Europe’s failure to take either funding or fighting
seriously. In the Kosovo air campaign of 1999, the Royal Air Force nearly ran out of bombs and spare parts. Moreover, it was U.S. aircraft that
had to conduct about two-thirds of all sorties during the seventy-eight-day war.

By the 2011 Libya intervention, the situation had actually gotten worse. Only eight of NATO’s then-twenty-eight members chose to fight, using
their air forces. Additionally, most European countries ran out of smart bombs and had to be resupplied in a hurry by the United States.

In Afghanistan, some American servicemen muttered that NATO’s ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) actually stood for “I Saw
Americans Fighting.” The more charitable would grant that it was “I Saw Anglos Fighting,” including the British and Canadian troops who held
ground in the violent south and southwest. Despite the undoubted valor of soldiers from all nations in the coalition, the reality was that most
European contingents were hamstrung by risk aversion, restrictive rules of engagement, and national “caveats” that limited their ability to fight.
Some were even worse: the Italians were credibly alleged to have bribed Taliban forces not to attack them.

NATO’s relentless expansion has also long since passed the point of farce. The alliance, fifteen members strong throughout most of the Cold
War, is about to add its thirtieth state, the newly-renamed North Macedonia. Macedonia boasts a tiny army of eight
thousand men and a defense budget of $120 million — a rounding error for the Pentagon. The previous mouse that roared, the 2017
addition of Montenegro, is even more militarily irrelevant. Montenegro’s entire army has two thousand men — less than
two U.S. battalions, or about 5 percent of the size of the New York City Police Department. These nations have been welcomed into a mutual
defense alliance because that alliance is no longer serious about mutual defense.

These new NATO members provide virtually no military capability to help others, but they do bring one thing to the
heightened tensions with Russia. There is ample evidence that the first Bush and Clinton administrations
alliance:
reassured Russian leaders that we would not expand NATO to their doorstep. We have done so, and now wonder
why we are continually needing to “reset” relations with Russia

We are told NATO’s Baltic states face the existential threat of invasion and reabsorption into Russia, but they sure don’t act like it. Despite a
recent RAND Corporation war game that showed that Russian troops would reach the Baltic capitals in a maximum of sixty hours, the Baltic
countries spend barely 2 percent of GDP on defense. Yet “E-stonia” can afford free internet throughout the nation.

NATO’s heavyweights, the United States excepted, are nearly as impotent per capita as the alliance’s Baltic and Balkan members. These
countries have the money but they have chosen to shirk their Article 3 responsibilities and instead rely on the American
taxpayer and the American soldier.
Britain, considered among the most capable NATO militaries, has slashed its defense spending to the bone since the 2008
financial crisis. The United Kingdom only clears the arbitrary 2 percent of GDP spending threshold through some pensions legerdemain. Britain
can now fit its entire active duty army into Wembley Stadium, with room to spare. The Royal Navy is so short of personnel
that it had a frigate and a destroyer tied to the pier in Portsmouth as “training ships” for most of 2017 and 2018.

Yet Germany manages to put Britain to shame in the free rider sweepstakes. With the fifth largest economy in the world, Germany dominates
European politics. But its military, once a large and proud frontline force, is a laughingstock. Germany’s air force has regularly had less than a
third of its fighter aircraft ready for combat. Its defense spending has drawn chiding and, now, outright attacks from generations of U.S.
presidents. In a story reminiscent of the post–Versailles Reichswehr, due to equipment shortages German troops on a 2015 exercise
used black broomsticks to simulate machine guns .

Europe still has ample resources to defend itself, even if one accepts the claim that Putin’s Russia is resolutely
revanchist and not defensive or merely opportunistic in its conduct. Even without the United States, NATO has five
hundred million people and a combined GDP of more than $10 trillion , more than triple Russia’s
population and wealth. It also has two nuclear deterrent forces.

Only two possible reasons exist for European nations’ failure to field credible military power : they have either
decided they do not regard Russia as a serious security threat, or they are content to rely on U.S. defense welfare .
Again, even the frontline Baltic states do not treat their national defense seriously. Germany, a “dangerous pacifist,” is the most unserious of
all. In a fitting prelude to this week’s celebration, on March 18 the Wall Street Journal reported that Germany would renege on its goal of
reaching even the paltry spending level of 1.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2024. Two years of President Donald Trump’s bluster and threats
have achieved the same results as the efforts of his predecessors: nothing.

Germany’s attitude towards NATO sums up the key, irresolvable problem facing the alliance: Its Western European members have consistently
shown they are not interested in defending Europe, not even from Russia. Polls show that a majority of Europeans, especially in the West,
expect the United States to fight for the alliance but do not think their own soldiers should do the same.

NATO’s famed Article 5 is not an ironclad commitment to join hostilities. Though Article 5 states that member states “agree that an armed
attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” how each state responds is left
to its own discretion. The commitment is to “such action as it deems necessary.” In the event of a conflict with Russia in the Baltics, particularly
if there is even a hint of ambiguity via “little green men,” it is likely that western European states would offer only moral and maybe financial
support to their allies.

The U nited S tates, meanwhile, is committing itself to fight — four thousand miles from home — for allies who
won’t fight for each other. This state of affairs, which has become increasingly clear to both friendly and
hostile onlookers, does not create security or stability. Instead, this hollow alliance invites brinksmanship, escalation, and
miscalculation that could lead to nuclear war . Will Americans fight and die to defend Europe, when Europeans won’t? We may
find out.

European collective defense should be built on a bedrock of shared sacrifice and credible deterrence . As long as
the U nited S tates remains committed to defending Europe, Europe will lack the will and the means to
defend itself . Nearly three decades of post–Cold War defense welfare has made Europe militarily weak and strategically
unserious. American pressure for Europe to share more of the defense burden, going back to the Kennedy administration,

little effect . Americans are increasingly fed up with this unsustainable state of affairs. Only
has had

the shock of a U.S. withdrawal from NATO can spur the European nations to commit themselves to
their own collective defense .

America is made less safe by remaining in NATO. The opportunity costs of the United States’ counter-
productive commitment to European security imperil real national-security interests, especially in Asia. Giving
Europe a few years to get its house in order before an American pullout is a reasonable hedge against miscalculation and escalation. That

prudence aside, the U nited S tates should withdraw from the alliance as quickly as possible . NATO at
seventy is decades past its retirement age.

An EU deterrent solves every scenario better. It’s key to credibility, prevents nuclear
arms racing and creates regional stability.
Walt ’21 — Stephen; columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of
international relations at Harvard University. March 23, 2021; "It’s Time to Fold America’s Nuclear
Umbrella"; Foreign Policy; https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/23/its-time-to-fold-americas-nuclear-
umbrella/; //CYang

Why is this statement so intriguing? Because it shows the authors of this report recognize that Europe as a whole might be more
secure if it could rely on a locally based deterrent instead of continuing to shelter under the U.S. nuclear
umbrella. And if that is true for the nations of Europe, then it might well be true for others. Although the report’s authors are opposed
to new states joining the nuclear club (Britain and France are already members), their statement clearly implies that deterrence would be
strengthened if states facing serious external threats had a nuclear guarantee that didn’t depend on
Uncle Sam .
This is hardly a new issue. Since fairly early in the nuclear age, the United States has used nuclear weapons to “extend deterrence” and shield
some of its allies. It sought to convince potential adversaries that the United States might use its formidable nuclear arsenal if these allies were
attacked, even if the United States was not. Of course, there was always some chance that a war involving one of the United States’ allies might
escalate to the nuclear level, either by accident, through inadvertence, or via deliberate decision, no matter what U.S. leaders said in advance.
Even so, Washington went to considerable lengths to make its nuclear umbrella credible, partly to discourage enemies from attacking but also
to convince its allies not to get nuclear weapons themselves.

Accordingly, U.S. leaders made lots of public statements linking the U.S. arsenal to its core alliance commitments, and NATO drew up various
plans and doctrinal pronouncements designed to reinforce perceptions of a reliable U.S. guarantee. The United States also deployed thousands
of warheads on some of its allies’ territory, along with dual-key arrangements that gave those allies some say in how, when, or if these
fearsome weapons got used. Lastly, and very importantly, the United States kept trying to achieve a meaningful degree of nuclear superiority to
make a possible first use of nuclear weapons to defend allies more credible. Instead of acquiring a “minimum deterrent” (i.e., retaliatory forces
that could survive any possible attack and then inflict unacceptable damage on an aggressor), U.S. war plans and weapons decisions always
focused on trying to come out on top in the awful event of an actual nuclear war.

Why did the United States do this? In good part because convincing people you might use nuclear weapons to defend an ally isn’t easy. One
might imagine a U.S. president using nuclear weapons to retaliate against a direct attack on U.S. territory or to deter the extremely unlikely
prospect of a conventional invasion that threatened U.S. independence. This is the one thing nuclear weapons are good for: deterring
existential threats to their possessors’ independence or autonomy. This form of deterrence (sometimes termed “basic” or “Type I”) works
because the deterring side will almost certainly care more about preserving its own independence than a potential attacker is likely to care
about trying to take it away. Because the balance of resolve favors the defender, even much weaker nuclear powers can deter enemies from
attacking them directly. If you don’t find this argument persuasive, remember the U.S. attacked non-nuclear Iraq in 2003 and non-nuclear Libya
in 2011, but it leaves nuclear-armed North Korea alone.

By contrast, deterring a conventional or a nuclear

attack on an ally by threatening to go nuclear — and convincing
your allies that you really mean it — is more challenging . It is one thing to threaten to use nuclear weapons to keep one’s
own country from being subjugated but quite another to do so to save an ally from defeat or domination. Or, as people used to wonder back in
the Cold War, would a U.S. president really risk Washington or Chicago to save Paris or Berlin ? Long after they
had left office, a few former U.S. officials suggested the answer was almost certainly “ no .” Extended deterrence could still work
because potential attackers can’t be sure about any of this, but it still isn’t as credible as deterring attacks on one’s own territory.

The solution to this conundrum — if one can call it that — is to achieve overwhelming “ nuclear superiority .” If you
could wipe out an adversary’s entire nuclear force in a first strike, you wouldn’t have to fear its retaliation, and using nuclear weapons to
defend an ally would be much more credible. Even if a splendid first strike were not possible, perhaps you could convince a potential attacker
that it will end up even worse off than you are at the end of a nuclear war to convince it not to put so much as a toe on the first rung of the
escalation ladder.

Thus, the perceived need to extend deterrence is one of the reasons why the United States has long sought nuclear superiority. It’s not the only
reason: A genuine first strike capability could limit damage in the event of an actual war. A few commentators have also tried to argue — not
very convincingly — that superiority would enable the stronger side to coerce weaker states in crises. Chasing the holy grail of a first-strike
advantage was also popular with defense contractors and parts of the armed services because it requires spending billions of dollars annually
on more and more accurate weapons, more efficient and destructive warheads, improved surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capabilities,
and lots of other shiny objects.

Interestingly, a number of sophisticated scholars have recently

claimed that technological advances have put the United
States on the brink of a true first-strike capability . Perhaps in theory, but certainly not as a usable option. To
see why, ask yourself what you would do if you were president and facing a serious crisis with a nuclear-armed adversary. You’ve put the armed
services on alert, and there is some danger that force might be used and fighting could escalate. Suppose your military advisors and intelligence
experts tell you if you order a first strike now, you can almost certainly destroy the enemy’s entire nuclear arsenal, leaving the United States
unscathed and in an ideal position to resolve the dispute on favorable terms.

Being a sensible person, you’d undoubtedly ask them: “Can you guarantee that? Are you absolutely, 100 percent sure the enemy will have zero
usable weapons left, and therefore, we won’t even get our hair mussed?”

“We are highly confident of success,” you are told. “But there is a slim chance that a few enemy weapons would survive and reach U.S. soil. No
more than one to three.”

Even if you weren’t troubled by the moral issues involved in ordering an attack
that would kill untold numbers of people (and
you ought to be), would you do it? Of course you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t want to risk losing New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Boston, or any other major U.S. city, which is what might happen if that first strike you authorized turned out to be just a
tiny bit less effective than your advisors predicted. To issue a launch order, you’d have to believe the proposed attack would work perfectly the
very first time it was executed (simulations and exercises aren’t the same), almost all of the missiles and bombs that have been sitting in silos or
storage facilities for years would work as designed, and the other side wouldn’t have dispersed its own forces or hidden some extra weapons in
places you had failed to detect. Based on everything the United States’ knows about complex military operations and the limits of intelligence,
you’d be a fool to roll the dice in this way.

One more thing: As first-strike capabilities improve, adversaries may respond by keeping forces on higher alert or
adopting “ l aunch- o n- w arning” procedures that increase the risk of accidental or inadvertent war. No
matter what U.S. forces are capable of in theory, in short, it’s hard to see how any president would be willing to use
nukes first even if the probability of “success” was extremely high. This reality casts further doubt on the whole idea of extended
deterrence, insofar as it is based on the threat to deliberately escalate to the nuclear level if a key ally is in danger of being conquered.

Extending a protective umbrella over allies in Europe and Asia may have made good sense during the Cold
War, both to protect them and to discourage proliferation. But the nuclear weapons environment has changed: The
number of nuclear-armed states has crept upward, and several countries (India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom) are increasing the size of
their own arsenals (though they remain far lower than U.S. or Russian levels). Moreover, the U nited S tates is not as tightly
coupled to some of its traditional allies as it was during the Cold War, and serious rifts may continue to grow
despite the Biden administration’s efforts to restore alliance solidarity and reassert U.S. leadership.

Which raises the obvious question: Does it still make sense to shield allies under the U.S. nuclear umbrella? Using the threat
of nuclear
use to protect other countries is not cost- or risk-free, and it may even be more dangerous than letting some
other states acquire arsenals of their own and encouraging them to rely on “Type I” deterrence provided by their own national
capabilities.

This view has been advanced before — most notably by Kenneth Waltz in a controversial Adelphi Paper 40 years ago. Waltz was not advocating
giving other states the bomb or arguing that the rapid spread of nuclear weapons would be desirable; his central point was that trying to
prevent the slow spread of these weapons was not without costs of its own and that in some cases, as he put it, “more may be better.” The
question is: Is that becoming the case today?
To be sure, folding the nuclear umbrella might well have some negative effects. It might make states long accustomed to U.S. protection
question its commitment (though there’s no logical reason for them to do so if it is still in the United States’ interest to aid their defense in
other ways). It could also reduce U.S. influence or leverage if certain allies were no longer as dependent on U.S. protection, though folding the
umbrella would not eliminate their reliance on other elements of U.S. power. Removing the U.S. nuclear guarantee might encourage a few
states to pursue nuclear arms of their own, but it is not obvious that acquisition by Japan or Germany would be a terrible outcome from a
purely U.S. perspective.

Moreover, even the possibility that these states might take over responsibility for deterring attacks on their own
territory could have a sobering effect on a rising China and a recalcitrant Russia . In particular, it would remind
Beijing and Moscow that their own behavior will affect the strategic calculations that their neighbors make in
the near future, including decisions about nuclear arms . If China doesn’t want to face more nuclear weapons
states in its immediate region , for instance, then its leaders should start asking themselves what they can do to make those
neighbors feel less need for additional protection . The obvious answer: Stop harassing them in various ways, drop the
sharp-elbowed approach to diplomacy, stick to agreements previously reached, and do more to resolve existing disputes on a fair-minded basis.

Whatever Washington ultimately chooses to do with its nuclear umbrella, the more important task is to move beyond the
tendency to see nuclear weapons as potent signs of status, indispensable tools of statecraft, or
powerful sources of leverage. Nuclear weapons are extremely useful for deterring direct and all-out attacks on one’s own homeland
but not much else. For that purpose, a great power doesn’t need an enormous arsenal or some hypothetical capability to “fight and win” a
nuclear exchange. All it needs is a stockpile that can survive an enemy attack and be able to respond in kind. Properly concealed or protected,
they don’t need to be poised and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Fetishizing the bomb and using it to try to protect
others isn’t just expensive; it may also be dangerous.

TNWs cause nuclear escalation with Russia and nuclear terror with zero benefit.
Moniz & Nunn ’18 — Dr. Ernest J. Moniz is co-chair and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat
Initiative. He is a former US Secretary of Energy. He is Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and
Engineering Systems emeritus and Special Advisor to the MIT President and was formerly head of the
MIT Department of Physics. Dr. Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in
physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and nine
honorary doctorates. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the International
Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council. Sam Nunn is co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He is a
distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and as chairman
emeritus of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Nunn attended Georgia
Tech, Emory University and Emory Law School. January 2018; “Toward a New NATO Nuclear Posture”;
Building a Safe, Secure, and Credible NATO Nuclear Posture, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Foreword;
https://www.nti.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/NTI_NATO_RPT_Web.pdf; //CYang

The negative political dynamic between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) and the Russian Federation today
is the frame for any discussion of NATO defense policy and posture, including NATO’s nuclear posture . Within this
frame, unity within the alliance takes on a special meaning. NATO is averse to taking steps that might create controversy or suggest a lack of
cohesion in the face of a newly aggressive Russia, and the United States must be resolute in its commitment to the defense of NATO. This
stance especially has bearing today given the uncertainty that has engulfed the Trump administration’s relationships with NATO and with
Russia.

The principle of collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is essential, and any changes to NATO’s defense policy and
posture must be seen through that lens; however, the current security environment should not preclude Washington and NATO from reviewing
NATO’s nuclear posture. In fact, NATO’s security requires a hard look at and new approaches to NATO deterrence and defense through the
prism of reducing the risk of nuclear use. Forward-deployed U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe increase the risk of
accidents , blunders, or catastrophic terrorism and invite pre-emption . Given these added risks, it is past time to
revisit whether these forward-based weapons are essential for military deterrence and political reassurance. The Trump administration’s
National Security Strategy of December 2017 commits to this continued deployment without presenting the considered analysis that would
emerge from a hard look.

The chapters in this report, written by experts and practitioners in European security and nuclear weapons,
provide a foundation for that hard look. The report underscores the strong arguments for NATO to move to a safer,
more secure, and more credible nuclear posture without forward-deployed U.S. nuclear weapons in
Europe. The challenge is how to advance current thinking about the military and political dimensions of alternative nuclear postures.

Regarding the military side of the ledger, it seems clear that consolidating U.S. nuclear weapons now stored in Europe
back to the United States would not diminish U.S. and NATO nuclear capabilities . A number of former senior U.S. officials
and military leaders have made the point that U.S. n uclear w eapon s based in Europe have virtually no military utility ,
primarily because of the extremely demanding scenario for conducting a nuclear strike mission using NATO
d ual- c apable a ircraft (DCA). In addition to the complicated procedures for decision making related to nuclear use, any attempt
to employ those weapons will be further complicated by the visibility of the many actions required to prepare
the aircraft, weapons, and crews for such an attack — all of which undercut their survivability and plausible use .
Moreover, those factors make forward-deployed nuclear weapons potential targets in the early phases of a conflict,
perhaps triggering a chain of events that the United States and NATO would want to avoid: early nuclear use .

In short, forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Europe have military liabilities , and they may, in fact, increase the
risk of nuclear use in a crisis. These dangers also apply to Russia’s forward-deployed nuclear weapons. Taken together, these
shorter-range weapons in western Russia and in Europe are a clear and present danger to both Russia and
NATO, particularly in an era of tensions , but also in an era of possible nuclear terrorism .
What remains true and credible is that the United States has a robust strategic nuclear deterrent that is capable of being employed deliberately
anywhere on the globe in defense of U.S. interests and U.S. allies — and it is, and should be, understood by any potential (and rational)
adversary to NATO, including Russia, in exactly this way. In any crisis involving NATO, U.S. nuclear capabilities would also be on stage with the
nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France. Indeed, as NATO has repeatedly stated, “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies
is provided by the strategic forces of the Alliance.” This position has been, and remains, the credible foundation for any plausible scenario for
employing U.S. nuclear weapons.

On the security side of the ledger, although returning forward-deployed nuclear weapons to the U nited S tates would
not diminish NATO nuclear capabilities , it would unquestionably reduce the risks from a potential terrorist
incident or political instability — both of which are inherent in a posture that stores n uclear w eapon s at
multiple sites across multiple countries . It is a reality that terrorists with global reach seek nuclear capability and
have operated at NATO’s border and within some NATO countries as well as Russia.

Finally, the financial side of the ledger is harder to calculate, complicated by a number of assumptions related to absolute and marginal costs
for Washington and its NATO allies. Any savings that might be accrued by removing forward-deployed B61s from Europe and reducing the
overall purchase of B61s present only modest marginal costs for the United States. For NATO allies of the United States, however, the marginal
costs of procuring and maintaining DCA — and supporting U.S. nuclear weapons stored in Europe — may be relatively larger. That said, any
reduction in costs associated with the nuclear mission could free up resources for NATO to focus on other urgent tasks, including conventional
reassurance and cyber defense, depending on decisions made by NATO member countries about their national defense budgets.

One thing is certain: although leadership cannot come from Washington alone, U.S. leadership is the essential prerequisite to a reexamination
of NATO nuclear policy, beginning with a compelling reaffirmation by the president of the principle of collective defense enshrined in Article 5
of the Washington Treaty. Washington must also take steps to work with allies to sustain, adapt, and perhaps enhance NATO’s current
procedures for nuclear sharing and consultations, consistent with a safer, more secure, and more credible nuclear deterrent. Such steps will not
preclude the B61-12 life extension program (which also has a role in U.S.-based strategic forces) or plans by some NATO allies to purchase F-35
aircraft. Maintaining some dual-capable aircraft and trained pilots in Europe, along with a residual support infrastructure for nuclear weapons,
should also be part of the overall NATO nuclear deterrence review.
The implications of sustaining or removing U.S. forward-deployed n uclear w eapon s in Europe are
serious. Now is the time and the opportunity to ask whether those weapons are more of a security risk than an asset to
NATO and whether they increase or reduce the risk of nuclear use . We hope that this report will help stimulate and inform such
a review.

Russian support for Iran is directly causal with U.S. operations with NATO---causes
Iranian adventurism.
Tazmini ’19 — Ghoncheh; political scientist. She is the author of Khatami’s Iran: the Islamic Republic
and the Turbulent Path to Reform and Revolution and Reform in Russia and Iran: Politics and
Modernisation in Post-Revolutionary States. She is an Associate Member of the Centre for Iranian
Studies at SOAS, and Research Associate at ISCTE-Center for International Studies, University of Lisbon,
Portugal. As a British Academy grant-holder, she is currently carrying out research on a Global History of
Iran and Portugal in Hormuz in the 16th and 17th centuries. September 6, 2019; “The Russian-Iranian
Axis: An Eternal Marriage (Of Convenience)”; Lobe Log; https://lobelog.com/the-russian-iranian-axis-an-
eternal-marriage-of-convenience/; //CYang

These are some of the arguments frequently recycled to demonstrate that Moscow is skimping on its commitment to Tehran.
Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), would disagree: in a meeting in with Russian officials
in Tehran in July 2019, Shamkhani emphasised the positive course of Russian-Iranian cooperation. He expressed gratitude for Russia’s “decisive
and impartial” positions
concerning U.S. abrogation of the 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA),
Iran’s presence in Syria , the intrusion into Iranian airspace of a U.S. spy dron e, and Britain’s seizure of an
Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar .
In Moscow on 2 September, during talks with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the
Kremlin’s position, accusing the U.S. of “openly seeking to provoke Iran with the support of some of their regional allies.” Lavrov commended
France’s recent efforts to try to break the impasse and to convince the U.S. to offer Iran some sanctions relief.

Another argument is that the degree of expansion or contraction in Russia-Iranian cooperation depends on
whether relations between the U.S. and Russia are amicable or hostile at the time. There is some truth to this
argument — if we look back at the presidency of Medvedev, when Russia voted in favour of all six Iran-related
resolutions passed at the UNSC between 2006 and 2010. However, Russia will not forsake Iran over the U.S. in the
current climate, and that is because there is a fundamental disjuncture between Russian and U.S. perceptions of
the post-Cold War world order . A substantive and permanent pivot toward the U.S. would require a fundamental
reconstitution of U.S. foreign policy toward the Kremlin based on the delivery of concessions according to traditional
Russian priorities and preoccupations. It would entail, at the very least, Washington permanently shelving NATO’s eastward
expansion , and turning a blind eye to Russia’s geopolitical aspirations in the former Soviet space — an improbable scenario.

Extinction.
Libby & Feith ’22 — Lewis Libby is senior vice president of Hudson Institute, guiding their program on
U.S. national security strategy, and the future of Asia and the Middle East. Douglas Feith is senior fellow
at Hudson Institute, specializing in terrorism, arms control, alliance relations, and national security
policy. January 31, 2022; “Biden Shouldn’t Underestimate Israel’s Resolve in Face of Iranian Nuclear
Threat”; Hudson Institute; https://www.hudson.org/research/17506-biden-shouldn-t-underestimate-
israel-s-resolve-in-face-of-iranian-nuclear-threat
Washington has largely ignored the cautionary drumbeat, perhaps because Israel has threatened action before. But
circumstances have changed . In the past, Iran was years from nuclear-weapons capability, and American
officials credibly promised to prevent Iran from getting there, which kept Israel more evenly divided on the
necessity of military action. Now, given technical advancements made since the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran may be only a few
months from its goal. Mr. Biden said in June that Iran would “never get a nuclear weapon __on my watch__” (emphasis added).
That hedge is cold comfort to the Israelis, who rightly worry that Iran, even under the restrictions of a revived 2015 deal, could soon (in three
years) have nuclear-breakout capability — and, if they chose to violate those restrictions, might develop a bomb even sooner than that before
they could be detected.

Israeli leaders are daily declaring they have no interest in diplomacy that only pretends to eliminate or delay the danger. As they see it, a
nuclear Iran poses two life-or-death threats . One is from Iran, whose leaders routinely denounce Israel as a
cancer they wish to destroy. The second is from wider nuclear proliferation, for many expect that if Iran gets nuclear
weapons, Saudi Arabia , Turkey , Egypt , and others will seek to arm themselves likewise.

Herein lies not just an Israeli, but a regional and worldwide nightmare : a volatile region that, absent the decision time
provided by missiles that travel intercontinental distances, would be marked by dispersed nuclear weapons subject to destabilizing
launch-on-warning policies. These weapons would be in the hands of technically challenged militaries
that include numerous criminal and terrorist elements. Under such conditions, there would be risks of regional
conflict escalating into nuclear war and of “ loose nukes ” falling into the hands of terrorists.

The Israelis have an interest in a peaceful solution, because the alternative — striking
Iran’s nuclear facilities with military force —
would likely trigger harsh retaliation . At a minimum, Israel expects that such strikes would prompt nearby Iranian terrorist
proxies Hezbollah and Hamas to launch attacks, which could include barrages of tens of thousands of Iranian-provided
projectiles, many precision-guided. Such barrages would cause heavy Israeli casualties, and also the deaths of American and other foreign
visitors. Wider, prolonged war might ensue, spawning waves of refugees and disrupting oil supplies. Top Israelis have
concluded they can endure these dreadful costs, but not the dangers of a nuclear Iran.

US leadership of NATO causes a Greece-Turkey war.

Daniel L. Davis 19. Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after twenty-one years. "America's Alliance with NATO
Needs to Change". National Interest. 9-9-2020. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/americas-
alliance-nato-needs-change-168626

Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, NATO is facing a threat of a potentially existential nature . No, it’s not a
would-be Russian invasion of Western Europe. It’s the possibility of a fratricidal war between its own members, Greece
and Turkey . Before the unthinkable happens, the United States should reassess the future of NATO and its role in it.

Turkey and Greece have long had an antagonistic relationship . Since becoming members of NATO in 1952, they have
twice been at the brink of war against one another. The first was in 1974 when a Greek military junta threatened to join all of Cyprus to the
Greek mainland and Turkish military forces invaded the northern part of the Island. A tense standoff occurred and the island has been split
since.

The second was in 1996 over a dispute in the Aegean Sea. The seemingly trivial dispute that began over a salvage operation of a Greek ship that
ran aground off the Turkish coast almost escalated into a full-blown war between the two over conflicting claims of sovereignty.

Conflict was averted, but tensions

and emotions never fully cooled. With the discovery of large deposits of
natural gas throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, however, the stakes of which country is sovereign over those rocks
have taken on considerably greater urgency . Turkey is taking a far harder stance, elevating its national
interests above the common interests of NATO.
Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay said in an interview that if Greece attempting “to expand its territorial waters isn't a cause of war, then what
is?’’ Ankara is butting heads with more than just Greece, however.

Relations between Turkey and France continue to fray over Paris’s displeasure regarding Ankara’s deepening involvement against French
interests in Libya. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned that Greece
and Turkey were moving “closer and closer to
the abyss,” and that if the two don’t resolve their disputes, then at some point a “ spark , however small, could
lead to a disaster .”

Meanwhile, as Nick Squires wrote in the Christian Science Monitor, “France and the
United Arab Emirates have sent aircraft
and warships to back up Greece, while Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt also have a stake in prospecting for hydrocarbons in
the eastern Mediterranean.” If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like the actions of closely aligned allies, then you are correct. What
it does sound like, however, is increasing evidence of an alliance that has failed to adjust with the times.

The Cold War world that existed in 1952 when Turkey and Greece entered NATO was one in which a group of relatively
free nations put aside their differences for the collective good of them all to balance the power of the Soviet Union. That world

ended with the dissolution of the USSR .

Instead of acknowledging the changed global conditions and adjusting NATO accordingly, the West clung to the past and
tried to ride the status quo into a static future. If we don’t take action quickly , then our unwillingness to acknowledge
reality could cost us far more than merely the loss of an alliance structure.
Every president from Truman to Trump has understandably complained that European members of NATO have not been paying enough for
their own security, forcing a major burden on America. But the
issue is no longer about just making Europeans “pay
more,” but as the potential for fratricidal war between Turkey and Greece is exposing, we need major
reform and change.

The first step in this process should be for the United States to transition from being the frontline defense of
NATO countries to a supporting role. European democracies in the 1950s were poor and destitute. No more. Germany, for example, has
the world’s fourth-largest economy. It is more than financially capable of providing the bulk of its own security. U.S. troops,
meanwhile, should be redeployed to home bases where they can focus on defending America’s borders and global interests.

Any military alliance system the United States enters into (or stays within) must include reciprocating benefits for both countries and result in a
strengthening of U.S. defenses. It should not be a one-way street where America provides the majority of the benefits to other lands and
shoulders the majority of the risks of a new war—especially one in which its interests would otherwise not be at risk.

U.S. policymakers have, for many decades, been unwilling to even consider adjusting the NATO structure. If
the country fails to take
the rational action to do so now, however, then the cost may be the self-destruction of the alliance when its
members begin shooting at one another , forcing the rest to take sides. That would be the worst time to take the issue on and
far worse for U.S. interests. Now is the time to act, while there is still time to avoid disaster.

That escalates and independently, collapses the Middle East and energy markets
Nael M. Shama 19. PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. "The Geopolitics
of a Latent International Conflict in Eastern Mediterranean". Al Jazeera Center for Studies. 12-23-2019.
https://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2019/12/geopolitics-latent-international-conflict-eastern-
mediterranean-191223074025635.html
Conflicting Interests, Dangerous Incidents

Eastern Mediterranean stability is predominantly undermined by Turkey’s pursuit of an aggressive foreign

policy in the region. Evident in both fiery rhetoric and coercive diplomacy, this policy seems to reflect its legal weakness and military might.
Turkey’s legal posture is not congruent with the tenets of international law, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (to which it is not a
signatory). Instead, the Turkish government provides a novel interpretation of maritime boundaries, arguing that ownership of offshore waters
should be governed by the continental shelf and that the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of an island, such as Cyprus, is limited to only twelve
nautical miles of territorial waters.(5) Further, while Cyprus has bolstered its legal posture by signing maritime border agreements with Egypt,
Lebanon and Israel, in 2003, 2007 and 2010, respectively, Turkey reached no such agreements with its Mediterranean neighbors.
Politically, Turkey’s motives are numerous. Having the longest shoreline in the Eastern Mediterranean, it considers the sea to be vital for both its internal security and its power projection plans in the entire Middle East. However,
facing a group of allied adversaries, especially the fledgling Greek-Egyptian-Cypriot partnership, it feels marginalized and threatened. (6) Economic gains are also at stake. A major gas transit route from Central Asia to Europe,
Turkey wishes to also become an energy hub that links East Mediterranean’s gas fields to European markets, lessening in the process its own reliance on Russian energy imports.(7) To assert its presence and thwart Greek-Cypriot
efforts, Turkey has deployed two drilling ships, Fatih and Yavuz, and a seismic ship, Barbaros Hayreddin Pasa, to the west, east and south of the Cypriot island.(8) Moreover, Turkey’s military ships intercepted an Eni vessel off the
eastern coast of Cyprus in 2018, reportedly threatening “to sink it.”(9)

Both Brussels and Washington are candidly supportive of Cyprus. In response to Ankara’s muscle-flexing moves, the EU levied sanctions on Turkey, reducing financial assistance and halting high-level talks with Ankara. (10) Likewise
alarmed by the detrimental effect the tension in the East Mediterranean could have on European security, the United States has engaged more heavily in the crisis, throwing in its lot with the Greek-Cypriot side. In a sign of
intensive cooperation, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with his Greek counterpart three times in the span of three months (between last August and November). (11) Pompeo also announced that he had warned the Turks
that “illegal drilling is unacceptable,” emphatically adding that “no country can hold Europe hostage.” (12) Anti-Turkey sentiments are also prevalent in the US Congress. In April, Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez put
forward a bipartisan legislation that aims to support the partnership of Cyprus, Greece and Israel and take punitive measures against Turkey. (13)

However, the Turkish leadership is still adamant on pursuing a defiant policy, underpinned by fervent rhetoric and gunboat diplomacy. In response to the EU sanctions, Turkey decided to double its operations off Cypriot coasts by
sending more drillships to the area. Ramping up rhetoric, Turkish President Erdogan said that his country is determined to protect the interests and rights of Turkish Cypriots in the East Mediterranean, warning that Turkey “will not
allow these interests to be usurped by those who have no business (there).” (14)

In the same vein, his Energy Minister, Fatih Donmez, emphasized that Turkey “never surrenders to any threats, and it never will.” (15) Also, Turkey’s Foreign Minister said, “We have three vessels [in the region] and we will send the
fourth … What we will do in our own continental shelf, we decide.”(16) Ankara went as far as “declaring no-go zones” for Greek Cypriot ships in local waters.(17) Ratcheting up tensions, Cyprus in response issued arrest warrants for
the crew of a Turkish drillship, the Fatih, anchored west of Cyprus and, earlier this month, Greece dispatched naval forces to the contested area.(18)

Concomitant with the Greek-Cypriot-Turkish encounter, the ebbing and flowing of tensions between Israel and Lebanon have become sort of a normalcy. In 2010, Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructures Uzi Landau warned in
an interview with Bloomberg that Israel “will not hesitate to use force” to protect its interests and defend its newly-discovered gas fields. (19) In response, Lebanon’s Energy and Water Resources Minister said that Israel “will pay
the price” if it violates the Law of the Sea Convention. (20) Heated rhetoric erupted again in February 2018. Hassan Nasrallah, the pugnacious leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, warned Israel at the time that its oil facilities could be
targeted, and stopped from working “within hours,” if necessary. (21) Lebanon’s Supreme Defense Council gave its full backing to Hezbollah’s military preparations.(22) In a sign of apprehension about attacks against its gas
installations, Israel suspended the transfer of gas from the Tamar field to the Ashdod gas rig when tensions between Israel and Hamas rose in May 2019. (23)

militarization of the region, which takes the form of huge arms procurements and routine exercises, is also a bad omen.
The growing
Turkey’s exploratory ships are already accompanied by “a growing flotilla of Turkish naval vessels ,
submarines, drones, and patrol craft.”(24) For nine days in February and March, Turkey’s military conducted what it claimed was “the largest
naval exercise in its history” in the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.(25) Likewise, Egypt has since 2014 carried out
several military drills with Greece , one of which took place just twelve miles from the coast of Turkey. Cyprus began participating
in these training exercises since 2018. (26) In parallel, Cyprus and Israel conduct joint military exercises on a regular basis. An
arms race is simultaneously raging in the region. Egypt, the world’s third top arms importer in 2014-8,(27) boosted its military presence
in the Mediterranean in the past few years, purchasing amphibious assault ships, submarines and corvettes.(28) And while Greece took
strenuous efforts to upgrade its navy, acquiring frigates, submarines, fast patrol boats and multi-purpose helicopters,(29) Turkey considers
deploying its recently-purchased S-400 air defense missile system along its southern coast “near its vessels exploring for energy in the
Mediterranean.”(30)

Perilously, the rise in levels of political

tension, within the framework of contested sovereignties, undemarcated maritime borders and
overlapping licenses granted to oil companies to operate in similar zones, creates a situation that runs the risk of maritime
accidents . In 2013, a political scholar warned that “ inadvertent escalation due to incidents at sea is becoming an
increasingly probable scenario [in the Mediterranean] … even a minor incident or provocation might be
mistaken for an act of aggression.” (31) Also, a 2018 report, issued by NATO’s Allied Maritime Command, warned that the
Eastern Mediterranean “is extremely busy militarily … There are numerous warships operating in the
region.” (32)
How Good is the Good News?

Against the background of this protracted set of frictions, two ostensibly positive developments took place in the region in 2019. In January, seven states (Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority)
sought to give institutional shape to their energy strategies by establishing the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF). In their initial declaration, the signatories affirmed that the forum would help member states “monetize their
reserves, utilize their existing infrastructure, and build new ones as necessary for the benefit and welfare of their people.” (33) Nevertheless, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey were excluded from the forum. Inter-member energy
cooperation had already been deepened prior to the establishment of the forum. Egypt and Israel strengthened their energy collaboration in recent years. Natural gas from the Israeli fields of Tamar and Leviathan is slated to begin
flowing to Egypt on Jan. 1, according to a $15 billion deal signed in 2018 and recently enlarged to the tune of a whopping $19.5 billion. (34) Israel had also reportedly signed a $10 billion gas deal with Jordan in 2016.

Then in June, assiduous US efforts, led by senior diplomat David Satterfield, culminated in reaching an initial agreement to launch US-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon concerning the division of undersea energy reserves.
Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly told lawmakers in June that there was “clear progress” on efforts to bridge differences between the two countries. (35) Then, in August, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri
confirmed his country’s “commitment” to the US-mediated negotiation process, adding that he considered the process “to be viable.” (36)
The promised yields of these developments should, however, be taken with a pinch of salt. First, the composition of the EMGF perpetuates underlying polarizations rather than alleviates regional tensions, let alone provides a clear
roadmap for solving the current deadlock. In fact, the forum looks, in essence, like an anti-Turkish axis. As the history of international relations incessantly showed us, inked documents that do not address grievances or reflect
extant configurations of power are no guarantee for upholding regional stability. This is particularly true in regions like the Middle East, where the rules of realpolitik, more often than not, carry the day, legal rights and privileges
notwithstanding.

Secondly, the thaw in Israel’s relations with Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt should not be overestimated. Israel’s detention of Jordanian citizens led Amman in late October to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv. There’s also popular
anger in Jordan over the gas deal, and bilateral relations are generally, in the words of a former Israeli diplomat, at a “very low ebb.” (37) Also, the current turmoil in Lebanon, now in its second month, has paralyzed the country.
The continued cabinet interregnum erodes the ability of its acting prime minister to pursue, let alone conclude, controversial peace deals. On the other hand, Egyptian-Israeli ties are thriving, but only on the official level. Public
antipathy towards Israel is still widespread. If given the right to self-expression, as in the revolutionary years of 2011-2013, Egypt’s public opinion will likely induce pressure to reverse the process.

To be sure, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean are part and parcel of the festering social and political
ills that continue to afflict the entire Middle East . Indeed, a large arc of chronic conflict and instability
has taken roots in the wider area surrounding the East Mediterranean. The area stretching from Iran to North
Africa is plagued today by a jumbled mix of deep socioeconomic grievances, time-bomb demographics, simmering armed conflicts, intense
sectarian cleavages, raging civil wars (Syria, Yemen) and failed states (e.g. Libya, Syria, Yemen). It also includes militant non-
state actors and diehard terrorists on a rampage across porous borders (e.g. ISIS, Al-Qaeda), waves of immigrant
influxes, networks of organized crime and arms trafficking, arms races and high levels of internal
upheaval and external penetration. The Middle East, including the East Mediterranean, therefore fits the VUCA
status, a notion articulated in 1987 by the US Army War College to describe a world, or geographic region, characterized by the
toxic mishmash of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
Conclusion

By dint of its pivotal location, at

the intersection of three continents and linked to vital waterways such as the Suez Canal,
the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bosporus, the Eastern Mediterranean is crucial for the security of the
Middle East and Europe . Recent developments in the region pose an overt threat to regional stability . An all-out
military confrontation may be ruled out now, but sabre-rattling, limited military skirmishes and accidents are, no doubt, plausible. Turkey’s
bellicosity is expected to rise so long as other parties feverishly endeavor to exploit energy resources at its exclusion. As a Middle
East analyst put it, “the closer we get to a potential exploitation of offshore resources prior to a reconciliation … the bolder Turkey’s actions are
going to be.” (38) In the absence of confidence-building measures or serious mediation efforts promoted by adept peacekeepers, violence
will continue to loom across the horizon. Albeit still inchoate, the EMGF does not appear to be a viable solution. Rather than assembling
the fragments of an explosive region or acting as a bulwark against further destabilization, as some commentaries elatedly promised, the
forum, at best, buries the vast differences among contending parties under the rug; at worst, it reproduces them.

The explosions on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and the missile assault on the ARAMCO installations in Saudi Arabia, which occurred last
June and September, respectively, was a reminder that the impact of brinksmanship policies, not unusual in the region, can have a
very detrimental effect on the stability of energy markets . Without effective, balanced and binding
political agreements that involve all parties of the Eastern Mediterranean, energy installations and shipping vessels
will remain vulnerable . Any trouble or mishap in the region will send shockwaves through an already
volatile region .
2NC
T
 T---AT: W/M---PTIV---2NC
Independently, increase means to expand.
Self Study ND [Self Study 365, an online learning resource. “Which of the following words is most
opposite in meaning to the w”, https://selfstudy365.com/qa/which-of-the-following-words-is-most-
opposite-in-meaning-to-the-word-5c581424fdb8bb683a282492, no date]
The correct answer is option 4, i.e., 'Increase'.

The sentence suggests that '...came to be stalled, pending a new set of guidelines that severely decreased eligibility.'.

The word 'curtailed' means 'decreased'. Therefore, its opposite would mean 'increased'.

'Hinged' means 'attached or joined with a hinge'.

'Meagre' means 'inadequate'.

'Gimmick' means 'a stunt'.

'Increase' means 'to expand'.

'Enabling' means 'to allow'.

We can clearly see that the word most opposite in meaning to 'curtailed' is 'increase', making option 4 the correct answer.
Retirement ADV
 Populism---2NC
COVID proves resilience.
Foa et al. 22 — Robert Foa, Director of the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of
Cambridge, Holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University, Former Indices of
of social development at The World Bank, 2023, (“The Great Reset: Public Opinion, Populism, and the
Pandemic”, The Bennett Institute, Jan 14th, Available Online at
https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/great-reset, Accessed 9-13-23.)

Globally, we find that support for populism has collapsed during the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic. This includes
support for populist parties, agreement with populist attitudes, and the approval ratings of individual populist leaders.

On average, populist leaders saw a 10 percentage point drop in their approval ratings from the second quarter of
2020 to the final quarter of this year. Meanwhile, support for key populist attitudes – such as belief in the “will of the people” or that society is
divided between ordinary people and a “corrupt elite” – has declined in almost every country.

We suggest three reasons for the collapse of the populist wave.

First, populist
leaders have mishandled the coronavirus crisis. On average such leaders are rated worse by their citizens for
their management of the pandemic, and are less trusted by their citizens as a source of information about it. Meanwhile, support
for anti-establishment outsiders has declined as public trust in government and in experts have recovered.

Second, there
is evidence that political polarisation has declined. The experience of facing a common crisis has
proven to be a unifying event for citizens in many societies. Just as divided societies provide fertile ground for populists to flourish, it
is more difficult for such politicians to mobilise support when inter-group resentments have attenuated.

Third, the pandemic has reduced the economic divide. "Left behind" regions such as the American Midwest, northern England, or southern Italy
show the largest declines in support for populist attitudes between 2019 and 2021, and this may reflect differences in regional economic
performance during the pandemic.

Overall, we suggest these findings are reassuring for the future of western democracy. Across the world, the populist wave appears to be
passing. Some figures, such as Donald Trump, have already left office. Others, including Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Jair Bolsonaro,
face a difficult fight for re-election. While support for democracy has weakened and satisfaction with democracy remains fragile, the
post-
pandemic environment is likely to prove a more difficult environment for populist politicians to mobilise and
sustain support.

3. Social Security can’t supplement low wages and lack of private plans
DePillis 22, reporter for The New York Times who covers the American economy. (Lydia, 10-17-2022,
“An Uptick in Elder Poverty: A Blip, or a Sign of Things to Come?,” New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/business/economy/elder-poverty-seniors.html, JSEM)

For many older Americans , an inflation adjustment to Social Security payments — an 8.7 percent increase for 2023 was announced last
week — will help next year. But people hitting retirement today often depend on S ocial S ecurity as their only
source of income , which wasn’t the program’s original intention .

Older workers’ wages have grown more slowly compared with other groups over the past few years, and
many didn’t have 401(k) accounts , or didn’t contribute enough to them, as companies closed their
defined-benefit pension plans over the last couple of decades.
2024 ADV
 NATO Bad---Overview---2NC
Weak leadership relaxes rivals now
Emma Ashford 21, Foreign Affairs PhD from the University of Virginia, a senior fellow in the New
American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security,
citing Michael McFaul, a former Obama-era ambassador to Moscow, 1/7/2021, “America Can’t Promote
Democracy Abroad. It Can’t Even Protect It at Home,” https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/07/america-
cant-promote-protect-democracy-abroad/, Stras
The jokes were funny, until they weren’t.

“What if journalists wrote about U.S. politics the way they wrote about other countries?” asked a dozen tongue-in-cheek articles since 2016.
Twitter users joked about the embattled president of a former British colony, huddling in his palace, refusing to concede the election. But all of
that ended Wednesday afternoon, when a violent mob rushed past U.S. Capitol Police and invaded Congress, forcing the evacuation of
lawmakers and ending with tear gas, gunfire, and at least four deaths. The pictures called to mind Boris Yeltsin on top of a tank, the Arab Spring,
or the streets of Venezuela. For those watching around the world, the United States had become what American leaders so
often decried : a weak democracy unable to prevent violence and bloodshed from marring the transition of power from one
leader to the next.

It’s a sign of how broken U.S. foreign-policy debates are that the primary reaction from many
commentators was to worry about America’s moral authority and global leadership . There were
comments about how happy China’s Xi Jinping must be and worries that this would undermine U.S.
democracy promotion abroad . Michael McFaul, a former Obama-era ambassador to Moscow, tweeted that “Trump
today delivered his latest, but hopefully his last gift to Putin.” Meanwhile, a group of NGOs, including the National
Endowment for Democracy, issued a statement reaffirming its “commitment to stand in solidarity with all those around the world who share
democratic values.” In short: in the middle of a literal coup attempt aimed at halting the certification of a democratic election, with
insurrectionists storming the Capitol, many foreign-policy hands were fretting about whether the United States could continue to spread
democracy and human rights abroad and whether it might impact America’s ability to engage in great-power competition with China.

The United States has bigger problems than an inability to promote democracy around the world.

To call these reactions out of touch would be an understatement. At this point, the United States has bigger problems than an
inability to promote democracy around the world or worrying about an ambitious global competition
with China. U.S. domestic politics are staggering under the weight of decades of partisan abuse , and
while most institutions have so far proved resilient, there is no guarantee they’ll stand up to the next autocratic wannabe. Almost the only
institution that retains the trust of the American people is the military, a distinction that carries its own worrying implications.

Wednesday’s violence will certainly impact the United States’ global image , although the last four years
under Donald Trump have done plenty of damage already . And while it is certainly true that the political turmoil that
has engulfed the country since November will make it harder for the United States to build an international coalition
against China, it’s hard to see why U.S. policymakers are prioritizing rallying an ambitious and poorly defined “alliance of democracies” to
push back against China, rather than trying to stop the bleeding at home.

To be clear, this is not a call for America to retreat from the world; the United States benefits hugely from global engagement. But Wednesday’s
crisis lays bare a central flaw with U.S. foreign policy today: Ambitious foreign-policy goals are completely out of step with the realities of the
country’s domestic political and economic dysfunction.

How can anyone expect—as Joe Biden’s campaign promised—to “restore responsible American leadership on
the world stage ” if Americans cannot even govern themselves at home? How can the United States
spread democracy or act as an example for others if it barely has a functioning democracy at home ?
Washington’s foreign-policy elites remain committed to the preservation of a three-decade foreign policy aimed at reshaping the world in
America’s image. They are far too blasé about what that image has become in 2020.

Even the projects that have been undertaken since 2016 focusing on the intersection between domestic and foreign politics—such as this
recent Carnegie Endowment project—have mostly focused on ways to either sell the country’s existing foreign policy to the American people or
fix trade and investment policies so that the middle class benefits more. In reality, what is needed is a wholesale rethinking of foreign policy, a
more modest and humble approach to the world, and an attempt to address the real problems created by domestic dysfunction.

Wednesday’s insurrection increases the likelihood that other countries will start to see the United States as a risk factor in the international
system.

Wednesday’s insurrection worsens two concrete foreign-policy problems for the United States. First, it will increase the likelihood that other
governments will be wary of any binding commitments or in-depth cooperation with the United States.
Four years of Trump have already convinced countries in Europe and Asia that U.S. commitments may not
be worth the paper they are written on, particularly in an increasingly partisan environment . The Iran
nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Paris climate accords were all victims of a shift to a more partisan,
seesaw form of foreign policy. This week’s violence in Washington and the broader political turmoil since the November election have
added to those concerns that future U.S. elections may not even be free and fair.
 NATO Bad---AT: Revisionism---2NC
Decades of Putin’s statements, analysis, and documents prove Russia is defensive.
AT: Soviet Union

AT: Revisionist ideology

Person 20 [Robert Person is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the United States
Military Academy and director of West Point’s curriculum in International Affairs. His current book
project, Russia’s Grand Strategy in the 21st Century, will be published by the Brookings Institution Press
in 2022. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the official
policy or position of the United States Military Academy, United States Army, or Department of Defense,
9-22-2020, Four Myths about Russian Grand Strategy, CSIS, https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-
post/four-myths-about-russian-grand-strategy] Eric
Introduction

After spending most of the 1990s and early 2000s rebuilding their state, regime, economy, and military after the traumatic Soviet collapse,
Russia’s return to a central—and often disruptive—place in world politics has laid bare the folly of many scholars and policymakers who ignored
Russia during those years or dismissively argued that the country was irrelevant in a post-9/11 world focused on counterterrorism and sectarian
violence in the Middle East. Perhaps owing to this neglect, Russia’s
resurgence in the twenty-first century has resulted in a
large number of misconceptions about its objectives in international politics. This paper seeks to clear up some of those
misconceptions by identifying and dispelling four common myths about Russian grand strategy.1

Myth #1: Russia’s grand strategy is driven by ideology

One common misconception is that Russia’s leaders—and Putin in particular—are driven by ideological
motivations in their pursuit of Russia’s grand strategic objectives. Oftentimes, this motivating ideology is
identified as a general illiberal conservatism. This view is supported by claims from Putin himself, as in 2019 when he told the
Financial Times that “the liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. The migrants can kill, plunder, and rape with impunity
because their rights as migrants must be protected...So, the liberal idea has become obsolete.” Further evidence of a conservative ideological
bent to Russia’s grand strategy can also arguably be found in Russia’s well-documented ties to far-right political movements in Europe.

There is no doubt that Putin adheres to conservative social values and illiberal political principles, but their place in Russian
strategy ismore instrumental than ideological: they are useful tools for sowing discord and division in adversaries, thereby
advancing Russia’s realpolitik interests in the political sphere. Additionally, such beliefs cannot account for the full range of
objectives and methods that Russia employs in pursuit of national security . While these beliefs may
shape Putin’s domestic rule, they do not motivate his strategic vision for Russia’s place in the world.

Others have suggested that Russia’s strategic worldview is heavily influenced by the Eurasianist ideology
which has its roots in Russian nineteenth-century political philosophy and which bestows upon the Russian
nation an inspired—or even divine—destiny to unite the Russian and non-Russian peoples who share
common cultures across the territories of the former Russian empire. In recent years, Eurasianist ideology has been
most closely identified with Russian political thinker Alexander Dugin, who was described once in Foreign Affairs as “Putin’s Brain.”
However, there is little evidence to suggest Dugin holds any direct ideological influence over Putin, nor
do Putin’s policies or statements reflect a complete embrace of Dugin’s Eurasianist ideas. Rather, Eurasianist
ideology is just one strand of nationalist thought with which certain—but not all—Kremlin policies are consistent.

Rather than ideology, the

foundations of Russia’s grand strategy can be found in the more universal, if mundane,
condition of geopolitical insecurity that informs the realist school of thought. Russia's worldview and
grand strategic objectives are the product of a deep and enduring sense of geopolitical insecurity that
has conditioned its relationship to the outside world for centuries. This “ persistent sense of
vulnerability that never lies far beneath the surface in the consciousness of Russia's rulers” is born of a
geography that is difficult to defend from external invasion, a close proximity to other great powers, and—as much as any
other factor—Russia's own expansionist tendencies , which throughout history have frequently reduced security
rather than bolster it. Ironically, much of Russia’s historical security dilemma has been self-induced, as Kotkin notes:
Russia simultaneously abutted Europe, the Near East, and the Far East. Such a circumstance should have argued for caution in foreign policy.
But Russia had tended to be expansionist precisely in the name of vulnerability: even as forces loyal to the tsar had
seized territory, they imagined they were preempting attacks [by other great powers]. And once Russia had forcibly
acquired a region, its officials invariably insisted they had to acquire the next one over, too, in order to be able to defend their original gains. A
sense of destiny and insecurity combined in a heady mix.

The resulting “ besieged fortress mentality ” that runs through Russian grand strategy can be found
throughout Russian strategic documents and rhetoric , as in Putin’s March 2014 speech announcing the
annexation of Crimea. In that address, he declared defiantly:

We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, led in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues today. They are
constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we call things like
they are and do not engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line…”

If this argument is correct—that Russia’s strategic worldview is driven by a deep sense of insecurity and a threat of encirclement rather than
the ideology of its current leaders—we must acknowledge an uncomfortable reality about the future. One day, Russia’s current leaders—Putin
included—will no longer rule the country. But Russia’s geography and geopolitical realities will remain unchanged and, if history is any guide, its
grand strategic objectives will also endure long after a new generation of Russian rulers occupy the Kremlin.

Myth #2: Russia seeks to reconstruct the Soviet Union or Russian Empire .
In the wake of Russian military offensives against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014, which resulted in the annexation of
Crimea, claims that Russia seeks to reconstruct an empire on the territory of the former Soviet Union or Russian Empire have been common in
many Western policy circles. But rather than restoring traditional imperial rule, Russia in the twenty-first century prefers
to pursue what analyst Bobo Lo terms a “postmodern empire": “This type is characterized by indirect control
rather than direct rule, and prefers to employ economic and cultural means instead of blunter military instruments… It aims for the best of
all worlds: enduring influence and power, but with a minimum of responsibility .”

Instead of a formal territorial empire under direct rule, Russia endeavors to establish a privileged and exclusive sphere of influence
across former Soviet territory. Within its asserted sphere, Russia seeks privileged status that gives Moscow a seat at the table in
the capital of every post-Soviet country. It even claims the right to intervene when necessary in the domestic affairs of states within its sphere
—for, in Putin’s view, only great powers like Russia are truly sovereign. Should a state in Russia’s supposed sphere take a decision that
threatens Russian interests—such as a Ukrainian attempt to join NATO or the European Union—Moscow is prepared to exert the necessary
levers of influence to veto that choice.

Furthermore, because Russia believes it is the only great power that can enjoy such a privileged pursuit of its political interests in the region,
it views U.S. efforts to develop bilateral and multilateral ties with post-Soviet states as a zero-sum
competition . Moscow is particularly sensitive to U.S. support for protest, democratization, and
opposition movements in the post-Soviet space, seeing it as an attempt to enhance U.S. influence at Russia’s
expense. It is worth pointing out that, while Moscow has been far more tolerant of expanding Chinese economic influence in Central Asia,
even this remains a source of anxiety for the Kremlin. One can imagine rising friction in the region should Beijing’s overtures extend into the
political and military realms.

This sphere of privileged and exclusive influence is a crucial element of Russia’s strategic solution to its security dilemma. It
establishes a
buffer zone between Russia and its key strategic adversary: the United States (as represented by NATO ).
Furthermore, it seeks to guarantee that the buffer states will not take sovereign actions that threaten Russia’s security. Finally , it aspires to
eliminate what Moscow sees as destabilizing foreign meddling in its neighbors (especially the Colored Revolutions and Maidan
Revolution) that is usually to the detriment of Russian interests. One need only recall Moscow’s forceful interventions in
Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014 to appreciate the lengths to which the Kremlin is willing to go to
defend its interests in the region.
 NATO Bad---AT: Baltics War---2NC
No Baltic grabs.
Dr. Alexander Lanoszka 20, Professor of Political Science and Fellow in the Balsillie School of
International Affairs at the University of Waterloo, PhD in Politics from Princeton University, Honorary
Fellow in the Department of International Politics at City, University of London, “Thank Goodness for
NATO Enlargement”, International Politics, Volume 57, p. 451-470

Russia’s ability to mount a major assault on the Baltic littoral region should not be exaggerated either. Strategic
assets that Russia supposedly has at its disposal can become liabilities . Its one formal defense partner—Belarus—
has proved reluctant to accept additional forward deployed military assets and to provide diplomatic support in Russia’s territorial
disputes with its neighbors. Because Belarus has potentially much to lose from getting involved in any sort of military confrontation between
Russia and NATO, its
leaders will be hesitant to offer material support to Russia, especially if they fear becoming the target of
NATO countermeasures. Moreover, any massive assault on Poland and the Baltic countries would require extensive

stockpiling of military hardware, ammunition, medical equipment, and other supplies, which would provide NATO defense planners
with early warning . The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad might also be vulnerable . Swedish researchers have called
into question Russian A2/AD capabilities located in Kaliningrad and elsewhere, alleging that its missile systems have
much shorter ranges than commonly presumed and may be vulnerable to countermeasures (Dalsjö et al. 2019).
NATO militaries like the Polish Armed Forces could hold at risk Kaliningrad. The question should not necessarily be
whether the United States would trade ‘Toledo for Tallinn’ but whether Russia would trade Kaliningrad for Vilnius . And

indeed, Russia would need the Suwałki Gap as much as NATO would because the area provides a bridge between Belarus and
Kaliningrad. Attempts to close it necessarily involve violating Poland’s territorial integrity and would provide justification for
NATO to escalate. Partly because of these difficulties associated with a major conventional attack, regional
experts and government officials judge the probability of something of this sort happening to be low (Lanoszka and Hunzeker
2019, 29–30, 79). That is not to say Russia is weak; for example, its widening missile advantages still create gaps in NATO’s deterrence posture.
But Russia is not a military juggernaut either.
 NATO Bad---AT: Prolif---2NC
Weak U.S. commitments are the key driver of autonomy — any change flips the script.
Retter et al. 21 — Lucia Retter, Senior Analyst and Deputy Director of the Centre for Defense
Economics and Acquisition at the RAND Corporation, M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins
University, Stephanie Pezard, Senior Political Scientist and Associate Research Department Director for
Defense and Political Sciences at the RAND Corporation, PhD in Political Science from the Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies, M.A. in History from the French Institute of POlitcial
Science, Stephen Flanagan, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, PhD in International
Relations from Tufts University, A.B. in Political Science from Columbia University, Gene Germanovich,
International Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation, M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown
University, B.S. in International Affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Sarah Grand Clement,
Researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, MSc in Arab World Studies from
Durham University, B.A. in International Relations from Sussex University, and Pauline Paille, Analyst at
the RAND Corporation, M.A. in International Relations from Sciences Po Bordeaux, 2021 (“European
Strategic Autonomy in Defence,” RAND Corporation, November 9th, Available Online at
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1319-1.html, Accessed on 05-29-2022, p. 29)

Perception of the U.S.: There was a certain hesitancy expressed by interviewees around the perception
of the U.S. by European governments, driven by perceived uncertainty on the outcome of the 2024 US
elections and the possible return to a foreign policy like that of the Trump administration. The majority
of interviewees perceived this factor to be one of the key drivers behind the developments of
European strategic autonomy – whether one that is closely aligned to NATO (Scenario 1) or one that
consciously diverges from NATO (and the U.S.) and diverts defence resources towards EU-led initiatives
and operations (Scenario 3). Hence, any changes in the way EU member states perceive US behaviour
and commitment to European security and defence were seen as having significant impact on the
European defence integration agenda and actions.

European nuclear deterrent is more credible

Tertrais 19 Deputy Director of the Paris-based Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, Bruno(6-28-
19, “Will Europe Get Its Own Bomb?” Washington Quarterly,
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu. edu/dist/1/2181/files/2019/06/Tertrais.pdf)

Would it be credible? Some claim that a France and/or UK-based nuclear deterrent would not have the necessary
credibility.53 But it is widely considered that a smaller arsenal can deter a major power provided it has the
ability to inflict damage seen as unacceptable by the other party. This has always been the premise of “deterrence of the
strong by the weak”—and is not connected with the size of the other party’s nuclear arsenal as long as deterrence does not rely on a
“counterforce” strategy, or on the ability to destroy the equivalent territory or population of the defender. It
is also not connected with
the size of the other party’s conventional military capabilities as long as one does not rely on any war-fighting or
nuclear defense strategy—concepts that even NATO no longer applies. Most importantly, again, deterrence exercised
by a European power might be seen as more credible than when it is exercised by a distant protector; the
idea is that “be ready to die for Helsinki” could be a more credible proposition for a European nuclear
power than for the United States.
French umbrella provides assurance and solves runaway prolif.
Schlee ’20 — Rene; Country Director of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. March 5, 2020; "Tracking the German
Nuclear Debate"; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/08/15/tracking-german-nuclear-debate-pub-72884; //CYang

A withdrawalof Germany from nuclear sharing with the Americans would have further advantages .
Coordinated with other countries of nuclear sharing, such as Belgium or the Netherlands, one could send the important
political signal to the Eastern European NATO countries that even a minimal nuclear deterrent under French
leadership would satisfy German as well as European security interests . Moreover, it would enable Germany to
present itself with new credibility in matters of nuclear disarmament. At present, Germany is in the dilemma
of only being able to commit itself internationally to nuclear disarmament with half its strength , since nuclear weapons are
on its own territory. However, the withdrawal from nuclear sharing could give new impetus to the debate on the
N on- P roliferation T reaty.”
 NATO Bad---AT: EU Fails---2NC
EU solves conflict areas – nuke war.
Seán O Regan 16, Master’s Degree in Commerce and Government from the University College Cork,
Postgraduate Diploma in Conflict and Dispute Resolution from Trinity College, Dublin, Higher Diploma in
Accounting, Business, Accounting, Tax, and Law from Dublin City University, “Conflict Resolution
Revisited: Peaceful Resolution, Mediation and Responsibility to Protect”, All Azimuth: A Journal of
Foreign Policy and Peace, Volume 5, Issue 1, January, p. 70-73

Thus, there
is a well-rehearsed commitment to the principle of peace and by implication the peaceful
resolution of disputes. The bipolar world order established after the Second World War made a mockery of this commitment. The term
conflict prevention in this era meant containing the potential for nuclear war between the major
blocs . The ideological struggle between those blocs was carried into conflict all over the globe , notably in
East Asia (Korea and Vietnam), Africa (the Congo and Angola) and Latin America (Chile and Nicaragua). The international
community’s response was generally to insert peacekeeping forces between parties in conflict without necessarily dealing
with the root causes of the conflict. Many such conflicts ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but long-suppressed
animosities between the constituent republics of that Union and its client states erupted . The international community’s failure to
deal with the ethnic/sectarian conflicts in the Caucasus and South Eastern Europe on the one hand and the
Rwanda genocide on the other impelled discussion of conflict prevention from academia to foreign policy formation. While the
UN and the OSCE had long-standing commitments to conflict prevention, exercise of all possible options was in practice limited by international
politics. When it became clear that, as Smith12 put it, the balance of terror of the Cold War would not be replaced by peace and security, the
issue of conflict prevention became prominent for the international community.

3. Current Conflict Resolution Practice

Van Waalraven13 explored the conflict policies of a sample of Western countries (Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United
Kingdom) and found that general conflict policy, as against specific conflict intervention, was embedded in other, mainly development
assistance, policies. He found it difficult to identify generic approaches to conflict prevention, although all countries examined used similar
language in their descriptions of conflict and its causes, even if there was only vague consensus on what those causes are.

The Council of the

E uropean U nion, at its June 2001 meeting in Gothenburg,14 endorsed a programme of conflict
prevention,15 stating this would “improve the Union’s capacity to undertake coherent early warning,
analysis and action [to prevent conflict]” and that “[c] onflict prevention is one of the main objectives of the
Union’s external relations and should be integrated in all its relevant aspects.” This document and the European Security Strategy16
provided the foundation for the elaboration of a whole series of policies, including the promotion of
mediation in conflict prevention and resolution. It was followed in 2009 by the “Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue
Capacities,”17 which uses the term mediation to encompass improved communication, negotiation, dialogue and facilitation through the

offices of a third party, namely the EU. In this document mediation can be directive and coercive. It
also notes the EU’s financial
power and moral authority as positive factors in a mediation process.
 NATO Bad---TNWs Impact---2NC
Extinction
Dr. Louis R. Beres 19, Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University, has lectured and
published extensively on the subject of nuclear terrorism, “Terrorism And Global Security: The Nuclear
Threat--Second Edition, Completely Revised And Updated,” 07/09/2019, Routledge

Nuc lear terror ism could even spark full-scale nuclear war between states . Such war could involve the
entire spectrum of nuclear conflict possibilities, ranging from a. nuclear attack upon a nonnuclear state to systemwide nuclear
war. How might such far-reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps the most likely way would involve a
terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists "hosted" in a nother state . For example, consider the
following scenario:

Early in the 1980s, Israel and her Arab state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace
settlement. With a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already several years old, only the interests of the Palestinians—as
defined by the PLO— seem to have been left out. On the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement, half a dozen crude
nuclear explosives in the one kiloton range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousand dead and
maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood , the government of Israel
initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon the Lebanese government and its
allies retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region is ablaze , conflict has escalate d to nuclear
forms, and all countries in the area have suffered unprecedented destruction .

Of course, such a scenario is fraught with the makings of even wider destruction . How would the U nited
S tates react to the situation in the Middle East ? What would be the Soviet response? It is certainly conceivable that a chain reaction
of interstate nuclear conflict could ensue, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every
nuclear weapon state on the planet .
What, exactly, would this mean? Whether the terms of assessment be statistical or human, the consequences of nuclear war require an entirely
new paradigm of death. Only such a paradigm would allow us a proper framework for absorbing the vision of near-total obliteration and the
outer limits of human destructiveness. Any nuclear war would have effectively permanent and irreversible
consequences . Whatever the actual extent of injuries and fatalities, it would entomb the spirit of the entire species in a
planetary casket strewn with shorn bodies and imbecile imaginations.
 Democracy---2NC
Moralizing about “democracy” is counter-productive and China will already seal the
deal.
Meisel et al ‘6/13 [Collin Meisel, associate director of Geopolitical Analysis at the University of
Denver’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, a Geopolitics and Modeling Expert at The
Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, and a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center. Jonathan Moyer,
director of the University of Denver’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, assistant
professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council. Mathew Burrows, program lead and distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center’s
Strategic Foresight Hub. “The US is losing the Global South: How to reverse course”, The Hill,
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4046182-the-us-is-losing-the-global-south-how-to-reverse-
course/, 6/13/23]

On its present course, the U.S. is set to be overtaken by China as the world’s leading influencer within the next
25 years.

Chinese influence has already surpassed the U.S. in 61 countries due to its substantial trade,
investment and development assistance, according to a study we made of influence between pairs of states from 1960 onward
with forecasts through mid-century across economic, political and security dimensions. China’s “inroads” include particularly
Africa and Central and Southeast Asia in addition to eroding U.S. advantages virtually everywhere else.

Today, theMiddle East is no longer fully ensconced in the U.S.’s sphere of influence in view of Beijing’s
latest diplomatic coup reestablishing Saudi and Iranian ties and Saudi Arabia’s forthcoming entry into
the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization, referred to by some as a “semi-alliance” of several
large Eurasian countries. And Western support for Ukraine — while the morally and strategically correct choice — has
established conditions for further Chinese geopolitical gains in Africa. Western funds previously slated
for humanitarian aid on the continent are expected to be redirected toward Kyiv, and Beijing seems
poised to fill this gap with its Global Development Initiative.

The persistent loss of U.S. influence to China over the past two decades is the backstory behind the U.S.
and West’s failure to lead global public opinion on Ukraine. In both the first and latest United Nations
General Assembly votes demanding an end to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, India, the world’s largest
democracy, abstained from voting alongside more than 30 other countries.

The gap between the Global South and the U.S. is much deeper than understood, as shown by a February 2023
survey of major Western and Global South publics. The Global South distrusts the Biden administration’s division of
the world into democracy versus authoritarianism. For them, the world is already multipolar, and the U.S. and Europe are
just one of the poles. Western publics, instead, see the world as divided in two — a Western bloc and a
Russian-Chinese one — and believe it is the moral duty of the rest of the world to back the West.

Democratic peace theory is cherry-picked and at best is only between two

democracies.
Doorenspleet ’19 [Renske; 2019; Political Science and International Studies Professor at Warwick
University; Rethinking the Value of Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, “Democracy and Interstate
War,” Ch. 3]
This finding or ‘law’ has not only been recognized by scholars of international relations, but also found its way outside academia and has
influenced foreign policies to promote peace and democracy, most prominently since the 1990s. However, my book will not draw
conclusions based on ‘ cherry-pick ing’ of specific studies showing how peaceful democracies are, but on a systematic overview of studies in

this field. Therefore, this book relies on my own database with hundreds of different studies , which are relevant
for each chapter; the articles had to engage directly with the chapter’s main research question. The next section will provide more detailed
information around the selection criteria. This overview includes both highly cited and recent articles which were selected in a systematic way.

Based on analyses of statistical studies around this topic of democracy and war, it will become clear that the overall statistical support for the
democratic peace hypothesis is not strong at all. In the rest of the chapter, I will spell out four reasons why democracy does not
cause peace , and why the empirical support for the popular idea of democratic peace is quite weak : (1) most
studies do not find a strong correlation between democracy and interstate war at the dyadic level , and they show
that there are other—more powerful—explanations for war and peace, or even that the impact of
democracy is a spurious one , (2) the theoretical foundation of the democratic peace hypothesis is
weak , and the causal mechanisms are unclear , (3) democracies are not necessarily more peaceful in
general, and the evidence for the democratic peace hypothesis at the monadic level is inconclusive, and (4)
the process of democratization is dangerous and living in a democratizing country means living in a less peaceful country.

In my view, it is difficult—if not impossible —to support the democratic peace hypothesis without any reservations. The
key caveats should not be ignored and certainly deserve more attention before we can confidently argue that democracies are more peaceful
than other types of political systems. Please notice that I can already reveal that the assumed link between democracy and intrastate war is
problematic as well, but this topic will be at the core of the next chapter (Chapter 4).

Selection of Articles: Democracy and War

The instrumental value of democracy cannot convincingly be found in democracy’s expected bond with peace. I have come to this conclusion
on the basis of an analysis of statistical studies, which will be discussed in the rest of this chapter. So how did I select the articles for my
database?4

For this chapter and Chapter 4, I selected the articles that focused on war and democracy. Using the online database Web of Science (formerly
known as Web of Knowledge), I identified a total of almost 8000 articles published in the sampled journals until the end of 2015. I
identifed them by entering ‘democr*’ in the basic search field; this asterisk (*)-based ‘wildcard’ allows searching for terms including
‘democratic’, ‘democracy’, and ‘democratization’ (in both British and American spellings) simultaneously, in the title, abstract and/or the
keywords. As a next step, I excluded articles in which ‘democracy’ is used as synonym for state (e.g. analysis of the relationship between
immigration policies and unemployment in European democracies) or a specific political party or movement (e.g. the ‘Democrats’ in the USA, or
Uganda’s People’s Democratic Army) or a specifc country (e.g. the Democratic Republic of Congo). In addition, I identified them by entering
‘war*’ in the basic search feld. The words democracy (democr*) and war (war*) need to be mentioned in title and/or abstract—and I also
checked for equivalents of ‘war’ like ‘conflict’ and ‘dispute’ and ‘no peace’.5

As it is not feasible to analyse thousands of articles, it is necessary to take a next step in the selection process. I decided to select these articles,
which will be part of the database for the third and fourth chapter, in three different ways. The first method is to choose the articles with the
most citations. So, for example, in Chapter 3, the articles which are cited more than a hundred times are included in this first list. The article by
Beck et al. (1998) has been cited more than 951 times, and as a consequence, this article is part of the database. But also articles with a much
lower number of citations (such as Barbieri 1996, with 179 citations) are included in my analyses.

The second method is simply to include the most recent articles published in the past five years, so since beginning 2011 until end 2015. The
most recent articles can easily be overlooked by applying the first method of most quoted articles. In my view, however, they still need to be
included as they present the most recent findings and engage with the recent and innovative debates, which cannot be ignored in this book. For
example, recent studies on democracy and interstate war (Chapter 3) have paid more attention to the mechanisms (see, e.g., Zeigler et al.
2014), and there is a growing attention for the impact of political institutions in recent studies on democracy and intrastate war (Chapter 4; see,
e.g., Walter 2015). Those recent findings cannot be ignored in any systematic analysis of statistical studies on this theme.

The third method is the most subjective approach of selecting articles, as it is based on the ‘snowballing method’. So it includes articles which
have not been selected by the first and second methods, but which have been quoted extensively and regularly by the previously selected
articles. For example, the article by Bethany Lacina (2006) cannot be selected based on having high citations (the first method) and it cannot be
included based on being a recent publication (the second method), but it has been mentioned by key studies and hence surfaces via the
snowballing method (a third method). This article is important as it clearly distinguish es the determinants of conflict severity
from those for conflict onset , and those determinants seem to be quite different , which is crucial information for
Chapter 4.

In this way, my study presents and assesses the findings based on a big pool of statistical studies in the published literature. Based on this
assessment, I will be able to draw clearer conclusions concerning the significance of the effects of democracy on interstate war (this chapter)
and intrastate war (the next chapter). The Appendix shows more detailed information of the selected articles.

The Democratic Peace Hypothesis, Its Roots and Supporters

The democratic peace hypothesis6 states that democracies never or seldom go to war with one another. Where is this powerful idea of
‘democratic peace’ coming from? Before discussing the main findings of the statistical articles and before describing the four caveats of the
‘democratic peace paradigm’, we need to know a bit more around the background and the roots of this idea.

Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay Perpetual Peace has often been mentioned as the foundation for this hypothesis. Kant believed peace was difficult
to achieve, since ‘the natural state is one of war’ (Kant 1795: 10). A state of peace must therefore be established for—in his view—it is certain
that hostilities will be committed and people need to be protected from each other. In such a world, each may treat his neighbour, from whom
he demands security, as an enemy. In a dictatorship where ‘the subjects are not citizens, a declaration of war is the easiest thing in the world to
decide upon, because war does not require of the ruler, who is the proprietor and not a member of the state, the least sacrifice of the pleasures
of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the like. He may, therefore, resolve on war as on a pleasure party for the
most trivial reasons, and with perfect indifference leave the justification which decency requires to the diplomatic corps who are ever ready to
provide it’ (Kant 1795: 13).

In contrast, the situation is different in constitutional republics, according to Kant. He argued that the majority of the people in republics would
never vote to go to war, except for pure self-defence. Therefore, a world with only republics would be peaceful, since there would be no
aggressors. The republican constitution, which requires the consent of the citizens to start a war, gives the positive prospect of perpetual peace.

It is important to note that the ideas of Kant on the one hand and the modern democratic peace scholars on the other hand are not completely
similar. For example, Kant talked about republics instead of democratic states as the ideal states to achieve peace. He defined republican states
as states with representative governments, in which the legislature is separated from the executive. Not surprisingly—considering the epoch in
which he lived—Kant did not include universal suffrage in his definition, which is now seen as an essential dimension of democracy, even of the
most minimalist types of democracy (Dahl 1971; see also Chapter 2). Moreover, Kant argued that republics will be at peace in general, which
means that such political systems are expected to be not only in peace with each other, but also with other non-republican systems. Nowadays,
only few scholars would support this approach of a ‘ monadic democratic peace ’. As will become clear at the end of
this chapter, there is not much evidence for the idea that democracies are more peaceful in general .
1NR
Trump CP
 Korean War Impact---2NC
B. MODELING. Successful agreement creates a diplomatic model for other conflict
resolution scenarios---solves global great power war.
Hall Gardner 19. Prof of International and Comparative Politics @ American University of Paris. 2019.
“Averting Armageddon.” IR Theory, Historical Analogy, and Major Power War, Springer International
Publishing, pp. 275–308. Crossref, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-04636-1_10.
All of the above scenarios require engaged multilateral diplomacy in working with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as with third powers
and domestic factions where necessary in order to achieve peace and reconciliation where possible. At the time of this writing, the
Trump
administration has been engaging in military and political-economic containment with respect to Russia and China; strong
sanctions with respect to No rth Ko rea, although engaging in US and South Korean talks with the North; coupled with
threats of forcing “regime change” in Iran. If the Trump administration sanctions approach, combined with US and South Korean talks
with Pyongyang , work s with respect to No rth Ko rea, it could set the stage for similar multilateral
diplomatic initiatives with Russia, China, and even Iran . If, however, the South Korean rapprochement with North
Korea fails , it could fail massively . As of September 2018, there still has been no clear definition of “denuclearization”; nor has
North Korea provided a complete list of its weapons of mass destruction and a timetable for their possible reduction/ elimination. There are
some hopes that some
of the massive minefields can be eliminated . At the same time, Washington and Seoul appear to be
at odds over whether to sustain sanctions on the North, with Seoul hoping to reduce sanctions gradually. If
the diplomatic process
does succeed in bringing a “peace and development community” to the Korea n peninsula, it would
prove to be a helpful step , but that alone will not prevent a potential major power war between the US and
its allies with Russia , China and Iran , among other states, such as India and Pakistan . Without a serious
and concerted diplomatic engagement with the latter states, the chances of a wider regional conflicts , if
not new forms of hybrid and cyber-warfare between the regional and major powers, will to continue
to augment . Demons of past are certain to arise from their shattered sepulchers throughout the world in new shapes and sizes. The
path toward preventing the next Armageddon now lies in the very difficult process of an engaged and
concerted diplomacy involving both allies and rivals that is aimed at preventing the further expansion
of regional wars —if not another major power conflict of a very different nature than either World War I or World War II.

C. PROLIF.
Yoon & Martin 23 [Dasl Yoon, reporter @ Wall Street Journal covering North Korea. Timothy W.
Martin, Korea bureau chief @ Wall Street Journal. “South Korea’s Interest in Nuclear Weapons Hasn’t
Gone Away—It’s Just On Hold”, Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-koreas-
interest-in-nuclear-weapons-hasnt-gone-awayits-just-on-hold-7c91cf8a, 9/16/23]

South Korea swore off nuclear weapons in a recent pact with the U.S., but the deal may have just put a
temporary pause on the debate in Seoul.

South Korea is surrounded by nuclear powers and many among the public and in the elite political class
are still in favor of the country developing its own nuclear weapons.

President Yoon Suk Yeol signed the pact, but one

of the most prominent voices supporting nuclear weapons for
South Korea comes from his own ruling partly: Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon.

“Only nukes can counter nukes,” Oh said in an interview at his City Hall office.
Oh, 62, said the regional security threat has risen so high that it would justify triggering Article X of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which
South Korea signed nearly five decades ago.

Despite U.S. assurances of protection, South Korea is surrounded by three nuclear-armed nations
—China, Russia and North Korea. Those countries could pursue joint naval drills, Seoul’s spy agency has told lawmakers. North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Russia recently, discussing ways to bolster ties and thwart the U.S.-led global order.

Many South Koreans want nukes

The open discourse by South Korea’s political elite crosses the partisan spectrum and has emerged anew in recent years. That, in large part,
reflects broad public backing for a nuclear program: a strong majority of South Koreans have supported the notion
for a decade.
Oh, a former attorney who began his second stint as mayor in 2021, isn’t alone among leading South Korean politicians calling for South Korean
armament. They argue that relying on Washington’s nuclear umbrella isn’t enough.
Conservative lawmakers gathered at a conference earlier this year and discussed the prospect of South Korea’s nuclear development. Tae Yong-
ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat who defected and is now a lawmaker in South Korea, said nuclear anxieties haven’t gone away and
suggested developing nuclear weapons as a way to reduce the Kim regime’s threat. Ruling party leader Kim Gi-hyeon has consistently said
acquiring nuclear weapons is the only way to preserve peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The party’s interest in the topic had risen after Yoon, who took office last year, said in January that South Korea could develop its own nuclear
weapons or ask the U.S. to redeploy them, rattling Washington officials. He dialed back the remarks a week later.

Three months later, Yoon met President Biden at the White House, promising not to pursue a nuclear bomb. In exchange, Seoul won more
frequent visits to the region by U.S. nuclear assets meant to deter Pyongyang, and greater consultation on potential American nuclear use in
the event of a Kim regime attack.

Following the leader-to-leader pact called the “Washington Declaration,” South Korean support for nuclear armament dropped to 60% this
year, about a nine-percentage-point fall from the prior year, according to a recent survey by Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-
funded think tank in Seoul. Trust in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which includes South Korea, rose modestly to 75%.

A majority of both conservatives and liberals back South Korea going nuclear, with widespread acknowledgment
that doing so won’t convince North Korea to give up their weapons, according to polling by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

“To dismiss this as a fringe movement is a pretty serious mistake,” said Karl Friedhoff, one of the report’s authors and a
fellow in public opinion and Asia policy at the organization.

Support for nuclear armament in South Korea won’t go away, especially as the nuclear arsenals of
Russia, China and North Korea raise concerns about South Korea’s ability to defend itself , said Shin Yul, a
professor of political science at South Korea’s Myongji University.

“The recent statements with Washington temporarily put out the fire, but as long as South
Koreans fear North Korea’s growing nuclear threat, politicians will continue to call for
nuclear armament,” Shin said.
 AT: Theory---2NC
The president is part of the federal government.
United States Government 23 [USA.gov, an official website of the United States Government.
“Branches of the U.S. government”, USA.gov, https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government, 5/12/23]

The executive branch’s key roles include:

president is the head of state, leader of the federal

President - The government, and Commander in Chief
of the United States armed forces.

The president is a branch of government.

Kids In The House no date [Kids In the House, “WHAT IS CONGRESS?”, https://kids-
clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=1,

The Three Branches of Government

During the Philadelphia Convention, it was decided that the United States Government should have three branches. The three branches would
keep each other balanced so that one branch did not become too powerful. All Americans have equal and fair representation
through the three branches:
Legislative: The Congress
The legislative branch makes the laws of the United States, controls all of the money, and has the power to declare war.

Executive: The President and Vice President

The executive branch enforces the laws of the United States, spends money as allowed by Congress, declares states of emergency, appoints
Judges to the Supreme Court, and grants pardons for crimes.

Judicial: The Supreme Court

The judicial branch interprets laws, judges when a law is unconstitutional, and makes arrangements for prisoners.