Consult CP

The United States federal government should propose to the North Atlantic Council
that [[the United States ought to substantially reduce its military presence in the West
Asia-North Africa region.]]

It competes and solves---U.S. recommendations will be adopted and effectively

binding, but the process of collective formulation without setting prior, fixed policy is
key to legitimacy and acceptance.
Sperling ’19 [James and Mark Webber; 2019; Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron,
PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara; Professor of International Politics at the
University of Birmingham, PhD from the University of Birmingham, Master of Social Science from the
University of Birmingham, BA from the University of Warwick; Review of International Studies, “Trump's
Foreign Policy and NATO: Exit and Voice,” vol. 45]
If exit is a credible option for the US, why has it not taken place? The answer lies in the institutional character of the Alliance. Institutional
analysis of NATO is often seen as a counter to realism. The latter views alliances as mechanisms of balancing or bandwagoning in the
international system with alliance formation, stability, and durability being a reflection of power configurations among states. Realism can
account for the formation of NATO, its cohesion when confronted with a commonly recognised existential threat such as the Soviet Union, and
its adaptation after the Cold War as the US harnessed the Alliance to new security tasks. Here, what matters is national and
especially American preferences not NATO’s institutional qualities. 33 Discounting institutions in this case is, however,
misplaced. NATO’s permanent mechanisms of intra-alliance political consultation alongside a standing
command structure (embracing defence planning, standardisation, interoperability, and a recurrent rather than one-off ability to
deploy) are unique among both historical alliances and contemporary international organisations. 34 Two consequences follow from the
presence of these arrangements. First, NATO has assumed an elevated status in American strategic calculations. Here, the burden of defending
allies is offset by NATO’s political role in aligning allied preferences with those of the US. NATO’s
institutional mechanisms (the
North Atlantic Council above all) make that alignment possible, ensure it is embedded, and deliver efficiencies
and gains to all allies in the process. NATO thus takes on alliance-centric tasks (the security of Europe and the stabilisation of its
periphery) that are of clear benefit to Europeans but which provide, simultaneously, an important security externality to the US. Second,
institutionalisation has assumed a social character – the sophistication and permanency of intra-alliance
mechanisms provide ample opportunities for voice and renders that articulation legitimate. One need not
characterise NATO as a community organisation of democratic values 35 in order to allow for this outcome. It can be seen also as the
consequence of more formal properties that pertain to a sophisticated multilateral security arrangement: acceptance of the
principle of consultation, agreement on common security threats and, in NATO’s case, a sense of shared endeavour built up over a
decades’ long history. 36 These properties are certainly open to exploitation. However, even the most powerful ally will be wont to play within
the multilateral rules
of the game. These, after all, are stacked in its favour and so offer a reliable means of
exercising leadership and getting fellow allies to toe the line. 37

All of this is not simply realism by another route. Institutions act as a vehicle within which the demands of the
powerful are articulated and modified. The institution, in other words, exerts its own effect. The interaction of exit and voice in
NATO bears out this assumption. A member as powerful as the US could well hold the view that NATO is underperforming its core defence
function or is neglecting other tasks the US considers important. Equally, it might believe that the cost of contributing to NATO’s public security
goods is too great particularly if other allies are seen to be shirking their responsibilities. America’s
history of engagement with
NATO has been characterised by the periodic recurrence of such tensions yet, as we shall see below, throughout it has exercised the option
of voice. Voice has proven effective both in expressing dissatisfaction with NATO’s allies and advocating
changes to allied business. NATO’s institutionalisation, in other words, has served to minimise the cost, and to maximise the benefits
of exercising voice, just as it has served to minimise the benefits and to maximise the cost of exit. 38

Strictly adhering to the consensus principle is key to keep NATO adaptable to

emerging global threats.
Traugutt ’16 [Loren; July 1; MS in Strategic Intelligence from the National Defense Intelligence
College, MBA from the University of Phoenix, Fellow at the US Army War College, BS from Kansas State;
NATO Defense College Research Reports, “Is Consensus Still Necessary Within NATO?”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep10296]

The “consensus rule” or the “consensus principle” has been the cornerstone of NATO’s decision-making
process since the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949. The idea that all decisions reached within
the Alliance must be agreed upon by all member nations is not directly mentioned in the Washington Treaty, or anywhere
else in official NATO documents, but it has been the “sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of
the Alliance in 1949.”2 Consensus is not just required for the most important decisions within the North
Atlantic Council (NAC), but also throughout the structure of the organization, including every committee and working group.
While sticking steadfastly to the consensus rule gives the Alliance a credibility on the world stage not
seen by any other alliance in history, many experts and critics argue that this decision-making process should be reconsidered and
adjusted. They argue that as the Alliance continues to grow and expand its geographical focus outside traditional European borders, the use of
the consensus rule must be scrapped to keep the Alliance agile and adaptable.

This paper will argue to the contrary, that keeping

the consensus rule in its current form is instrumental in keeping
the Alliance credible both for the members and for those outside the Alliance. NATO remains a strong
and viable security arrangement because of the consensus rule, not in spite of it. The treaty does not specify how the
Alliance should make decisions, except for Article 10 which states that “unanimous agreement” is required to invite new members into the
NATO Alliance.3 Beyond this clear directive on decision-making, the rest of NATO’s decision-making process was left by the founders of the
Alliance to determine for themselves. While decision-making through consensus is nothing new within alliances and organizations, its sole use
in determining all decisions at all levels of an organization is unique. Numerous other international organizations, such as the United Nations,
the World Trade Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, utilize the consensus principle as part of their
decision-making process, but none of them use it as their sole process.4

Despite a growing Alliance where reaching consensus will become harder and harder, keeping
NATO’s current “consensus rule”
is paramount for the Alliance to maintain its legitimacy and influence throughout the ever-changing
global security environment.
As described on the NATO website, “All NATO decisions are made by consensus, after discussion and consultation among member countries. A
decision reached by consensus is an agreement reached by common consent, a decision that is accepted by each member country … [an]
expression of the collective will of all the sovereign states that are members of the Alliance. This principle is applied at every committee level
and demonstrates clearly that NATO decisions are collective decisions made by its member countries … The
consensus principle applies throughout NATO.”5

Three times in its history NATO has undergone a thorough review of its committee organization and structure. The first took place in 1990
following the end of the Cold War, again in 2002 following the 9/11 terror attacks, and the most recent review was in June 2010.6 In all three
instances, the Alliance retained the principle of consensus decision-making, applying it within every committee and working group at all levels
of NATO.

Importance of the Consensus Rule in its Current Form

Making decisions through consensus provides enormous advantages within the context of the global
security environment. When 28 members of a global Alliance achieve consensus on decisions that affect
global security and politics, the effects are profound. Consensus ensures that with every decision, all 28
members of the Alliance are behind that decision. It does not necessarily mean, nor does it have to mean, that all 28
members are fully supportive of the decision, but it still provides a great deal of legitimacy to the Alliance’s actions.
Only through consensus can an alliance ensure that all its members remain sovereign and autonomous, not having to compromise on their
national views or interests.

The consensus rule also ensures that members of the Alliance maintain a continuous dialogue over a variety
of broad security issues. This prevents every new issue that emerges from being treated as “an
independent, disconnected zero-sum discussion … allow(ing) for the give-and-take of negotiations and
compromises across the range of issues.”7 Even the smallest member of the Alliance has the same equal voice as the largest
member, ensuring a coherent balance among the many diverse nations of the a-Alliance, and that all national interests are taken into equal
consideration.

An adaptable NATO prevents existential threats.

Shea ’19 [Jamie; April 5; Professor of Strategy and Security at University of Exeter, DPhil in History
from the University of Oxford, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe; NATO Review, “NATO at 70: An
Opportunity to Recalibrate,” https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2019/04/05/nato-at-70-an-
opportunity-to-recalibrate/index.html]

The daily picture of a NATO that is deploying new forces in its eastern member states, holding major exercises, combating
cyber threats
and terrorism, conducting training and capacity-building missions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and welcoming
new members into its ranks will stand in baffling contrast to a political and academic rhetoric that presents NATO as obsolete and Allies as a
drain on resources for little return. In short, the optimists will not see the need for the Alliance’s reform, while the pessimists will not deem it
possible. As so often in the past, it will come down to a choice between actions and words, and what most determines NATO’s
credibility in the long run. If the glass is equally half full and half empty, then both sides are right and we are no further forward.
Yet to repeat this somewhat sterile discussion on the occasion of NATO’s 70th anniversary would be a lost opportunity – perhaps even a historic
mistake. Because to claim that all is well or not well with NATO is to distort reality and to miss the point.

Yes indeed, the Alliance is not faring so badly when we consider the criticisms and doubts affecting so many of the other institutional pillars of
the post-war international order. Finding good news stories about NATO is not difficult, and the frustrations of the last two NATO summits belie
an impressive record of concrete achievements. Taken together they show just how committed to NATO its 29 members still are – in cash,
capabilities and troops as well as speeches.

But without lapsing into facile crisis constructs, we also need to face up to the fact that the
Alliance is today operating in the
most complicated security environment in its history. It is facing a more diverse spectrum of threats
than ever before. Certainly, these may not be as existential as the threat of nuclear holocaust during the Cold War but they are nonetheless
severe and, if not mastered, could end the liberal democratic societies and individual freedoms that the citizens of
NATO countries today take for granted.

The 21st century is the century of turbulence with great power competition; rising military spending and readiness
to threaten or use force; rapid and far-reaching technological innovation, which is putting greater disruptive and destructive
capability into the hands of more bad actors; and hybrid campaigns to divide and destabilise western societies, and gain leverage over their
political and economic systems. More than before, the Allies are being challenged from within and without their borders and from multiple
directions at the same time. Death by a thousand cuts may not sound as bad as sudden death but the result is still the same.

Challenges on all fronts

For most of the past decades, NATO had the relative luxury of dealing with one challenge in one place at any given time. It marked its 40th
anniversary focused entirely on the changes affecting the Soviet Union; its 50th anniversary was in the midst of the Kosovo air campaign; and its
60th anniversary was dominated by discussions over troop surges in Afghanistan. But this
time it is different. NATO is reaching
70 when it has to tackle not one but three strategic fronts, not only diverse geographically but also in terms of the
type of threats they pose and the responses they require.
In the East, a resurgent and aggressive Russia has made NATO’s eastern Allies nervous and requires the Alliance, after a nearly 30-year gap, to
be able to deter, defend against and defeat a peer adversary with modernised forces, abundant war-fighting experience and high-tech
weaponry.

In the South, fragile

states are vulnerable to extremism, militias and criminal gangs, which pose a range of
security headaches ranging from terrorist attacks to humanitarian crises and uncontrolled migration.
These require local knowledge, development and long-term capacity-building partnerships with multiple actors.

On the home front, we see the polarisation of many western societies as they struggle to control the dependencies created by globalisation.
Moreover, all-embracing technologies have given malicious actors a new hybrid toolkit to either wreak havoc or to assert influence.

These challenges affect Allies in different combinations and come from different sources. But all Allies expect NATO to be equally attentive to
their individual concerns and to provide answers. What
is unique, therefore, about the situation NATO finds itself in
today is that it risks becoming unmanageable. One danger is strategic overload. Another is that poorly managed
crises on the home front or a failure to establish deterrence against provocations such as cyber or chemical attacks, which fall below the
threshold for Article 5 (NATO’s collective defence clause), could embolden adversaries to make territorial demands as well. Equally, allowing
those adversaries to quash human rights and to sow corruption and poor governance in the South – all in the name of re-establishing “order” –
could encourage them to try the same tactics in the Alliance’s eastern neighbourhood.
So, for the first time in its seven decades, NATO has to deter and defend against the enemy within as well as without. As we saw after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, from now on, Article 5 could well apply
more to threats against transport, power infrastructure, space communications, pipelines, IT networks and civilians sitting on park benches than to tanks crossing borders. Solidarity will no longer be a rare requirement waiting for a
military attack that is potentially catastrophic but extremely unlikely. Rather, it will be an almost daily necessity in response to provocations that are not existential but which civilised societies cannot allow to go unchallenged.

This is fundamentally new and the most pressing issue that Allied leaders need to debate, if they wish NATO to have a future at least as long as its past. Instead of preparing for one kind of attack, how does the Alliance make its
member states (and some key partner countries too) fully resilient and able to respond effectively to the 21st century’s pattern of hyper-interference and ubiquitous competition?

This is not to imply that the topics which dominate NATO’s current political agenda are not important. Burden-sharing is at the centre of US President Donald Trump’s view of the utility of the Alliance to the United States and any
future US Administration, whether Republican or Democrat, is likely to insist on it too. The speech given by Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates in Brussels in 2011 came from a Democrat Administration and – in its sharpness and
sense of urgency about European capability gaps –prefigured the Republican Trump half a decade before the latter entered the White House.

The United States’ share of the burden of collective defence or, more recently, non-Article 5 operations beyond NATO’s territory has always been disproportionate and unfair. Prolonged European dependence on the United States
was one major reason why some US Senators wanted to limit the lifespan of the NATO Treaty to just ten years, when it came up for ratification in 1949. The Europeans have constantly promised to rectify the discrepancy through a
host of burden-sharing and offset initiatives, and failed to do so. As Europe became richer and aspired to be treated as an equal actor on the global scene, its inability or unwillingness to provide for its own defence became ever
more incomprehensible.

So, rather than resent the current return of the burden-sharing debate, Europeans should perhaps congratulate themselves on their good fortune that Canada and the United States have been willing to underwrite Europe’s
defence in peacetime for longer than any of NATO’s founding fathers would have thought possible – or desirable. Simply put, Europeans need to increase their defence budgets to two per cent of GDP; not because the United
States demands this as a precondition for sustaining NATO but because Europeans are living in an increasingly rough neighbourhood with multiple threats. In these circumstances, two per cent will give Europeans the capabilities
required so that they do not need to make hard choices between deterring Russia or fighting extremists in the Sahel; or fielding high readiness divisions over developing more robust cyber defences and researching the emerging
technology areas of artificial intelligence, robotics and hypersonic rockets.

Now that the Defence Investment Pledge, agreed at the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, has halted the decline in defence spending and led to real increases, the Allies clearly have to maintain this effort. But they also need to develop
a narrative that explains the link between money, capability and security. Headline figures can seem somewhat arbitrary. An extra 100 billion dollars by 2020 is a lot of money but NATO also needs to show the public what this
means in terms of actual improvements in equipment, readiness and training, and focus more on the national success stories.

Capabilities that address threats such as cyber, military interference with vital space assets, terrorism, border security, data manipulation, the protection of critical infrastructure and crucial supply chains, and humanitarian crises
engendered by extreme weather events may resonate more with the public than traditional hard military items such as tanks and artillery. This argues for NATO’s defence planners to take a broad view of capability requirements.
The two per cent should be a target for the European Union as well as for NATO. Because if the United States were one day to turn its back on NATO or limit its engagement only to territorial collective defence vis-à-vis Russia, two
per cent would be the minimum for European Strategic Autonomy to have any meaning. Consequently the Defence Investment Pledge needs to move progressively from an effort largely driven by the United States to one that
Europeans demand of each other.

This said, the function of NATO is not primarily to be about fairness. Equal benefits for equal contributions. Outputs – the benefits gained from being an Ally – will always be more significant than inputs. What counts is that
individual inputs maximise collective impact. The diversity of Allies (big and small, with different assets and networks of influence) means that they will always contribute in different ways.

The role of NATO must be to incentivise activity and find ways to combine different contributions for maximum strategic effect. This is more effective than formulating standardised contributions, which could make NATO too strong
in certain domains and too weak in others. As NATO tackles 21st century challenges, a broad and diverse spectrum of different assets, skills, knowledge and capabilities will arguably be the Alliance’s comparative advantage over its
adversaries. Russia with its largely military power and strategy based on intimidation is a case in point. But it will not be enough to acquire diverse assets –NATO’s challenge is to learn how to use them.

It is in this connection that I see four areas where the Alliance needs to raise its game.
Scanning the risk horizon

The first is the need for more discussion among Allies on the trends and events shaping the future of
security.
China, for instance, will have a massively greater impact on international relations in the 21st century than Russia – and in very different ways. It is already pulling ahead in the defining technologies of artificial intelligence and
bioengineering as well as in 5G connectivity, which will drive the Internet of Things. It is increasing its investments in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and sending more of its troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations.
Already, as Allies discuss the wisdom of allowing Huawei into their future IT networks, they see that China could divide them while Russia generally tends to unite them.

As the Chinese model will be the main competitor to liberal democracy, a key question will be how the Allies handle the rise of China. It is not a question of seeing China as the next military threat but how best to understand it and
engage it. Perhaps the time has come to create a NATO-China Council or at least a regular strategic dialogue. Past cooperation on countering piracy together in the Gulf of Aden or helping the United Nations and African Union with
capacity building show the potential of NATO-China relations. For a starter, NATO should appoint a senior diplomat or official to focus on China and develop the network of contacts with the People’s Liberation Army and the civilian
leadership.

Apart from China, other key issues need to be on the Alliance’s agenda more systematically. For instance, while NATO is developing a space policy, the Alliance still has not declared space as a domain or looked seriously at its
growing dependency on space assets for navigation, timing, tracking and targeting. Yet 58 nations have now put satellites in orbit and most space-enabled services, which NATO is dependent upon, are dual use (civil/commercial
and military). The growth of missile defence, hypersonic missiles, drones and data processing, not to mention early warning capabilities and cyber security, will make space ever more contested. Satellites will be more vulnerable to
manipulation, disruption and destruction, and the outcome of conflict will increasingly depend on who makes best use of space. This is the reason why the United States has recently stood up a Space Force and is planning for a
Space Command.
Other issues deserving more attention are Russia’s role and influence beyond Europe, especially in Africa and the Middle East, and the emerging role of actors such as India, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But it is not only traditional states
with traditional capabilities that are transforming the nature of security. Equally important questions to address include: How will the decisions of big tech companies shape and control the future of the Internet and social
interaction? How will ISIS/Daesh regroup and define a new business model post-Caliphate? Or how is organised crime undermining governance and fuelling corruption?

NATO cannot rely on infrequent ministerial meetings or occasional briefings from national diplomats
passing through Brussels. A recent crisis like that between India and Pakistan in Kashmir shows just how
quickly events can spin out of control and have global security implications. NATO needs to think how
it can better align its situational awareness and consultation machinery with the fast-moving and
unpredictable security environment. It cannot be perceived as an organisation dealing narrowly with a
limited set of issues and only in its immediate neighbourhood.
Deterring hybrid threats

The second area where the Alliance needs to raise its game is deterrence against threats below the Article 5 threshold. Hybrid warfare is complex because the dividing line between legal and illegal activity is a fine one. Where do
normal business transactions become hostile state interference? How can we prevent adversaries from using against us the technology we ourselves have invented? Some commentators have declared that deterrence cannot work
against hybrid threats because they are multifaceted and simply exacerbate the polarisation and divisions that are already so prevalent in our societies.

Certainly, there is no easy and immediate fix to deterrence in the hybrid domain, such as the acquisition of a nuclear weapon to neutralise an opponent’s nuclear capability. Indeed, deterrence by denial or depriving the adversary
of the fruits of aggression through resilience and speedy recovery is the starting point. Yet the response to the Russia-sponsored chemical attacks in Salisbury one year ago showed the range of other measures that can be taken.
The perpetrators were named and shamed through the disclosure of intelligence material; there was a coordinated expulsion of a large number of Russian diplomats; NATO and the European Union pulled together and both
organisations initiated a review of their preparedness and response assets against chemical and biological attacks.

In sum, deterrence can be gradually built up against hybrid campaigns by credible attribution of the source; naming and shaming; proportionate responses that do not escalate but show that hybrid attacks will be consistently
answered and in a collective and united way. It is also essential to identify and plug vulnerabilities in NATO’s spectrum of critical infrastructure in both the physical and virtual domains. These responses will contain an element of
trial and error, as the Alliance sees what works best in inducing an adversary to think again. They will also necessitate the development of a playbook of measures – both existing and new – and learning how to apply them in
targeted ways, whether against states or the proxies they employ.

Crucially, NATO will need to develop a culture of permanent responsiveness, reliable intelligence and the ability to take lots of small decisions regularly and early, rather than big decisions rarely and late. But to the extent that
NATO can operate more effectively at the sub-Article 5 level, it is less likely to have to face contingencies above that threshold in the future.

Rebuilding partnerships

The third area that the Alliance needs to pay more attention to is partnerships. One of NATO’s biggest success stories, since the end of the Cold War, has been to induce around 40 other countries to form structured partnerships
with it. These have been based on mutual benefit. Partners have contributed troops to NATO-led operations, while having access to a multinational forum to exchange views and develop practical cooperation on shared security
concerns. Partnering with Allies has made their own role in international security more substantive. Interoperability has been as much intellectual as military and practical. Partners have been attracted to the Atlantic Alliance as a

legitimacy in the United Nations and the wider world. In short, a win-win outcome. But this is now in danger of being lost
community of democracies, while strengthening NATO’s

as the Alliance’s priorities shift and the focus swings back to collective defence .

Bright hopes were once invested in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. Now, consultation is ad hoc and other partnership
frameworks, such as the Mediterranean Dialogue or the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, need re-energising and a greater sense of purpose.
Beyond a limited number of individual partnerships, such as with Sweden and Finland, NATO has not articulated an overall vision for
partnership. Yet,
in a world where multilateralism is under threat, this network is a precious asset and
needs to be revived before it atrophies.
One answer is to take up the debate on norms where partnership was acquiring a reasonable track record, for instance, in finding common ground on advancing the women, peace and security agenda, the role of private security
companies, and the protection of civilians and combatting trafficking. The current security environment badly needs new norms on challenges like cyber, autonomous weapons systems, social media and GPS interference and space
satellites, to name but a few. NATO is not necessarily the place where norms should be formally negotiated but it can be a useful forum for separating the good ideas from the bad, building consensus and convening the players,
including non-governmental organisations and the private sector, around the same table.

At a time when so much of NATO’s image is bound up with ever higher defence budgets and more high-end military capabilities, rebuilding partnerships can help reassure our publics that the Alliance has a political and not
exclusively military approach to security.

Encouraging European defence

Finally, the Alliance needs to get to grips with the issue of European defence. From the very beginning of NATO, a fault line has run through the Alliance as to whether it should encourage or discourage a specifically European (and
now EU) defence identity.

In the early 1950s, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles threatened the Europeans with “an agonising reappraisal” if they did not create more European (and especially German) divisions. The result was the European Defence
Community (EDC), which failed in the French National Assembly in August 1954.

Over 60 years later, the debate on whether there should be a European Army or a European Strategic Autonomy continues unabated. Some want the greater European capabilities without the separate institutions; others, the
institutions without worrying too much about the extra capabilities. At one moment, the case is made that a European defence construct is needed as a hedge against US disengagement. At another moment, it is seen as a way to
strengthen the Alliance and the transatlantic partnership by overcoming the fragmentation of European defence budgets and procurement programmes, and producing more bang for the euro through more cooperative
programmes.

For many decades, this effort has been stymied by the inconsistent attitude of the United States (do we support it and, if so, under what conditions?) and divisions among the Europeans themselves (can we develop a common
culture when it comes to the use of force and how can this effort serve all of us, rather than the individual agendas of one or two key EU member states?).

But today we are at a critical juncture. The European Union has launched a series of initiatives that are the most far-reaching since the demise of the EDC and which put structures and resources behind the aspirations. We have
Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) with 34 multinational projects; a European Defence Fund with an initial capitalisation of 13.5 billion euros; and a European Intervention Initiative to foster a common strategic culture on
power projection and mission planning. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed a European Security Council and the consolidation of the European Union’s defence and technology industrial base. Yet, we also have
Brexit and the challenge of keeping the United Kingdom as a key Ally firmly embedded in European defence across the whole spectrum, from intelligence and police cooperation to combat brigades.

Consequently, the task for NATO is how to encourage but help steer these European initiatives. Of course, unnecessary duplication should be avoided. But the priority must be to relieve the pressure on the United States by
enabling the Europeans to take on collective defence missions at the high end within the NATO framework; better support stabilisation in Africa and the Middle East; define the scope of EU solidarity in responding to events like
cyber and terrorist attacks or natural disasters (articles 42.7 and 222 of the Lisbon Treaty); and spend defence euros to greater effect through the integration of effort and more investments in cutting-edge technology.

Essentially, NATO will need to hammer out a new transatlantic bargain: one in which the United States accepts the reality of EU defence integration and ceases to see it as a competitor or threat to NATO; and one in which the EU
countries deliver on their capability promises and pursue their efforts in a way that strengthens NATO’s overall capacity to address the challenges to the East and South as well as hybrid threats. For this, the European Union will
need to be generous towards the non-EU Allies on the basis of close association in return for significant contributions to these efforts. EU defence aspirations will not go away but neither will NATO. It is the task of this generation of
political leaders to finally bring them together.

The 70th anniversary of the Alliance will produce plenty of pieces on NATO’s past achievements and many messages of esteem and commitment. That is all to the good. Yet, the anniversary is also the
opportunity for some political
recalibration that can make the Alliance successful for the next seven decades.
It is an opportunity that should not be missed.
 Terror
Regional withdrawal is an appeasement strategy that leads to all the dominos
falling to ISIS
Thompson ’15 [Mark Thompson, Time, Feb. 26, 2015, U.S. Military Plan For Looming ISIS
Offensive Takes Shape, http://time.com/3722740/isis-islamic-state-military/]
Yet if the Pentagon’s top spies disagree over what to do about ISIS, what hope is there for the average citizen to figure it out? “ We
are
in a global war with a radical and violent form of the Islamic religion, and it is irresponsible and
dangerous to deny it,” retired Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn said in a Jan. 20 warning published in Politico. Flynn
was pushed out of his job early as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency last August for his management style and views on Islamic
terrorism. “There is no cheap way to win this fight,” he wrote, saying the
U.S. must treat ISIS, and Islamic groups like it, the
way Washington dealt with Germany and Japan in World War II, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
during the Cold War.

His successor is far less concerned—striking, given that he’s a Marine, a breed rarely given to understatement. While ISIS “can do us
harm, they don’t pose an existential threat to the United States,” Lieut. General Vincent Stewart, told the House Armed Services
Committee Feb. 3. While the U.S. military could launch more robust attacks against ISIS, Pentagon officials stress that if allied
military successes outrun political progress in the region, there will be nothing positive to fill the gap left by ISIS’s destruction. “ If I
were to map out what ISIL would love to do, ISIL would love to have the United States and western
countries out of the region and slowly take apart those other moderate nations who would counter
their radical ideology,” Stewart said. “And if they could do that, then they could have a fairly easy
opportunity to create the state that they think is appropriate for the region.”

Military presence is essential to counterterror operations. Withdrawal causes

a shift to foreign assistance that emboldens extremism but doesn’t solve.
Brands 18 [Hal, Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of
Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments." American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump." Page 38-40]
Take the issue of terrorism. To be clear, offshore
balancers are right that U.S. onshore presence in the Persian
Gulf (and the broader Middle East) has sometimes acted as a stimulant to extremist violence. The stationing of
U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia from 1990 onward was one important cause of al-Qaeda’s deadly campaign against American targets, and the
U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and afterward helped reinvigorate a jihadist movement that had been pummeled following
9/11. More generally, scholarly research indicates that contesting foreign troop deployments and occupation is one driver of suicide
terrorism.36 There
is thus something to the argument that U.S. policies have fueled the fires of jihad.
What is more dubious is the claim that shifting to offshore balancing would significantly
ameliorate the problem.
The primary cause for doubt is that while
stationing U.S. troops in Muslim countries has historically been one
cause of anti-American terrorism, it has never been the only one. That phenomenon also grew out
of anger at U.S. support for authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes , Washington’s relationship with
Israel, the encroachment of Western cultural and economic influences on Muslim societies, and other
grievances that were prominent in early al-Qaeda pronouncements and still resonate today . In 2010,
for instance, an al-Qaeda spokesman announced that it would take more than withdrawing U.S. troops from Muslim lands to make
jihadist attacks stop. The
United States would also have to end its support to Israel, prohibit all trade and
investment in that country, terminate all aid to “the hated regimes of the Muslim world,” cease “all
interference in the religion, society, politics, economy, and government” of the region, and so on.
Similarly, as one expert notes, “EvenU.S. intelligence liaison, which involves sharing information, training,
and other forms of exchange, is . . . a sensitive issue” for al-Qaeda and other jihadists . Anti-American
terrorism has always had a complex genesis, and avoiding U.S. military presence would address but one of the
relevant complaints.37
Were the United States to embrace offshore balancing, it would actually aggravate some of those
grievances further. A true offshore balancing strategy would make the United States more reliant
on authoritarian Arab regimes—in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other countries—as bulwarks of stability
in the region. It would imply an increase in military sales, intelligence partnerships, and other
support for these governments, and a tolerance for precisely the sort of friendly dictators
approach that Muslim radicals deplore. In the same vein, while many offshore balancers call on Washington to distance
itself from Israel, Colin Kahl and Marc Lynch have rightly noted that the logic of the strategy would certainly increase
U.S. dependence on that country as the strongest, friendliest military power in a very volatile region.38 In
effect, then, offshore balancing would require doubling down on policies that have long stoked
jihadist resentment.
Offshore balancing represents a problematic framework for counterterrorism in other ways, too. As the aftermath of the U.S. drawdown
in Iraq in 2011 demonstrated, removing
American forces from a still-unstable situation can compromise
counterterrorism gains made to date and permit the insecurity in which extremist groups prosper.
“Had a residual U.S. force stayed in Iraq after 2011, ” one senior adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq has written, “the
United States would have had far greater insight into the growing threat posed by ISIS and could
have helped the Iraqis stop the group from taking so much territory. Instead, ISIS’s march across northern Iraq
took Washington almost completely by surprise.”39

Moreover, offshore balancing would weaken the infrastructure and partnerships that have been
used to fight terrorist organizations. As Robert Art of Brandeis University has written, America’s post-9/11
campaign in Afghanistan relied heavily on overseas bases and contingents that would presumably
be subject to reductions or liquidation under an offshore balancing scenario. (The more recent anti–Islamic
State campaign also relied on such assets.) Similarly , U.S. forward deployments and commitments have long
provided leverage that Washington can use to secure greater assistance on the “quieter phase of
fighting terrorism”—the intelligence sharing, diplomatic cooperation, and other behind-the-
scenes measures that are essential to countering extremist groups.40 Were the United States to
reduce its security posture, one would expect that this leverage would also shrink . In sum, offshore
balancing is no panacea regarding counterterrorism: it offers some advantages but brings major
liabilities as well.

Nuclear war
Dr. Peter J. Hayes 18, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability,
Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California-Berkeley, Professor of International
Relations at RMIT University, “Non-State Terrorism and Inadvertent Nuclear War”, NAPSNet
Special Reports, 1/18/2018, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/non-state-
terrorism-and-inadvertent-nuclear-war/
Non-state nuclear attack as trigger of inter-state nuclear war in Northeast Asia

The critical issue is how a

nuclear terrorist attack may “catalyze” inter-state nuclear war, especially the
NC3 systems that inform and partly determine how leaders respond to nuclear threat. Current
conditions in Northeast Asia suggest that multiple precursory conditions for nuclear terrorism already exist or
exist in nascent form. In Japan, for example, low-level, individual, terroristic violence with nuclear materials, against nuclear
facilities, is real. In all countries of the region, the
risk of diversion of nuclear material is real, although the risk is
likely higher due
to volume and laxity of security in some countries of the region than in others. In all countries, the
risk of an insider “sleeper” threat is real in security and nuclear agencies, and such insiders already operated in
actual terrorist organizations. Insider corruption is also observable in nuclear fuel cycle agencies in all countries of the region. The threat of extortion to induce insider cooperation is also real in all countries. The possibility of a cult attempting
to build and buy nuclear weapons is real and has already occurred in the region.[15] Cyber-terrorism against nuclear reactors is real and such attacks have already taken place in South Korea (although it remains difficult to attribute the source of the attacks with certainty).
The stand-off ballistic and drone threat to nuclear weapons and fuel cycle facilities is real in the region, including from non-state actors, some of whom have already adopted and used such technology almost instantly from when it becomes accessible (for example, drones).
[16]

Two other broad risk factors are also present in the region. The social and political conditions for extreme ethnic and xenophobic nationalism are emerging in China, Korea, Japan, and Russia. Although there has been no risk of attack on or loss of control over nuclear
weapons since their removal from Japan in 1972 and from South Korea in 1991, this risk continues to exist in North Korea, China, and Russia, and to the extent that they are deployed on aircraft and ships of these and other nuclear weapons states (including submarines)
deployed in the region’s high seas, also outside their territorial borders.

The most conducive circumstance for catalysis to occur due to a nuclear terrorist attack might involve the following nexi of timing and conditions:

1. Low-level, tactical, or random individual terrorist attacks for whatever reasons, even assassination of national
leaders, up to and including dirty radiological bomb attacks, that overlap with inter-state crisis dynamics in
ways that affect state decisions to threaten with or to use nuclear weapons. This might be undertaken by
an opportunist nuclear terrorist entity in search of rapid and high political impact.
2. Attacks on major national or international events in each country to maximize terror and to de-legitimate national leaders and whole governments. In Japan, for example, more than ten heads of state and senior ministerial international meetings are held
each year. For the strategic nuclear terrorist, patiently acquiring higher level nuclear threat capabilities for such attacks and then staging them to maximum effect could accrue strategic gains.
3. Attacks or threatened attacks, including deception and disguised attacks, will have maximum leverage when nuclear-armed states are near or on the brink of war or during a national crisis (such as Fukushima), when intelligence agencies, national
leaders, facility operators, surveillance and policing agencies, and first responders are already maximally committed and over-extended.

At this point, we note an important caveat to the original concept of catalytic nuclear war as it might pertain to nuclear terrorist threats or attacks. Although an attack might be disguised so that it is attributed to a nuclear-armed state, or a ruse might be undertaken to
threaten such attacks by deception, in reality a catalytic strike by a nuclear weapons state in conditions of mutual vulnerability to nuclear retaliation for such a strike from other nuclear armed states would be highly irrational.

Accordingly, the effect of nuclear terrorism involving a nuclear detonation or major radiological release may not of itself be
catalytic of nuclear war—at least not intentionally–because it will not lead directly to the destruction of a targeted nuclear-armed state.
Rather, it may be catalytic of non-nuclear war between states, especially if the non-state actor turns out to be aligned with or
sponsored by a state (in many Japanese minds, the natural candidate for the perpetrator of such an attack is the pro-North Korean
General Association of Korean Residents, often called Chosen Soren, which represents many of the otherwise stateless Koreans who were
born and live in Japan) and a further sequence of coincident events is necessary to drive escalation to the point of
nuclear first use by a state. Also, the catalyst—the non-state actor–is almost assured of discovery and destruction either during
the attack itself (if it takes the form of a nuclear suicide attack then self-immolation is assured) or as a result of a search-and-destroy
campaign from the targeted state (unless the targeted government is annihilated by the initial terrorist nuclear attack).

It follows that the effects of a

non-state nuclear attack may be characterized better as a trigger effect,
bringing about a cascade of nuclear use decisions within NC3 systems that shift each state
increasingly away from nuclear non-use and increasingly towards nuclear use by releasing
negative controls and enhancing positive controls in multiple action-reaction escalation spirals
(depending on how many nuclear armed states are party to an inter-state conflict that is already underway at the time of the non-state
nuclear attack); and/or by inducing
concatenating nuclear attacks across geographically proximate
nuclear weapons forces of states already caught in the crossfire of nuclear threat or attacks of their
own making before a nuclear terrorist attack.[17]

Even limited attacks turn case.

Breinart 8 [Peter associate professor of journalism and political science at CUNY, The Good
Fight; Why Liberals – and only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great
Again, 110-1]
Indeed, while the Bush administration bears the blame for these hor- rors, White House officials exploited a
shift in public values after 9/11. When asked by Princeton Survey Research Associates in 1997 whether stopping terrorism required
citizens to cede some civil liberties, less than one-t hird of Americans said yes. By the spring of 2002, that had grown to almost three- quarters. Public
support for the government’s right to wire- tap phones and read people’s mail also grew
exponentially. In fact, polling in the months after the attack showed Americans less concerned that the Bush
administration was violating civil liberties than that it wasn’t violating them enough. What will
happen the next time? It is, of course, impossible to predict the reaction to any particular attack. But in 2003, the Center for
Public Integrity got a draft of something called the Domestic Security Enhance- ment Act, quickly dubbed Patriot II. According to the
center’s executive director, Charles Lewis, it expanded government power five or ten times as much as its
predecessor. One provision permitted the government to strip native-born Americans of their
citizenship, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned without legal recourse if they were deemed to have provided any
support—even nonviolent support—to groups designated as terrorist. After an outcry, the bill was shelved. But it offers a hint of what this
administration—or any administration—might do if the United States were hit again. ¶ When the CIA recently tried
to imagine how the world might look in 2020, it conjured four potential scenarios. One was called the “cycle of fear,” and it drastically inverted the
assumption of security that C. Vann Woodward called central to America’s national character. The United States has been attacked again and the government
has responded with “large- scale intrusive security measures.” In this dystopian future, two arms dealers, one with jihadist ties, text- message about a
potential nuclear deal. One notes that terrorist networks have “turned into mini-s tates.” The other jokes about the global recession sparked by the latest
attacks. And he muses about how terrorism has changed American life. “That new Patriot Act,” he writes, “went way beyond
anything imagined after 9/11.” “The fear cycle generated by an increasing spread of WMD and
terrorist attacks,” comments the CIA report, “once under way, would be one of the hardest to break.” And the more
entrenched that fear cycle grows, the less free America will become. Which is why a new generation of American liberals
must make the fight against this new totalitarianism their own.

Don’t buy their arguments on how military presence causes terrorism.

Removing miltary presence still means that terrorists hate the United States
for past attacks. We’re going to have to wait for a new generation to stop
terrorism. That means the terror DA outweighs on timeframe, because an
increase in terror attacks leads to nuke wwar. The US mp is the only thing
stopping it.
 Deterrence
Presence is untouched now and key to regional influence --- withdrawal causes
terrorism, energy insecurity, and Russian and Chinese fill in
Rhoades et. al 23 [Ashley, defense policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. At RAND, she has led
and worked on several studies for various Department of Defense projects. “Great Power Competition
and Conflict in the Middle East”
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA900/RRA969-3/RAND_RRA969-
3.pdf]

Although U.S. interest in the Middle East may appear to be dwindling as attention and resources shift to
the Indo-Pacific and Europe, the United States has numerous enduring interests in the region.2 Among
its key interests are countering terrorist organizations, ensuring the free flow of and access to natural
resources (notably, energy), promoting regional stability and mitigating threats to partners and allies,
and maintaining long-standing U.S. relationships in the region.3 The United States has sought to
promote peace processes and conflict resolution in intra- and inter-state conflicts in the region, deter
Iran, counter violent extremist organizations, and maintain freedom of navigation in key waterways
across the Middle East, such as the Strait of Hormuz, Bab El-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal.4 Although U.S.
military presence in the Middle East has consistently declined over the past decade, owing largely to
troop reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan,5 the United States still has thousands of troops stationed
across the region, making the maintenance of regional stability all the more important. From a threat
perspective, countering Iran and terrorist organizations is the key U.S. interest in the Middle East.6
Iran’s growing regional influence, its cultivation and support of proxy militant groups, its missile
programs, and its dogged pursuit of nuclear weapons threaten regional stability and the security of
close U.S. allies, such as Israel. Although they have diminished in capacity, terrorist groups—such as al-
Qaeda and the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—remain threats to
U.S. and coalition personnel in the region, as well as to regional allies and partners. Historically, these
groups have demonstrated a capability to regenerate quickly; thus, sustaining the U.S. counterterrorism
mission is important to preventing a resurgence of terrorist organizations that could become global
threats potentially capable of striking the U.S. homeland again. More broadly, U.S. strategic documents
have identified the importance of ensuring that the Middle East is “not dominated by any power hostile
to the United States.”7 In the context of strategic competition with China and Russia, this translates into
seeking to minimize Chinese and Russian influence throughout the region, particularly in countries
where the United States has deep ties or interests. Past iterations of the National Defense Strategy
highlighted the importance of partnerships in the Middle East to preserving U.S. interests in the region.8
As reflected in their status as major non–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, key U.S.
partners in the region include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, and Pakistan.9
Historically, other major partners include the UAE and Saudi Arabia.10 These partnerships have provided
the United States with access, basing, and overflight rights, which are crucial to the U.S. objectives of
countering terrorist organizations, deterring Iran, ensuring freedom of navigation for the flow of
natural resources, and maintaining regional influence.11
Terror outweighs.
Fyanka ’20 [Bernard; February 7; Ph.D. in History and Strategic Studies from the University of Lagos in
Nigeria; African Security Review, “Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism:
Rethinking Nigeria’s counterterrorism strategy,” vol. 28]
Introduction

The end of the Cold War might have represented the end of mutually assured destruction (MAD), but it did not
necessarily dispel the dangers of the nuclear age – in fact, to some extent the globalised proliferation of non-

conventional weapons has instead escalated the possibilities for a nuclear attack being carried out. During the Cold War, the
belligerents of any nuclear conflict would have been easily identifiable; however, in the post-Cold-War era, non-state actors and

terrorist groups like Boko Haram have emerged as potential players in a new variety of nuclear conflicts
that would entirely be based on terrorist models. The ominous possibilities for this new kind of warfare are indeed

terrifying, and the rise in terrorist attacks around the globe enhances the likelihood of such an occurrence. Since
9/11, the body of academic literature on the threat posed by terrorists regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and chemical, biological, radiological and
nuclear (CBRN) devices has increased. In Gary Ackerman and Jeremy Tamsett’s edited volume, Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction, there is disagreement as
to whether this threat is overestimated or underestimated.1 In recent times, however, ample
ideological incentive for the use of CBRN
devices has been provided by the likes of Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri – author of the ‘Global Islamic Resistance Call’ – who has stated that ‘[t]he aim of
carrying out resistance missions and individual jihad terrorism “jihad al-irhabi al-fardi” is to inflict the largest human and material casualties possible on American
interests and its allied countries’.2 This echoes the previous call of Grand Ayatollah Ahmad Husayni al-Baghdadi, who maintained:

If the objective and subjective conditions materialize, and there are soldiers, weapons, and money – even if this means
using biological, chemical, and bacterial weapons – we will conquer the world, so that ‘There is no God but Allah, and
Muhammad is His Prophet’ will be triumphant over the domes of Moscow, Washington, and Paris.3

For Boko Haram and other groups, there definitely exists a strong motivation for the use of WMDs, and the
global reach of this thinking is not in doubt:

The globalization of the jihadist struggle has also led to an increased emphasis on Islamic identity. In
combination with the ideological theme of revenge, the global struggle for Islamic identity has the potential

to create a new jihadist cultic worldview in which its endorsers seek out WMDs because they represent the only means to significantly
transform reality.4

Contextual scenarios in Nigeria strongly suggest that Boko Haram is one such group which has embraced the jihadist
world view that endorses the use of WMDs. In this regard, the strengthened affiliation of Boko Haram’s splinter group – the Islamic State
West Africa Province (ISWAP) – with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) confirms their ideological persuasions. The motivation for Boko

Haram to use such weapons is thus grounded in the recent use of chemical weapons by ISIS in both Iraq and
Syria against both military and civilian targets.5 If ISIS is claiming ownership of a faction of Boko Haram as its West African province, it is likely
to extend its tactics to its African allies.
In the light of the above, the use of WMDs by terrorists cannot be explained within the framework of orthodox terrorism theories. With this in mind, what Russell
Worth Parker refers to as the ‘Islamic just war theory’ suitably anchors a discourse on terrorism and advanced weapons of war.6 Most theorists do not support a
subjective theory of ‘just war’, but rather the traditional version that relies on Western ideas of morality and proportionality, as well as on motives for waging war.7
On the other hand, jihadist traditions reinterpret just war’s key tenet of proportionality to suit Islamists’
conflict rationale. According to the Western form of just war theory, wherein discrimination proves strategically impossible, any response should be
proportionate to the action that compels it – hence, proportionality dictates that a military operation should not cause greater harm than the act that it was
designed to counter or prevent.8 This proportionality argument is exemplified in the use of nuclear weapons in the Second World War; since casualty estimates for
an invasion of Japan exceeded one million Allied lives, with similar estimates for Japanese military and civilians, a nuclear attack was preferable. Eventually, the
actual casualties suffered from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reached 200,000, which represents 10% of the casualties that would likely have been
incurred if Japan had been invaded (see https://avalon.law.yale.edu/). In the light of this argument, justification
for the use of WMDs by
terrorist groups would rest on their interpretation of the extent of the damage caused by the military
aggression and long-term imperialism of Western powers.
Fighting faceless enemies in a CBRN conflict, whether in West Africa or the Middle East, is hard to imagine.
Enemies who can easily blend into the crowd and take on the face of ordinary civilians represent a nightmare scenario for
security strategists all around the world. The risk of WMDs falling into the hands of terrorist groups is largely
dependent on their ability to obtain weapons-grade nuclear material like uranium and plutonium,
combined with gaining the capability to build and deploy weapons which make use of them. The global proliferation of nuclear material

has made this possible today.

Global proliferation of fissile material

The collapse of the Soviet military-industrial complex ushered in a period of uncertainty regarding the security of nuclear material. Consequently, the risk of fissile
material falling into the hands of terrorist groups – or into the hands of states that sympathise with or harbour such groups – increased considerably. Lax security at
former Soviet nuclear facilities was widespread, making the theft of nuclear material possible. In the chaos that followed the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s,
radioactive material was frequently stolen from poorly guarded reactors and nuclear facilities in Russia and
its former satellite states. Police operations have intercepted shipments of Soviet nuclear material in cities as far away as Munich and Prague, and experts

believe that large batches are still unaccounted for and most likely accessible to well-connected traders on the

black market.9

Over 1800 metric tons of nuclear material is still stored in facilities belonging to more than 25 countries all around the
world.10 Not all of this material is located in military stockpiles – in fact, most countries maintain civil stockpiles of plutonium for use in nuclear power reactors.
The civil stockpiles in the United Kingdom (UK), India, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan and Russia add up to over 230 metric tons of plutonium. In spite of these
enormous quantities, the UK, India, France, Japan and Russia have not yet reduced the reprocessing of plutonium for civil use. Although civil plutonium is not
weapons-grade, it remains viable as a raw material that can be transformed through an enrichment process for use in a bomb. The United States (US) on the other
hand has a comparatively small amount of civil plutonium because of its 1970 policy to suspend the separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.11

About 25 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) is required to build a bomb – an insignificant amount in comparison to the global stockpile, which is in excess of 1.6
million kg. On the other hand, about 8 kg of plutonium is needed to build a bomb – a tiny fraction of the 500,000 kg global stockpile.12 Nuclear facilities that are
relics of the Cold War era, especially those located in Eastern Europe, represent a high security risk. More than 130 nuclear reactors powered by HEU are
operational in over 40 countries – the fallout of an early Cold-War-era programme in which the US and the Soviet Union helped their allies to obtain nuclear
technology. Several other reactors have been shut down but may still contain nuclear fuel on site. In total, the world’s
research reactors contain 22 tons of HEU – enough to build hundreds of nuclear bombs. The problem is that research reactor

fuel tends to be stored under notoriously light security, making it a very vulnerable target for
terrorists.13

Extended spheres of influence in the middle east cause great power war
Kennan 19 [Kennan Institute and Institute for Policy and Strategy. “Russia in the Middle East: National
Security Challenges for the United States and Israel in the Biden Era”
https://wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/uploads/documents/Russia%20Challenge%20in
%20the%20Middle%20East%20FINAL.pdf]

The United States is no longer the undisputed hegemon in the Middle East. A diminution of the
American role has invited regional power projection by Russia, Iran, and Turkey and long-term
economic statecraft moves by China. The United States aims to preserve such core interests as regional
stability, counterterrorism, nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, energy security, and Israel’s security.
China, Russia, and the United States bring dissimilar capabilities and goals to their respective policies in
the Middle East, a region that is undergoing a profound transformation. • Russia is once again a military
and diplomatic actor in the Middle East. Since well before 2015, when it intervened in the Syrian civil
war, Russia has been seeking additional outlets for its military and economic influence in the Middle
East. Russia is now a prominent factor in Syria and Libya, a partner of Iran, a partner with ambitions in
Egypt, and an interlocutor with the Gulf states (especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia),
Israel, the Afghan government, the Taliban, and the Palestinians, among many other political entities.
Russia is a factor in Yemen, and it has an expanding set of interests in North Africa. Russia plays multiple
sides against each other within countries experiencing internal conflict, using these conflicts as a wedge
to deepen its regional influence. The Middle East offers Russia many such opportunities for controlled
strife. Yet Moscow is far from being able to establish a regional order of its own design.

U.S.-Israeli cooperation in the Middle East is enduring. So far, Russia has not fundamentally challenged
U.S. and Israeli cooperation in the region, although the widening scope of Russia’s activities certainly
affects the interests of Israel and the United States. The presence of Russia, with China playing a
background role, does much to complicate the situation in the Middle East. With a change of
administration in Washington and with heightened U.S.-Russian tensions on the global level and
conflict as a distinct possibility, Russia’s role in the Middle East could turn into a strategic challenge and
urgent concern to both Israel and the United States in sensitive arenas such as Syria and Iran and in the
cyber and technological domains.
 Case
No Iran or Russia war and no great power draw in
Trofimov 1/5/19 [Yaroslav Trofimov is an award-winning author and journalist who serves as Chief
Foreign-Affairs Correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. Previously he wrote a weekly column on the
Greater Middle East, Middle East Crossroads, in The Wall Street Journal. Iran Lacks Allies in Confronting
the U.S. January 5, 2019. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-lacks-allies-in-confronting-the-u-s-
11578253765]

Instead of leaving, President Trump now is sending thousands more American troops to the Middle East to confront Iran. As for Russia and
China, they have shown little desire to get embroiled in an increasingly unpredictable conflict.

This means that despite

the feverish talk of Gen. Soleimani’s death sparking a World War III, Iran nowadays
can only count on itself—and on the network of irregular Shiite militias and proxies that the Quds Force commander had nurtured in
Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond.

“Iran is one of the most strategically lonely countries in the world. It considers dozens of countries around the world
its adversary, and its only reliable friend has been the Assad regime in Syria,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

As for Russia, Mr. Sadjadpour added, “it benefits from an isolated, anti-American Iran that can’t exploit its energy
resources.”

While observers say Beijing and Moscow would be happy to watch the U.S. get bogged down even deeper in the Middle East—a
diversion that would give them a freer hand in their own neighborhoods—they have no appetite for exposing themselves to
the risks of a possible confrontation.

“Russia doesn’t have the slightest intention of getting involved in this squabble, and is trying to distance
itself from it as far as possible—even though it will keep expressing support for Iran with very loud
declarations,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow think
tank that advises Russia’s defense establishment.

“Short-term at least, this is all beneficial to Russia: oil prices are up, and the Iranians—a very difficult partner—are being
forced to become much more cooperative,” he added.
Iran’s strategic isolation perhaps explains a tone of caution that has accompanied its denunciations of Gen. Soleimani’s death. Iranian Armed
Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi on Saturday promised a revenge that will be “tough”—but “not hasty,” an indication that
Tehran may seek to avoid an immediate escalation that could risk sparking an all-out war with the U.S.

“Iran is talking about a response, a revenge, and not about initiating a war,” said Abas Aslani, senior fellow at the Center for
Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran.

Should such a direct conflict erupt, he added, “I don’t think Iran expects Russia and China to start a war with the
U.S. on its behalf. The help they may offer to Iran is different: political support, support in some international institutions. Whether that can
also be applicable to providing Iran with some equipment, that is the question.”

Iran certainly craves military hardware to replace its obsolete warplanes, ships and tanks—but neither Russia nor China can legally supply such
equipment until October at the earliest, the date when United Nations sanctions on most military sales to Tehran are set to expire.

Russia did deliver an S-300 air-defense system to Iran in 2016, but even that happened after six years of delays that ended only as a result of
Moscow’s alienation from the West following its invasion of Ukraine.
In their official reactions, both Moscow and Beijing condemned the strike against Gen. Soleimani—but stopped short of
pledging to do anything about it.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a phone call Friday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the killing “grossly violates the
norms of international law” and urged Washington to “solve all problems at the negotiating table,” according to a Russian foreign ministry
statement.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, a day later told his Iranian counterpart that Beijing condemns “the military adventurist act by the U.S.” and
that China will continue to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and security in the Gulf region.”

Though China has promised to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure, so far U.S. economic sanctions on Iran
have hobbled such plans.

Russia and Iran have teamed up in Syria—with Russian warplanes using Iranian airspace and even briefly operating out of an air base in Iran—
but as the Syrian regime stabilized and Moscow found a new accommodation with Turkey in recent months, Moscow’s and Tehran’s interests
there have begun to diverge.

Both Moscow and Beijing maintain friendly ties with Iran’s archenemies in the region: Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Russia’s and Iran’s mutual history is rife with hostility. Russians remember the murder of Russia’s ambassador and playwright Alexander
Griboedov when the Russian embassy in Tehran was sacked in 1829, and the Islamic Republic’s support for anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan in
the 1980s.

Looming in Iran’s national memory are lands that Russia annexed from the Persian Empire over the centuries, and the Soviet military invasions
and occupations of Iran in 1920 and 1941.

“Nobody in Russia really cares about Iran, the society doesn’t see Iran as a partner, and certainly not as a
friend worth dying for,” said Alexander Gabuev, chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Both Russia and China, he added, are secretly delighted by the rise of tensions between the U.S. and Iran, hoping that a conflict in the Middle
East would give them a few years of respite by distracting American attention away from their own core areas of interests in Eastern Europe
and Asia, respectively.

Even though China is now the biggest buyer of Middle Eastern oil, experts in the country’s security and foreign-policy establishment have long
argued that Beijing should resist the temptation of getting involved in the volatile region—in part because oil has continued to flow despite the
political shocks of recent decades.

“The Middle East presents a falling significance in the grand strategy of China,” Niu Xinchun, director of the
Institute of Middle East Studies at CICIR, a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, wrote in a 2017 policy paper. “As a matter
of fact, since 2011, many Middle Eastern countries have descended into civil war at the same time, which failed to exert material impacts on
China’s economy.”

China’s participation in the December naval exercises with Iran is “more symbolic than substantial,” added Zhu
Feng, director of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University. “ I don’t think China has any interest in getting
involved in the escalation of tensions there.”

Iran war won’t escalate

Picchi 1/6/20 [Aimee Picchi, CBS News, summarizing a report from the Eurasia Group. Top global risk in
2020? It's American politics, experts say. January 6, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-top-risk-
in-2020-its-u-s-politics-geopolitical-analysts-say/]

As investors assess the threat of increasingly hostile

relations between the U.S. and Iran, Eurasia Group says the conflict
isn't the biggest threat facing global economic and political stability this year. Instead, the top risk in 2020 is likely to be
America's politics.

"It's the first time in history of our firm that a domestic political risk is No. 1," said Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk consultancy, in a
conference call to discuss the geopolitical advisory firm's annual risk-assessment forecast. The firm started in 1998, he noted.
At the heart of the issue is the November presidential election, with Bremmer predicting that many Americans will view the results as
illegitimate no matter the outcome. The Senate is likely to acquit President Donald Trump in his forthcoming impeachment trial, heightening
political tensions in an already polarized nation, he added. In a close election this fall, the losing side will claim the results were "rigged," leading
to instability and legal challenges, Bremmer said.

"Meaningful [France-style] social discontent becomes more likely in that environment, as does domestic, politically inspired violence," Eurasia
Group wrote in an analysis issued on Monday.

In addition, legislation could stall because of what the firm called a "non-functioning Congress," adding to mounting problems if the economy
slows down, according to the Eurasia report.

China headwinds

The second biggest risk for 2020 is one that has been in the headlines throughout the past year, according to Eurasia: The decision by China to
reduce its technological dependence on the U.S. following Mr. Trump's trade war with the country.

"Caught off-guard by U.S. actions, President Xi Jinping has called for a new 'Long March' to break China's technological dependence on the
U.S.," the report noted. "At the same time, China will expand efforts to reshape international technology, trade and financial architecture to
better promote its interests in an increasingly bifurcated world."

That represents a shift away from decades of globalization, Bremmer said. He added that "very soon" the world's largest economy may no
longer be America's capitalist system, but China's hybrid of state control and capitalism.

Iran: Not at the top of the list

The threat of deteriorating U.S.-Iran relations ranks at No. 8, Eurasia Group said. That's partly because Bremmer said his
group doesn't believe a full-scale military response will evolve from the U.S. killing of General Qassem
Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds military force and one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic.

"Iran is a committed adversary of the United States but also has

a clear understanding of U.S. military power … as well
as (now) a better sense of Trump's red lines and deterrence capacity," the report noted.

The impacts of imperiliams haven’t happened yet. War hasn’t happened, even
with military presence in the middle east.

United States foreign policy stewardship in West Asia is critical, and

increased diplomatic investment is key.
Khan 22 [Khan, Sahar. “A Middle East Policy That Works beyond Election Day.” Inkstick,
Inkstick Media, 29 July 2022, https://inkstickmedia.com/a-middle-east-policy-that-works-beyond-
election-day/.]
As responsible stewards of US foreign policy and national security that has been unbalanced by
polarized US domestic politics, Biden administration officials need to continue working to reset
leadership and engagement in the Middle East well beyond gas pump politics. The next
possible president who inherits the regional file may be far less likely to emphasize human
rights in foreign policy but will be faced with the same security, economic, and development
challenges that run through the region. Neither a Democratic nor a Republican administration will be able to do so —
in the Middle East or any other region — if US credibility is consistently in question.

This is not a call for expending finite national security resources for every problem in the region,
but to think strategically and empathetically about the core anxieties of the region’s peoples.
The United States must remain interested in recommitting to the people of the region where US
credibility and power have fallen victim to far more than diplomatic formalities and campaign
rhetoric.

Middle eastern actors rely on the United States to deescalate conflict.

Wittes 22 [Wittes, Tamara Cofman. “What to Do – and What Not to Do – in the Middle East.”
Brookings, Brookings, 9 Mar. 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-to-do-and-what-
not-to-do-in-the-middle-east/. ]
The United States must rebuild what has historically been its most effective tool in the Middle
East: diplomacy, especially in advancing conflict resolution. In Yemen and Libya, there might
now be opportunities to pull competing regional powers out of the fighting and negotiate power-
sharing governments that promote stability and reduce freedom of action for Islamist terrorist
movements. Washington cannot let Israelis and Palestinians stew in their stalemated conflict —
but rather than trying to reconvene talks, it should take a long-term approach to rebuilding
foundations for compromise between the two societies while insisting that they both abjure
destabilizing unilateral actions, and work to improve freedom, security, and prosperity for those
living with the conflict every day.
Finally, the Biden administration must reestablish clear boundaries in relationships that were deeply unbalanced by President
Donald Trump’s careless approach. Israel,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all have
questions about the extent and durability of American security commitments to their
neighborhood, and all three prefer to keep the U.S. closely engaged. Washington can pursue
necessary de-escalation and nuclear diplomacy with Iran while engaging these key partners
about where American interests begin and end, and where partners’ own preferences and
behaviors present real obstacles to closer cooperation. As in all healthy relationships, honest
communication and clear boundaries are essential to maintain mutual respect and good feeling.