1AC

Plan
The United States ought to substantially reduce its military presence in the Republic of
Yemen.
 Advantage
The advantage is YEMEN:
Deployments in Yemen erode US credibility. Anything less than withdrawal is
perceived as a lie in Congress and broadly.
The Cradle 22 [Cradle; online news forum covering the geopolitics of West Asia; 6/12/2022; "US
president confirms deployment of troops in Yemen"; https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/3746]
pT+Lydia

In a letter addressed to Congress earlier this week, President Joe Biden confirmed that the US has deployed troops to Yemen
with the aim of battling extremist groups and continuing military support for the Saudi-led coalition.

“A number of American military personnel are deployed in Yemen,” the US president said, “to conduct operations against Al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS, as well as providing military advice and information to the Saudi-led coalition.”

According to Biden’s letter, the US military will continue to work “closely” with “partner regional forces” in their operations
against Ansarallah.

The letter adds that the US military presence in Yemen is “to protect US interests by providing air and missile defense capabilities and support
the operation of United States military aircraft,” but stressed that the US role in the country is “non-combatant” and is for
“defensive purposes.”

Although the US president

previously vowed to end offensive support for the Saudi-led coalition amid
growing criticism in Congress of Washington’s role in the brutal war on Yemen, the letter confirms the White House’s
continued support for Saudi Arabia and its allies.

Since the start of the war, Washington has provided direct military, intelligence, and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition.

According to a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the state and defense departments have both turned a
blind eye to the coalitions killing of civilians in Yemen.

In particular, the report highlights that the deadliest

attacks by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen were carried out by using
combat jets and munitions supplied and maintained by US companies, with the approval of the State
Department and the Pentagon.

According to the UN, the war in Yemen has killed at least 233,000 people directly and indirectly due to an increase in the
prevalence of diseases as a result of attacks on health facilities and the widespread shortage of food.

Before entering office, Biden promised to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition, but after his election, the US
president reneged on his promises and continued with the same Trump-era policies that have enabled the brutal
attacks on the people of Yemen.

It is an overt violation of international law and entails visible war crimes. The Houthis
are responsive and ending commitment is vital.
Far 22 [Tara Sepehri Far; Iran and Kuwait Senior Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division at
Human Rights Watch; 2-15-2022; Human Rights Watch; "Biden Doubles Down on a Failed Yemen Policy";
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/15/biden-doubles-down-failed-yemen-policy] pT+lydia

When running for office, President Biden promised to “make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell
arms or buy oil.” In the context of the Yemen conflict, fulfilling this promise may not be easy, but it is clear: In Biden’s own words, America
must “end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.” Unfortunately, the administration’s response to the
recent escalation in the conflict has been to revert
to the same failed playbook as previous administrations, risking further
complicity in the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) coalition’s violations.

The Yemen conflict has devastated the lives of millions of people in Yemen over the past seven years, but the recent uptick in
hostilities makes clear the deadly cost of broken promises. U.S. policymakers should take bold actions aimed at
stopping the ongoing violations and support accountability in Yemen.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE began a military campaign against the Houthi armed group in response to the group’s takeover of Yemen’s
capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. Now, as the conflict enters its seventh year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) estimates that it has caused the deaths of nearly a quarter-million people. In addition, more than half the population faces acute
levels of food insecurity.

Early in the conflict, the U.S. began providing weapons, logistics and intelligence support to the Saudi- and UAE-led coalition. For years, Human
Rights Watch and other groups have documented serious abuses on both sides. These include more than 90 unlawful and indiscriminate
airstrikes by the coalition against civilians that could amount to war crimes. Some of the attacks included the use of U.S. weapons.

Though U.S. law prohibits selling arms to abusive governments, consecutive administrations
have authorized at least $36 billion in arms sales to the Saudi and UAE governments, based on publicly available data. In
doing so, the U.S. has chosen to ignore or enable serious international law violations, including possible war
crimes, committed during the conflict.
Meanwhile, all parties have continued to commit violations. Longstanding concerns about a lack of accountability for serious crimes intensified
in October when members of the UN Human Rights Council, under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, narrowly voted to end the
mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, the only independent, international body documenting serious violations and abuses
of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict.

But the absence of accountability has led to more of the same. In a recent escalation in January, Houthi
forces launched a missile and drone attack on Abu Dhabi, in part striking civilian airports, in response to the UAE-backed
Yemeni forces pushing Houthi forces out of territory in Shabwah governorate. The attack killed three people and injured six
others. In retaliation, the coalition launched airstrikes across Yemen, several of which appear to be disproportionate, including
the bombing of a prison in Sanaa that killed over 80 people, according to MSF.

In response to the recent escalation, the Biden administration apparently has doubled down on support to the coalition, announcing the sale of
additional fighter aircraft to the UAE. Biden said the administration is considering redesignating the Houthis a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Biden had reversed this designation, imposed in the waning days of the Trump administration and opposed by humanitarian and human rights
groups on the grounds that it threatens humanitarian aid on which millions of Yemenis rely to survive.

In addition to potentially violating U.S. law, continuing arms sales to the coalition puts the U.S. at risk of complicity
in possible war crimes. The sales also fly in the face of justice and accountability for previous violations given the coalition’s
dreadfully flawed investigations of its own strikes.

But itisn’t too late for the Biden administration to prioritize human rights and accountability in Yemen. Human
Rights Watch and other Yemeni and international groups have called upon the U.S. and its allies to halt arm
sales to the coalition. If the Biden administration cannot or will not act, Congress needs to step in. Specifically, Congress
should publicly and privately communicate to the administration that arms sales to the coalition should stop and that the Houthis
should not be redesignated a “terrorist” group.

The administration also should prioritize re-establishing a UN accountability mechanism to hold all parties in Yemen accountable for violations
of international law, with a focus on criminal accountability for rights violations and possible war crimes.

By taking these bold but essential steps now, the U.S. can finally recognize the war in Yemen for what it is: a
conflict with all parties committing serious violations and, as the UN has said, one of the world’s worst
humanitarian crises. The U.S. needs to do its part to help put an end to the prolonged suffering of millions of Yemenis.
Keeping troops there forces lawmakers to escalate.
Klippenstein 9/21 [Ken Klippenstein; D.C.-based investigative reporter who focuses on national
security; 9-21-2023; Intercept; "Secret U.S. Military Presence in Yemen Adds a Twist to Houthi Attack on
Israel"; https://theintercept.com/2023/11/02/yemen-israel-us-troops/] pT+lydia

“One should be cautious about interpreting the missile attack as part of some grand strategy of an Iranian-led
‘axis of resistance,’” Paul Pillar, a nonresident senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, told The Intercept.
“The Houthis, notwithstanding material support from Iran, have been making their own decisions: probably their biggest move
in the war in Yemen — capture of the capital city of Sanaa — they reportedly made against the advice of the Iranians.”

President Joe Biden justified U.S. strikes on Syrian targets as a deterrence strategy, but some observers say any deterrence will be
undermined by the fact that the U.S.’s massive regional military presence provides a bevy of available targets.
“Biden believes that current and new U.S. troops in the region serve as a deterrent against attacks by Iran or its allies,” said the Quincy
Institute’s Parsi. “But rather
than deterring these actors, oftentimes U.S. troops are sitting ducks that provide the
Houthis or Iraqi militias with more targets. Even lawmakers who don’t want more war in the Middle East will be
compelled to push for military action if these troops come under attack.”

A broader conflict is brewing. Any delay to pullout ensures further escalation.

Erlanger et al. 1/12 [Steven Erlanger; chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York
Times; David E. Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman; 1-12-2024; The New York Times; "The
Regional War No One Wanted Is Here. How Wide Will It Get?";
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/politics/mideast-war-israel-yemen.html] pT+lydia

Now, with the American-led

strike on nearly 30 sites in Yemen on Thursday and a smaller strike the next day, there is no
longer a question of whether there will be a regional conflict. It has already begun. The biggest questions now are
the conflict’s intensity and whether it can be contained.

This is exactly the outcome no one wanted, presumably including Iran.

“We’re not interested in a war with Yemen. We’re not interested in a conflict of any kind,” John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said on
Friday. “In fact, everything the president has been doing has been trying to prevent any escalation of conflict, including the strikes last night.”

Mr. Biden’s decision to unleash airstrikes, after resisting calls to act against the Yemen-based Houthi militants whose repeated
attacks on shipping in the Red Sea were beginning to take a toll on global commerce, is a clear shift in strategy. After issuing a series of
warnings, officials said, Mr. Biden felt his hand was forced after a barrage of missile and drone attacks on Tuesday were directed at an American
cargo ship and the Navy vessels around it.

“This is already a regional war, no longer limited to Gaza, but already spread to Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen,”
said Hugh Lovatt, a Mideast expert for the European Council on Foreign Relations. Washington, he added, wanted to demonstrate that it was
ready to deter Iranian provocations, so it conspicuously placed its aircraft carriers and fighters in position to respond quickly. But those same
positions leave the United States more exposed.

Over the course of 12 weeks, attacks on Israeli, American and Western interests have
come from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria,
prompting modest, carefully targeted responses from American and Israeli forces. The United States also issued
warnings to Iran, which the Americans say is acting as a loose coordinator.

The admin’s one-sidedness makes effective conflict resolution impossible.

Almosawa 21 [Shuaib Almosawa; freelance journalist in Yemen, Lebanese International University; 2-
5-2021; The Intercept; "Biden’s "Diplomacy" in Yemen Means Taking Saudi Arabia’s Side — and Could
Spark All-Out War"; https://theintercept.com/2023/01/01/biden-yemen-war-diplomacy/] pT+lydia
WHEN SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-Vt., called for a vote on a war powers resolution that would block U.S. support for the Saudi-
led war effort in Yemen, the Biden administration immediately pushed back. The resolution, the White House warned, would
upset diplomatic efforts and bring about the war it was trying to end.

“The Administration strongly opposes the Yemen War Powers Resolution on a number of grounds, but the bottom line is that this
resolution is unnecessary and would greatly complicate the intense and ongoing diplomacy to truly bring an end to the conflict,” read White
House talking points circulated privately. “In 2019, diplomacy was absent and the war was raging. That is not the case now. Thanks to our
diplomacy which remains ongoing and delicate, the violence over nearly nine months has effectively stopped.”

The White House’s claims that its diplomacy is working, however, are undercut by its own political moves and the
reality on the ground. President Joe Biden’s envoy for the conflict has consistently sided with the Saudi coalition against the
Houthi movement that controls much of the country. And though a ceasefire during the spring and summer provided a respite in civilian
casualties due to bombings, the ongoing Saudi blockade and economic warfare against Yemenis perpetuates the humanitarian
crisis in the country — which the United Nations has deemed the worst in the world.
Without taking an even-handed approach to the conflict in search of a political solution and the mitigation of the humanitarian crisis, the
Biden administration’s machinations can hardly be considered good-faith efforts at diplomacy, critics of U.S. policy in
the conflict said.

“There’s been no diplomatic progress whatsoever,” Jamal Benomar, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen until 2015, told The
Intercept. “There’s been no political process, no negotiations, or even a prospect of them. So an all-out war can resume
at any time.”

The divisions in Yemen — with the Saudi coalition controlling southern oil fields and ports, and the Houthi-led government controlling
territory in the north that houses some 80 percent of the country’s 30 million residents — are only growing more entrenched.
Instead of asking concessions of its allies in the Saudi coalition, the administration’s one-sidedness has contributed to the
breakdown of diplomacy.

The plan zeroes attack surface, which prevents draw-in and war.
Klippenstein 9/21 [Ken Klippenstein; D.C.-based investigative reporter who focuses on national
security; 9-21-2023; Intercept; "Secret U.S. Military Presence in Yemen Adds a Twist to Houthi Attack on
Israel"; https://theintercept.com/2023/11/02/yemen-israel-us-troops/] pT+lydia

AS THE WAR between Israel and Hamas threatens to draw in Yemen, the United States military’s little noted boots on the ground in the
war-torn country raise the specter of deepening American involvement in the conflict.

On Monday, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels fired ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel. The attack marked the first time
ballistic missiles have been launched at Israel since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel in 1991, according to Bruce Riedel,
a former CIA analyst and expert on the region. The use
of ballistic missiles represents a major escalation that threatens
to ignite a regional war — with American troops stationed nearby.

“The best strategy to avoid getting sucked into another war in the Middle East is to not have troops unnecessarily
in the region in the first place — and bring those who are there now home,” said Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank that advocates for a restrained foreign policy. “Their presence there is
not making America more safe, it’s putting America more at risk of yet another war in the Middle East.”

Though the size of the American special operations footprint inside Yemen has ebbed and flowed — the U.S. has been at war there since 2000
— the White House revealed in June that the U.S. maintains “combat” troops in Yemen. “United States military
personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS,” the White House disclosed in a
previously unreported passage of its most recent War Powers Resolution report to Congress.
It triggers global conflagration---draws in Russia, China, and Iran.
CPI 10/18 [Chennai Print India; Indian News Agency citing Brandon Weichert; MA in Statecraft and
National Security Affairs from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.; 10/18/2023; “The
Israel-Hamas Conflict: Is World 3 on the Horizon?”; https://chennaiprint.in/world/the-israel-hamas-
conflict-is-world-war-3-on-the-horizon/]

As the Israel-Hamas conflict enters its 11th day, experts are warning of the potential for wider regional
implications, with consequences extending far beyond the Middle East.
The recent attacks on Israel have led to increased concerns about the escalation of the conflict. Retired Colonel Miri Eisin, who now heads a
counter-terrorism institute at Reichman University in Israel, notes the critical question: “Whether this will lead to a bigger war is the $64,000
question.”

Adding to the complexity, geopolitical

tensions are already running high due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
and strained US-China relations. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has cautioned that the world is entering a
dangerous period, with a rise in operational nuclear warheads owned by major military powers.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long raised alarms about Iran’s nuclear program. While he has threatened action
against Iran in the past, the recent assault by Hamas may provide an opportunity to act on those
threats. If Israel finds evidence of Iranian involvement, it could have global implications.

The Middle East remains a potential hotspot for a new world war, with Iran’s influence on the rise,
backed by allies in Beijing and Moscow. Geopolitical analyst Brandon Weichert warns that the Middle East, empowered
by its allies, is where the next global conflict is likely to emanate.
Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described as one of the most dangerous developments in Europe since the end of World
War II. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president, has warned that Nato members’ military aid to Kyiv could lead to World War Three.

China’s growing tensions with the United States have also been a significant concern. The modernization of China’s military has raised alarm in
Washington, especially regarding the situation in Taiwan, a potential flashpoint in a regional conflict.

In Northeast Asia, security dynamics have become more volatile due to China’s military threats and the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. North Korea’s relations with the United States are tense, adding to regional instability.

Furthermore, concerns about artificial intelligence triggering

global conflicts have arisen. While no state openly seeks to
automate its nuclear weapons systems, the integration of AI with command systems is a growing consideration.

The Israel-Hamas conflict is one part of a complex global landscape, where tensions are running high,
and experts are watching closely for any potential signs of a broader conflict. The situation remains fluid, and the
world is on alert for any developments that could further escalate tensions.

Presence emboldens the regime and Houthi support.

Erlanger et al. 1/12 [Steven Erlanger; chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York
Times; David E. Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman; 1-12-2024; The New York Times; "The
Regional War No One Wanted Is Here. How Wide Will It Get?";
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/politics/mideast-war-israel-yemen.html] pT+lydia

Still, the Western attack is likely to “increase anti-Americanism” in Yemen and bolster the Houthis’ popularity as
the group capitalizes on Yemeni opposition to foreign intervention, said Ibrahim Jalal, a Yemeni nonresident scholar at
the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based research organization. In essence, there is now “another ‘foreign enemy’
pretext to distract the public from their failing rebel governance that does not deliver services or pay salaries,” he said.
In the Yemeni city of Taiz — which is under control of the internationally recognized government — Mansour Ali, a
bus driver, said he
applauded the Houthi ship attacks because he believed they were carried out “in solidarity with our Palestinian
brethren.”

“I think America and Britain targeted them because of their stance on Palestine,” Mr. Ali said.

Some American allies in the region, including Qatar and Oman, had warned the United States that bombing the Houthis
could be a mistake, fearing that it would do little to deter them and would deepen regional tensions. They have argued
that focusing on reaching a cease-fire in Gaza would remove the Houthis’ stated impetus for the attacks.

U.S. aggression is seen as support for Israel---withdrawal creates conditions for

conflict resolution.
Pillar 1/12 [Paul R. Pillar, Previous chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East,
the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one
of the original members of its Analytic Group and Executive Assistant to CIA's Deputy Director for
Intelligence and Executive Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster, 1-12-2024, "US
strikes on Yemen won't solve anything," Responsible Statecraft, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-
yemen-houthis-gaza/] [accessed 1-14-2024] lydia+pT

In addition to being ineffective, the strikes

against Yemen entail other harms. One is to jeopardize the chances of
reaching a lasting settlement of the war within Yemen. That war had generated what was probably the largest ongoing
manmade humanitarian disaster in the world until passed for that odious distinction by the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

A de facto cease-fire, with mediated peace negotiations, has prevailed in Yemen for most of the last two years, since Saudi ruler
Mohammed bin Salman concluded that continuing the war was a feckless proposition and extraction from what had become a quagmire was in
Saudi Arabia’s best interests. That is still Saudi policy, and the official Saudi reaction to the U.S. strikes was to call for restraint and “avoiding
escalation.” But the U.S.
escalation that already has occurred complicates the picture and can only hurt, not help, the
prospects for Yemeni peace.

A more general harm consists of costs and risks associated with any expansion of the Israeli war in Gaza. These include the risks
of
stimulating further escalation elsewhere by other players touched by that war, as well as increased U.S. military
activity leading to unintended incidents that spin out of control.

Finally — given both U.S. policies toward Israel and the Houthis’ rationale for attacking Red Sea shipping — the U.S. strikes will be
widely seen as more U.S. support for the Israeli devastation of Gaza. As such, it moves the United States farther away
from the sort of policy toward Israel that would have a chance of ending rather than prolonging the devastation . It weakens the
willingness of Arab states to cooperate with the United States on other matters. And it increases the likelihood of
terrorist reprisals against the United States from those enraged by U.S. complicity in what many in the world regard as genocide.

Direct engagements fail to deter the rebels. The plan symbolizes a recognition of
Houthi sovereignty.
Hernandez 12/5 [Joe Hernandez; NPR reporter, BA from Rutgers University; 12-5-2023; NPR; "After
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, fears of a wider Middle East conflict grow";
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/05/1217056536/houthis-explainer-red-sea-yemen-saudi-middle-east-
israel-gaza] pT+lydia

This is not the first time the Houthis have targeted ships — including U.S. naval vessels — in the Red Sea off the country's
western coast.
In 2016, missiles were fired from coastal Yemen toward a U.S. Navy destroyer twice in four days. The
U.S. responded by firing missiles at three radar installations in Houthi territory.
Juneau said the Houthis didn't target American vessels again for several years, but it's unclear if a similar U.S. response today would have the
same deterrent effect.

"It will be much more difficult to do that today than in 2016, because the Houthis are far more powerful now than they
were before and they feel much more emboldened," he said.
The Houthis have also fired missiles directly at Israel before, but in one such attack in November Israel's military stopped it with its air defenses.

Going after commercial ships also gives the Houthis leverage, Juneau added, to negotiate with impacted nations and raise the
ambitious militia group's international profile.

Last month, Japan announced it was approaching the group for talks after a Japanese-operated cargo ship was
hijacked in the Red Sea.
"That's exactly what the Houthis want," Juneau said. "By forcing the Japanese government — which is a very important G7 country and so on —
to deal with them directly, they are looking for recognition, at least de facto, of their status as the governing authority
inside Yemen."

Read Sea attacks don’t have to succeed to be disruptive, but Yemen is the key factor.
Parsi 1/15 [Trita Parsi; executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; 1-
15-2024; TIME; "How U.S. Strikes Against the Houthis Will Backfire"; https://time.com/6555620/us-
strikes-houthis-yemen/] pT+lydia

There is a simple reason why U.S. and U.K. military strikes against Yemen’s Houthis will not achieve their
objective of re-opening the crucial Red Sea lanes for international shipping: The Houthis don’t have to succeed in
striking additional commercial vessels, or even successfully retaliate against U.S. military ships. All they need to do is to
try. That is enough to sustain a de facto shipping blockade of the Red Sea, through which a staggering 12% of global
trade flows. Western commercial vessels will simply not risk moving their ships through those waters, not in spite
of President Joe Biden’s military strikes, but now because of them.

The irony is evident as the wealthiest nation in the world bombs one of the poorest. Biden, by escalating tensions with the Iran-backed
Houthis, has inadvertently bolstered the militant group’s ability to disrupt international shipping. The Houthis had
managed to increase the cost of container shipping in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war by launching missile attacks at
cargo ships passing through the vital waterways. But the Biden Administration’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen’s Houthis have
turned off shipping companies, perhaps irrevocably, until the war ends.

More delays collapse global trade.

Wallace 1/5 [Paul Wallace, Head of Bloomberg’s energy and commodities news team for Middle East
and North Africa, Alex Longley, Oil markets reporter, 1-5-2024, "How Houthi Red Sea Attacks Are
Disrupting World Trade," Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/what-
houthi-red-sea-attacks-mean-for-global-trade-oil-prices] [accessed 1-12-2024] lydia+pT

Half of the container-ship fleet that regularly transits the Red Sea and Suez Canal was avoiding the route because of the threat
of attacks as of late December, according to a tally compiled by Flexport Inc. The diverted journeys around Africa can take as much as
25% longer than using the Suez Canal shortcut between Asia and Europe, according to Flexport. Those trips are more costly and may
lead to higher prices for consumers on everything from sneakers to food to oil if the longer journeys persist. There were concerns
that energy flows could be disrupted at a time when Europe increasingly depends on tanker-borne gas to replace once-crucial
Russian pipeline gas, though so far the impact has been minimal.

[graph omitted]

4. What’s being done about it?

Before the latest spate of attacks, the US and its allies patrolled Red Sea waters to tackle piracy and smuggling in a coalition called
the Combined Maritime Forces. Some ships also had their own armed security guards who could fire on approaching vessels if they looked
hostile. When Houthis stepped up their campaign in December, the allies set up a new “zone defense” arrangement whereby five vessels
sought to protect all ships in the waterway, as opposed to providing individual escorts to a few. By early January, the coalition had shot
down 19 drones and missiles amid 25 attacks on merchant vessels, according to Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Navy forces in the
Middle East. But he acknowledged that the Houthi attacks continued “unabated.” A UK official warned that action against the Houthis in Yemen
itself was likely if the group didn’t back down.

5. Why is the Red Sea so important to trade?

It’s the only route to the Suez Canal, linking some of the world’s biggest consumers of tradable goods in Europe
with big suppliers in Asia. About 12% of global trade passes through the canal, including as much as 30% of
container traffic, and more than $1 trillion worth of goods a year. Massive volumes of crude, diesel and
other petroleum products from the Middle East and India pass through the Red Sea on their way to Europe.
Western sanctions on Russia turned it into part of a vital trade artery for crude flowing the other direction as well, as Moscow is now selling the
lion’s share of its petroleum to Asia.

[graph omitted]

6. Could this spark a supply chain crisis?

While there’s some slack in global supply lines to smooth out the impact of disruption to Red Sea traffic, the Covid-19 pandemic
demonstrated how fragile transportation networks are when major links break down for longer. The extra
costs and delays in deliveries of vital goods could inflate global prices and crimp demand just as inflation looked set to cool. When
the Ever Given container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal in 2021, it halted traffic for less than a week but it took several
months to get international supply chains running smoothly again. With little sign of an end to the Houthi attacks,
shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S said on Jan. 5 that it would continue diverting ships away from the Red Sea “for the foreseeable future.”

That triggers World War III and collapses containment of nuclear and technological
risks.
Oppenheimer ’21 [Michael; 2021; Clinical Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York
University, M.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia; The Future of Global Affairs, “The
Turbulent Future of International Relations,” Ch. 2]

Four structural forces will shape the future of International Relations: globalization (but without liberal rules, institutions,
and leadership)1; multipolarity (the end of American hegemony and wider distribution of power among states and non-states2); the
strengthening of distinctive, national and subnational identities, as persistent cultural differences are accentuated by the disruptive effects of
Western style globalization (what Samuel Huntington called the “non-westernization of IR”3); and secular economic stagnation, a product of
longer term global decline in birth rates combined with aging populations.4 These structural forces do not determine everything.
Environmental events, global health challenges, internal political developments, policy mistakes,
technology breakthroughs or failures, will intersect with structure to define our future. But these four
structural forces will impact the way states behave, in the capacity of great powers to manage their
differences, and to act collectively to settle, rather than exploit, the inevitable shocks of the next decade.

Some of these structural forces could

be managed to promote prosperity and avoid war. Multipolarity (inherently more
prone to conflict than other configurations of power, given coordination problems)5 plus globalization
can work in a world of
prosperity, convergent values, and effective conflict management. The Congress of Vienna system achieved relative
peace in Europe over a hundred-year period through informal cooperation among multiple states sharing a fear of populist revolution. It ended
decisively in 1914. Contemporary neoliberal institutionalists, such as John Ikenberry, accept multipolarity as our likely future, but are confident
that globalization with liberal characteristics can be sustained without American hegemony, arguing that liberal values and practices have been
fully accepted by states, global institutions, and private actors as imperative for growth and political legitimacy.6 Divergent values plus
multipolarity can work, though at significantly lower levels of economic growth-in an autarchic world of isolated units, a
world
envisioned by the advocates of decoupling, including the current American president. 7 Divergent values plus globalization can
be managed by hegemonic power, exemplified by the decade of the 1990s, when the Washington Consensus, imposed by American leverage
exerted through the IMF and other U.S. dominated institutions, overrode national differences, but with real costs to those states undergoing
“structural adjustment programs,”8 and ultimately at the cost of global growth, as states—especially in Asia—increased their savings to self
insure against future financial crises.9

But all four forces operating simultaneously will

produce a future of increasing internal polarization and cross
border conflict, diminished economic growth and poverty alleviation, weakened global institutions and norms of
behavior, and reduced collective capacity to confront emerging challenges of global warming,
accelerating technology change, nuclear weapons innovation and proliferation. As in any effective scenario, this
future is clearly visible to any keen observer. We have only to abolish wishful thinking and believe our own eyes.10
Secular Stagnation

This unbrave new world has been emerging for some time, as US power has declined relative to other states, especially China, global liberalism has failed to deliver on its promises, and totalitarian capitalism has proven effective in leveraging globalization for economic growth and political
legitimacy while exploiting technology and the state’s coercive powers to maintain internal political control. But this new era was jumpstarted by the world financial crisis of 2007, which revealed the bankruptcy of unregulated market capitalism, weakened faith in US leadership,
exacerbated economic deprivation and inequality around the world, ignited growing populism, and undermined international liberal institutions. The skewed distribution of wealth experienced in most developed countries, politically tolerated in periods of growth, became intolerable as
growth rates declined. A combination of aging populations, accelerating technology, and global populism/nationalism promises to make this growth decline very difficult to reverse. What Larry Summers and other international political economists have come to call “secular stagnation”
increases the likelihood that illiberal globalization, multipolarity, and rising nationalism will define our future. Summers11 has argued that the world is entering a long period of diminishing economic growth. He suggests that secular stagnation “may be the defining macroeconomic
challenge of our times.” Julius Probst, in his recent assessment of Summers’ ideas, explains:

…rich countries are ageing as birth rates decline and people live longer. This has pushed down real interest rates because investors think these trends will mean they will make lower returns from investing in future, making them more willing to accept a lower return
on government debt as a result.

Other factors that make investors similarly pessimistic include rising global inequality and the slowdown in productivity growth…

This decline in real interest rates matters because economists believe that to overcome an economic downturn, a central bank must drive down the real interest rate to a certain level to encourage more spending and investment… Because real interest rates are so
low, Summers and his supporters believe that the rate required to reach full employment is so far into negative territory that it is effectively impossible.

…in the long run, more immigration might be a vital part of curing secular stagnation. Summers also heavily prescribes increased government spending, arguing that it might actually be more prudent than cutting back – especially if the money is spent on
infrastructure, education and research and development.

Of course, governments in Europe and the US are instead trying to shut their doors to migrants. And austerity policies have taken their toll on infrastructure and public research. This looks set to ensure that the next recession will be particularly nasty when it
comes… Unless governments change course radically, we could be in for a sobering period ahead.12

The rise of nationalism/populism is both cause and effect of this economic outlook. Lower growth will make every aspect of the liberal order more difficult to resuscitate post-Trump. Domestic politics will become more polarized and dysfunctional, as competition for diminishing resources
intensifies. International collaboration, ad hoc or through institutions, will become politically toxic. Protectionism, in its multiple forms, will make economic recovery from “secular stagnation” a heavy lift, and the liberal hegemonic leadership and strong institutions that limited the
damage of previous downturns, will be unavailable. A clear demonstration of this negative feedback loop is the economic damage being inflicted on the world by Trump’s trade war with China, which— despite the so-called phase one agreement—has predictably escalated from
negotiating tactic to imbedded reality, with no end in sight. In a world already suffering from inadequate investment, the uncertainties generated by this confrontation will further curb the investments essential for future growth. Another demonstration of the intersection of structural
forces is how populist-motivated controls on immigration (always a weakness in the hyper-globalization narrative) deprives developed countries of Summers’ recommended policy response to secular stagnation, which in a more open world would be a win-win for rich and poor countries
alike, increasing wage rates and remittance revenues for the developing countries, replenishing the labor supply for rich countries experiencing low birth rates.

Illiberal Globalization

Economic weakness and rising nationalism (along with multipolarity) will not end globalization, but will profoundly alter its character and greatly reduce its economic and political benefits. Liberal global institutions, under American hegemony, have served multiple purposes, enabling
states to improve the quality of international relations and more fully satisfy the needs of their citizens, and provide companies with the legal and institutional stability necessary to manage the inherent risks of global investment. But under present and future conditions these institutions
will become the battlegrounds—and the victims—of geopolitical competition. The Trump Administration’s frontal attack on multilateralism is but the final nail in the coffin of the Bretton Woods system in trade and finance, which has been in slow but accelerating decline since the end of
the Cold War. Future American leadership may embrace renewed collaboration in global trade and finance, macroeconomic management, environmental sustainability and the like, but repairing the damage requires the heroic assumption that America’s own identity has not been
fundamentally altered by the Trump era (four years or eight matters here), and by the internal and global forces that enabled his rise. The fact will remain that a sizeable portion of the American electorate, and a monolithically pro- Trump Republican Party, is committed to an illiberal
future. And even if the effects are transitory, the causes of weakening global collaboration are structural, not subject to the efforts of some hypothetical future US liberal leadership. It is clear that the US has lost respect among its rivals, and trust among its allies. While its economic and
military capacity is still greatly superior to all others, its political dysfunction has diminished its ability to convert this wealth into effective power.13 It will furthermore operate in a future system of diffusing material power, diverging economic and political governance approaches, and
rising nationalism. Trump has promoted these forces, but did not invent them, and future US Administrations will struggle to cope with them.

What will illiberal globalization look like? Consider recent events. The instruments of globalization have been weaponized by strong states in
pursuit of their geopolitical objectives. This has turned the liberal argument on behalf of globalization on its head. Instead of interdependence
as an unstoppable force pushing states toward collaboration and convergence around market-friendly domestic policies, states are exploiting
interdependence to inflict harm on their adversaries, and even on their allies. The
increasing interaction across national
boundaries that globalization entails, now produces not harmonization and cooperation, but friction
and escalating trade and investment disputes.14 The Trump Administration is in the lead here, but it is not alone. Trade and investment friction with
China is the most obvious and damaging example, precipitated by China’s long failure to conform to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles, now escalated by President Trump into a
trade and currency war disturbingly reminiscent of the 1930s that Bretton Woods was designed to prevent. Financial sanctions against Iran, in violation of US obligations in the Joint
Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), is another example of the rule of law succumbing to geopolitical competition. Though more mercantilist in intent than geopolitical, US tariffs on steel
and aluminum, and their threatened use in automotives, aimed at the EU, Canada, and Japan,15 are equally destructive of the liberal system and of future economic growth, imposed as they
are by the author of that system, and will spread to others. And indeed, Japan has used export controls in its escalating conflict with South Korea16 (as did China in imposing controls on rare
earth,17 and as the US has done as part of its trade war with China). Inward foreign direct investment restrictions are spreading. The vitality of the WTO is being sapped by its inability to
complete the Doha Round, by the proliferation of bilateral and regional agreements, and now by the Trump Administration’s hold on appointments to WTO judicial panels. It should not
surprise anyone if, during a second term, Trump formally withdrew the US from the WTO. At a minimum it will become a “dead letter regime.”18

As such measures gain traction, it will become clear to states—and to companies—that a global trading
system more responsive to raw power than to law entails escalating risk and diminishing benefits. This
will be the end of economic globalization, and its many benefits, as we know it. It represents nothing less than the
subordination of economic globalization, a system which many thought obeyed its own logic, to an international
politics of zero-sum power competition among multiple actors with divergent interests and values. The
costs will be significant: Bloomberg Economics estimates that the cost in lost US GDP in 2019- dollar terms from the trade war with China has
reached $134 billion to date and will rise to a total of $316 billion by the end of 2020.19 Economically, the just-in-time, maximally efficient
world of global supply chains, driving down costs, incentivizing innovation, spreading investment, integrating new countries and populations
into the global system, is being Balkanized. Bilateral and regional deals are proliferating, while global, nondiscriminatory trade agreements are
at an end.

Economies of scale will shrink, incentivizing less investment, increasing costs and prices, compromising growth, marginalizing countries whose
growth and poverty reduction depended on participation in global supply chains. A
world already suffering from excess savings
(in the corporate sector, among mostly Asian countries) will respond to heightened risk and uncertainty with further
retrenchment. The problem is perfectly captured by Tim Boyle, CEO of Columbia Sportswear, whose supply chain runs through China,
reacting to yet another ratcheting up of US tariffs on Chinese imports, most recently on consumer goods:

We move stuff around to take advantage of inexpensive labor. That’s why we’re in Bangladesh. That’s why we’re looking at Africa.
We’re putting investment capital to work, to get a return for our shareholders. So, when we make a wager on investment, this is not
Vegas. We have to have a reasonable expectation we can get a return. That’s predicated on the rule of law: where can we expect the
laws to be enforced, and for the foreseeable future, the rules will be in place? That’s what America used to be.20

The international political effects will be equally damaging. The four structural forces act on each other
to produce the more dangerous, less prosperous world projected here. Illiberal globalization represents
geopolitical conflict by (at first) physically non-kinetic means. It arises from intensifying competition
among powerful states with divergent interests and identities, but in its effects drives down growth and fuels
increased nationalism/populism, which further contributes to conflict. Twenty-first-century protectionism
represents bottom-up forces arising from economic disruption. But it is also a top-down phenomenon, representing a strategic effort by
political leadership to reduce the constraints of interdependence on freedom of geopolitical action, in effect a precursor and enabler of war.
This is the disturbing hypothesis of Daniel Drezner, argued in an important May 2019 piece in Reason, titled “Will Today’s Global
Trade
Wars Lead to World War Three,”21 which examines the pre- World War I period of heightened trade conflict, its contribution to the
disaster that followed, and its parallels to the present:

Before the First World War started, powers great and small took a variety of steps to thwart the
globalization of the 19th century. Each of these steps made it easier for the key combatants to conceive of a general war. We
are beginning to see a similar approach to the globalization of the 21st century. One by one, the
economic constraints on military aggression are eroding. And too many have forgotten—or never knew—how
this played out a century ago.

…In many ways, 19th century globalization was a victim of its own success. Reduced tariffs and transport costs flooded Europe with
inexpensive grains from Russia and the United States. The incomes of landowners in these countries suffered a serious hit, and the
Long Depression that ran from 1873 until 1896 generated pressure on European governments to protect against cheap imports.

…The primary lesson to draw from the years before 1914 is not that economic interdependence was a weak constraint on military
conflict. It is that, even in a globalized economy, governments can take protectionist actions to reduce their interdependence in
anticipation of future wars. In retrospect, the 30 years of tariff hikes, trade wars, and currency conflicts that preceded 1914
were harbingers of the devastation to come. European governments did not necessarily want to ignite a war among the
great powers. By reducing their interdependence, however, they made that option conceivable.

…the backlash to globalization that preceded the Great War seems to be reprised in the current moment. Indeed, there are ways in
which the current moment is scarier than the pre-1914 era. Back then, the world’s hegemon, the United
Kingdom, acted as a brake on economic closure. In 2019, the United States is the protectionist with its foot on the accelerator. The
constraints of Sino-American interdependence—what economist Larry Summers once called “the financial balance of terror”—no
longer look so binding. And there
are far too many hot spots—the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea,
Taiwan—where the kindling seems awfully dry.
Nuclear war independently causes existential nuclear winter---rigorous studies
confirm starvation AND infrastructure collapse.
Starr ‘15 — [Steven Starr (Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory
Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility. He has been
published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Strategic Arms Reduction (STAR) website of the
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; he also maintains the website Nuclear Darkness. Starr also
teaches a class on the Environmental, Health and Social Effects of nuclear weapons at the University of
Missouri), 10-14-2015, "Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction," Federation of American
Scientists, https://fas.org/publication/nuclear-war-nuclear-winter-and-human-extinction/, accessed: 12-
11-2023] Bharadwaj
While it is impossible to precisely predict all the human impacts that would result from a nuclear winter, it is relatively simple to predict those
which would be most profound. That is, a
nuclear winter would cause most humans and large animals to die from
nuclear famine in a mass extinction event similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear
firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of
thousands of square miles. These mass fires, many of which would rage over large cities and industrial
areas, would release many tens of millions of tons of black carbon soot and smoke (up to 180 million
tons, according to peer-reviewed studies), which would rise rapidly above cloud level and into the
stratosphere. [For an explanation of the calculation of smoke emissions, see Atmospheric effects & societal consequences of regional scale
nuclear conflicts.]

The scientists who completed the most recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter discovered that
the sunlight would heat the smoke, producing a self-lofting effect that would not only aid the rise of the
smoke into the stratosphere (above cloud level, where it could not be rained out), but act to keep the
smoke in the stratosphere for 10 years or more. The longevity of the smoke layer would act to greatly
increase the severity of its effects upon the biosphere.

Once in the stratosphere, the smoke (predicted to be produced by a range of strategic nuclear wars) would
rapidly engulf the Earth and form a dense stratospheric smoke layer. The smoke from a war fought with
strategic nuclear weapons would quickly prevent up to 70% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the
Northern Hemisphere and 35% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Southern Hemisphere. Such
an enormous loss of warming sunlight would produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth in a matter of
weeks. For a period of 1-3 years following the war, temperatures would fall below freezing every day in
the central agricultural zones of North America and Eurasia. [For an explanation of nuclear winter, see Nuclear winter
revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences.]

Nuclear winter would cause average

global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the
height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for
a decade or longer. Can you imagine a winter that lasts for ten years?

The results
of such a scenario are obvious. Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food, and they
would remain this way long enough to cause most humans and animals to starve to death.

Global nuclearfamine would ensue in a setting in which the infrastructure of the combatant nations has
been totally destroyed, resulting in massive amounts of chemical and radioactive toxins being released
into the biosphere. We don’t need a sophisticated study to tell us that no food and Ice Age temperatures for a
decade would kill most people and animals on the planet. Would the few remaining survivors be able to survive in a
radioactive, toxic environment?

It is, of course, debatable whether or not nuclear winter could cause human extinction. There is essentially no way to truly “know” without
fighting a strategic nuclear war. Yet while it is crucial that we all understand the mortal peril that we face, it is not necessary to engage in an
unwinnable academic debate as to whether any humans will survive.

What is of the utmost importance is that this entire subject –the

catastrophic environmental consequences of nuclear
war – has been effectively dropped from the global discussion of nuclear weaponry. The focus is instead upon
“nuclear terrorism”, a subject that fits official narratives and centers upon the danger of one nuclear weapon being detonated – yet the
scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war are never publically acknowledged or discussed.

Why has the existential threat of nuclear war been effectively omitted from public debate? Perhaps the
leaders of the nuclear weapon states do not want the public to understand that their nuclear arsenals
represent a self-destruct mechanism for the human race? Such an understanding could lead to a
demand that nuclear weapons be banned and abolished.

Consequently, the
nuclear weapon states continue to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals, as
their leaders remain silent about the ultimate threat that nuclear war poses to the human species.
 Framework
The standard is minimizing the risk of human extinction.
Extinction outweighs---humanity is a political community in which shared ends are of
utmost importance. An end to all projects and actions renders our lives meaningless.
Grunewald ’22 [Erich; 7-16-2022; first-class second-rate programmer; “A Kantian View on Extinction”;
https://www.erichgrunewald.com/posts/a-kantian-view-on-extinction/] brett

Human extinction would involve the death of everyone, which is a bad thing under any moral theory. But
the deontologist in me thinks complete extinction would be especially bad for three reasons: We’d be
failing in our duty to humanity itself (55% confidence). We’d be failing in our duty to all those who have
worked for a better future (70% confidence). We’d be failing in our duty to those wild animals whose only
hope for better lives rests on future human technology (35% confidence). Introduction # To a utilitarian,
whether or not human extinction is bad depends on whether we expect the long-term future to be
positive or negative. Whatever it is, there’ll be a lot of it. Maybe we don’t outlive the century. But if we do, we may survive
for 1-10 million years, as many other species do (Ord 2020, 218–19). Or we may survive for several hundred million years, as some other
species do (Ord 2020, 220). Or with some luck we may survive for ≥1 billion years, or many billions of years if we
leave the planet or even the galaxy (Ord 2020, 221–23). If we think the future is good, we should think it’s
very good; if bad, we should dread it like we dread our own deaths. I think utilitarianism is fairly plausible and give it some weight. I think
Kantianism is more plausible and give it more weight. What does Kantianism say about human extinction? I know some
people who’d say: Isn’t human extinction just obviously bad? It’d probably be brought about by the worst
catastrophe that’s ever befallen humankind. The Black Plague was horrifying, but it didn’t even get close to driving us to
extinction; it’d take something far worse to do that. I know some other people who’d say: Isn’t human extinction just
obviously good? Humans cause so much suffering. We murder, deceive, abuse and bully one another all the time. Every year
we kill ~70 billion chicken, sheep, goats and cattle;[1] if we die, at least it means factory farming is a thing of the past. But this post is not
about people dying. It’s about the death of humanity. Sure, each person’s death is bad, and perhaps also good (to the
extent that they would’ve caused harm). I’m asking you to ignore those things and ask yourself: How much worse than the death
of everyone except a minimally sustainable population is the death of literally everyone ? How much worse
(or better) is the death of all 8 billion people[2] than the death of, say, 7,999,900,000 people? Is it only 0.001% worse? It probably would take a
terrible catastrophe to bring human extinction about, but that no more means extinction is bad than the tragedy of the Shoah means there’s no
value in Paul Celan’s poetry. Letting Down Humanity # Korsgaard (2018) makes roughly the following argument. We humans (unlike the
other animals) think of ourselves as a collective agent, a “species-being”. (It makes sense to ask, for example, “Will we
colonise the galaxy?” and thereby refer to a multi-generational project in which all humans have a stake .)
Claims about rights (says Kant) only make sense in a political community (which is kind of like a collective
agent); the ultimate political community comprises the entire human species, so if we make claims of
rights, we’re committed to considering humanity as a collective agent. We humans (again unlike the other
animals) are also aware of the grounds for our (potential) beliefs and actions; this allows us to reason
normatively. Because we can reason normatively, we evaluate ourselves based on our actions, based on
whether we act in a way that anyone can rationally endorse. That makes the ends that everyone share
(the species-being’s ends) especially important. Therefore, human extinction is especially bad (because all
those important species-being-y actions would be thwarted). My crude interpretation of the argument is something like, “ It’s
important for us to think that we’re good people. Doing good (in deontology) means taking good actions.
Good actions are (roughly speaking) those that follow a maxim that any human can rationally endorse. Therefore,
acting according to a maxim that benefits (and not acting according to one that harms) the whole of humanity is
good. But if humans go extinct, all those good humanity-promoting actions – at least those that were
oriented towards the future – are thwarted.” Daniel Kokotajlo recently wrote a deep and lucid post illustrating Kant’s ethics
with a “decision theory app store”. Allow me to quote at length: Imagine an ideal competitive market for advice-giving AI assistants. Tech
companies code them up and then you download them for free from the app store. There is AlphaBot, MetaBot, OpenBot, DeepBot … When
installed, the apps give advice. Specifically they scan your brain to extract your credences and values/utility function, and then they tell you
what to do. You can follow the advice or not. […] Now, what’s it like to be one of these hyper-sophisticated advice bots? You are sitting there in
your supercomputer getting all these incoming requests for advice, and you are dispensing advice like the amazing superhuman oracle you are,
and you are also reflecting a bit about how to improve your overall advice-giving strategy … You are facing a massive optimization problem. You
shouldn’t just consider each case in isolation; […] you can sometimes do better by coordinating your advice across cases. But it’s also not quite
right to say you want to maximize total utility across all your users; if your advice predictably screwed over some users to benefit others, those
users wouldn’t take your advice, and then the benefits to the other users wouldn’t happen, and then you’d lose market share to a rival bot that
was just like you except that it didn’t do that and thus appealed to those users. Kant says: “Look, it’s complicated, and despite me being the
greatest philosopher ever I don’t know all the intricacies of how it’ll work out. But I can say, at a high level of abstraction: The hyper-
sophisticated advice bots are basically legislating laws for all their users to follow. They are the exalted Central Planners of a society consisting
of their users. And so in particular, the best bot, the optimal policy, the one we call Instrumental Rationality, does this. And so in particular if
you are trying to think about how to be rational, if you are trying to think about what the rational thing to do is, you should be thinking like this
too – you should be thinking like a central planner optimizing the behavior of all rational beings, legislating laws for them all to follow.” Thinking
about it this way, I think it’s clear that such a
central planner would try really hard not to legislate laws that increase
the risk of human extinction. Because not only could this predictably screw over everyone, but by
causing our extinction it would completely undermine itself; should we die, it’ll have lost its reason to
exist. Letting Down Those Who Came Before # In making her argument, Korsgaard references Scheffler (2013), which points out
that many of our long-term goals would become meaningless if we were the last generation of humans. In a
review of The Precipice, Jim Holt writes: [The prospect of imminent human extinction] would be ‘profoundly
depressing’ [according to Scheffler]. And the reason is that the meaning and value of our own lives depend on their
being situated in an ongoing flow of generations. Humanity’s extinction soon after we ourselves are gone would
render our lives today in great measure pointless. Whether you are searching for a cure for cancer, or
pursuing a scholarly or artistic project, or engaged in establishing more just institutions, a threat to the
future of humanity is also a threat to the significance of what you do. True, there are some aspects of
our lives – friendship, sensual pleasures, games – that would retain their value even in an imminent
doomsday scenario. But our long-term, goal-oriented projects would be robbed of their point. You can
look at your own goals, projects and aspirations and see this as a selfish reason to not want humanity to
go extinct. You can look at others’ goals, projects and aspirations and see that as an altruistic reason to
avoid human extinction.

Debate must center existential risks---that’s key to civic engagement and academic
research to combat crisis, but any alternative impact calc ensures complacency---that’s
a net benefit to our framework
Javorsky ‘18 [Emilia Javorsky is a Boston-based physician-scientist focused on the invention,
development and commercialization of new medical therapies. She also leads an Artificial Intelligence in
Medicine initiative with The Future Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Why Human
Extinction Needs a Marketing Department. January 15, 2018.
https://www.xconomy.com/boston/2018/01/15/why-human-extinction-needs-a-marketing-
department/]

Experts at Oxford University and elsewhere have estimated that the risk of a global human extinction event
this century—or at least of an event that wipes out 10 percent or more of the world’s population— is around 1 in 10. The most probable

culprits sending us the way of the dinosaur are mostly anthropogenic risks, meaning those created by humans. These include climate
change, nuclear disaster, and more emerging risks such as artificial intelligence gone wrong (by accident or nefarious intent) and bioterrorism. A recent
search of the scientific literature through ScienceDirect for “human extinction” returned a demoralizing 157 results, compared to the 1,627 for “dung beetle.” I
don’t know about you, but this concerns me. Why is there so little research and action on existential risks (risks capable of rendering humanity extinct)?
A big part of the problem is a lack of awareness about the real threats we face and what can be done about them.
When asked to estimate the chance of an extinction event in the next 50 years, U.S. adults in surveys
reported chances ranging from 1 in 10 million to 1 in 100, certainly not 10 percent. The awareness and engagement issues
extend to the academic community as well, where a key bottleneck is a lack of talented people studying
existential risks. Developing viable risk mitigation strategies will require widespread civic engagement
and concerted research efforts. Consequently, there is an urgent need to improve the communication of the
magnitude and importance of existential risks. The first step is getting an audience to pay attention to this issue.
That won’t be easy. Our social media-driven digital echo chambers present us with topics we already care about, so if you don’t already think about existential risk,
it is unlikely you’ll come across it. Furthermore, in today’s media environment, research data must compete with a sea of misinformation, spin, and a daily deluge of
“breaking” headlines. We have understandably become desensitized to alarms, especially on topics that have been sensationalized like “extinction.” We can only
hear “the sky is falling” so much before we stop listening.

Outweighs---A] existential risk is key to access topic controversy---articles are written

in the context of material consequences for the public and policymakers, anything
relevant to the material world could have an extinction impact which structurally
determines preround prep---B] small schools only need a few good generics like the
econ disad or cap k to win. Other frameworks are less variable which means less
breadth of education and analytics are more important, so big school block writing
hoses them. Blocks don’t matter on our FW because innovation checks coaching, and
skews are structural since resource disparities are inevitable and wiki solves since you
can steal cards.