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Theory Policy and Contact Info

Hi! We're Holden and Luke! We believe theory is a really good thing, and most times it's crucial to set norms and stop abuse in rounds. However, we think that telling a team what norm to follow before the round (i.e. disclosing, paraphrasing, etc) is a lot better than running theory during the round after the damage has been done for 3 reasons: A) Asking us to fulfill an interpretation before the round prevents it from being violated in the first place, which overall provides a fairer round from the beginning B) It prevents frivolous shells with really obscure interpretations from being ran C) It allows discussion on the actual substance to take place rather than progressive argumentation, which is a lot more educational Thus, If you have a norm that you think is good/bad in debate, tell us BEFORE THE ROUND. If you fail to do this, any theory ran in round would be considered abusive, and we would auto meet any interpretation you propose. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or any norms you want to tell us before the round, please contact us! Holden (He/Him): (916) 317-2232 (Preferred method of contact) [email protected] Also follow my Instagram @sacholden Luke (He/Him): (916) 693-9425 [email protected]

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We disclose to anyone that asks. Email me at [email protected]

TOC DISCLOSURE

hi! Anyone that wants to read our cases can message Praveen or I on Facebook, or send us an email and we can send them to you! (you do not need to be our opponents :)) praveen's email: [email protected] neha's email: [email protected] good luck competing! neha and praveen

1 - Interps

Interpretation: Debaters must not read paraphrased evidence when it is first introduced Interpretation: Debaters must disclose the full text of all previously read constructive positions (cases, off-cases) on their NDCA wiki page at least 15 minutes before round. Interpretation: Debaters must not read paraphrased evidence when it is first introduced AND must disclose the full text of all previously read constructive positions (cases, off-cases) on their NDCA wiki page at least 15 minutes before round.

Power Vacuum

====Military presence good==== Nissenbaum et al. 20 ~~Dion Nissenbaum (BA in Peace Studies from Berkeley) Benoit Faucon (OPEN and oil industry specialist) Felicia Schwartz (BA in History, Geography from Dartmouth) "U.S. Looks to Maintain Pressure on Iran as Tensions Cool" Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2020 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-looks-to-maintain-pressure-on-iran-as-tensions-cool-11579516201) // CZ With open hostilities between Iran and the U.S. subsiding for now, AND hopes on these efforts of the Qatari diplomacy," a Qatari diplomat said. ====Withdrawal causes vacuum ==== Cohen 19 ~~Ariel Cohen (PHD) "After al-Baghdadi: Strategic vacuum threatens the US and allies in the Middle East" The Hill, November 01, 2019 (https://thehill.com/opinion/international/468458-after-al-baghdadi-strategic-vacuum-threatens-the-us-and-allies-in-the) // CZ Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead following a U.S AND America's rivals, from Sunni and Shia extremist groups to Iran and Russia. ====Power vacuum bad==== Cropsey and Roughead '19 Cropsey, Seth (senior fellow and director of the Center for American Seapower at Hudson Institute) and Roughead, Gary (former United States Navy officer who served as the 29th Chief of Naval Operations). "A U.S. Withdrawal Will Cause a Power Struggle in the Middle East." Foreign Policy, 17 December 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/17/us-withdrawal-power-struggle-middle-east-china-russia-iran. // CZ Since functionally unifying the North American continent and establishing its hegemony in Latin America in AND the current balance of power, with severe consequences for Europe and Asia. ====Cause conflict==== Cropsey and Roughead '19 Cropsey, Seth (senior fellow and director of the Center for American Seapower at Hudson Institute) and Roughead, Gary (former United States Navy officer who served as the 29th Chief of Naval Operations). "A U.S. Withdrawal Will Cause a Power Struggle in the Middle East." Foreign Policy, 17 December 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/17/us-withdrawal-power-struggle-middle-east-china-russia-iran. // CZ The unique mix of political forces in the Middle East suggests three possibilities in the AND would copper-fasten the United States' loss of great-power status.

1 - TOC Notice

Hello, we read arguments relating to sex trafficking. There are brief mentions describing the specifics of the industry, but no graphic descriptions. If you object to this please let us know and we will read other arguments in the round.

Middle East Aff

==Contention 1 is the Middle East== ===Subpoint A is Terrorism=== ====US cyber offense has been vital to eliminating ISIS with more effective ground operations, allied cooperation and disrupting finance – it’s directly solving mass attacks==== Temple-Raston ’19 ~~Dina Temple-Raston is a special correspondent for NPR who holds a Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Manhattanville College, "How The U.S. Hacked ISIS," 9-26-19, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/763545811/how-the-u-s-hacked-isis~~ In August 2015, the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, the AND I could get into my Instagram account and today I can't is confusing." ====Terrorism outweighs any other impact- it’s the single largest threat to world peace==== Harsanyi ’19 ~~David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, "Islamic Terrorism Remains the World's Greatest Threat to Peace," 4-26-19, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/04/26/islamic'terrorism'remains'the'worlds'greatest'threat'to'peace'140165.html~~ Well, the coordinated bomb blasts aimed at Christian worshippers on Easter Sunday, which AND the Cold War. The Sri Lankan massacre is just another harrowing reminder. ===Subpoint b is Iran and Israel=== ====The Nuclear Deal that prevented Iran from nuclear proliferating has been pulled out of. Farkas observes in 2019 that ==== (Evelyn N. Farkas, 6-20-2019, "What’s the best way to deal with Iran? The nuclear agreement Trump ditched," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/whats-the-best-way-to-deal-with-iran-the-nuclear-agreement-trump-d itched/2019/06/20/9483c1b6-9378-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803'story.html) In exchange for relief from sanctions imposed by the United States AND "beautiful" (if not comprehensive) "new" (all of his own making, of course) Iran deal. ====Absent the agreement, Iran could have the materials to nuclearize in just a few months says a former UN atomic Watchdog that ==== (Toi Staff, 6-5-2019, "Iran could enrich enough uranium for nuke in 6-8 months, says former IAEA deputy," The Times of Israel, https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-could-make-nuclear-weapon-in-6-8-months-says-former-iaea-deputy/) A former deputy head of the UN’s atomic watchdog said Wednesday AND Tehran’s recent decision to step up uranium enrichment. ====Fortunately, the US’s use of OCO’s stopped this and continue to stop this in 2 ways ==== ====1st is by stopping the program in its early phase==== ====US OCO’s take out many of the centrifuges that are vital for Iran’s proliferation. Zetter finds that ==== (Ken Zetter, 11-3-2014, "An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon," Wired, https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/) Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus AND The changes mapped precisely, however, to what Stuxnet was designed to do. ====In fact, the US has increased cyber-attacks on Iran after we left the deal. Ward finds in 2019 that ==== (Alex Ward, 6-24-19, "The Weekend in the Risky US-Iran Standoff, explained," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2019/6/24/18715408/usa-iran-sanctions-cyber-pompeo-coalition) In the past four days, the United States launched a cyberattack on Iran, AND But Trump isn’t standing idly by in the meantime — he’s putting even more pressure on Iran. ====2nd is trading off with ineffective conventional warfare==== ====Ward continues that ==== In the past four days, the United States launched a cyberattack on Iran, AND the meantime — he’s putting even more pressure on Iran. ====Straub furthers in 2019 that ==== (Straub, Jeremy. "A Cyberattack Could Wreak Destruction Comparable to a Nuclear Weapon." Public Radio International, 16 Aug. 2019, https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-16/cyberattack-could-wreak-destructioncomparable-nuclear-weapon.) The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities AND From a military perspective, this was a huge success." ====The impact is preventing an Israel-Iran war ==== ====Israel has vowed to attack Iran should they proliferate. Horschig finds in 2019 that==== (Doreen Horschig, 6-23-19, "If Iran tensions flare, Israel may strike while the world quietly watches," The Conversation, https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/if-iran-tensions-flare-israel-may-strike-while-the-world- quietly-watches-119062300146'1.html) "Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons," AND Israel may strike Iran while the world quietly watches. ====Terminally, Dallas finds in 2013 that==== (Cham Dallas, 5-10-2013, "Nuclear war between Israel and Iran: lethality beyond the pale," Conflict and Health, https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-1505-7-10) No real appreciation of the magnitude of this disaster for Iran AND immediately after a multiple nuclear weapon attack on Tehran.

Nova - Overcapacity OR EU Econ and Leverage

cites on KP wiki

UK Round 3 - Neocol and framing

====We negate==== ====Contention 1 is Framing==== The standard is rejecting neo-colonial institutions. Prefer because ====1.Neo-colonialism is the quiet oppressor, percolating through every societal institution simultaneously indoctrinating us into thinking it is the norm – Jackson 09==== Jackson, Marissa "Neo-Colonialism, Same Old Racism: A Critical Analysis of the United States' Shift toward Colorblindness as a Tool for the Protection of the American Colonial Empire and White Supremacy" UC Berkeley. 01/2009 https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1096andcontext=bjalp //CCD The current world order ~~is~~ seems to be almost entirely a product of AND and the "midwife that assisted at the birth of European capitalism." 29 ====2. Neo-colonialism builds dependency and strips sovereignty through intervention, creating a new form of colonization in the 21^^st^^ century – Jackson 09==== Jackson, Marissa "Neo-Colonialism, Same Old Racism: A Critical Analysis of the United States' Shift toward Colorblindness as a Tool for the Protection of the American Colonial Empire and White Supremacy" UC Berkeley. 01/2009 https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1096andcontext=bjalp //CCD Loomba also contends that the colonialism's "geographical sweep, and... heterogeneous practices and AND neo-colonial model, capitalism, and democracy-to the colonized. ====3.We have an obligation to have the conversation: Africa has always been overlooked and misrepresented in mainstream media- Harvey 12 ==== Nick Harvey, 9-1-2012, "Why do some conflicts get more media coverage than others?," New Internationalist, https://newint.org/features/2012/09/01/media-war-coverage//CCD Since the end of the Cold War 12 of the world's 15 deadliest conflicts have AND inhospitable jungles and deserts, however, is just not sensational enough.4 ==== Contention 2 is exploitation==== ====China has historically operated as a regional colonial power – exploiting internal racial and ethnic divisions to cement control over developing countries and entrench economic and geopolitical influence – Shih 12==== Shih 12 (Shu-mei, Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, Asian Languages and Cultures, and Asian American Studies @ UCLA, "The Sinophone as history and the Sinophone as theory." Journal of Chinese Cinemas Volume 6 Number 1 © 2012 Intellect Ltd Foreword. English language. doi: 10.1386/jcc.6.1.5_7) //KF In 'The concept of the Sinophone' (2011), I elaborated further on the AND nor of conflict with the powers that be' (Marx 1978: 13). ====Affirming promotes Chinese neo-colonialism by preventing collapse of the BRI==== ====China has continued its history of colonial exploitation in the modern day through expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative. It has routinely targeted developing countries for resource exploitation, forcing predatory loans and extracting economic value while hollowing out domestic industries – Klevin 19==== Klevin, Anthony, 5/6/2019, The Interpreter, "Belt and Road: colonialism with Chinese characteristics," https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/belt-and-road-colonialism-chinese-characteristics (Anthony Kleven currently lives in Singapore, where he runs an independent economic risk consultancy and advises foreign firms on the investment landscape there.) //KF But Europe and the US are far from the only ones to worry about the AND neo-colonialism" are rising – not surprising given Beijing's scramble for Africa ====2 Specific Links:==== ====First is exploitation==== ====BRI projects have increased rampant worker exploitation while China drains economic resources for their own gain – Klevin 2==== Anthony, 5/6/2019, The Interpreter, "Belt and Road: colonialism with Chinese characteristics," https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/belt-and-road-colonialism-chinese-characteristics (Anthony Kleven currently lives in Singapore, where he runs an independent economic risk consultancy and advises foreign firms on the investment landscape there.) For example, China has laid its eyes on Guinea's bauxite reserves, one of AND better choice, colonialism is back – but this time with Chinese characteristics. ====Second is Debt traps==== ====China lures poor countries in and traps them and forces concessions – Mantesso 18 ==== Sean Mantesso, ABC News , "Are China's cheap loans to poor nations a development boost or a debt trap?", November 15, 2018 , https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/are-china-cheap-loans-to-poor-nations-a-debt-trap/10493286 //CCD China is in the midst of a rapid push to gain economic and political ascendancy AND as a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks China's loans come without conditions. ====That leads to devastating cuts in social spending that kills – Reuss 15==== Alejandro Reuss, 15 (Alejandro Reuss - "Debt and Development", No Publication, http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2015/1215reuss.html )//CCD bEconomists James K. Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana estimated, in their recent book Africa's AND meanwhile, was substantially lower than it had been since the late 1960s.

Contact Info

Hello! We're two debaters from a small, low-income, public school in North Charlotte. On this wiki, we'll disclose contentions, tags, cites, and the first and last few words of every card we cite for tournaments with TOC bids and NSDA Qualifiers at the end of each day. We'll also disclose open source at the end of each topic. If we're missing something, please let us know. The point of the wiki is to spread the best arguments on the topic and encourage better engagement in the round. To that end, feel free to copy whatever evidence you find here or prep out these arguments. We encourage you to disclose as well! Questions or just want to talk about debate? Email [email protected] for a (probably) timely response, and please don't contact my partner.

Blake Neg - Invasion and Transition

====We Negate and Our first contention is ending entrenchment==== ====For years, Venezuela has felt the abusive and corrupt power of Maduro. However, sanctions act as a glimpse of hope to create effective change ==== ====They effectively pressure Maduro ==== Kimberly Ann **Elliott**, FEBRUARY 5, **2019**, Center for Global Development, Why US Oil Sanctions on Venezuela Could Be Too Little, Too Late https://www.cgdev.org/blog/why-us-oil-sanctions-venezuela-could-be-too-little-too-late kegs There is now a glimmer of hope that the beginning of the end of this AND Venezuela's assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela." ====This has prevented corruption and pushed Maduro towards a transition==== Moises** Rendon** 9-3-**2019**, Director, The Future of Venezuela Initiative and Fellow, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, "Are Sanctions Working in Venezuela?," https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-sanctions-working-venezuela kegs The United States and its allies must use sanctions deliberately as a tool to shut AND sanctions can isolate Maduro to the point where resigning is a welcome alternative. ====Stopping his abuse of power is key to forcing him out==== Moises** Rendon** 9-3-**2019**, Director, The Future of Venezuela Initiative and Fellow, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, "Are Sanctions Working in Venezuela?," https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-sanctions-working-venezuela kegs There is significant evidence of the impact of sanctions on Maduro's power. Not only AND limited than ever in their capacity to travel and engage with financial assets. ====The fact that negotiations are under way right now in Venezuela proves that sanctions work - they are reforming elections and resolving humanitarian problems.==== **Dönmez '19 Dönmez, Beyza Binnur. "Venezuela: Gov't, opposition agree on major deals." AA, 19 November 2019, **https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/venezuela-govt-opposition-agree-on-major-deals/1649610**. ** Delegations of Venezuelan government and opposition agreed on three points that focus on economic and AND in precipitous decline following a global downturn in the price of crude oil. ====The impact is ending a crisis==== John E. **Herbst and** Jason **Marczak**, September **2019**, Atlantic Council, "Russia's intervention in Venezuela: What's at stake?," https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/russias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/ kegs Meanwhile, day-to-day life in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. Food AND in 2020, surpassing total Syrian migration numbers by more than 3 million. ====Maduro's policies are the root cause of economic failure, not sanctions.==== **Rapoza '19 Rapoza, Kenneth (Senior Contributor at Forbes). "No, U.S. Sanctions Are Not Killing Venezuela. Maduro Is." Forbes, 3 May 2019, **https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-sanctions-are-not-killingimp-venezuela-maduro-is/~~#54b90cfa4343**. ** But Venezuela is not the Middle East. U.S. policies are not AND (as in loans) to one company only, oil firm PdVSA. ====Our second contention is preventing invasion==== ====All other avenues for ousting Maduro have been exhausted==== Shannon **O'Neil**, CFR, February 15, **2018**, "A Venezuelan Refugee Crisis Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 33," https://www.cfr.org/report/venezuelan-refugee-crisis (Vice President, Deputy Director of Studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies) kegs In response to the authoritarian moves of the Maduro government, the political opposition has AND not thousands of deaths and potentially forcing opposition members and sympathizers to flee. ====Which is why Trump is poised to take military action against Venezuela—it would be disastrous.==== **Ward '19 Ward, Alex (Staff Writer at Vox on International Security and Defense). "The Trump administration's **Venezuela policy is failing." Vox, 3 May 2019, https://www.vox.com/world/2019/5/3/18528083/venezuela-guaido-maduro-trump-bolton-fail. ~~Premier~~ Trump's National Security Council convened a meeting of mid-level officials on Venezuela Thursday AND itself, or we back down and risk our credibility on foreign policy." ====Sanction-driven diplomacy is the last effort before conflict —war hawks are pushing for it and Guaido approves.==== **Bandow '19 Bandow, Doug (Writes About Every PF Topic). "America Shouldn't Invade Venezuela." Cato Institute, 29 February 2019, **https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/america-shouldnt-invade-venezuela**. ~~Premier~~** Washington hopes that Maduro's backers will end his reign, but their survival is tied AND though consequences are routinely ill. War should be a genuine last resort. ====There are 2 impacts==== ====The first is worsening the crisis==== **Ward '19 Ward, Alex (Staff Writer at Vox on International Security and Defense). "The Trump administration's **Venezuela policy is failing." Vox, 3 May 2019, https://www.vox.com/world/2019/5/3/18528083/venezuela-guaido-maduro-trump-bolton-fail. ~~Premier~~ A military option for Venezuela would be catastrophic, two former top US military chiefs AND Hecimovich, a Venezuela expert at the US Naval Academy, told me. ====The second is US-Russia war==== **Dunne 19**—Commentary writer at the Washington Examiner. She is a 2017 Yenching Scholar at Peking University pursuing a Master of History in China Studies. She is also Frédéric Bastiat Fellow at the Mercatus Center ~~Erin, 1/30/2019, "Cold War-like tensions escalate as world powers take sides in Venezuela", Washington Examiner, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cold-war-like-tensions-escalate-as-world-powers-take-sides-in-venezuela~~ AMarb Russia also took advantage of its ties to Caracas to push back on what it AND . It's surely a fight to watch with broad implications for future conflicts. ====History proves it has the potential to go nuclear==== **Ellis 14 **(Dr. R. Evan, PhD in Poli Sci, Prof @ the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, "Strategic Insights: The Strategic Relevance of Latin America for the United States," DOA: 1-29-15, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/The-Strategic-Relevance-of-Latin-America/2014/12/08, ava) From October 12-14, 2014, the city of Arequipa, Peru, AND effective and sustained U.S. prosecution of a military campaign abroad.

Blake Round 1 - State Collapse

====Our sole contention is avoiding state collapse==== ====Sanctions have accelerated economic collapse and hurt everyday Venezuelans ==== Michal **Penfold**, September **2017**, Wilson Center Latin America Program, "Could Economic Sanctions Against Venezuela Backfire?" https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/could-economic-sanctions-against-venezuela-backfire kegs These are just two extreme examples among the countless others that exist that demonstrate how AND hurting ordinary Venezuelans vastly more than the corrupt officials responsible for these policies. ====And they have prevented economic reform==== Dan **Beeton**, March 25, **2019**, "Venezuela's Oil Production Plummets in February Due to New US Sanctions Sales to US Also Disappear for the First Time," http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/venezuela-s-oil-production-plummets-in-february-due-to-new-us-sanctions kegs While the Venezuelan economy was already in bad shape before US sanctions began, due AND rid of hyperinflation and allow for an economic recovery from a long depression. ====and ==== Mark **Weisbrot and** Jeffrey **Sachs**, April **2019**, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs The classic definition of hyperinflation in the economic literature is 50 percent per month, AND to have the ability to avoid this kind of an economic crisis.62 ====They continue that==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, April 2019, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs Again, we can never know what the counterfactual would have been. But what AND of essential imports, and also the accelerated decline of income per person. ====But instead sanctions put the economy in freefall==== Mark **Weisbrot and** Jeffrey **Sachs conclude that**, April 2019, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs If we look at the combined impact of all of these actions, we find AND ) are expected to be even more severe than what happened last year. ====The impact is a failed state==== ====Sanctions have already caused a mass refugee exodus==== **Washington Office on Latin America**, WOLA STATEMENT, 29 JAN **2019**, https://www.wola.org/2019/01/u-s-oil-sanctions-risk-deepening-human-suffering-venezuela-weaken-mobilization-democracy/ kegs However, we are deeply concerned at the potential for the recently announced U. AND put many of the over 3 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees at risk. ====Millions are suffering from a food crisis which is driving mass migration==== John E. **Herbst and** Jason **Marczak**, September **2019**, Atlantic Council, "Russia's intervention in Venezuela: What's at stake?," https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/russias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/ kegs Meanwhile, day-to-day life in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. Food AND in 2020, surpassing total Syrian migration numbers by more than 3 million. ====Independently==== Michal **Penfold**, September **2017**, Wilson Center Latin America Program, "Could Economic Sanctions Against Venezuela Backfire?" https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/could-economic-sanctions-against-venezuela-backfire kegs In addition to fueling anti-U.S. feelings in Venezuela, broad AND to pose a serious political as well as electoral threat to the regime. ====They have failed every objective and only pushed the country to the brink==== Francisco **Rodríguez**, July 10, **2019**, NYT, "Trump Doesn't Have Time for Starving Venezuelans," Mr. Rodríguez is a former head of Venezuela's Congressional Budget Office. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/venezuela-sanctions.html kegs tk The sanctions were designed to choke off revenues to the regime of Nicolás Maduro. AND foreign purchases risk producing the first Latin American famine in over a century. ====If they do not end Venezuela will become a failed state==== Michael E. **O'Hanlon** **and** Juan Carlos **Pinzón** Tuesday, September 10, **2019**, Brookings, "Get ready for the Venezuela refugee crisis," https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/10/get-ready-for-the-venezuela-refugee-crisis/ kegs With its economy in free fall, after having already contracted by half this decade AND stay alive as food supplies dwindle and public health conditions deteriorate even further.

TOC Aff - Regional Diplomacy

====We affirm and our sole contention regards regional cooperation==== ====Subpoint A is creating diplomacy==== ====First, is through the GCC==== ====Withdrawal forces new regional security frameworks==== **Ulrichsen 20** (Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, PhD, Fellow for the Middle East for the Baker Institute, "REBALANCING REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE PERSIAN GULF," February 2020, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/de9f09e6/cme-pub-persiangulf-022420.pdf) As yet, however, there has been no credible alternative collective security arrangement to AND S. as the region's sole security guarantor" continue to rise.68 ====Gulf countries taking control of their security leads to new crisis management mechanisms ==== **Duclos and Kortunov 20** (Michel Duclos – special advisor to Institut Montaigne, former Ambassador of France to Syria, and Andrey Kortunov – Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, "A Crisis Management Mechanism in the Middle East Is Needed More Than Ever," 2-10-20, https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/crisis-management-mechanism-middle-east-needed-more-ever) In contrast, it is clear that there is more than ever a need for AND are not realistic for the time being) would be much more appropriate. ====Second, is with Asian partners==== ====Asian countries are hesitant to get involved, but withdrawal forces stronger military commitments ==== **Janardhan 19** (Narayanappa Janardhan – senior research fellow at the Gulf-Asia Program at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy, "Asian-led Collective Security Architecture for the Gulf," Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 13(2):211-225, DOI: 10.1080/25765949.2019.1605568) 9. Conclusion The crux of a new Gulf-Asia diplomacy rests on promoting AND thereby holding the possibility of contributing to peace and stability in the region. ====Now is key – unique opportunities for diplomacy could shift the Saudi-Iran rivalry away from a warpath==== **Janardhan 20** (Narayanappa Janardhan – senior research fellow at the Gulf-Asia Program at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy, "Belt and Road Initiative: China's Diplomatic- Security Tool in the Gulf?," Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, DOI: 10.1080/25765949.2020.1728968 9. Conclusion The Middle AND inconclusive. A new arrangement could evolve to simultaneously compete aggressively in some areas ====The impact is ending proxy wars==== ====Regional Diplomacy is key to end the Yemen war, which is the worst humanitarian disaster==== **Alley 19** (April Longley Alley – deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, "How to End the War in Yemen," 10-15-19, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/15/yemen-houthis-saudi-arabia-end-war/) With all of U.S. President Donald Trump's troubles at home and abroad AND that they did not object and encourage the Houthis to de-escalate. ====Not just in Yemem, but throughout the region the best evidence proves that in order to resolve proxy conflicts regional security frameworks are needed without the US involved==== Ahram et al. '19, (Ariel I. Ahram is associate professor at Virginia Tech and co-director of the Proxy Wars Project, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Erin K. Jenne is Professor of International Relations at the Central European University. She is the author of Nested Security: Lessons in Conflict Management from the League of Nations and the European Union and Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment, both from Cornell. Previously, Milos worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University, and a Research Consultant for Columbia University in New York on a Minerva project exploring major power rivalry.), 10/22/19, https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/10/how-the-united-states-can-escape-the-middle-easts-proxy-wars/ dpet Complex proxy wars such as Syria's defy common approaches for resolving civil wars. The AND towards the Middle East, regional actors are already beginning to do so. ====Saudi-Iran diplomacy is key to end proxy wars throughout the region, present and future – each save millions of lives==== The Passionate Eye '18 (IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA FIGHT FOR CONTROL IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN PROXY WARS, 09/30/18, https://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/features/iran-and-saudi-arabia-fight-for-control-in-the-middle-east-in-proxy-wars dpet American attempts to bring about peace have failed says Martin. "It's hard to AND may take decades to resolve and could get worse before it gets better. ====Subpoint B is the US and Iran==== ====Military presence has created an escalating spiral of aggression that threatens miscalculation and war.==== **Maleki and Reardon** 10-4-**2014** Abbas, PhD in Strategic Management, assistant professor of political science at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, director of the International Institute for Caspian Studies, senior associate of the Belfer Center's International Security Program, former Wilhelm Fellow in International Studies at MIT and deputy foreign minister of Iran from 1988-1997, and Robert, PhD in Political Science from MIT, Research Fellow with the International Security Program and the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's Belfer Center, "Improving U.S.-Iranian Relations and Overcoming Perceptual Biases," in U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: A Dialogue, pp. 158-161) The views Americans and Iranians have of each other as innately and implacably hostile revisionist AND or accidental military encounter could easily trigger a much wider conflagration. ====Right now is key – the Soleimani strike puts us on the brink==== **Shannon 20** (Kelly J. Shannon is an associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University, "War with Iran is not inevitable — but the U.S. must change course," 1-8-20, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/08/war-with-iran-is-not-inevitable-but-us-must-change-course/) Yet the 2015 Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration offered an opening that AND of ever returning to a time of U.S.-Iran goodwill. ====Those frameworks are key to US negotiations with Iran – they overcome the failures of the Iran Deal==== **Ulrichsen 20** (Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, PhD, Fellow for the Middle East for the Baker Institute, "REBALANCING REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE PERSIAN GULF," February 2020, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/de9f09e6/cme-pub-persiangulf-022420.pdf) Any search for an alternative security architecturein the Gulf is complicated by several factors. AND P5+1 negotiations they had been excluded from were nearing their climax. ====A new security framework encourages Gulf states to provide an off-ramp that solves escalating tensions, including sanctions==== **Ibish 19** (Hussein, Senior Resident Scholar at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, "Gulf Arab States Don't Want a U.S.-Iranian War, and Could Help Avoid One," 7-21-19, https://agsiw.org/gulf-arab-states-dont-want-a-u-s-iranian-war-and-could-help-avoid-one/) The game of chicken in the Gulf is now fully engaged. What is needed AND achieve their shared goals without a devastating conflict that everybody wishes to avoid. ====Even conventional war would be disastrous==== Chossudovksy '18 (Prof Michel Chossudovsky Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations, 5-26-2018, "When War Games Go Live? "Simulating World War III"," Global Research, https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-war-games-go-live-preparing-to-attack-iran-simulating-world-war-iii/28542 The complacency of Western public opinion (including segments of the US anti-war AND contribute to unleashing a Chernobyl-Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout.

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OCO Negative v1 - Cyber Norms Contention

==Contention 1: OCO Politics== ====There are no international cyber norms now as David Fidler writes in 2018==== David P. Fidler, 3-15-2018, "The UN Secretary-General's Call for Regulating Cyberwar Raises More Questions Than Answers." Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-secretary-generals-call-regulating-cyberwar-raises-more-questions-answers. Date Accessed 10-29-2018 // WS Third, If Guterres meant that cyberwar involves activities not amounting to armed conflict, AND the UN and elsewhere for many years, often with controversy overshadowing consensus. ====US OCOs destroy our ability to create cyber norms due to our capability creating a power imbalance that makes us unwilling to cooperate with less powered nations. Kostyuk indicates in 2014:==== Nadiya Kostyuk, 3-16-2014, "The Digital Prisoner's Dilemma: Challenges and Opportunities for Cooperation", EastWest Institute, http://cybersummit.info/sites/cybersummit.info/files/The20Digital20Prisoner's20Dilemma-Challenges20and20Opportunities20for20Cooperation_Nadiya20Kostyuk20.pdf, Date Accessed 10-28-2019 // JM Despite being the best option, cooperation is very unlikely between powerful and less- AND the tech race will likely be too costly countries with limited financial resources. ====The implication is that cyber norms won't get established without cooperation as Franklin Kramer writes that==== Franklin Kramer and Melanie Teplinsky, December 2013, "Cybersecurity and Tailored Deterrence", Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Cybersecurity_and_Tailored_Deterrence.pdf, Date Accessed 10-28-2019 // JM Cyber standards also have a potentially important role to play in the proposed hybrid model AND limited capabilities, encryption of key data streams, and authentication with cryptography.

Universal Basic Income Affirmative v1 - Innovation Contention

==Contention Two is Driving Innovation== ====Innovation is on the decline within the US as Wim Naude writes in 2019 that==== Wim Naudé, 10-8-2019, "The surprising decline of entrepreneurship and innovation in the West," Conversation, https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-decline-of-entrepreneurship-and-innovation-in-the-west-124552, Date Accessed 2-3-2020 // WS The idea that we are living in an entrepreneurial age, experiencing rapid disruptive technological AND economy is more ossified, more controlled, and growing at lower rates. ====Thankfully a Universal Basic income would increase innovation in three ways. First is by giving a cash cushion. Scott Santens writes in 2016 that==== Scott Santens, 11-30-2016, "Universal Basic Income will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure," Medium, https://medium.com/basic-income/universal-basic-income-will-accelerate-innovation-by-reducing-our-fear-of-failure-b81ee65a254, Date Accessed 2-3-2020 // WS Universal Basic Income Will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure For decades now AND do the unpaid work that is essentially the foundation of the internet itself. ====This is why Siri Hedreen writes in 2019 that a ==== Siri Hedreen, 8-27-2019, "How UBI Could Fuel or Stifle Innovation," https://www.business.com/articles/universal-basic-income-innovation/, Date Accessed 2-2-2020 // WS Proponents of UBI, meanwhile, see it as a way to tap into the AND the demand side by creating more consumers with disposable incomes to sell to. ====Second is driving demand. Hedreen writes in 2019 that a ==== Siri Hedreen, 8-27-2019, "How UBI Could Fuel or Stifle Innovation," https://www.business.com/articles/universal-basic-income-innovation/, Date Accessed 2-2-2020 // WS Proponents of UBI, meanwhile, see it as a way to tap into the AND the demand side by creating more consumers with disposable incomes to sell to. ====Third is by giving an upfront capital boost Hedreen continues that==== Siri Hedreen, 8-27-2019, "How UBI Could Fuel or Stifle Innovation," https://www.business.com/articles/universal-basic-income-innovation/, Date Accessed 2-2-2020 // WS Proponents of UBI, meanwhile, see it as a way to tap into the AND the demand side by creating more consumers with disposable incomes to sell to. ====This increase in innovation is empirically proven as Santens continues that==== Scott Santens, 11-30-2016, "Universal Basic Income will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure," Medium, https://medium.com/basic-income/universal-basic-income-will-accelerate-innovation-by-reducing-our-fear-of-failure-b81ee65a254, Date Accessed 2-3-2020 // WS Universal Basic Income Will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure For decades now AND do the unpaid work that is essentially the foundation of the internet itself. ====There are three impacts. First is growth as Andea Sullivan explains in 2019==== Andrea O'Sullivan, 3-4-2019, "Technological Innovation and Economic Growth," Mercatus Center, https://www.mercatus.org/publications/entrepreneurship/technological-innovation-and-economic-growth, Date Accessed 6-10-2019 // WS Most economists agree that technological innovation is a key driver of economic growth and human AND new and better goods and services that improve their overall standard of living. ====The impact is massive as the US Chamber Foundation finds ==== US Chamber Foundation https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/enterprisingstates/assets/files/Executive-Summary-OL.pdf , Exectutive Summary, Date accessed 6-13-19 /WS Innovation drives economic growth. This is one of the most consistent findings in macroeconomics AND U.S. annual GDP growth is attributed to increases in innovation. ====Second is new job creation job creation as Michael Mazerov writes in 2016 that==== Michael Mazerov , 2-5-16, "Startups Fuel Job Growth, Animated," https://www.cbpp.org/blog/startups-fuel-job-growth-animated, Date Accessed 6-10-2019 // WS Startups and young, fast-growing companies create most new jobs during economic expansions AND zero" employment level to which to compare its first-year level. ====This is critical because of automation killing American jobs as the Associated Press writes in 2019 that==== Associated Press, 1-24-2019, "Over 30 million U.S. workers will lose their jobs because of AI," MarketWatch, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ai-is-set-to-replace-36-million-us-workers-2019-01-24, Date Accessed 1-31-2020 // WS Over 30 million U.S. workers will lose their jobs because of AI AND typically eager to implement cost-cutting technology as they lay off workers. ====Without these jobs it will be impossible to fund welfare programs as Staubhaar writes in 2017 that due to automation==== Thomas Straubhaar, 2017, "On the Economics of a Universal Basic Income," No Publication, https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2017/number/2/article/on-the-economics-of-a-universal-basic-income.html, Date Accessed 2-14-2020 // WS Nowadays, one of the strongest tailwinds for a UBI comes from rapid technological change AND owners and the labour force – especially the lower-skilled workers.10 ====The third impact is developing the world. Innovation spilling from the US into developing countries is critical in their developing process as Yayboke writes in 2017 that==== Erol Yayboke, 9-5-2017, "Innovation-led Economic Growth", CSIS, https://www.csis.org/analysis/innovation-led-economic-growth, Date Accessed 2-14-2020 // SDV The United States can (and should) position itself as the partner of choice AND brain power from around the world focused on solving our shared global challenges. ====Scott Anderson quantifies in 2019 that==== Scott Anderson, 3-14-2019, "A. Scott Anderson: Innovation can lift nations out of poverty," Deseret News, https://www.deseret.com/2019/3/14/20668284/a-scott-anderson-innovation-can-lift-nations-out-of-poverty, Date Accessed 2-14-2020 // WS He notes that while poverty has been reduced across the world, especially in China AND nonprofit leaders and business executives seeking to improve the lives of people everywhere.

Venezuela Affirmative v1 - Economy Contention

==Contention One is the Economy== ====While Venezuela's economy has been struggling for years, US sanctions have been the nail in the coffin for two reasons. First is by cutting off oil exports. ==== ====DW explains this year that the recent total sanctions on all Venezuelan exports will be ==== DW, 1-10-2019, "The human cost of the US sanctions on Venezuela," DW, https://www.dw.com/en/the-human-cost-of-the-us-sanctions-on-venezuela/a-50647399, Date Accessed 12-2-2019 // WS The US has a total embargo on Venezuela. The EU has imposed new sanctions AND trade by threatening sanctions on foreign companies for doing business with the country. ====Specifically Clifford Krauss quantifies this year that==== Anatoly Kurmanaev and Clifford Krauss, 2-8-2019, "U.S. Sanctions Are Aimed at Venezuela's Oil. Its Citizens May Suffer First.," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/world/americas/venezuela-sanctions-maduro.html, Date Accessed 12-3-2019 // WS Venezuelan oil exports to the United States, which provide the biggest source of cash AND say the sanctions are tighter than what many first thought a week ago. ====While sanctions are designed to hurt the rich and powerful, they only result in more political polarization cementing Venezuela into a state of chaos. Matt Buenig writes in September that==== Matt Bruenig, 9-22-2019, "What the US Sanctions Against Venezuela Have Wrought," https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/09/venezuela-sanctions-embargo-caracas-trump-maduro-guaido, Date Accessed 12-2-2019 // WS Sanctions carry with them many social and political implications, apart from the effects they AND US government while at the same time positioning themselves against the Maduro government. ====This is why BBC News explains that==== BBC News, 8-9-2019, "US sanctions may worsen Venezuela suffering," https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49287899, Date Accessed 12-2-2019 // WS The UN's human rights chief has criticised the latest US sanctions against Venezuela saying they AND They are aimed at piling pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to step down. ====Second preventing an economic recovery and locking their economy in a downward spiral. Mark Weisbot writes in 2019 that==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, 1-28-2019, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," No Publication, http://cepr.net/publications/reports/economic-sanctions-as-collective-punishment-the-case-of-venezuela, Date Accessed 12-4-2019 // WS As noted previously, the Venezuelan economy was already in a deep recession for three AND of essential imports, and also the accelerated decline of income per person. ====Jim Wyss continues that==== Jim Wyss, 3-11-2019, "As U.S. sanctions against Venezuela mount, what's the human toll?," miamiherald, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article227416389.html, Date Accessed 12-4-2019 // WS If the measures pass, they're unlikely to cause direct hardship for regular citizens. AND oil sales from going to Maduro's coffers — effectively costing the country billions. ====The impact is massive as Pia Riggirozzi writes this year that out of the 30 million Venezuelans==== Pia Riggirozzi, 2-14-2019, "Venezuela is putting democracy and its legitimacy to test," Conversation, https://theconversation.com/venezuela-is-putting-democracy-and-its-legitimacy-to-test-111466, Date Accessed 11-9-2019 // JM A state that failed the people The halving of the oil price in 2014 sharply AND development, and reconstruct a sense of citizenship and belonging for its people. ====This crisis has begun to spill over into the rest of the region as Nicole Acevedo writes two weeks ago that==== Nicole Acevedo, 12-11-2019, "Venezuela will be world's worst refugee crisis in 2020 — and most underfunded in modern history," NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/venezuela-will-be-world-s-worst-refugee-crisis-2020-most-n1099631, Date Accessed 12-18-2019 // WS The Venezuelan refugee crisis is the most underfunded in modern AND three largest being Colombia, Ecuador and Peru — has really been lagging.

Venezuela Negative v2 - Hezbollah Contention

==Contention 2 is Hezbollah== ====The terrorist organization Hezbollah is growing in Latin America and rooted in Venezuelan funding. Sean Savage writes in 2019 that==== Sean Savage, 6-7-2019, "Are Iran and Hezbollah turning Venezuela into the next Syria?," israelhayom, https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/06/07/are-iran-and-hezbollah-turning-venezuela-into-the-next-syria/, Date Accessed 1-7-2020 // WS Indeed, Maduro and Chávez have had a long history of ties with Iran and AND whose remarkable gains are now held at risk by potential spillover from Venezuela." ====US sanctions are key to cut off Hezbollah funding as Vanessa Neumann writes in 2019 that==== Vanessa Neumann, 8 May 2019, "How Hezbollah evades sanctions in Venezuela and partakes in Maduro's drug trade." AlArabiya, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2019/05/08/How-Hezbollah-evades-sanctions-in-Venezuela-and-partakes-in-Maduro-s-drug-trade.html. Date Accessed 1-7-2020 //WS While Russian interference is likely to be bought off in a repayment deal with a AND only in the western hemisphere, but in the Middle East as well. ====The impact is major and Hezbollah's threat is only growing as the Counter Extremism Project writes that in the Middle east along Hezbollah has==== Counter extremism project (Counter extremism project, "Hezbollah" https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/hezbollah, Date Accessed 1-7-2020 //WS Iran has supported of Hezbollah since its establishment in the 1980s. Hezbollah modeled its AND unmanned aerial vehicles.* Iran continues to be a primary sponsor of Hezbollah. ====This threat expands to the entire world as Robert Singer writes in 2018 that==== Robert Singer, 10 May 2018, "With roots in Latin America, Hezbollah is the real terror threat in our hemisphere." Miami Herald, https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article210889749.html, Date Accessed 1-7-2020 //WS As the world focuses on the potential nuclear menace looming from Iran, a different AND make sure that the Western Hemisphere does not become the next terrorist battleground.

3 - April - DA - ISIS

ISIS is suffering~-~- Wilson Center 19: (The Islamists, November 15, 2019, “After the Caliphate: U.S. Strategy on ISIS.” Wilson Center, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/after-the-caliphate-us-strategy-isis) ABJ On November 14, 2019,...since Baghdadi's death. US involvement was key to this~-~- Ottoway 17: (Mariana Ottaway, Former Senior Research Associate and Head of the Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2017, The War on ISIS: U.S. Success without a Payoff, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/116_war_on_isis_-_ottaway.pdf) The United States...the Islamic State The battle is not over—UNSC 20: (United Nations Security Council, January 20, 2020, “Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities.” UNSC, https://undocs.org/S/2020/53) ABJ Islamic State in... at $100 million. US PRESENCE IS KEY~-~- Mansoor 20: (Peter Mansoor, retired Army colonel, January 7, 2020, “Why U.S. Troops Should Stay Even Though Iraq's Parliament Voted Them Out.” NPR, https://www.npr.org/2020/01/07/794163542/why-u-s-troops-should-stay-even-though-iraqs-parliament-voted-them-out) ABJ MANSOOR: Well, there ... relationship with Iraq. Affirming allows ISIS to resurge. Pollock 20: David Pollock, Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on regional political dynamics and related issues, January 9, 2020, “Eight Reasons Why the United States and Iraq Still Need Each Other.” Washington Institute, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/eight-reasons-why-the-united-states-and-iraq-still-need-each-other) ABJ A continued U.S. ... and better tactics.” The US must physically be there~-~- Saab 20: (Bilal Y. Saab, senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, January 9th, 2020, “For Now, U.S. Troops Are Likely in Iraq to Stay.” Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/09/for-now-u-s-troops-are-likely-in-iraq-to-stay/) ABJ Certainly, the United... States sells it. This applies to the whole region~-~- DeYoung 20 (Karen DeYoung, Associate editor and senior national security correspondent, January 10, 2020, “Trump administration refuses to heed Iraq’s call for troop withdrawal.” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraq-asks-united-states-to-set-up-mechanism-for-troop-withdrawal/2020/01/10/794058ea-32f8-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html) ABJ Although the troops... on Iraqi soil. Kheel 20 puts it simply (Rebecca Kheel, staff writer for the Hill, February 4, 2020, “Pentagon watchdog: US withdrawal from Iraq would 'likely' mean ISIS resurgence.” The Hill, https://thehill.com/policy/defense/481451-pentagon-watchdog-us-withdrawal-from-iraq-would-likely-mean-isis-resurgence) ABJ A U.S. military ... the report said. A resurgence would be deadly, NBC 16 (Alastair Jamieson, a journalist based in London, England. He is an editor and reporter at NBC News, January 19th, 2016, “ISIS Death Toll: 18,800 Killed in Iraq in 2 Years, U.N. Says.” NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-death-toll-18-800-killed-iraq-2-years-u-n499426) LONDON — At least... be considerably higher.”

Terrorism

====ISIS destroy==== (The Islamists, November 15, 2019, "After the Caliphate: U.S. Strategy on ISIS." Wilson Center, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/after-the-caliphate-us-strategy-isis) ABJ On November 14, 2019, representatives from 31 members of the Global Coalition to AND S. and coalition officials on the fight against ISIS since Baghdadi's death. ====US key==== (Mariana Ottaway, Former Senior Research Associate and Head of the Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2017, The War on ISIS: U.S. Success without a Payoff, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/116_war_on_isis_-_ottaway.pdf) The United States has played a central role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq AND umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces, and unleashed them on the Islamic State ====Stop ISIS==== (Peter Mansoor, retired Army colonel, January 7, 2020, "Why U.S. Troops Should Stay Even Though Iraq's Parliament Voted Them Out." NPR, https://www.npr.org/2020/01/07/794163542/why-u-s-troops-should-stay-even-though-iraqs-parliament-voted-them-out) ABJ MANSOOR: Well, there is a vital interest in containing the war against ISIS AND . And it's vital for the United States have a relationship with Iraq. ====Withdrawal bad==== David Pollock, Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on regional political dynamics and related issues, January 9, 2020, "Eight Reasons Why the United States and Iraq Still Need Each Other." Washington Institute, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/eight-reasons-why-the-united-states-and-iraq-still-need-each-other) ABJ A continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, modest as it may AND is now reorganized underground in Iraq with "better techniques and better tactics." ====US has to stay==== (Bilal Y. Saab, senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, January 9th, 2020, "For Now, U.S. Troops Are Likely in Iraq to Stay." Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/09/for-now-u-s-troops-are-likely-in-iraq-to-stay/) ABJ Certainly, the United States won't be able to help the Iraqis build a strong AND the U.S. decision to launch unilateral airstrikes on Iraqi soil. ====No US is bad==== (Rebecca Kheel, staff writer for the Hill, February 4, 2020, "Pentagon watchdog: US withdrawal from Iraq would 'likely' mean ISIS resurgence." The Hill, https://thehill.com/policy/defense/481451-pentagon-watchdog-us-withdrawal-from-iraq-would-likely-mean-isis-resurgence) ABJ A U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq would "likely" lead to AND not resulted in any immediate degradation to ISIS' capabilities," the report said. ====ISIS rise bad==== (Alastair Jamieson, a journalist based in London, England. He is an editor and reporter at NBC News, January 19th, 2016, "ISIS Death Toll: 18,800 Killed in Iraq in 2 Years, U.N. Says." NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-death-toll-18-800-killed-iraq-2-years-u-n499426) LONDON — At least 18,802 civilians have been killed in Iraq in ISIS AND Raad al-Hussein said the civilian death toll may be considerably higher."

Interps

Interpretation: Debaters must disclose full text of the case on the NDCA wiki or via email; full disclosure. All debaters must fully disclose at least 15 minutes before the round Interpretation: debaters must use direct quotes when introducing evidence for the first time

Barkley Forum - State Collapse

On North Broward KP wiki

Cypress new Aff - Space War

====China is preparing for a cyber Spacewar- regardless of U.S. intention==== Bill Gertz, 7-30-'13 (lectured on defense, national security, and media issues at the Defense Department's National Security Leadership Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the FBI National Academy, the National Defense University, and the CIA , media fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon he was a national security reporter, editor, and columnist for 27 years at the Washington Times. Bill is the author of six books, four of which were national bestsellers. ,"China's Military Preparing for 'People's War' in Cyberspace, Space" , The Washington Free Bacon, http://freebeacon.com/china-military-preparing-for-peoples-war-in-cyberspace-space/) Translated report reveals high-tech plans for cyber attacks, anti-satellite strikes AND weaken, disrupt, and destroy the enemy's cyber actions or cyber installations." ====We have passed the point of no return- China has no incentive to halt Cyber attacks==== **Chang 13** (Gordon G. Chang, 6-6-13, JD Cornell law and Author of many books about China, "Cyber Détente with China", World Affairs) The ultimate goal is to arrive at understandings with the Chinese. As a " AND Army reportedly ramped up its cyber attacks sometime around the beginning of April. ====There are three ways OCO's prevent these attacks==== ====First is preemption —we can prevent foreign attacks while new tech prevents miscalc==== **Austin 2012**(Greg, professorial fellow at the East West Institute, senior visiting fellow at King's College, October 15, "America's Challenging Cyber Defense Policy", http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/10/15/americas-challenging-cyber-defense-policy/) United States Pre-emptive and Deterrent Capability? Panetta talked of some amazing and AND "underscored the need to increase communication and transparency" on both sides. ====Goldsmith furthers==== Jack Goldsmith, Law professor at Harvard wrote in 2012 that ~~Jack, Henry L. Shattuck Professor @ Harvard Law School, where he teaches and writes about national security law, presidential power, cybersecurity, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and conflict of laws, served as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel from 2003–2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of Defense from 2002–2003, member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law, 10/15, "The Significance of Panetta's Cyber Speech and the Persistent Difficulty of Deterring Cyberattacks," Lawfare, http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/the-significance-of-panettas-cyber-speech-and-the-persistent-difficulty-of-deterring-cyberattacks/~~ Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's speech last week on cyber is more significant than has AND reportedly inflicted "modest damage," do not by themselves belie this claim.) ====Second is deterrence – only OCO's can solve==== Jari Rantapelkonen and Mirva Salminen, '13 ("THE FOG OF CYBER DEFENCE", National Defence University Department of Leadership and Military Pedagogy Publication Series 2 Article Collection n:o 10) Even if we would like to think so, success in the cyber domain is AND to the country's overall ability to protect herself – one needs them all. ====OCO's provide credibility for deterrence==== Jarno Limnéll October 9 2012 "Offensive Cyber Capabilities Need to be Built and Exposed Because of Deterrence", http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/22534-Offensive-Cyber-Capabilities-Need-to-be-Built-and-Exposed-Because-of-Deterrence.html Within the next couple of years the world will experience more intentionally executed and demonstrated AND important than having the actual capability is the perception of having that capability. ====Third is threat demonstration==== Martin C. **Libicki, 2013**- "Brandishing Cyberattack Capabilities". RAND. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR100/RR175/RAND_RR175.pdf Any state that would discourage other states from aggression in the physical or cyber world AND its own complicates figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it. ====This is specifically true for deterring China in space==== Steve **Lambakis**, PhD, Catholic University, Editor, Cmoparatvie Strategy, and Director of Space Studies, NIPP, A GUIDE FOR THINKING ABOUT SPACE DETERRENCE AND CHINA, National Institute for Public Policy, 20**19**, p. 55. When China acts to coerce or deter, its actions may be misperceived by the AND on hand the means to cripple or destroy those high-value assets. ====Our First Impact is disruption:==== ====Satellites are key to powering the grid and banking ==== **Siciliano 18** (John, "NASA: Space Force needed to protect energy grid from 'existential threat.'" August 26, 2018. Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/nasa-space-force-needed-to-protect-energy-grid-from-existential-threat) President Trump's "Space Force" proposal would help prevent the U.S. AND have called it the 'American Achilles heel,'" noted Bridenstine. ====This disruption is comparable to a nuclear war==== **Lamrani 16** Omar Lamrani (studied international relations at Clark University and holds a master's degree from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, where his thesis centered on Chinese military doctrine and the balance of power in the Western Pacific. Mr. Lamrani previously worked as an intern with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, where he was assigned to the Afghanistan desk). "Avoiding a War in Space." Stratfor. May 17^^th^^, 2016. https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/avoiding-war-space The High Cost of a War in Space Increased competition in space is reviving fears AND whole might be enough to dissuade Washington from launching its own space attack. ====Our Second Impact is the SUN==== ====Anti-Satellite operations would cause space debris proliferation ==== **Union of Concerned Scientist 07** ("Debris in Brief: Space Debris from Anti-Satellite Weapons." The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. December, 2007. https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-security/space-debris-anti-satellite-weapons~~#.XBEf1S1oTRY What's in Space Since the beginning of the space age there have been some AND , this debris is concentrated in the most densely populated part of space. ====It blots out the Sun – extinction==== **Scheetz 6** ~~Lori, J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, "Infusing Environmental Ethics into the Space Weapons Dialouge," Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Fall, 19 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 57~~ Despite the fact that the Outer Space Treaty, the centerpiece of the treaty regime AND near the Earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes." n90

NDF Boston Negative Case - BRI

==Evidence: == ====BRI lending is in the tank==== Marshall Meyer, 04/30/19, "China's Belt and Road Initiative: Why the Price Is Too High," (Penn's Wharton School with interest in management in china, measurement of organizational performance, organizational change, organizational design) https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-why-the-price-is-too-high/dpet The earliest warning signals of how badly planned BRI projects could backfire came from the AND its national borders and beyond its traditional peripheral tributary states," said Meyer. ====BRI will fail without EU funding ==== BRI fails without Chinese and French support. Recent meetings show they may be on board Xiang Lanxin, 01/04/19, (Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; Director of Center of One Belt, One Road and Eurasian Security, China National Institute for SCO Studies, Shanghai) "Is Europe Ready to Become a Part of the Belt and Road Initiative?," Valdia Discussion Club http://valdaiclub.com/about/experts/5054/ dpet Ironically, the heavy battleship sent by the Italian government for this mission of colonial AND ideological 'common values' argument to consolidate its relationship with the United States. ====Sole contention is ending disasters==== ====Subpoint A is debt disasters==== ====BRI leads to high levels of debt==== Gillian Tett, 05/02/19, https://www.ft.com/content/c976cde2-6cd0-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d dpet But one of the most striking topics she addressed did not concern the IMF — AND the loans are issued by competing Chinese agencies and state-owned enterprises. ====EU recession coming ==== Larry Elliot, 10/30/18, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/30/eurozone-growth-slumps-to-lowest-level-in-over-four-years Economic growth in the eurozone has slumped to levels last seen more than four years AND walk here from Brussels", and insisted he would not dismantle his plans. ====High debt makes recessions worsee==== Teresa Ghilarducci, 18, (), "Why We Should Control The Federal Debt Before The Next Recession", Forbes, 9-23-2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2018/09/23/why-we-should-control-the- federal-debt-before-the-next-recession/~~#18e8e24cd33b, DOA-12-21-2018 dpet Although rolling back last year's tax cuts would make economic sense, politics may prevent AND . When the next recession hits, we all will pay the price. ====High debt countries don't respond aggressively to downturns==== Shawn Tully, 18, (), "How Debt Could Blow Up the Trump Economy", Fortune, 3-15-2018, http://fortune.com/2018/03/15/us-national-debt-trump-tax-cuts/, DOA-12-28-2018 (MO) In the absence of decisive, quick action to tackle this slow-motion crisis AND will drive rates far higher, and make the budget picture even worse." ====Recession lasts 66 pcnt longer==== David Romer, UC Berkeley, "WHY SOME TIMES ARE DIFFERENT: MACROECONOMIC POLICY AND THE AFTERMATH OF FINANCIAL CRISES", October 2017, https://eml.berkeley.edu/~~dromer/papers/RomerandRomerCrisesandPolicyRevised.pdf To give a sense of magnitudes, Figure 13 shows the response of financial distress AND , but some distress remains even after five years when there is not. ====100 people into poverty every minute==== Oxfam, 2009, "100 people every minute pushed into poverty by economic crisis ,""https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-not-so-great-wall-debt-28-trillion-counting-18537 dpet The G20 should take urgent action to protect poor countries from economic crisis that is AND food prices and floods, droughts and food shortages linked to climate change. ====Heart of BRI is debt-trap diplomacy==== National Review, 07/03/18, "China's Debt-Trap Diplomacy," https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/china-belt-and-road-initiative-debt-trap-diplomacy/ dpet Participating countries — Pakistan, Laos, Thailand, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kenya — AND political upheaval in Southeast Asia is connected to China's increased visibility and influence. ====China is trapping countries in a debt bomb==== Dent, Harry. "China's Grand Belt and Road Initiative: Another Overbuilding Debt Bomb." 6/12/19 Economy and Markets Harvard Economist https://economyandmarkets.com/economy/chinas-grand-belt-and-road-initiative-another-overbuilding-debt-bomb/ //TK Never mind that China is the talk of the world, right now, what AND many countries already objecting to China's plans and resisting taking on more debt. ====23 BRI countries specifically at risk==== John Hurley, Scott Morris, and Gailyn Portelance. 2018. "Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective." CGD Policy Paper. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/publication/examining-debt-implications-belt-and-roadinitiative-policy-perspective 7/15/19 /TK Other major country creditors may be particularly sensitive to the prospect of BRI investments leading AND these countries we construct a BRI lending pipeline based on publicly available sources. ====Some reforms now==== Dasgupta '19~|China has taken notice of criticism and is actively modifying the BRI Dasgupta, Saibal. "Xi Signals Change in Belt and Road Initiative Amid Criticism." Voice of America, 26 Apr. 2019, www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/xi-signals-change-belt-and-road-initiative-amid-criticism. Accessed 13 July 2019. BEIJING — China has signaled it is modifying its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative ( AND at the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. ====But EU joining kills reform incentive==== Smith '19 - individual member states joining could weaken motivation to implement reforms. https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/xi-goes-to-rome-course-correction-for-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative/ Lastly, the MoU was controversial in an international context — so much so that AND , however, it could weaken the motivation to implement more meaningful reforms. ====Austerity kills recovery and causes poverty==== Gomez. Austerity in EU means ~^ poverty / recession John Gomez, 09/18/18, https://theconversation.com/ending-austerity-why-public-spending-is-key-to-building-a-stable-and-fair-economy-102145 The government's purse is like no other. Managed correctly, it can end austerity AND of the British public remains gripped by the dysfunctional fiscal goal of deficit reduction ====Subpoint B is going green==== ====Solar prices are declining now==== Matt Egan CNN – solar prices decline now https://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_efa5f8980a2284ce10979d0f3101a723 7/16/19 Coal was the longtime king of the power industry before it encountered fierce competition last AND adopting ambitious clean energy targets — and they're framing them as job creators. ====Developing countries are looking for renewable investment==== Cuff, Maddie. "Will power: Developing countries are driving the renewables transition, says BNEF." 11/18https://www.greenbiz.com/article/will-power-developing-countries-are-driving-renewables-transition-says-bnef //TK President Donald Trump may not have gotten the message that coal is the pariah at AND when it comes to deployment, investment, policy innovation and cost reductions." ====BRI will expand coal into developing countries instead==== Hilton '19 - developing nations locked out of renewable energy Isabel Hilton, 1/3/19, "How China's Big Overseas Initiative Threatens Global Climate Progress," Yale E360, Accessed July 13, 2019 // SH ,,Now, by building new coal plants along the Belt and Road, China is ,, ,,AND,, ,,century,,, it would make the emissions targets in the Paris Agreement impossible." ====Countries are locked in to 50 pcnt of all emissions ==== https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/04/25/the-critical-frontier-reducing-emissions-from-chinas-belt-and-road/ 7/16/19 //TK While every energy-saving bulb makes a difference, there are only a small AND in 2015, if all other countries succeeded in following a 2DS pathway. ====Every degree hurts crop yields==== Aton 19 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-crop-harvests-every-degree-of-warming-counts/ //TK Each degree of global warming will cut into harvests of the world's staple crops, AND corn harvests could decline 7.4 percent per degree Celsius of warming. ====Climate change threatens food for 50 million people==== Deepak Ray, 07/12/19, (Senior Scientest at the University of Minnesota), "Climate change is affecting crop yields and reducing global food supplies," https://www.greenbiz.com/article/climate-change-affecting-crop-yields-and-reducing-global-food-suppliesdpet While these impacts on crop yields are notable in themselves, we had to go AND annually and in Nepal they have fallen by 2.2 percent annually.

UK Round 5 - Disclosure

====Interp: teams should disclose arguments on the wiki or pre-round if they're not breaking new ==== ====Violation: they didn't==== ====Standards==== ====Small schools – disclosure creates proliferation of arguments which compensates for research disparities created by coaching staff. It also checks back costs of extra coaching, briefs, and scouting benefits enabled by larger entry pools==== ====Argument transparency – disclosure establishes what arguments are being run on the topic and allows more preparation, ensuring substantive debates rather than tricky anti-educational arguments. It also prevents evidence abuse and discourages unethical, mis-cut sources==== ====Critical thinking – disclosure causes more in-depth, nuanced debates which allow for unique 3^^rd^^ and 4^^th^^ line testing of arguments. It also causes more information processing and increases topic education==== ====Reciprocity – we disclosed so a prep imbalance was created in this round, giving them an unfair strategic edge==== ====Voters==== ====Education – they undermine the core benefits of debate, and actively promote a system that prevents the educational impacts established through the standards outlined above==== ====Fairness – they prevented argument clash and gained an advantageous imbalance from teams being disclosed on the wiki==== ====Theory is a prior question to the content of case arguments – if they had disclosed the content of the debate would have been different.==== ====If we win that disclosure is a good practice you should drop them to encourage the practice. ==== ====Default to competing interpretations. ====

Blue Key R1 - Trade-off and NATO

===Our First Contention is Tradeoff=== ====Cyber-attacks against the US have skyrocketed recently as ==== Garrett, Gregory. "Cyberattacks Skyrocketed in 2018: Are you ready 2019?" 12/13/18 Industry Week Magizine https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/cyberattacks-skyrocketed-2018-are-you-ready-2019?fbclid=IwAR13dGWlGQAGbVy0cZ0LheYhHFTUenOP9NAVsMtnxUajPatJkqVv1JMLeeM Accessed: 10/31/19 //TK Board directors continue to up their investment in cybersecurity. Seventy-three percent now AND i.e., personal identifiable information, intellectual property and trade secrets). ====Current preemptive OCO policy creates priority confusion and drains cyber-defense resources==== Healey '13 ~~Jason Healey is director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council finds. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/03/08/clandestine-american-strategy-on-cyberwarfare-will-backfire America's generals and spymasters have decided they can secure a better future in cyberspace through AND not only reduces resources dedicated for defense but overtakes other priorities as well. ====Focus on preemptive cyber-attack capability trades off with fixing critical cyber vulnerabilities==== Rid 2013 ~~Thomas Rid is a reader at the Department of War Studies, King's College London finds. 2013, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112314/obama-administrations-lousy-record-cyber-security~~#~~ But the rhetoric of war doesn't accurately describe much of what happened. There was AND , the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, has stalled indefinitely in the Senate. ====Defense solves cybercrime==== McGraw 13 Gary McGraw, PhD is Chief Technology Of?cer of Cigital, and author of Software Security (AWL 2006) along with ten other software security books. He also produces the monthly Silver Bullet Security Podcast for IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine (syndicated by SearchSecurity), Cyber War is Inevitable (Unless We Build Security In), Journal of Strategic Studies - Volume 36, Issue 1, 2013, pages 109-119, http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/01402390.2012.742013 The conceptual con?ation of cyber war, cyber espionage, and cyber crime into AND cyber crime, and deter cyber espionage all at the same time. ====The Impact is stopping IP theft ==== Caroline Jornier, 2008, (Caroline Joiner is executive director, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center.), "The Global Intellectual Property Center, US Chamber of Commerce INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT," http://industrytoday.com/article/intellectual-property-theft/ dpet Intellectual Property (IP) protection is among a handful of issues that will determine AND to lay off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. ===Our Second Contention is NATO=== ====Current legal ambiguity create a wedge issue for NATO cohesion==== David **Mussington**, **Center for International Governance Innovation**, 4/8/**2019**, "Strategic Stability, Cyber Operations and International Security," https://www.cigionline.org/articles/strategic-stability-cyber-operations-and-international-security (David Mussington is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), and professor of the practice and director, Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise, University of Maryland, College Park. In 2010, David was senior adviser for cyber policy in the US Department of Defense, later serving on the Obama administration's National Security Council staff as director for surface transportation security policy.) kegs Due to many of its members being on the receiving end of grey zone cyber AND , as of yet it has not determined a precise threshold (ibid.). ====This is proven by U.S. intrusion into German networks==== **Smeets**, Max. "NATO Members' Organizational Path Towards Conducting Offensive Cyber Operations: A Framework for Analysis." 2019 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon). Vol. 900. IEEE, **2019**. https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2019/06/Art_09_NATO-Members-Organizational-Path.pdf kegs In late 2016, U.S. Cyber Command operators wiped Islamic State propaganda AND on offensive cyber effects operations in systems or networks based in allied territory. ====The very nature of these operations undermine alliance structures and international stability==== David **Mussington**, Center for International Governance Innovation, 4/8/**2019**, "Strategic Stability, Cyber Operations and International Security," https://www.cigionline.org/articles/strategic-stability-cyber-operations-and-international-security (David Mussington is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), and professor of the practice and director, Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise, University of Maryland, College Park. In 2010, David was senior adviser for cyber policy in the US Department of Defense, later serving on the Obama administration's National Security Council staff as director for surface transportation security policy.) kegs Strategic stability at the global level relies on the concept of deterrence — preventing aggression AND can undermine the cohesiveness of alliances and, by extension, international stability. ====Disruption of NATO alone ensures escalation of crisis and war with Russia. ==== Mark N. **Katz** 7/2/**15**, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University, "Why Russia Shouldn't Fear NATO", The National Interest, nationalinterest.org/feature/why-russia-shouldnt-fear-nato-13243 President Putin and many other Russians have complained bitterly about the expansion of NATO into AND America, Europe, and Russia all embroiled in needless conflict and tension.

0 - Contact Info

2NC - Ian Yang - [email protected] 2AC - Sreyaash Das - [email protected]

NovDec19 - Deterrence

=1AC= ===Definitions=== ====We affirm the resolution==== ====Offensive capabilities are all those which can project power through force. Cyberattacks are one subset of many==== **Uren et al. '18 **Uren, Tom (Senior Analyst at the ASPI), Bart Hogeveen (Analyst at the ASPI) and Fergus Hanson (Director of the International Cyber Policy Centre of the ASPI). "Defining offensive cyber capabilities." Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 4 June 2018, https://www.aspi.org.au/report/defining-offensive-cyber-capabilities What are capabilities? In the context of cyber operations, having a capability means AND cyberspace attack'—actions that manipulate, degrade, disrupt or destroy targets. ===Contention 1 is Deterrence=== ====The US is ramping up cyberoperations to deter espionage and protect elections.==== **Vavra writes in 2019 **Vavra, Shannon (Reporter on the NSA, Cyber Command, and cyberwarfare for CyberScoop). "U.S. ramping up offensive cyber measures to stop economic attacks, Bolton says." CyberScoop, 11 June 2019, https://www.cyberscoop.com/john-bolton-offensive-cybersecurity-not-limited-election-security/. The U.S. is beginning use offensive cyber measures in response to commercial AND S. will continue to grow those relationships moving forward, he said. ====Offense is the best defense—in response to rising threats from China and Russia, the US needs to give the Cyber Command as many tools as possible, especially offensive cyberattacks.==== **DiPane and Marotta writes in 2019 **DiPane, James (Research Associate at the Center for National Defense) and Marotta, Alexandra (Summer 2019 member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation). "Our Adversaries Are Using Cyberwarfare. We Must Be Prepared." The Heritage Foundation, 29 July 2019, https://www.heritage.org/cybersecurity/commentary/our-adversaries-are-using-cyberwarfare-we-must-be-prepared. The recent incidents between U.S. and Iranian forces demonstrate the importance of AND U.S. Cyber Command so it can reach its full potential. ====Offensive cyber operations are an effective signaling tool, but action is key.==== **Palmer writes in 2018 **Palmer, Christopher (Commissioner on the Global Commission for the Stability of Cyberspace and formerly the top cyber diplomat at the US Department of State). "The White House Cyber Strategy: Words Must Be Backed by Action." Real Clear Defense, 25 September 2018, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/09/25/the_white_house_cyber_strategy_words_must_be_backed_by_action_113833.html. To some fanfare, the White House announced a national cyber strategy last week. AND separate category of policy or activity disjointed from other elements of national power'. ====The Cyber Command needs to take an aggressive stance—risks are inevitable and accepting them isn't equivalent to escalation.==== **Schoka writes in 2019 **Schoka, Andrew (Active Duty Army cyber operations officer assigned to U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade). "Cyber Command, the NSA, and Operating in Cyberspace: Time to End the Dual Hat." War on the Rocks, 3 April 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/cyber-command-the-nsa-and-operating-in-cyberspace-time-to-end-the-dual-hat/. When conducting offensive cyberspace operations, there are essentially two ways to acquire access to AND their missions and moving Cyber Command to a culture of greater risk acceptance. ====3 Scenarios prove that offensive cyber operations are key:==== ====Russian cyberattacks are the single biggest threat to US democracy—deterrence is key.==== **Decker '18 **Decker, Eileen (Former United States attorney for the Central District of California). "Russia proved it is the greatest threat to our democracy." The Hill, 16 July 2018, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/397213-russia-is-the-greatest-threat-to-our-democracy. Special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of a dozen Russians is a staggering account of how AND anyone from attacking the very foundations of our democracy and our free society. ====Chinese cyber attacks cost hundreds of billions—norms aren't sufficient to solve.==== **Segal '18 **Segal, Adam (Ira A. Lipman Chair in Emerging Technologies and National Security and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the CFR). "A New Old Threat." Council on Foreign Relations, 8 December 2018, https://www.cfr.org/report/threat-chinese-espionage. For years, Chinese hackers carried out a massive campaign of cyber-enabled theft AND agreement, because they could be motivated by national security, not competitiveness. ====US worm Stuxnet was able to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities, crippling the regime, which otherwise would've been able to obtain two nukes in the following year==== **Zetter 14** (Ken Zetter, 11-3-2014, "An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon," Wired, https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/) Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or AND changes mapped precisely, however, to what Stuxnet was designed to do. ====Trump called cyberattacks instead of conducting drone strikes, which would've prompted a much more aggressive response from Iran==== **Ward 19** (Alex Ward, 6-24-19, "The Weekend in the Risky US-Iran Standoff, explained," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2019/6/24/18715408/usa-iran-sanctions-cyber-pompeo-coalition) In the past four days, the United States launched a cyberattack on Iran, AND idly by in the meantime — he's putting even more pressure on Iran.

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NSD M4A ValladolidMartinez Neg

=C1 – Rural Collapse= Under the Medicare for All bills, millions of rural Americans are at risk from the current COVID '19 Pandemic This happens two ways firstly, ==Doctor Shortages== Pipes of the WSJ '20 finds that under the current Medicare drafts, government rates for healthcare would be 40 lower than that of Private Insurers. This is a problem as this would cut the salaries of U.S. physicians by nearly 50 and would make 44 thousand doctors to leave, retire, or change jobs by 2050 and leave students to consider even becoming one in the first place. This is a compounding problem as Pipes of Pacific Research '20 reports that the US is already facing a shortage of nearly 120,000 doctors by 2032 with already half of physicians wanting to change career paths and 17 wanting to retire. Already doctors aren't on board with Medicare as nearly 1/5^^th^^ already limit or deny care to Medicare applicants, with this number being worse for primary care doctors, 1/3, and practice owners, ½, as written by Heritage '19. Kliffsarah '19 finds that this has been seen historically as when converting over to a single payer health system in Canada there was rioting in by doctors and healthcare employees which almost completely collapsed the Canadian system. This doctor shortage is increasingly problematic in low income and rural areas as detailed by Siegler '19, 60 of the areas experiencing doctor shortages were rural and with doctors retiring this threats healthcare in these areas as doctors have about a 1 of taking up practice in 10k population areas and 2 for 20, citing expensive costs and cumbersome hours. Under the Medicare for all plan they would even be less motivated to set up shop, leaving many destitute and dying. Secondly is the issue of ==Hospitals Closure== Aberlson of the New York Times '19 writes that under Medicare for All a hospital would be payed on average half than they would under private insurance. Continuing that there would be a nearly 40 reduction in rates and would force rural centers to close overnight. O'Dowd '19 finds that this would cause even more rural hospitals to close because Medicare rates pay hospitals only 99 of allowable Medicare costs, a procedure that would cost the hospital $100 would only be given $99, making it unprofitable to make these deals, which is why again Heritage '19 finds that only 50 of practice owners allow Medicare patients. These have one big impact Siegler '20 finds that rural hospitals were already closing at an alarming rate but at the wake of COVID-19 nearly half of Rural Hospitals opened but were teetering on shutdown. Salman of USA Today '20 finds that over 800 hospitals in Rural America were already under high financial stress and must now serve nearly ten of thousands of COVID-19 victims, which could cascade sinking hundreds of hospitals under. Rural America is one of the most vulnerable areas in the US with the highest relative infection and death rates, as nearly 23 of the US's older Americans, who are more susceptible, live in these areas and 22, even more at risk, racial and ethnic minorities who have higher rates of chronic health conditions, as hospitals close their doors this would create a domino effect as untreated patients travel to another clinics and hospitals forcing them too to close. Medicare for All would strike at the worst possible time for these people as this would leave treatment centers without doctors, staff, and forced to operate at nearly half of previous income. Even without COVID-19 Smith '19 and Mccausland '15 conclude that for every doctor leaving per 10 thousand people there is a 5.3 increase in mortality rates and for every hospital closing there is 6 rise in morality in rural communities, which we would say these numbers would skyrocket under current situation. Leaving, as Parker '17 concludes, 46 million rural Americans at risk. =Cut Evidence = Reed Abelson, 4-21-2019, "Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under 'Medicare for All'," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/health/medicare-for-all-hospitals.html For a patient's knee replacement, Medicare will pay a hospital $17,000. The same hospital can get more than twice as much, or about $37,000, for the same surgery on a patient with private insurance. Or take another example: One hospital would get about $4,200 from Medicare for removing someone's gallbladder. The same hospital would get $7,400 from commercial insurers. The yawning gap between payments to hospitals by Medicare and by private health insurers for the same medical services may prove the biggest obstacle for advocates of "Medicare for all," a government-run system. If Medicare for all abolished private insurance and reduced rates to Medicare levels — at least 40 percent lower, by one estimate — there would most likely be significant changes throughout the health care industry, which makes up 18 percent of the nation's economy and is one of the nation's largest employers. Some hospitals, especially struggling rural centers, would close virtually overnight, according to policy experts. Others, they say, would try to offset the steep cuts by laying off hundreds of thousands of workers and abandoning lower-paying services like mental health. Peter O'Dowd, 8-16-2019, "Rural Hospitals Say 'Medicare For All' Would End Up 'Closing Our Doors'," No Publication, https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/08/16/rural-hospitals-medicare-for-all-health-care Adopting a single-payer government health care program that covers all Americans would force more rural hospitals to close, according to hospital administrators from Texas to Maine. Universal health care — also known as "Medicare for All" — is a long way from becoming law. But the issue is already dividing Democrats trying to unseat President Trump in the 2020 election. Some progressive front-runners like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders say they'd be willing to do away with private insurance in favor of a government plan. Moderates have balked at that idea — and at the price tag. Here's how former Rep. John Delaney put it during the Democratic debate in June: "If you go to every hospital in this country and you ask them one question, which is, 'How would it have been for you last year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate?' Every single hospital administrator said they would close." "Congressman Delaney is wrong — full stop," says Craig Garthwaite, a health care economist at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Garthwaite says it's more likely hospitals will be forced to scale back services, amenities and staff under a Medicare for All system. "We're going to get a different kind of hospital going forward and we'll have to decide if that's what we want," he says. "But it's hyperbole to say all hospitals will close." But that is the position of hospital executives at Central Maine Healthcare. About two-thirds of patients using the company's two critical-access rural hospitals are covered by either Medicaid or Medicare. The government pays the hospital 99 of allowable Medicare costs, says Peter Wright, who runs the company's Bridgton and Rumford hospitals. That means — hypothetically — if an X-ray costs $100, Medicare will reimburse the hospital $99. Kirk Siegler, 4-9-2020, "Small-Town Hospitals Are Closing Just As Coronavirus Arrives In Rural America," NPR.org, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/829753752/small-town-hospitals-are-closing-just-as-coronavirus-arrives-in-rural-america Small-town hospitals were already closing at an alarming rate before the COVID-19 pandemic. But now the trend appears to be accelerating just as the disease arrives in rural America. When Decatur County General Hospital shuts down indefinitely by April 15, it will be the ninth small-town hospital to close in 2020 alone. According to a report released this month by the Chartis Center for Rural Health, nearly half of rural hospitals were already operating in the red before the COVID-19 crisis. "That idea of a perfect storm — that gets overused, but that's actually what's happened," says Allan Jenkins, an economics professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Jenkins says small-town hospitals have struggled to stay open because of perennial challenges facing rural America, such as depopulation and demographics. "Because rural communities tend to be older and poorer and sicker and less likely to be insured, high-deductible insurance policies are very hard on rural hospitals," he says. One recent analysis estimated that treating just one uninsured COVID-19 patient who has to be hospitalized could cost at least $40,000. In a letter this week to congressional leaders, the National Rural Health Association lobbied for "immediate relief" for rural hospitals, warning that hundreds are on the verge of closure. Josh Salman and Jayme Fraser, 2020, "Coronavirus strains cash-strapped hospitals, could cause up to 100 to close within a year," USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/25/coronavirus-strains-cash-strapped-hospitals-could-cause-mass-closures/2996521001/ "We don't have any profit margin to speak of, so it will be a direct loss," said Chad Thompson, the hospital's chief financial officer. "And we don't know how long this will last." In rural communities across America, more than 800 hospitals faced financial peril before the pandemic took hold. Now, they must find a way to treat thousands of coronavirus patients, which could trigger a financial cascade that sinks up to a hundred hospitals within the next year. A USA TODAY Network analysis of financial reports submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that almost half of the counties with coronavirus cases are served by a hospital that reported a net loss in 2017. Sari Boren, Journalist'S Resource June 10, 2020, 6-10-2020, "Rural health care and COVID-19: A research roundup," Journalist's Resource, https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/health-care/rural-health-care-covid-19-research/ As early as March, researchers from University of Chicago showed hot spots cropping up in rural areas. Many rural counties have had fewer deaths compared with large cities, but higher relative infection or death rates. On May 28, The New York Times reported that rural Trousdale County in Tennessee had the nation's highest per capita infection rate, linking the spike to a local prison. The Times maintains a U.S. coronavirus map with infection, death and per capita rates by county. Several factors are likely to increase infection rates in rural America. As reported in the Washington Post, people travelled farther in the past month, sometimes from hot spots to rural areas, for recreational opportunities or to access services that have been closed in their communities due to pandemic restrictions. Potential "super-spreader" environments can also create hot spots. Meat processing plants with large COVID-19 outbreaks are mostly in rural areas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented. A May article in Wired describes why conditions in those plants facilitate infection transmission. Prisons are also a risk as super-spreader environments, as explained by Vox, with potential for large outbreaks among the incarcerated population, as well as staff, who can infect their families and communities. As explained in The Conversation, of the over 1,000 prisons constructed from 1970 to 2000, about 70 were built in rural communities. Finally, nursing homes and other elder care facilities have also been hot spots of infection outbreaks in cities. Such facilities in rural areas also face similar problems, but with fewer critical care resources. Rural areas are older, poorer and sicker than their urban counterparts, according to research from the Rural Health Research Gateway, funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. Older people and those with underlying chronic health conditions — such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and coronary artery disease — have a higher risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19. Roughly 23 of older Americans live in rural areas, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau covering 2012 to 2016. About 18 of the rural population was age 65 and older, compared with 14 in urban areas. In Vermont, Maine, Mississippi, West Virginia and Arkansas, more than half of people over age 65 are in rural areas, according to the Census report. From 2010 to 2017, rural areas had a higher percentage of preventable deaths than metropolitan areas for the five leading causes of death, according to a 2019 CDC report. The gap in preventable deaths from cancer, heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease widened between the most rural and most urban counties during the study period. The gap decreased for unintentional injury and remained steady for stroke. Racial and ethnic minorities, who make up 22 of the rural population, are at an even higher risk. Non-Hispanic black and Indigenous rural residents have higher rates of chronic health conditions and poorer access to health care, placing them at higher risk for COVID-19, as noted in a May commentary in the Journal of Rural Health. Navajo Nation has suffered among the highest per capita case rates in the country. High Country News reports, "Decades of negligence and billions of dollars in unmet need from the federal government have left tribal nations without basic infrastructure like running water and sewage systems, along with sparse internet access and an underfunded Indian Health Service." Yolanda Smith,, 2019, "Physician Shortage," News-Medical.net, https://www.newsmedical.net/health /Physician-Shortage.aspx The supply of primary care physicians is linked to the achievement of better health outcomes. These include overall health, life expectancy, better perception of self-rated health, and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and in infancy. This relationship has been evident with repeated trials over the previous thirty years in the United States. Research suggests that increasing the number of primary care physicians by one per 10,000 people is associated with a 5.3 reduction in average mortality (which is presently 49 per 100,000 per year). The need for primary care physicians is usually estimated based on the tasks they are expected to carry out, and the time required to maintain health programs, rather than the benefits of their contribution. Based on this approach, there was predicted to be a surplus of primary care physicians in the early 21st century. And for employers, health insurance provides a tax deduction, which is an incentive for stretching the budget and hiring. A transition to Medicare for All would be a definite job killer, affecting millions more in addition to the close to 2 million health care workers who would be displaced from their jobs in the transition. Phil Mccausland, 6-15-2015, "Rural hospital closings lead to more deaths, study finds," NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rural-hospital-closings-cause-mortality-rates-rise-study-finds-n1048046 More than 100 rural hospitals have closed in the United States since 2010 and another 430 are at risk of closing, which a new study says could have life-or-death implications for rural communities. University of Washington researchers examined 92 rural hospital closings in California from 1995 to 2011. They found that while the closings of urban hospitals had no impact on their surrounding communities, rural closings caused their populations — which have limited access to health care and other services — to see mortality rates rise 5.9 percent. https://vtdigger.org/2020/04/06/covid-19-threatens-the-future-of-private-doctors/ No longer. Even as hospitals prepare to treat a surge of people with coronavirus, patients avoiding routine care have left small independent practices with empty waiting rooms and a dwindling flow of cash. At a low point on March 27, practitioners at Lyons' office in White River Junction saw just eight patients. "Independent primary care practices in Vermont will collapse if you do not provide relief and payment reform immediately," Lyons wrote in a March 21 letter to legislators and state officials. "We will soon run out of CASH to pay our staff!" The shortage of patients in the midst of a public health crisis is a predicament faced by small practices nationally — part of the lopsided strain placed on the health care system by the coronavirus. Vermont has reported 543 cases of Covid-19 and 23 deaths, as of Monday afternoon. Hospitals are preparing to be inundated with sick patients, setting up temporary hospitals in gyms and tents. But after the first coronavirus cases were reported in Vermont in mid-March, physicians started telling patients to stay out of the doctor's office, to protect doctors and patients alike. Most offices have postponed annual checkups and preventive visits. They've told patients to call before they come in, and they've started seeing patients online. The decreased traffic has been costly to doctors, who have as little as a week — and no more than two months — of cash on hand, said Susan Ridzon, executive director of Health First, an organization that represents about 70 independent providers across Vermont. Piper '20 – Doctors get pay cuts and leave Sally C. Pipes, 7-16-2020, "Opinion," WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/medicare-for-all-could-mean-doctors-for-none-11581379209 A single-payer program would pay doctors at rates similar to Medicare reimbursement levels, already at least 25 less than private insurance pays, according to estimates by Charles Blahous of the Mercatus Center. Under the current legislative drafts of Medicare for All, government rates over the first decade would be 40 lower than those paid by private insurers. That amounts to an enormous pay cut for doctors. U.S. physicians earned on average $313,000 in 2019, according to Medscape's international physician compensation report. ~~While~~ The average physician in the U.K. earned only $138,000. The Commonwealth Fund reports that American general practitioners earned a little more than $218,000 on average in 2016, compared with $146,000 in Canada and $134,000 in the U.K. Drastic pay cuts would inevitably drive physicians to give up the practice. Patients can't afford an exodus of doctors. Nearly 80 million people live in areas with too few primary-care professionals, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports. Even under current policies, the country may face a shortage of as many as 120,000 doctors in a decade, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The prospect of lower pay and stressful work would also discourage young people from entering the profession. Medical school is expensive; the median graduate takes on $200,000 in debt. It's time-consuming, too. The typical doctor spends four years in medical school, followed by three to seven years in residency and fellowship. Lucrative jobs in finance, technology and law require far less preparation time. One report from FTI Consulting found that Medicare for All would reduce the projected number of U.S. physicians in 2050 by about 44,000, including more than 10,000 primary-care doctors. Patients would have to compete for appointments with a dwindling number of overloaded and underpaid doctors. Everyone would have coverage, but that's not the same thing as care. JANUARY 27, 2020 SALLY C. PIPES https://www.pacificresearch.org/doctors-need-a-second-opinion-on-medicare-for-all/ Doctors also better prepare to work longer hours for less money. "Medicare-for-all" would make health care free at the point of access. That would encourage Americans to consume more care than they currently do. Providers would have to spend more time on the clock to keep up with demand. And they'd receive less money for each hour they log. If "Medicare-for-all" adheres to Medicare's existing payment schedule, then doctors would receive 9 percent less for every office visit and 60 percent less for every emergency department visit, relative to average private in-network rates, according to one analysis published by JAMA, a medical journal. Medicare's payment rates are projected to be 40 percent lower than those for private insurance over the first ten years of Medicare-for-all's implementation, according to the Mercatus Center's Charles Blahous. That would represent some kind of pay cut~~s~~ for doctors. By making physicians' lives more miserable, "Medicare-for-all" would drive many from the profession. Already, about half of physicians say they want to change career paths; 17 percent are planning to retire. A "Medicare-for-all"-induced exodus would exacerbate America's doctor shortage. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States will face a shortage of more than 120,000 physicians by 2032. Patients everywhere would struggle to get timely care, particularly in rural and urban areas. Contrast, The, 8-22-2019, "More Medicare, Less Health Care: ?How Medicare for All ?Threatens Patient Health," Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/insider/summer-2019-insider/more-medicare-less-health-care-how-medicare-all-threatens-patient All the current deficiencies of traditional Medicare will only get worse as physicians start disappearing from medical practice. According to the 2018 Physicians Foundation Survey, more than 1 in 5 physicians either limit the number of Medicare patients they see or refuse to see them at all. For Medicaid, the number is almost 1 in 3. The situation is particularly bad in primary care. True to its name, primary care is generally the entry point into the medical system, and access to it is associated with better health outcomes. According to the survey, 32 percent of primary care physicians limit or refuse Medicare patients; the figure is 36 percent for Medicaid patients. While the Physicians Foundation Survey did not ask the reason doctors limit or refuse Medicare or Medicaid patients, the results show that salaried physicians were less likely than doctors who own their own practice to refuse these patients. Over 50 percent of practice owners limit or refuse Medicare patients. Practice owners feel the brunt of the difference between private and government payments, whereas employed physicians are often paid in a manner agnostic of the insurance type. Sarah Kliffsarah@Vox, 3-29-2019, "The doctor's strike that nearly killed Canada's Medicare-for-all plan, explained," Vox, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18265530/medicare-canada-saskatchewan-doctor-strike Canada experienced massive upheaval and protest when its single-payer system launched in 1962. Back then, Canadian single-payer opponents were making the exact same arguments against the program as American single-payer opponents do today: that it was too much government in medicine, that physicians would no longer be able to practice medicine in the way they saw fit. The doctors even went on strike (for more than three weeks) when the system launched. "It was a very close call," says Greg Marchildon, a professor at the University of Toronto who studies the history of Canadian health care. "The doctors were totally against it, half the population was totally against it and the other half were totally for it. It could have gone either way." The history of Canadian health care, it turns out, can actually offer a glimpse of what America's future could look like if a committed government tried to enact Medicare-for-all. In 1960, the Canadian province of Saskatchewan elected a socialist premier named Tommy Douglas who had campaigned on a promise to bring universal insurance to his province. (Incidentally — just because I couldn't leave this fact out — Tommy Douglas turns out to be Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather. Who knew!) Douglas followed through on that promise: In late 1961, his government passed the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act. The province already had government-sponsored hospital insurance, but this new bill would layer on a plan to cover doctor visits. There was no comparable insurance scheme for doctor visits, which meant that patients could still end up with a significant bill from the doctor who saw them in the hospital. Kirk Siegler, 5-21-2019, "The Struggle To Hire And Keep Doctors In Rural Areas Means Patients Go Without Care," NPR.org, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/21/725118232/the-struggle-to-hire-and-keep-doctors-in-rural-areas-means-patients-go-without-c Rural hospitals are in decline. Over 100 have closed since 2010 and hundreds more are vulnerable. As of December 2018, there were more than 7,000 areas in the U.S. with health professional shortages, nearly 60 percent of which were in rural areas. Kirk Siegler, 5-21-2019, "The Struggle To Hire And Keep Doctors In Rural Areas Means Patients Go Without Care," NPR.org, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/21/725118232/the-struggle-to-hire-and-keep-doctors-in-rural-areas-means-patients-go-without-c There's a changing of the guard going on in the health care industry, and its effects may be most apparent in rural America. As baby boomer doctors retire, independent family practices are closing, especially in small towns. Only 1 of doctors in their final year of medical school say they want to live in communities under 10,000; only 2 were wanted to live in towns of 25,000 or fewer. Taking over a small-town practice is too expensive, or in some cases, ~~and~~ too time-consuming for younger, millennial physicians. And a lot of the newly minted doctors out of medical training are opting to work at hospitals, rather than opening their own practices. Kim Parker, 2017, "Demographic and economic trends in urban, suburban and rural communities," Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends Project, https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ About 46 million Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros and about 98 million in its urban core counties.

Neg

Saudi Arabia Views Iran as Existential Threat Jonathan Marcus, 9-16-2019, "Why Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter rivals," BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42008809 Saudi Arabia and...Tehran's rising influence. Historically Saudi Proxy Wars Caused by Saudi Insecurity Goldenberg 17 (Ilan. “Here's How Both Obama and Trump Stoked the Saudi-Iranian Rivalry.” Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, 7 Dec. 2017, foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/07/heres-how-both-obama-and-trump-stoked-the-saudi-iranian-rivalry/. When it came … regional security issues. USMP Key To Saudi Domestic Stability Taylor Luck, Christian Science Monitor, "As US sours on young prince, old Saudi succession pot is stirred. Too late? - CSMonitor.com", November 28, 2018, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/1128/As-US-sours-on-young-prince-old-Saudi-succession-pot-is-stirred.-Too-late The royal family … prince to the throne. Distract Audiences with Aggressive Foreign Policy Lynch 16 (Marc Lynch, 1-4-2016 "Why Saudi Arabia Escalated the Middle East’s Sectarian Conflict", Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/01/04/why-saudi-arabia-escalated-middle-east-s-sectarian-conflict-pub-62398) //PSR 4-9-2020 Saudi use of ...control. USMP k2 Security Assurances Hunzeker 16 (Michael Allen., Winter 2016, "Landpower and American Credibility", City University of London, https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/15415/1/HunzekerLanoszkaParameters.pdf) //PSR 4-14-2020 We first explain ... kill and win. Saudi Arabia Empirically Moves Forward After US withdrawal Brands 18 (Hal Brands, 10-9-2018 "How to Make the Middle East Even Worse? A U.S. Withdrawal", Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-09/how-to-make-the-middle-east-even-worse-a-u-s-withdrawal) //PSR 4-9-2020 This last point … would look like. Saudi Arabia Says No To Talks Ted Regencia, 4-1-2018, "Iran and Saudi Arabia 'unlikely' to pivot back to diplomacy," No Publication, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/iran-saudi-arabia-pivot-diplomacy-180402111401375.html In the aftermath … have been rebuffed. Saudi Arabia Empirically Moves Forward After US withdrawal Pollack 19 (Hal Brands, Steven A. Cook, Kenneth M. Pollack, 12-13-2019 "RIP the Carter Doctrine, 1980-2019", Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/15/carter-doctrine-rip-donald-trump-mideast-oil-big-think/) //PSR 3-31-2020 Moreover, the collapse… with its geopolitical rivals. Quant increase in Conflict Leeds 03 (Brett Ashley Leeds, Professor of Political Science at Rice University, 7-1-2003 "Do Alliances Deter Aggression? The Influence of Military Alliances on the Initiation of Militarized Interstate Disputes", ResearchGate, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3186107) //PSR 4-14-2020 This is easiest … committed to intervene. Saudi Lashout = Proxies Deep 18, https://mwi.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/The-Proxy-Dilemma.pdf ?With Iranian influential … cooperative free trade. Flashpoints for Spread Lovatt 18 (Lovatt, May 2018, "The Middle East’S New Battle Lines", European Council On Foreign Relations, https://www.ecfr.eu/mena/battle_lines/about)//PSR 4-16-2020 In the aftermath ... on Saudi Arabia. 5 million region dead Max Fisher, 11-19-2016, "How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-proxy-war.html Behind much of … just getting started.

Neg - recovery

==EU Commission - Growth - Uq== https://ec.europa.eu/commission/news/commission-publishes-spring-2019-economic-forecast-2019-may-07'en The European Commission published today its Spring 2019 Economic Forecast. It covers the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 and includes key economic figures such as gross domestic product (GDP) growth, employment, unemployment, general government gross debt and inflation for all 28 EU Member States. According to the Commission's forecasts, the European economy is forecast to continue expanding for the seventh year in a row in 2019, with real GDP expected to grow in all EU Member States. As global uncertainties continue to weigh, domestic dynamics are set to support the European economy. Growth is expected to gather pace again next year. The recent slowdown in global growth and world trade, together with high uncertainty about trade policies, is weighing on prospects for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2019 and 2020. The continued weakness of the manufacturing sector also plays a role, especially in those countries encountering specific problems in the automobile industry. As global trade and growth are expected to remain weaker this year and next compared to the brisk pace seen in 2017, economic growth in Europe will rely entirely on domestic activity. More Europeans are now in work than ever and employment growth is expected to continue, albeit at a slower pace. This, together with rising wages, muted inflation, favourable financing conditions and supportive fiscal measures in some Member States, is expected to buoy domestic demand. All in all, GDP is forecast to grow by 1.4 in the EU this year and 1.2 in the euro area. In 2020, adverse domestic factors are expected to fade and economic activity outside the EU to rebound, supported by easing global financial conditions and policy stimulus in some emerging economies. GDP growth next year is forecast to strengthen slightly to 1.6 in the EU and 1.5 in the euro area. The figures for 2020 also benefit from a higher number of working days that year. According to the Commission's forecasts, labour market conditions continued to improve despite the slowdown in growth towards the end of 2018. While still too high in certain Member States, unemployment in the EU - at 6.4 in March 2019 - has fallen to the lowest rate recorded since the start of the monthly data series in January 2000. Unemployment in the euro area is currently at the lowest rate since 2008. Inflation in the EU is expected to fall to 1.6 this year before rising to 1.7 in 2020. Euro area headline inflation dropped from 1.9 in the last quarter of 2018 to 1.4 in the first quarter of this year due to lower increases of energy prices. With energy price inflation expected to moderate further in the coming quarters and little sign that higher wage growth has been fuelling underlying price pressures, euro area inflation (Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices) is forecast to reach 1.4 in both 2019 and 2020. According to the Commission's forecasts, debt-to-GDP ratios are forecast to fall in most Member States in 2019 and 2020 as deficits remain low and nominal GDP growth should remain higher than the average interest rate on outstanding debt. Assuming no policy change, the debt-to-GDP ratio of the EU is forecast to fall from 81.5 in 2018 to 80.2 in 2019 and 78.8 in 2020. The euro area's aggregate debt-to-GDP ratio should fall from 87.1 in 2018 to 85.8 in 2019 and 84.3 in 2020. Downside risks to the outlook remain prominent. The risk of protectionist measures worldwide and the current slowdown in world GDP growth and trade could turn out to be more persistent than expected, particularly if growth in China disappoints. In Europe, risks include that of a ‘no-deal' Brexit and the possibility that temporary disruptions currently weighing on manufacturing could prove more enduring. There is also the risk that a rise in political uncertainty and less growth-friendly policies could result in a pull-back in private investment. ==Economist - negotiations - uniqueness== https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/07/28/donald-trump-agrees-to-cease-fire-in-the-trade-war-with-the-eu PRESIDENT Donald Trump has not been shy about his admiration for tariffs. But on July 25th his love of deals appeared to prevail. Tweeting a picture of Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, kissing his cheek, Mr Trump heralded an advance in trade relations between America and the European Union. "A breakthrough has been quickly made that nobody thought possible!" Mr Juncker was triumphant, too, tweeting: "I came for a deal, we made a deal."The two sides agreed to work together towards "zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods." Trade barriers in services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products and soyabeans are on the chopping block, too. ==Stevens - It would be a radical change in allegiances to have Western countries join BRI - Link== https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/31/trumps-tariffs-on-112-billion-of-chinese-imports-hit-at-midnight.html Charles Stevens, the founder of The New Silk Road Projecttells, March 13, 2018, New Silk Road Project founder: Developments in Azerbaijan are significant, Nexis Q.: What would it mean for Western European countries to join the Belt and Road initiative? Do you expect more countries to join it in future A.: I think it would mark a great success for BRI as a strategy. With the UK leaving the European Union the economic region has had a jolt to its confidence. Whilst the EU does not have a united policy towards BRI some countries, particularly in Eastern Europe have been more receptive. This includes Belarus which is not formally part of the EU but participates in the EU's Eastern Partnership. It would signal a decisive shift in strategic direction and historic allegiances were Western European countries to align more closely with BRI. China has been clever in presenting BRI as a development which is open for any countries to participate in this includes the U.S. Trump chinese tariffs ==Anwar - Tariffs most probable cuz trade war - link== Anu Anwar, visiting fellow with Kobe Gakuin University in Japan, geopolitical analyst focusing on BRI. September 10, 2018. South China Morning Post. "Facing a trade war and bumps along the belt and road, China may have to revisit the cost of its grand plan", https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2163280/facing-trade-war-and-bumps-along-belt-and-road . DOA: July 21, 2019.) ALP Moreover, it is evident that Chinese projects are less open to local and international participation. Out of all contractors participating in Chinese-funded projects within the Reconnecting Asia database, 89 per cent are Chinese companies, 7.6 per cent are local companies (companies headquartered in the same country the project was taking place in), and 3.4 per cent are foreign companies (non-Chinese companies from a country other than the one the project was taking place in). In comparison, out of the contractors participating in projects funded by the multilateral development banks, 29 per cent are Chinese, 40.8 per cent are local, and 30.2 per cent are foreign. The US has been cynical about this initiative since its genesis, but it took Washington – under the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations – almost five years to come up with a response to it. In many experts’ view, that response is the trade war. However, the most substantial countermeasure from Washington to date is its declaration of its "Indo-Pacific strategy" which allocates US$113 million to investments in new technology, energy and infrastructure initiatives in emerging Asia, among other measures. ==Bloomberg - tariffs bad - Link== https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-03/europe-s-economy-rekindles-growth-that-still-lacks-confidence For Ricardo Garcia, chief euro-zone economist Europe at UBS Global Wealth Management, the determinant of whether Europe’s pickup is for real will come later this month, with a U.S. decision looming on the imposition of car tariffs. "That would be an important blow to the euro-area economy," he said. "But our base case is that we will have a conclusion of U.S.-China talks, U.S.-EU talks can escalate a bit but won’t get out of hand, and no car tariffs. Then these green shoots can really blossom." ==Heeb - Tariffs lead to Recession - IL== Gina Heeb, Markets Insider, 7-23-2019 ~~"Trump'S Proposed Car Tariffs Could Trigger A Global Growth Recession, Baml Says", https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-tariffs-cars-could-trigger-global-growth-recession-baml-2019-2-1027973273 7-24-2019~~ //DG President Donald Trump has doubled down on threats to levy duties on car imports from Europe, a move that analysts warn could lead the world economy toward a sharp downturn in growth. "If we don't do the deal, we'll do the tariffs," the president said Wednesday of broader negotiations with the European Union. His administration has wielded protectionist policies in an effort to win concessions from trading partners. A Commerce Department report submitted to the White House this week was widely expected to present auto imports as a threat to national security, giving Trump 90 days to decide whether to follow through with threats to impose import taxes of 20 to 25 on vehicles and parts. While that could benefit some American automakers and reduce bilateral trade deficits, it would also risk adding thousands of dollars to the price of vehicles, and raises the threat of retaliatory duties that could worsen global trade tensions. "In a worst case scenario, full¬blown tit¬for¬tat auto tariffs could trigger a global recession," analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a research note out this week, adding they would expect growth in the world economy to fall nearly a percentage point to 1.2. By increasing the price of vehicles and imported materials, they could threaten jobs, consumer spending, and investment. The analysts estimated that they would add $2,000 to $7,000 to price tags of both imported and American-made vehicles, posing even greater risks than the global trade tensions that emerged last year. "The auto tariffs will directly hit consumers in a way that the other tariffs have not," the analysts said. "We have to consider the direct impact via auto sales and production as well as the indirect through a confidence shock." ==Borgen - 900 mil - Impact== https://borgenproject.org/imf-study-shows-possible-consequences-of-economic-recession/ The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the results of a new study, showing that another global economic recession could throw nearly 900 million people back into poverty. Although global poverty within the last decade has improved, over 1.2 billion people worldwide still live on $1.25 a day, and the IMF warns that the global economy that initially brought millions out of poverty is still extremely unsteady and in risk of failing. The report cites global unemployment numbers, which are at a 20-year high, that shows unemployment around the world is now at 40 percent. The report goes on to state that an economic event, such as the recession of 2007-2009, could have significant negative effects on the world’s poorest people. Experts are alarmed with the recent economic woes in Cyprus that caused "eurozone chaos," and also cite that the U.S. and Europe are close to another economic downturn. Doubts in the U.S. economy have been exacerbated by the recent sequester, in which spending cuts could lead to hundreds of thousands of job furloughs and losses. ==sb== ==EU report on SMEs - SB doing well - UQ== file:///C:/Users/Andrew20Jones/Downloads/Annual20Report20-20EU20SMEs202016-2017.pdf All but 0.2 of enterprises which operated in the EU-28 non-financial business sector in 2016 were SMEs. These SMEs employed 93 million people, accounting for 67 of total employment in the EU-28 non-financial business sector, and generating 57 of value added in the EU-28 non-financial business sector. Almost all (93 ) of the SMEs were micro SMEs employing less than 10 persons. Within the non-financial business sector, SMEs play a particularly important role in the ‘accommodation and food services’, ‘business services’ and ‘construction’ sectors, in each of which they accounted for more than 80 of EU-28 employment in 2016. Furthermore, SMEs accounted for 70 of EU-28 employment in the ‘retail and wholesale trade’ sector. … and they continue to recover from the financial crisis. The general macro-economic environment in the EU-28 in 2016 strengthened SME activity in all industries due to the expansion of all categories of final demand (i.e. household consumption, government consumption, exports of goods and services, and capital investment by households, governments and businesses). In previous years, the main driver of SME recovery was exports. The year 2016 marked the third consecutive year of steady increases in EU-28 SME employment and EU-28 SME value added. In total, employment by EU-28 SMEs increased annually by 1.6 in 2015 and 2016 and the value added generated by SMEs rose by 1.4 in 2016 following an increase of 5.8 in 2015. As inflation continued to remain low over these two years in the EU-28, this increase in value added largely reflected a real-term increase in the volume of economic activity of EU-28 SMEs in 2015 and 2016.1 As a result of the recent upturn, EU-28 SME employment has finally recovered from the 2008/2009 economic and financial crisis and even slightly exceeded the 2008 level in 2016. The level of value added generated by EU-28 SMEs showed even greater recovery, at 11 higher than in 2008. ==Reuters - Chinese investment low manda low - UQ== https://www.reuters.com/article/china-lending-smallmid/china-big-banks-hiked-small-business-loans-17-pct-in-q1-reduced-interest-rates-regulators-idUSL3N2271FB BERLIN (Reuters) - Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe fell 40 percent in 2018, hitting its lowest level in four years, and stricter European Union rules are likely to curb Chinese MandA activity even further, a survey showed on Wednesday.China has introduced capital controls and tightened investment rules for state firms in an effort to stop money moving out of the country and to stabilize its currency. At the same time, policymakers in Europe have become increasingly concerned that state-backed companies in China are gaining too much access to key technologies and sensitive infrastructure while Beijing still shields its own economy. A survey by Germany’s Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and the New York research firm Rhodium Group (RHG) showed that Chinese firms completed FDI transactions worth 17.3 billion euros in 2018. This marked a drop of more than 50 percent from the peak of 37 billion euros in 2016, researchers said. "This decline is very much in line with a further drop in China’s global outbound FDI, a trend that can be attributed to continued capital controls and tightening of liquidity in China as well as growing regulatory scrutiny in host economies," the researchers said in their study. Europe’s three biggest economies received the lion’s share of Chinese FDI in 2018, with Britain coming first (4.2 billion euros) followed by Germany (2.1 billion euros) and France (1.6 billion euros), the survey showed. However, their share in total Chinese FDI slumped to 45 percent in 2018 from 71 percent in the previous year as smaller countries such as Sweden and Luxembourg received more money. Chinese FDI declined in transport, utilities and infrastructure. The biggest increases were recorded in financial services, health and biotech, consumer products and services, and the automotive sector, it added. ==Kohl - BRI creates FTA== Kohl 2019 (Tristain Kohl, "The Belt and Road Initiative’s Effect on Supply-Chain Trade: Evidence from Structural Gravity Equations", www.academic.oup.com/cjres/article/12/1/77/5289371, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society Studies, 2016. DOA: July 13th 2019) TG Specifically in terms of FTAs, there are two initiatives that are of particular interest to the PRC: (i) the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and (ii) the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) among participants of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). There is also perhaps a third option, which would be to pursue signing a FTA with BRI-related countries rather than opting for the currently envisioned alternative of infrastructural development. … Alternatively, BRI sets out to reduce trade costs through the creation of FTAs. In their simplest form, FTAs reduce tariffs. However, more recent FTAs tend to be much more extensive by design, covering a wide variety of policy domains unrelated to tariffs, which may still serve as impediments to trade (Baier et al., 2018; Kohl et al., 2016). Examples of such policies include mutual recognition of product standards or even complete harmonisation of legislation. ==Wonkyu - FTA decrease anti dumping - Link== https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=1739314 Proliferating FTAs in recent years may have conflicting effects on antidumping uses among FTA parties. On the one hand, an FTA may increase a country’s anti-dumping activities to protect its domestic industries from the increased import flows from other parties. On the other hand, an FTA supposedly helps reduce the use of anti-dumping measures to accomplish the purpose of free trade. Which effects prevail can shed important lights on the question of whether an FTA can be a stumbling block or a building block. This paper examines the effects of FTAs on anti-dumping activities based on comprehensive empirical analysis. Using longitudinal data of major anti-dumping user countries from 1995 to 2009, we found that there is clearly an inverse relationship between an FTA and antidumping activities. This finding represents the user’s tendency to trigger less anti-dumping filings against FTA membership, regardless of facing more imports from FTA partners. The paper also captured dynamic FTA effects based on a series of distribution of time dummies. Estimation results from the dynamic model show that the FTA enactment year clearly has significant effect, suggesting substantial reduction of anti-dumping investigations in that year. ==Casarini - dumping - Link== OBOR could result in competitiveness of European companies being harmed; 3 links: A. the opaque nature of OBOR, B. OBOR requires infrastructure programs to be conducted by Chinese companies, C. China would tackle industrial overcapacity at home Casarini 15 — ~~Nicola Casarini, "Is Europe to Benefit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative?" 2015, Istituto Affari Internazionali, h?p://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaiwp1540.pdf , accessed 08-11-2019,~~ While there are undoubtedly great economic opportunities, China’s Belt and Road ini- tiative – and its corollary of growing Sino-European monetary ties – also presents the EU with a major political challenge. There is the risk, in fact, that a scramble for Chi- nese money could further divide EU member states and make it difficult for Brussels to fashion a common position vis-à-vis Beijing. Furthermore, China’s economic pene- tration into Europe may lead to a populist backlash and the fate of the port of Piraeus could be the first of such cases. Given the harsh conditions demanded by its creditors, Greece may have no alternative but to proceed with the Piraeus privatisation. The EU is keen to push the sale through while China is lobbying hard to win the tender. A kind of entente cordiale could emerge between Brussels and Beijing over the transaction, an understanding that could be replicated elsewhere in the cash-strapped periphery where the two sides share an interest in supporting infrastructure projects. Imagine, however, that if COSCO wins the Piraeus tender, the port will be entirely in Chinese hands. That prospect may sharpen the view of China as a political and commercial threat to EU mem- ber states, particularly in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, whose big container ports will face a tough new competitor. Some European critics worry that the OBOR lacks transparency rules and that the opaque financing deals may threaten the com- petitiveness of European companies. China requires, in fact, that infrastructure works financed by its soft loans be carried out by Chinese companies, as in the case of the Hungaro-Serbian highspeed railway or Terminal II of Piraeus. This raises the question of reciprocity. While Chinese companies find an open-door environment in Europe, it is quite difficult – if not impossible – for a European company to succeed in winning a contract to build infrastructure projects in mainland China. The question of reciprocity is closely linked to what may be the thorniest issue in Sino-European relations: the mar- ket economy status (MES). A provision in China’s WTO accession agreement that allows other countries to treat it as a nonmarket economy will expire in December 2016,24 po- tentially requiring the EU to begin drafting new trade legislation by the end of this year. Granting Beijing MES would make it easier for Chinese companies targeted in WTO anti-dumping cases to defend themselves. While Beijing argues that MES should be extended automatically in December 2016 under the terms of its WTO accession agree- ment, some EU member states maintain that the agreement instead requires Chinese exporters to prove first that they do not benefit from government subsidies and cur- rency policy. There are growing concerns in Europe that through the Belt and Road initiative, China seeks to tackle industrial overcapacity at home by dumping or export- ing goods priced below production costs, risking thus to bring entire industrial lines across Europe to their knees. If the EU were to designate China as a "market economy," it would then be impossible for Brussels to strike back against unfair export practices with countervailing tariffs. There is growing resistance in Europe from manufactur- ing industries that see themselves as vulnerable, and the EU – together with the US – may be tempted to resist granting China "market economy status." Finally, closer Sino- European ties may strain relations with the US. Beijing has traditionally looked at the euro as the only serious counterbalance to the dollar and, consequently, has come to support the eurozone politically while divesting away from the dollar and into the euro in earnest. Today, euro-denominated assets represent more than one-third of China’s total foreign currency reserves which are the world’s largest. Europe – and the United Kingdom in particular, but not only – is playing an important role in the international- isation of the Chinese currency, a move that directly challenges the global status of the dollar. US policymakers are, therefore, watching closely to see whether the EU is able to strike a balance between the historic transatlantic bond and China’s pull on Europe. ==Gustav - Taking china to court hasn’t worked - Link== https://www.jstor.org/stable/24585815?read-now=1andseq=4~~#metadata'info'tab'contents China has traditionally been treated as a non-market economy for purposes of anti-dumping investigations. The result was that countries determined whether dumping was taking place by comparing the export price from China with the normal value established in a third country. The European Union (EU) also determined the export price from China on the basis of the average export price from that country unless an exporter met specific requirements set for the EU's 'individual treatment' standard. China challenged these practices both in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and in European courts, while the South African International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) appealed a decision from the High Court on how it had to treat imports from China. The Appellate Body of the WTO ruled that China's accession agreement to the WTO did not provide for the determination of export prices on any basis other than each individual exporter's own prices, unless the investigating authority made a specific finding that two or more parties are related, in which case those parties could be treated as a single entity. Before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in an appeal lodged by the Council of the European Union, the ECJ found that the Council could not equate 'government control' in a company with 'government interference', and that the Council had to make a specific finding as regards interference before it could find that a company was not operating under market conditions. In South Africa, the Supreme Court of Appeal found that there was no duty on ITAC to consider any information submitted by parties to show that exporters in China were operating under non-market conditions, thus paving the way for ITAC always to treat cooperating exporters as operating under market conditions in disregard of the provisions of the applicable legislation. The verdicts in these three fora have significantly altered the way in which future antidumping investigations will be conducted against Chinese exporters, and will allow those exporters greater access to the EU and South African markets. It is submitted that while the decisions in the WTO and the ECJ are correct, the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa delivered an incorrect decision in the ITAC appeal, and in so doing rendered parts of the law redundant. ==Paypal - Sb ? jobs and 85 of new jobs - IL== https://publicpolicy.paypal-corp.com/sites/default/files/policy/Small'Business'Growth'in'Europe.pdf European small businesses play a central role in the EU economy. They add jobs, stimulate growth and build communities. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the EU represent 99 of all businesses and employ two-thirds of the workforce.1 In the past five years, they have created around 85 of new jobs and provided a path to prosperity for millions of families.2 The growth of digital commerce provides more opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand across the EU and around the world. However, there remains untapped potential for small businesses as barriers still persist for full global expansion. Whereas the global marketplace used to be the purview of only the largest businesses, digitization is democratizing commerce and changing the calculus of who can fully engage in cross-border trade. ==Li - FTA increase mergers - Link== https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1540496X.2018.1436437 This article investigates the impact of the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (MandAs). Using the comprehensive MandAs dataset of Securities Data Company, we find that FTA relationship is associated with more bilateral cross-border MandAs. Second, the cross-border MandAs activities between a FTA country-pair do not increase faster than the acquiring country’s total foreign acquisitions, suggesting no evidence of investment diversion effect of FTA. Third, we find that existing FTA relationship with other countries positively affect cross-border MandAs between a FTA country-pair. But these third-country FTA effects differ for acquiring country and target country when we look at the ratio of a country-pair’s FTA relative to the acquiring country’s total foreign MandAs. Moreover, by exploring the detailed information on acquiring and target firms, we reveal that the effect of FTA differs for horizontal, vertical and conglomerate cross-border MandAs. Our results are robust to various measures of MandAs activities and econometric methods used. ==Meunier - 97 of chinese investment is manda - Link== Sophie Meunier. "BEWARE OF CHINESE BEARING GIFTS: Why China’s Direct Investment Poses Political Challenges in Europe and the United States" Oxford University Press. 2018. Accessed: 7/8/19. https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/smeunier/files/meunier'beware'of'chinese'bearing'gifts'100517.pdf Finally, the nature of the investment deals initially made by Chinese companies increased the public spotlight. In general, greenfield investment is seen as more innocuous and less politically problematic than mergers and acquisitions. Yet the vast majority of Chinese investment in Europe and the U.S. , at least in the early years, were takeovers. In 2016, acquisitions drove 97 of the value of FDI activity in Europe and the U.S.10 These are more likely to touch off opposition, no matter what the origin of the investment is. ==Gugler - manda downsizing 10 - impact== https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=510922 We systematically analyse the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the demand for labour in the USA and Europe. We do not find adverse effects of mergers on labour demand in the USA, however we do find negative effects in Europe of the order of -10 compared to pre-merger levels. We attribute this significant difference to more rigid labour markets in Europe than in the USA. ==Forbes - employment key - impact== https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2012/08/27/the-key-to-economic-growth-reduce-the-unemployment-rate/~~#788a0d6854ce We've all heard how the U.S. economy has been slow to recover. In the final analysis, there is one issue which resides at the epicenter of economic growth. That is our unemployment dilemma. How important is the unemployment rate to our economic recovery? Let me put it in these terms. Employment is to economic growth what oxygen is to the human existence. You can't have one without the other. In this article, I will present evidence to bolster the point that until the unemployment rate is brought down to a more reasonable level, our economic recovery will falter. ==Europa - Sb better for recessions - Impact== https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Statistics'on'small'and'medium-sized'enterprises~~#General'overview Why is the 'SME vs large enterprise' discussion relevant?The growth-generating potential of SMEs has been the subject of many academic studies~~1~~. Although there is no general agreement in the literature on whether SMEs generate more growth than large enterprises, some recent studies~~2~~ suggest that large enterprises are more pro-cyclical, which means that they are more affected by international business cycles than SMEs are. This fact may have implications for how different business sectors, and therefore national economies, behave in times of economic depression.Recently, economic literature ~~3~~ has shifted towards analysing the role of the largest enterprises in understanding aggregate fluctuations. Trade integration, globalisation and industry consolidation have the potential to make large enterprises ever larger and thus more significant in explaining business cycles and economic developments. Large enterprises can account for a sizeable portion of a country’s economic output. Therefore, if global demand for even one product falls, a country can face severe consequences that show in the aggregated measures of economic activity. This has been the case for example in Finland~~4~~. These microeconomic shocks may also affect the large enterprises’ networks~~5~~; a fall in demand can have an adverse impact on the whole supply chain, across industries and countries~~6~~.

OCO Negative v1 - North Korean Foreign Policy Contention

==Contention 1: North Korean Foreign Policy == ====By using OCO's we have seen rising capabilities from other countries – in fact, Dong Geon indicated three weeks ago that each new North Korean:==== Dong Geon, 10-10-2019, "Cyber Attacks Are North Korea's New Weapon of Choice," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/cyber-attacks-are-north-koreas-new-weapon-choice-87526, Date Accessed 11-1-2019 // JM Since May this year, North Korea has been consistently showcasing its sophisticated weapons. AND Korea. It would be better if that happened sooner rather than later. ====Kim's cyber capabilities have SINGLE HANDEDLY allowed them to go underground to continue their nuclearization. Mitchell indicates in 2019 that:==== Andrea Mitchell, 7-25-2019, "North Korea funding missile tests through cyberattacks, according to U.N. report," NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-funding-missile-tests-through-cyberattacks-according-u-n-n1039491, Date Accessed 11-1-2019 // JM North Korea is paying for its continued missile tests with "widespread and increasingly sophisticated AND targets that cannot as easily be traced to Pyongyang, the sources said. ====Akita indicates that this continued nuclearization has crossed the line of no return – she argued three weeks ago:==== Hiroyuki Akita, 10-13-2019, "North Korea's nuclear threat crosses a perilous line," Nikkei Asian Review, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/North-Korea-s-nuclear-threat-crosses-a-perilous-line, Date Accessed 11-1-2019 // JM It is time for countries concerned to coolly acknowledge this reality and admit to the AND for U.S. armed forces stationed in the two Asian allies. ====The potential impact is catastrophic as Halpin quantified in 2018 that:==== Dennis Halpin, 12-16-2018, "Reminder: War with North Korea Would Mean Millions of People Dead," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/reminder-war-north-korea-would-mean-millions-people-dead-38947, Date Accessed 11-1-2019 // JM The costs of a second Korean war, then, would be massive: another AND of nuclear weapons in combat for the first time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Universal Basic Income Affirmative v2 - Individual Economic Crisis

==Contention 1 – Individuals Matter== ====With a pending recession on the horizon, the Fed Reserve only has one tool in the toolbox to help individuals – quantitative easing. Unfortunately that's doomed to fail as it doesn't respond to individual's real concerns. Higgins wrote late this week that:==== Eoin Higgins, 2-13-2020, "As Household Debt Hits $14 Trillion, Economists Say Fed Quantitative Easing Solution for Next Recession Insufficient," Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/13/household-debt-hits-14-trillion-economists-say-fed-quantitative-easing-solution-next, Date Accessed 2-15-2020 // JM On the heels of reports that U.S. household debt hit $14 AND will stocks do when that liquidity spigot stops? We'll have to see." ====This is compounded as basic necessity costs rising and American financial stress are rising – Leonhardt indicated this week that:==== Megan Leonhardt, 2-12-2020, "Nearly 1 in 3 American workers run out of money before payday—even those earning over $100,000," CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/11/32-percent-of-workers-run-out-of-cash-before-payday.html, Date Accessed 2-15-2020 // JM Going extra light at the grocery store. Cutting down on medical supplies. Buying AND it's coming and are able to cover it with planning," Amy says. ====And although its designed to protect these individuals, welfare programs are being cut annually and the Lexington Law group quantified in January that:==== Lexington Law, 1-3-2020, "44 Important Welfare Statistics for 2020," https://www.lexingtonlaw.com/blog/finance/welfare-statistics.html, Date Accessed 2-14-2020 // JM The total cost of poverty assistance programs in America can add up to a shocking AND 39 per meal. ~~Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities~~ ====All of these triggers and a failing response from the Fed spell out disaster for the upcoming recession. Byrne furthers that:==== John Aidan Byrne, 9-22-2018, "Next crash will be 'worse than the Great Depression': experts," New York Post, https://nypost.com/2018/09/22/next-crash-will-be-worse-than-the-great-depression-experts/, Date Accessed 12-12-2018 // JM Ten years ago, it was too-easy credit that brought financial markets to AND in 2008 to being vilified for being impotent in the coming deflationary crash." ====Fortunately, replacing an ineffective welfare system with a universal basic income would produce large benefits as Covert indicates that:==== Bryce Covert, 8-15-2018, "The Promise of a Universal Basic Income—and Its Limitations," Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-promise-of-a-universal-basic-income-and-its-limitations/, Date Accessed 1-31-2020 // WS Why should we consider a universal basic income? The most straightforward answer is that AND to enable a person to go back to school and get better credentials. ====Specifically, a UBI represents a saving grace on minorites who based on federal policies will not survive the next recession. Meyers finds in 2019 that:==== Kristin Myers, 8-30-2019, "The next recession will hit black and Hispanic families the hardest," No Publication, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/next-recession-black-hispanic-families-160112928.html, Date Accessed 2-10-2020 // WS If history were to repeat itself, minorities will be the hardest hit during a AND race, blacks and Hispanics haven't fared as well as their white counterparts. ====Uniquely a UBI empowers minorities as Wolf argues that:==== Sonja Wolf and Craig Willis, "UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME AS A TOOL OF EMPOWERMENT FOR MINORITIES," ECMI WORKING PAPER ~~#109, December 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334896078_UNIVERSAL_BASIC_INCOME_AS_A_TOOL_OF_EMPOWERMENT_FOR_MINORITIES/link/5d444ec0a6fdcc370a74cab2/download, Date Accessed 2-15-2020 // JM Furthermore, there is also the notion that UBI can facilitate the re-entering AND if they did not have to fear disadvantages from that for their children. ====Wolf continues that welfare traps minorities specifically out of educational and better employment opportunities. He argues that:==== Sonja Wolf and Craig Willis, "UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME AS A TOOL OF EMPOWERMENT FOR MINORITIES," ECMI WORKING PAPER ~~#109, December 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334896078_UNIVERSAL_BASIC_INCOME_AS_A_TOOL_OF_EMPOWERMENT_FOR_MINORITIES/link/5d444ec0a6fdcc370a74cab2/download, Date Accessed 2-15-2020 // JM Simultaneously, a UBI can motivate members of minorities to pursue not only better paid AND provide at least the financial means of an exit from such a situation. ====This empowerment uniquely boosts wages and economic opportunities as Meanes concludes:==== Pamela J. Meanes, 3-16-2016, "SCHOOL INEQUALITY: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS: Allen Chair Issue 2016: SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICIES: EQUITY IN AMERICAN EDUCATION: THE INTERSECTION OF RACE, CLASS, AND EDUCATION," University of Richmond Law Review, 50 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1075, Date Accessed 12-11-2018 // JM "Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the AND to high unemployment rates, lower pay, and drastically reduced economic opportunity.

Venezuela Negative v1 - CITGO Contention

==Contention 2: Citgo == ====Venezuelan opposition-controlled oil and gas company, Citgo is on the verge of defaulting on their debt payments as Ben Bartenstein writes in October that the company:==== Ben Bartenstein, 10-24-2019, "U.S. Shields Citgo From Creditors in Win for Venezuela's Guaido," Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-24/u-s-shields-citgo-from-creditors-in-win-for-venezuela-s-guaido, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS Venezuela's opposition scored a last-minute victory Thursday as the Trump administration stepped in AND has no intentions to enter into real ownership and management of the company." ====Clifford Krauss continues on October 24^^th^^ that==== Clifford Krauss, 10-24-2019, "Citgo Gets a U.S. Lifeline in Holding Off Creditors," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/energy-environment/citgo-creditors-treasury-department.html, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS The Trump administration moved Thursday to protect the Venezuelan-owned refining company Citgo from AND future recovery of the country's economy, which is in a deep depression. ====Thankfully US sanctions on Venezuela came through as a lifeline to the company blocking creditors from demanding their loans back as Betenstein continues that==== Ben Bartenstein, 10-24-2019, "U.S. Shields Citgo From Creditors in Win for Venezuela's Guaido," Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-24/u-s-shields-citgo-from-creditors-in-win-for-venezuela-s-guaido, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS Venezuela's opposition scored a last-minute victory Thursday as the Trump administration stepped in AND has no intentions to enter into real ownership and management of the company." ====Colby Smith furthers in October that ==== Colby Smith, 10-18-2019, "US gives Venezuela's opposition a reprieve on Citgo," Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/5f5e070a-f6a4-11e9-a79c-bc9acae3b654, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS Venezuela's opposition led by Juan Guaidó has received an eleventh-hour lifeline from the US government, which has temporarily shielded Citgo, the crown jewel of Venezuela's oil industry, from being seized by creditors ahead of a widely anticipated bond default. According to the Treasury department's new sanctions guidelines on transactions related to Venezuela, released on Thursday, US bondholders are barred for 90 days from collecting on collateral tied to a bond issued by state-owned oil company PDVSA that is set to mature next year. The announcement comes just days before the interim government, which is recognised by the US and almost 60 other nations as the legitimate one, was set to miss a $913bn payment on the bond due on October 28. The Venezuelan-owned, Texas-based refiner Citgo serves as collateral for the debt. ====The impact is preventing Russian control of Citgo. Bartenstein writes that==== Ben Bartenstein, 10-24-2019, "U.S. Shields Citgo From Creditors in Win for Venezuela's Guaido," Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-24/u-s-shields-citgo-from-creditors-in-win-for-venezuela-s-guaido, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS Venezuela's opposition scored a last-minute victory Thursday as the Trump administration stepped in AND has no intentions to enter into real ownership and management of the company." ====Antonio Delgado writes in 2019 that ==== Antonio Maria Delgado, 1-28-2019, "Venezuela doomed to lose Citgo this month unless U.S. Treasury Department intervenes," miamiherald, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article235953812.html, Date Accessed 12-17-2019 // WS Venezuela would lose ownership of Citgo by the end of this month, with the AND .S. bondholders to have recourse in case there was a default. ====This control would devastate US energy prices. Greg Lindenberg finds that:==== Greg Lindenberg, CSP Daily News 4-11-2017, "Is Russia Poised to Take Control of CITGO? available online at: https://www.cspdailynews.com/company-news/russia-poised-take-control-citgo, Date Accessed 12-19-2019 // CDM Russia could take control of CITGO Petroleum Corp. and possibly gain the ability to AND on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review the matter. ====Rise in energy prices have triggered every recession – Thomas concludes in 2019 that:==== Andrew Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the Core Faculty at the International School of Management in Paris. IndustryWeek 3-26-2019~~"Fracking Keeps the Gas Pedal on U.S. Economy available online at: https://www.industryweek.com/economy/fracking-keeps-gas-pedal-us-economy, Date Accessed 10-7-2019 // CDM What we have witnessed in the past decade is the complete integration of America's domestic AND let's remember the vital contributions made by America's frackers to our rising prosperity. ====This recession would be disastrous as Harry Bradford writes that the next ==== Harry Bradford, 4-5-2013, "Three Times The Population Of The U.S. Is At Risk Of Falling Into Poverty," HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/global-poverty-900-million-economic-shock_n_3022420, Date Accessed 7-28-2019 // WS Economic Shock Could Throw 900 Million People Into Poverty, IMF Study Warns A recent AND That figure is three times the size of the U.S. population

Venezuela Negative v4 - Trade Truce Contention

==Contention 2 is A Fragile Truce== ====Matt Spetalnick writes last week that China is:==== Matt Spetalnick, 1-15-2020, "U.S. envoy sees China scaling back economic support for Venezuela's Maduro," U.S., https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-china-russia/u-s-envoy-sees-china-scaling-back-economic-support-for-venezuelas-maduro-idUSKBN1ZE2BO, Date Accessed 1-21-2020 // WS The Trump administration's envoy on Venezuela said China appears to be scaling back economic support AND down some of our cooperation, namely due to sanctions and other factors." ====These concessions were the impetus for the signing of the trade truce – Brasher writes two days ago that:==== Keith Bradsher, 1-23-2020, "China Poised to Buy More From U.S., at the Expense of U.S. Allies," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/business/economy/china-us-trade-deal-allies.html, Date Accessed 1-25-2020 // JM The United States and China are already gearing up for the sale of tens of AND safer choice in Beijing given China's often rocky relationship with the United States. ====Specifically the US-China Trade Truce has made huge steps in the right direction in key sectors – Johnson indicates last week that:==== Keith Johnson, 1-16-2020, "5 Takeaways From Trump's New China Trade Pact," Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/16/trump-new-china-trade-pact-takeaways/, Date Accessed 1-25-2020 // JM While the "phase one" deal is hardly the game-changer that Trump AND and Mastercard to fully enter a market that has long been denied them. ====However, Trump and Xi are sensitive about actions taken post-truce. Domm concludes last week the:==== Patti Domm, 1-15-2020, "China trade truce is seen as 'fragile' with analysts still seeing more tariffs as a possibility," CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/15/china-trade-truce-is-seen-as-fragile-with-analysts-still-seeing-more-tariffs-as-a-possibility.html, Date Accessed 1-21-2020 // WS China trade truce is seen as 'fragile' with analysts still seeing more tariffs as AND until October appeared to be moving forward on new tariffs and counter tariffs. ====Ending sanctions ruins the truce for two reasons. First, it sours relations and betrays Trump. Guevara writes in 2020 that==== Cristina Guevara, 1-13-2020, "China's support for the Maduro regime: Enduring or fleeting?," Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/chinas-support-for-the-maduro-regime-enduring-or-fleeting/, Date Accessed 1-16-2020 // JM As a result of corruption, poor governance, and misguided policies, Venezuela— AND in the region through ambitious efforts such as the Belt and Road Initiative. ====Second, it changes Chinese foreign policy decision calculus. The *only* reason for scaling back investments now is because its less profitable – the aff makes Chinese investments more profitable and allows them to reverse their trend. Hernandez wrote five days ago that: ==== Alicia Hernández, 1-20-2020, "China remains quiet and pragmatic on Venezuela crisis," Dialogo Chino, https://dialogochino.net/32983-china-remains-quiet-and-pragmatic-on-venezuela-crisis/, Date Accessed 1-25-2020 // JM Yet in the economic field, China has increasingly opted for caution: "A AND interests – debts, investments, presence in strategic projects – are preserved." ====Either leader's actions destroy the truce. It is key to prevent a global recession. Shane Croucher writes in late November that==== Shane Croucher, 11-28-2019, "Trump's trade war doing "very serious damage" to the U.S. economy, recession risks "very high" without China deal: Economist," Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/trump-trade-war-china-us-economy-recession-1474598, Date Accessed 1-21-2020 // WS President Donald Trump's unresolved trade war with China is seriously damaging the American economy and AND there. We just got side-tracked by really bad economic policy." ====This recession would be disastrous as Harry Bradford writes that the next ==== Harry Bradford, 4-5-2013, "Three Times The Population Of The U.S. Is At Risk Of Falling Into Poverty," HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/global-poverty-900-million-economic-shock_n_3022420, Date Accessed 7-28-2019 // WS Economic Shock Could Throw 900 Million People Into Poverty, IMF Study Warns A recent AND That figure is three times the size of the U.S. population

TOC disclosure policy 2020

We don't disclose to the public We will disclose if you ask and we're hitting you. MSG [email protected] or Add me on FB messenger alex shan

Babies

====SAVE DA BABY==== Murtaza Hussain, 12-2-2019, "Children Born With Birth Defects Near U.S. Base in Iraq," Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/iraq-children-birth-defects-military/, 4-17-2020, DJK MORE THAN A decade and a half after the 2003 U.S. invasion AND S. military and other institutions are not even interested in this issue."

2 - Trafficking

====THE US MILITARY BREEDS SEX TRAFFICKING==== Emily Chang, 2001, "Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. Military Policy and the Sex Industry," Notre Dame Law School, https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1323andcontext=ndjlepp, 3-2-2020, DJK This Note addresses the disconnect between United States law, public policy, and the AND States, but the behavior patterns of our military remain relatively constant. 7 ====Gulf Important==== McNutt 07 ~~Debra (Journalist researching military sexual exploitation, organized against exploitation of Filipinas near military bases, worked within the US military on issues of harassment and assault), "Is the Iraq Occupation Enabling Prostitution?," Common Dreams, 7-11-07, ~~ DUK Military prostitution has long been seen around U.S. bases in the Philippines AND zones under the guise of employment as cooks, maids or office workers. ====Third country Nationals do dirty business for US==== ~~American Civil Liberties Union, "Victims of Complacency: The Ongoing Trafficking and Abuse of Third Country Nationals by U.S. Government Contractors," ACLU, June 2012, https://www.aclu.org/report/victims-complacency-ongoing-trafficking-and-abuse-third-country-nationals-us-government~~ DUK U.S. Government contractors rely upon some 70,000 TCNs to support AND to violence and intimidation to recover their investments from TCNs or their families. ====TCNs turn to the sex trafficking industry out of fear==== **ACLU 12** (American Civil Liberties Union, Jun 2012, "The Ongoing Trafficking and Abuse of Third Country Nationals by U.S. Government Contractors", https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/hrp_traffickingreport_web_0.pdf, DOA 4/12/20) EQ Although this report focuses on labor trafficking and related abuses, female TCNs are at AND .S. Government Responses to Contractor Abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan).171 ====Military member's desire to "relax" overseas fuels the trafficking industry==== **Hoots 19 **~~Anna Belle (Law Clerk at Spencer Walsh Law, PLLC, and student at Fordham University School of Law), "Severing the Connection Between Sex Trafficking and U.S. Military Bases Overseas," Fordham Law Review, 2019, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5636andcontext=flr~~ DUK The link between sex trafficking and U.S. military bases overseas is not AND participate in the sex trade until a viable resolution is created and enforced. ====With the above 2 reasons in mind==== ~~Keith (Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse), "Human Trafficking: Breaking the Military Link," Connections, Winter 2005, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26323197?seq=3~~#metadata_info_tab_contents~~ DUK Military personnel deployed away from their homes have been a long-standing source of AND take steps to ensure that its troops do not contribute to this demand. ====The US presence has linked local towns to the global prostitution market==== Shelia Jeffreys, 2009, "The Industrial Vagina," University of Melbourne, feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Sheila-Jeffreys-Industrial-Vagina.pdf, 3-3-2020, DJK After military prostitution caused the industrialization of prostitution in a country, local women and AND countries. Korean women are increasingly trafficked to Australia (Fergus, 2005). ====Prostitution rings are next to impossible to bust—vote affirmative to end our role in the dehumanization of women==== McNutt 07 ~~Debra (Journalist researching military sexual exploitation, organized against exploitation of Filipinas near military bases, worked within the US military on issues of harassment and assault), "Is the Iraq Occupation Enabling Prostitution?," Common Dreams, 7-11-07, ~~ DUK It has been difficult for me (and other researchers and journalists) to get AND Americans to stop our military's abuses of women, by ending the occupation. ====This is the only way to solve==== Emily Chang, 2001, "Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. Military Policy and the Sex Industry," Notre Dame Law School, https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1323andcontext=ndjlepp, 3-2-2020, DJK Wherever the U.S. military is, so too is a thriving sex AND Sam's main squeeze in this part of the world."65

Space Iran

===Contention 1 is space === ====China is preparing for a cyber Spacewar. Gertz finds in 2013 that ==== Bill Gertz, 7-30-’13 lectured on defense, national security, and media issues at the Defense Department’s National Security Leadership Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the FBI National Academy, the National Defense University, and the CIA , media fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon he was a national security reporter, editor, and columnist for 27 years at the Washington Times. Bill is the author of six books, four of which were national bestsellers. ,"China’s Military Preparing for ‘People’s War’ in Cyberspace, Space" , The Washington Free Bacon, http://freebeacon.com/china-military-preparing-for-peoples-war-in-cyberspace-space/ Translated report reveals high-tech plans for cyber attacks, anti-satellite strikes AND weaken, disrupt, and destroy the enemy’s cyber actions or cyber installations." **====Fortunately, the US’s use of OCO’s prevent these attacks by providing a means of threat demonstration. Libicki finds that ====** Martin C. Libicki, 2013- "Brandishing Cyberattack Capabilities". RAND. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research'reports/RR100/RR175/RAND'RR175.pdf Any state that would discourage other states from aggression in the physical or cyber world AND its own complicates figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it. **====This is specifically true for preventing Chinese attacks . Lambakis’19 finds that ====** Steve Lambakis, PhD, Catholic University, Editor, Cmoparatvie Strategy, and Director of Space Studies, NIPP, A GUIDE FOR THINKING ABOUT SPACE DETERRENCE AND CHINA, National Institute for Public Policy, 2019, p. 55. When China acts to coerce or deter, its actions may be misperceived by the AND have on hand the means to cripple or destroy those high-value assets **====The impact is space debris ====** ====Anti-Satellite operations would cause space debris proliferation ==== **Union of Concerned Scientist 07** ("Debris in Brief: Space Debris from Anti-Satellite Weapons." The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. December, 2007. https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-security/space-debris-anti-satellite-weapons~~#.XBEf1S1oTRY What's in Space Since the beginning of the space age there have been some AND , this debris is concentrated in the most densely populated part of space. ====It blots out the Sun leading to extinction==== **Scheetz 6** ~~Lori, J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, "Infusing Environmental Ethics into the Space Weapons Dialouge," Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Fall, 19 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 57~~ Despite the fact that the Outer Space Treaty, the centerpiece of the treaty regime AND near the Earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes." n90 ===Contention 2 is Iran=== ====The Nuclear Deal that prevented Iran from nuclear proliferating has been pulled out of. Farkas observes in 2019 that ==== (Evelyn N. Farkas, 6-20-2019, "What’s the best way to deal with Iran? The nuclear agreement Trump ditched," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/whats-the-best-way-to-deal-with-iran-the-nuclear-agreement-trump-d itched/2019/06/20/9483c1b6-9378-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803'story.html) In exchange for relief from sanctions imposed by the United States and our European allies, the Iranian government AND (all of his own making, of course) Iran deal. ====Fortunately, the United State’s use of offensive cyber ops stop Iran from proliferating. Zetter finds that ==== (Ken Zetter, 11-3-2014, "An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon," Wired, https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/) Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm that came before. AND The changes mapped precisely, however, to what Stuxnet was designed to do. ====In fact, the US has increased cyber-attacks on Iran after we left the deal. Ward finds in 2019 that ==== (Alex Ward, 6-24-19, "The Weekend in the Risky US-Iran Standoff, explained," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2019/6/24/18715408/usa-iran-sanctions-cyber-pompeo-coalition) In the past four days, the United States launched a cyberattack on Iran, AND But Trump isn’t standing idly by in the meantime — he’s putting even more pressure on Iran. ====The impact is preventing an Israel-Iran war ==== ====Israel has vowed to attack Iran should they proliferate. Horschig finds in 2019 that==== (Doreen Horschig, 6-23-19, "If Iran tensions flare, Israel may strike while the world quietly watches," The Conversation, https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/if-iran-tensions-flare-israel-may-strike-while-the-world- quietly-watches-119062300146'1.html) "Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 17. AND If history is any guide, Israel may strike Iran while the world quietly watches. ====Terminally, Dallas finds in 2013 that==== (Cham Dallas, 5-10-2013, "Nuclear war between Israel and Iran: lethality beyond the pale," Conflict and Health, https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-1505-7-10) No real appreciation of the magnitude of this disaster for Iran can be achieved AND 24–72 hours immediately after a multiple nuclear weapon attack on Tehran.

Blue Key Neg - Tradeoff and NATO

Cites on KP wiki

Nova and Sunvite - all others

Every other case can be found on North Broward Katz and Peterson or Ameen and Brown

Contact Info

Hello! We're two debaters from a small, low-income, public school in North Charlotte. On this wiki, we'll disclose contentions, tags, cites, and the first and last few words of every card we cite for tournaments with TOC bids and NSDA Qualifiers. We'll also disclose open source at the end of each topic. If we're missing something, please let us know. The point of the wiki is to spread the best arguments on the topic and encourage better engagement in the round. To that end, feel free to copy whatever evidence you find here or prep out these arguments. We encourage you to disclose as well! Questions or just want to talk about debate? Email [email protected] for a (probably) timely response, and please don't contact my partner.

Barkley Forum - State Collapse and Health

====Contention one is avoiding state collapse==== ====Sanctions have accelerated economic collapse and hurt everyday Venezuelans ==== Michal Penfold, September 2017, Wilson Center Latin America Program, "Could Economic Sanctions Against Venezuela Backfire?" https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/could-economic-sanctions-against-venezuela-backfire kegs These are just two extreme examples among the countless others that exist that demonstrate how AND hurting ordinary Venezuelans vastly more than the corrupt officials responsible for these policies. ====And they have prevented economic reform==== Dan Beeton, March 25, 2019, "Venezuela's Oil Production Plummets in February Due to New US Sanctions Sales to US Also Disappear for the First Time," http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/venezuela-s-oil-production-plummets-in-february-due-to-new-us-sanctions kegs While the Venezuelan economy was already in bad shape before US sanctions began, due AND rid of hyperinflation and allow for an economic recovery from a long depression. ====Economic recovery would be quick and effective absent sanctions==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, April 2019, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs The classic definition of hyperinflation in the economic literature is 50 percent per month, AND to have the ability to avoid this kind of an economic crisis.62 ====However, Sachs and Wesibrot continue that==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, April 2019, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs Again, we can never know what the counterfactual would have been. But what AND of essential imports, and also the accelerated decline of income per person. ====But instead of allowing for this reform, sanctions put the economy in freefall==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs conclude that, April 2019, Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf (Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Jeffrey Sachs is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University) kegs If we look at the combined impact of all of these actions, we find AND ) are expected to be even more severe than what happened last year. ====The impact is a failed state==== ====Sanctions have already caused a mass refugee exodus==== Washington Office on Latin America, WOLA STATEMENT, 29 JAN 2019, https://www.wola.org/2019/01/u-s-oil-sanctions-risk-deepening-human-suffering-venezuela-weaken-mobilization-democracy/ kegs However, we are deeply concerned at the potential for the recently announced U. AND put many of the over 3 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees at risk. ====Millions are suffering from a food crisis which is driving mass migration==== John E. Herbst and Jason Marczak, September 2019, Atlantic Council, "Russia's intervention in Venezuela: What's at stake?," https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/russias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/ kegs Meanwhile, day-to-day life in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. Food AND in 2020, surpassing total Syrian migration numbers by more than 3 million. ====They have failed every objective and only pushed the country to the brink==== Francisco Rodríguez, July 10, 2019, NYT, "Trump Doesn't Have Time for Starving Venezuelans," Mr. Rodríguez is a former head of Venezuela's Congressional Budget Office. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/venezuela-sanctions.html kegs tk The sanctions were designed to choke off revenues to the regime of Nicolás Maduro. AND foreign purchases risk producing the first Latin American famine in over a century. ====If they do not end Venezuela will become a failed state==== Michael E. O'Hanlon and Juan Carlos Pinzón Tuesday, September 10, 2019, Brookings, "Get ready for the Venezuela refugee crisis," https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/10/get-ready-for-the-venezuela-refugee-crisis/ kegs With its economy in free fall, after having already contracted by half this decade AND stay alive as food supplies dwindle and public health conditions deteriorate even further. ====Contention 2 is Health==== ====Sanctions has caused a health crisis in Venezuela in 2 ways.==== ====First, is preventing shipments.==== ====Zarkinson in 2019 finds that since sanctions destroy legitimaticy of companies that==== Tanya Zakrison, 2019, "US sanctions in Venezuela: help, hindrance, or violation of human rights?" The Lancet, Volume 393, Issue 10191, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31397-2/fulltext.tk WILL EXEMPTIONS BE ALLOWED? The executive order ~~although sanctions~~ allows for the AND doctors worry they will become out-of-reach for many Iranians . ====Second, is a doctor drain==== ====As a result of decreasing imports, Weisbrot in 2019 writes that ==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs April 2019 "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela." CEPR, http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf. But the accelerating economic collapse that current sanctions have locked in have many more impacts AND can be expected to plummet further in 2019, along with imports generally. ====Due to these 2 warrants, Rogers in 2019 finds that in Venzuela==== Chris Rogers, 08/09/19, "New Research: Venezuelan Sanctions Push Already Crushes Food, Medicine Imports," https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/new-research-venezuelan-sanctions-push-already-crushes-food-medicine-imports The U.S. government has widened sanctions against the government of Venezuela to AND $40,000 in March with shipments led by supplies from Colombia. ====Which is weisbrot continues that ==== Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, 1-28-2019, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela," No Publication, http://cepr.net/publications/reports/economic-sanctions-as-collective-punishment-the-case-of-venezuela This paper looks at some of the most important impacts of the economic sanctions imposed AND US has signed, and would appear to violate US law as well. ====But, the problem is expected to get worse as DW in 2019 finds that ==== DW, 1-10-2019, "The human cost of the US sanctions on Venezuela," DW, https://www.dw.com/en/the-human-cost-of-the-us-sanctions-on-venezuela/a-50647399 She says that Jenjerlys used to take four different medicines for her seizures. But AND patients, something Venezuela has provided free of charge for decades.

TOC Neg R7 New China Contention

====China has the military capabilities and intent to invade Taiwan now ==== Michael **Peck 19**, "Report: The Defense Intelligence Agency Has Found China Is Even More Ready to Invade Taiwan," 9-11-2019, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/report-defense-intelligence-agency-has-found-china-even-more-ready-invade-taiwan-79766 Key point: China's military is better organized and armed than ever. China has AND integrate the air, land and sea forces needed for a successful invasion. ====But presence in the Gulf prevents invasion ==== ====China fears a Middle East naval blockade in the event of a Taiwan invasion – presence ensures they don't lashout==== Ryan **Hass 19**, The Michael H. Armacost ChairFellow - Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center, 7-1-2019, "Rightsizing fears about Taiwan's future," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/rightsizing-fears-about-taiwans-future/ Should Beijing ever initiate military action against Taiwan, it would have to contend with AND be done to strengthen Taiwan's ability to chart a peaceful future for itself. ====Credible embargo prevents China from militarizing a Taiwan dispute in the first place ==== J. Michael **Cole 15**, senior non-resident fellow at the China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, and an Associate researcher at the French Center for Research on Contemporary China, 5/7/15, "If the Unthinkable Occurred: America Should Stand Up to China over Taiwan," http://nationalinterest.org/feature/if-the-unthinkable-occured-america-should-stand-china-over-12825?page=show Another flaw in White's argument is that it only provides binary options—capitulation, AND military option to resolve the Taiwan "issue" once and for all. ====The impact is Taiwan war==== ====Loss of naval control spirals into military conflict. ==== Michael D. **Swaine 19**, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies., 2-21-2019, "The Deepening U.S.-China Crisis: Origins and Solutions," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/21/deepening-u.s.-china-crisis-origins-and-solutions-pub-78429 The ugly dynamic of growing suspicion and worst-case assumptions is increasing the likelihood AND to stay well ahead of China in the region while isolating Beijing economically.

UK Round 5 - Overcapacity

==Short== ====BRI stemmed from Chinese overcapacity==== Catherine **Trautwein for PBS in**, JUNE 26, **2019**, Tow Journalism Fellow, FRONTLINE/Columbia Journalism School Fellowship, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/all-roads-lead-to-china-the-belt-and-road-initiative-explained/ kegs When President Xi first announced the framework for what would become the BRI in 2013 AND steel. So Chinese companies began to seek new overseas markets. ====This overcapacity is causing Chinese economic slump,==== **Hernández of the New York Times in 16**, Javier C. Hernández, 2-22-2016, "China's Excess Production Has Intensified Slowdown, Business Group Says," The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-economy-overcapacity.html, accessed 7-17-2019 kegs BEIJING — The failure of Chinese leaders to tackle the problem of excess industrial production AND like shipbuilding and glassmaking, even as global demand has fallen. ====If not fixed soon, this structural imbalance will destroy the Chinese economy and cause a recession==== **Cheng of the South China Morning Post in 15**, Shuaihua Wallace Cheng, 9-28-2015, "Overcapacity a time bomb for China's economy," South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1862024/overcapacity-time-bomb-chinas-economy, accessed 7-17-2019 kegs China has narrowly escaped major financial crises for over two decades. But the good AND only an economic blow-up but also serious social and political upheaval. ====China is trying to shift their economy away from overproduction to focus on services, but requires capital solutions to overcapacity through the belt and road initiative first==== **Elizabeth Matsangou for world finance in**, April 23,** 2018**, https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/chinas-transitioning-economy (Head of Editorial, World News Media — Business Destinations, European CEO, The New Economy, World Finance Magazine) kegs China's transitioning economy The country is forging ahead with its ambitious attempts to transition from AND more productive, and therefore put it on a more solid growth path?" ====Europe joining the Belt and Road Initiative provides the solution as==== **Small of the German Marshall fund in 18**, Andrew Small, 12-5-2018, "The Final Link: The Future of the Belt and Road Initiative in Europe," (Senior Transatlantic Fellow, Asia Program) German Marshall Fund of the United States, http://www.gmfus.org/commentary/final-link-future-belt-and-road-initiative-europe, accessed 7-17-2019 kegs Unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative ( AND and lack of transparency have caused many European officials to have second thoughts. ====Chinese recession goes global==== Kenneth **Rogoff for Yale Global in**, 11/9/**2018**, Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. The co-author of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, his new book, The Curse of Cash, was released in August 2016. https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/project-syndicate-impact-chinese-recession kegs Economic recession, spurred by protectionist policies, is inevitable for China. Kenneth Rogoff AND might discover just how much the world's second largest economy matters. – YaleGlobal ====The impact is mass poverty==== **Bradford of the Huffington Post in 13**, Harry Bradford, 4-5-2013, "Three Times The Population Of The U.S. Is At Risk Of Falling Into Poverty," HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/global-poverty-900-million-economic-shock_n_3022420?guccounter=1andguce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8andguce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGE87qBrAVLjGGpeZszt0eAeE3548KkEZvFdFwqEi8m7RXjM1Mw5BSigOlPDEmegIKH_FWipL0bK-fQTdZBZJRgLYeyyjNQMrZaeNo-J2wnT6OuuYOBaNUSe__ucfKRETPinh-0sGFTj27SURWoUK5TdRFkhViPmDgiXfnrsNgwu, accessed 7-17-2019//BK Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are on the brink of poverty. A recent AND following the financial crisis, the world is still in a vulnerable situation. ====Economic collapse also causes CCP instability==== **Pei of Foreign Affairs of 09,** Minxin Pei, Senior Associate in the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Center For Preventive Action, 3-12-2009, "Will the Chinese Communist Party Survive the Crisis?," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2009-03-12/will-chinese-communist-party-survive-crisis, Accessed: 6-22-2016, /Bingham-JS Until recently, most leading China watchers thought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) AND collective protests reported annually. Such frustrations will only intensify in hard times. ====That would cause a regional war, which draws in the US and goes nuclear==== **Stephen David Professor of IR @ Johns Hopkins wrote in 2008**, Stephen David, "Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests," p. 116-121 kegs Those who see China as a threat to the United States, and to the AND not more than, the purposeful designs of Maoist China a generation ago.

Possible Interps

debaters must use direct quotes when introducing evidence for the first time rather than paraphrasing Debaters must disclose all broken positions on their PF wiki with full citations, tags, contact info, and the first/last 3 words of each card at least 30 minutes before the round. Debaters cannot have images in the substantive offense sections of their speech doc. All arguments that try to establish the role of the ballot as something other than default CBA world comparison need to be in the first construct of the team making them. BOTH DEBATERS MUST ASSUME, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE DEBATE, THAT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS MORALLY IMPERMISSIBLE. NEITHER DEBATER CAN ACCESS THE BALLOT THROUGH THE POSSIBILITY THAT THERE ARE NO MORAL FACTS OR PROHIBITIONS. Both burden structures must be such that that any increase in domestic violence is morally significant. You can’t argue that domestic violence might not impact to your standard, nor can you argue that you win if there are no moral prohibitions. Debaters must disclose all broken theory interpretations and meet them on their NDCA wiki All theoretical interpretations with potential ballot implications read in the AC must have an explicit voter (including drop the debater vs. drop the argument) and a list of potential violations

Possible INterps

debaters must use direct quotes when introducing evidence for the first time rather than paraphrasing Debaters must disclose all broken positions on their PF wiki with full citations, tags, contact info, and the first/last 3 words of each card at least 30 minutes before the round. Debaters cannot have images in the substantive offense sections of their speech doc. The affirmative cannot affirm. Debaters cannot affirm a topic with a bare plural

NovDec19 - Surveillance State

thanks nobro =NC= ====We negate the resolution==== ====Our sole contention is the surveillance state==== ====There are two ways offensive cyber operations enable and expand mass surveillance ==== ====First, OCO's undermine legal protections against domestic surveillance==== William O. **Scharf**, Harvard Law School, **2011**., "CYBERSECURITY, CYBER COMMAND, AND THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT" ECIR is a collaborative interdisciplinary research program between researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University that seeks to create a field of cyber international relations for the 21st century. https://projects.csail.mit.edu/ecir/wiki/images/b/bb/Scharf_paper_rev4.pdfhttps://projects.csail.mit.edu/ecir/wiki/images/b/bb/Scharf_paper_rev4.pdf kegs With awareness of the contemporary data insecurity1 and critical infrastructure vulnerability2 crises seemingly ever- AND only with the issue of conflicts with the current Posse Comitatus legal regime. ====The department of defense has carved out wide exemptions to Posse Comitatus, allowing it to exercise offensive attacks on domestic networks==== William O. **Scharf**, Harvard Law School, **2011**., "CYBERSECURITY, CYBER COMMAND, AND THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT" ECIR is a collaborative interdisciplinary research program between researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University that seeks to create a field of cyber international relations for the 21st century. https://projects.csail.mit.edu/ecir/wiki/images/b/bb/Scharf_paper_rev4.pdfhttps://projects.csail.mit.edu/ecir/wiki/images/b/bb/Scharf_paper_rev4.pdf kegs Offensive cyber-operations in the homeland will by their nature almost certainly qualify as AND a limit on these activities, rather than as a comprehensive ban against them ====The vague nature of cyber threats has given the military and the NSA justifications to functionally ignore posse comitatus and expand domestic control==== Interview with Emanuel Pastreich, director of the Asia Institute, and Peter W. **SINGER**, the director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, ~~January 13, **2014**, "The State, the Internet and Cybersecurity," http://www.brookings.edu/research/interviews/2014/01/13-the-state-the-internet-and-cybersecurity-singer kegs Pastreich: "So, in cyberspace, is there a posse comitatus?" AND -11' threat and a 'death by a thousand cuts.'" ====Second is organizational capacity. ==== ====The blending of the NSA and cybercommand lead to greater expansion of domestic surveillance, granting military resources to the agency in charge of spying on citizens and allies==== Tim **Maurer**, Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, **12** ~~December 5, 2012, "Is it Legal for the Military to Patrol American Networks?" http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/05/is_it_legal_for_the_military_to_patrol_american_networks~~ Over the past couple months, the Pentagon has assumed an increasing role in defending AND plan — and an exit strategy for the Pentagon's involvement in domestic security. ====There are four impacts==== ====First is cyberattacks==== ====Surveillance through OCO's results in backdoors and unaddressed security gaps – that opens us up to devastating cyberattacks==== **Open Letter 15** — An Open Letter to President Obama co-signed by 36 civil society organizations (including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Free Software Foundation), 48 technology companies and trade associations (including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo), and 58 security and policy experts (including Jacob Applebaum, Eric Burger, Joan Feigenbaum, and Bruce Schneier), the full list of signatories is available upon request under the "FYI: Open Letter To Obama" header, 2015 (Open Letter to Obama, May 19^^th^^, Available Online at https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/3138—113/Encryption_Letter_to_Obama_final_051915.pdf, Accessed 06-29-2015, p. 1) Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy's security. Encryption protects billions AND on this issue agrees on this point, including the government's own experts. ====Cyberattacks are frequent and devastating. Every attack increases the risk of catastrophe. ==== **Nolan 15** — Andrew Nolan, Legislative Attorney at the Congressional Research Service, former Trial Attorney at the United States Department of Justice, holds a J.D. from George Washington University, 2015 ("Cybersecurity and Information Sharing: Legal Challenges and Solutions," CRS Report to Congress, March 16^^th^^, Available Online at http://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R43941.pdf, Accessed 07-05-2015, p. 1-3) Introduction The high profile cyberattacks of 2014 and early 2015 appear to be indicative AND the words of one prominent cybersecurity expert—"vulnerabilities of staggering proportions."26 ====Second is the economy==== ====NSA surveillance leaks are spurring data localization measures—that undermines global trade and the domestic economy==== Kornbluh 14 - senior fellow for digital policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (Karen, "Beyond Borders: Fighting Data Protectionism", Democracy, Fall 2014, http://www.democracyjournal.org/pdf/34/beyond_borders_fighting_data_protectionism.pdf)//DBI Preserving the ability of information to flow through the pipes of the Internet should be AND Representative) has kept the issue at the margins of policy-making. ====Third is EU relations==== ====Surveillance OCO's fracture the relationship==== Derek E. **Mix**, February **2015** (analyst in European affairs, "The United States and Europe: Current Issues", 7/10, http://fas.org:8080/sgp/crs/row/RS22163.pdf) In 2013, press reports began surfacing about U.S. National Security Agency AND to the legacy of domestic spying by the Nazi and East German regimes. ====US-EU relations solve nuclear war and multiple transnational threats==== **Stivachtis 10** – Director of International Studies Program @ Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University ~~Dr. Yannis. A. Stivachtis (Professor of Poli Sci and Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from Lancaster University), THE IMPERATIVE FOR TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION," The Research Institute for European and American Studies, 2010, pg. http://www.rieas.gr/research-areas/global-issues/transatlantic-studies/78.html There is no doubt that US-European relations are in a period AND force Europe to conclude that the costs of continued alliance outweigh its benefits. ====Fourth is Racism==== **Kumar and Kundnani '15** Deepa Kumar is an associate professor of Media Studies and Middle East Studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Haymarket Books, 2012). Arun Kundnani is research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. He is a writer and activist, and a professor at NYU. "Race, surveillance, and empire" – International Socialist Review - Issue ~~#96 – Spring - http://isreview.org/issue/96/race-surveillance-and-empire In the second part, we turn our attention to the current conjuncture in which AND the decline of the social wage and its reallocation to "homeland security."

Disclosure

A. Interpretation : Debaters must disclose taglines and full citations in their case prior to the start of the tournament. B. Violation : They didn’t disclose, they didn’t meet specific parts (*say the specific parts they didn’t meet*****ex. Taglines**) despite the TOC invitation asking all teams to disclose in advance C. Standards : 1. Argument Quality No disclosure rewards debaters for running arguments that the opponents cant respond to. This kills argument quality because no disclosure disincentivizes thoughtful responses to the case. Debaters can use each other's arguments and meta strats to figure out what the most educational arguments are. i. IL to Fairness bc we are disadvantaged they’re running arguments we have no responses to ii. IL to education cause we can’t have good responses that increase education 2. Inclusivity Schools with bigger programs have access to more prep groups, coaches, judges, intel etc. Disclosure is an equalizer and allows access to better evidence, and strats. i. IL to fairness cause no disclosure accentuates prep disadvantages ii. IL to education because better strats give us better understandings of case 3. Evidence Ethics Disclosure allows debaters to check each others evidence Misconstruing evidence kills engagement with the literature because they can just lie i. IL to education becuz fake or misconstrued evidence is uneducational ii. IL to fairness because misconstrued evidence gives teams unfair advantages D. Voters : 1. Fairness Deb8 isn’t functional without fairness 2. Education Only portable skill from deb8 3. No RVI’s RVI’s allow debaters to be rewarded for being fair and educational instead of being punished for being unfair and non educational 4. Drop the debater Its the same as dropping the argument cause the argument is the case Sets a precedent that disclosure is good! 5. Competing Interps over Reasonability Theres no brightline for reasonability. They should be forced to engage with our claims to maximize education 6. A Priori You have to know the rules of the game before u can play it Theory impx are the most proximal becuz they affect the debaters in round

0- Contact Information

[email protected] or FB Messenger: Praneel Jadav

P - Presume against presumption

You should presume for the team that doesn’t trigger presumption in order to discourage teams from triggering presumption. Presumption kills education because a) the triggers are the same across every topic but topical education is unique to the topic b) presumption avoids talking about what we *should* do which produces apathy that always favors those in power

UBI - DA - Meat V2

Meat consumption down now and the trend is accelerating. WPF 16 WPF 16 , World Preservation Foundation , "Meat in Decline", 2016, https://worldpreservationfoundation.org/business/meat-in-decline/ Red meat consumption ... Foodnavigator USA, 2013 Income growth via UBI propagates meat consumption – studies prove Schroeder 10 (Ted C. Schroeder, Andrew P. Barkley and Kathi C. Schroeder, “Income Growth and International Meat Consumption”, 18 Oct 2010, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J047v07n03_02?journalCode=wifa20) //AK With technological adoption ... total meat consumption. Unsustainable meat causes extinction - Barclay 19 Eliza Barclay , Vox , "Plant-based diet: why we might need it to survive as a species - Vox", Jan 24 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/1/23/18185446/climate-change-planet-based-diet-lancet-eat-commission The way we ... grains, legumes, and nuts,

UBI - CT - Recession Recovery Bad

check osource

Doses AC

We affirm Resolved: The US should remove its economic sanctions on Venezuela. Contention 1: Doses and Mimosas Sanctions have caused serious food and medicine deficiencies in Venezuela. Sachs 19 of the CEPR finds that sanctions of Venezuela have deprived the Venezuelan economy of money to pay for food and medicine, with food imports having fallen $9 billion from 2013. Moreover, Weisbrot 19 of CEPR finds that sanctions have prevented debt restructuring in Venezuela as well as the implementation of a new exchange-rate system to solve hyperinflation, something which has worked in Bolivia. This is why Buncombe 19 of The Independent finds that sanctions have independently accelerated the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, increasing general mortality by 31. The impact is a food and medicine crisis. Nebehay 19 of Reuters finds that by lifting sanctions, Venezuela would be able to access its assets, allowing them to buy medicine for 6 years. Moreover, Weisbrot 19 of the CEPR finds that sanctions have killed 40,000 people in Venezuela and removing sanctions in Venezuela would lower below mortality rates before sanctions were in place in Venezuela. Contention 2: Threat Level Midnight Currently, blackouts in Venezuela are getting worse as supply of electricity slowly depletes. Jones 19 of the Guardian finds that Venezuela’s best-managed and most productive electrical networks have recently been underfunded and overexploited, causing a decrease in the electricity supply in Venezuela. Unfortunately, when these unreliable main grids fail, the Venezuelan government relies on backup generators to supply electricity. However, sanctions have limited Venezuela’s ability to keep these backup generators running. Hetland 19 of the Nation finds that US sanctions have prevented Venezuela’s ability to import and produce the fuel required by the thermal power plants to back up the main grids. The impact is an energy crisis. Weisbrot 19 of the CEPR finds that Venezuela has suffered a severe electricity crisis, causing a 6.4 loss of GDP. The World Bank quantifies that every 1 increase in GDP decreases poverty by 1.7. By ending sanctions, this will end blackouts and allow the GDP of Venezuela to rebound, which decreases poverty. Contention 3: Saving PetroCaribe PetroCaribe was an oil alliance meant to save Latin America and the Caribbean, but the program is currently out of business. Beaubien 19 of NPR explains that PetroCaribe was an energy alliance started by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that was meant to spur economic growth in Latin America, where Venezuela would sell subsidized oil to other nations in Latin America and the Caribbean at half the cost, with the rest repaid by these nations at a later date incrementally. Unfortunately, sanctions have single-handedly destroyed this program. Beaubien 19 of NPR furthers that due to US sanctions, payments for oil can not be routed back to Venezuela as banks do not want to facilitate the transfer in fear of US sanctions, causing fuel shipments under PetroCaribe to come to a halt. Moreover, Charles 19 of the Miami Herald explains that since these nations have to pay Venezuela dollars in advance for the oil supplied under the program, sanctions have prevented them from doing so as banks will not facilitate the transfer, with one recent example being Jamaica. The impact is decreasing mortality. Unfortunately, the PetroCaribe program was a lifeline for Latin American and Caribbean nations, as it helped spur development and combat poverty. The FAO 19 finds that PetroCaribe decreased malnourishment rates by 50 in the region, which has improved the quality of life for more than 32 million people in the region. Montanez 17 quantifies that malnourishment has killed 43 million people in Latin America in 2016 alone. Fortunately removing sanctions would allow for the renewal of PetroCaribe, as it is a mutually beneficial agreement with Venezuela being able to sell oil quickly and other nations reaping the benefits of cheaper oil. Moreover, Maduro will continue this program as Parraga 14 of Reuters finds that the alliance was initially set up to build alliances in South America and the Caribbean, helping Venezuela’s standing in the region. Thus, we are proud to affirm.

01 - Pharma Neg v12

==Neg 1.2 - Innovation== ====God I love American pharmaceuticals==== Robert J. Easton, 1-22-2018, "Price controls would stifle innovation in the pharmaceutical industry," STAT, https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/22/price-controls-pharmaceutical-industry/ Consumer access to affordable and effective medicines is an important issue. As the cost of many drugs continues ...AND... rious diseases that still afflict us will have been crippled and squandered. In my view that is terrible policy. ====America good==== Jim Greenwood, 7-17-2018, "America Leads in Biopharmaceutical Innovation. Let’s Keep It That Way.," Morning Consult, https://morningconsult.com/opinions/america-leads-biopharmaceutical-innovation-lets-keep-it-that-way/ America’s life sciences industry is thriving, employing more than 1.2 million people and creating life-saving tr ...AND... r tax rates or tax incentives, requiring alternative ways to support and sustain their ground-breaking research. ====Good biopharma uniqueness==== The Economist, "EQRX wants to make high-end medicines less costly", January 18th, 2020, https://www.economist.com/business/2020/01/18/eqrx-wants-to-make-high-end-medicines-less-costly biotech startup wants to make me-too versions of existing drugs. So far, so familiar. Except that eqrx, a firm b ...AND... m went public, may be resisting shareholders’ calls to charge as much for them as the distorted market will bear. ====AI good and solving now==== Buvailo 18, Andrii Buvailo, 8-10-2018, "How Big Pharma Adopts AI To Boost Drug Discovery," Biopharma Trend, https://www.biopharmatrend.com/post/34-biopharmas-hunt-for-artificial-intelligence-who-does-what/ The type of artificial intelligence (AI) which scares some of the greatest minds, like Elon Musk and Stephen Haw ...AND... nd AI-driven companies, primarily startups. Let’s see who is doing what in the biopharmaceutical AI landscape. ====Uh oh now we destroy profits==== Lawson, 3-3-2019, "Medicare For All will drastically lower prescription drug prices by taking on Pharma’s greed," Salon, https://www.salon.com/2019/03/03/medicare-for-all-will-drastically-lower-prescription-drug-prices-by-taking-on-pharmas-greed_partner/ Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) recently introduced Medicare for All Act of 2019 is a powerful and comprehensive p ...AND... g pharmaceutical companies spent more on share buybacks and dividends than they did on research and development. ====Levy spike - we spend more per capita so demand increase won’t offset loss==== John Tierney, August 2018, "What the Prescription Drug Debate Gets Wrong," City Journal, https://www.city-journal.org/price-controls-on-pharmaceuticals These delays save Europeans money, and so do the bargaining tactics of national health systems, which can use th ...AND... that, even after allowing for the higher spending, Americans came out nearly $600 billion ahead of the Europeans. ====Pharma backfile==== Patrick Gleason, 2-21-2017, "States Consider Imposing Drug Price Controls," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2017/02/21/states-consider-imposing-drug-price-controls/#7354cb4a639b This state legislative activity represents the continuation of a debate that featured prominently in the 2016 el ...AND... serve as a backstop, should this innovation and investment-stifling legislation be approved by state lawmakers. ====Princess Fiona 3 Shrek==== Fiona M., 6-20-2001, "The Problems of Price Controls," Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/problems-price-controls One of the most important issues to Americans is how to manage prescription drug prices, especially for seniors ...AND... he price that results causes the quantity demanded by consumers to exactly equal the supply produced by sellers. ====STONKS==== Gatlin 19, Allison Gatlin, 4-17-2019, "Medtech, Biotech Stocks Charred As They 'Feel The Bern'," Investor's Business Daily, https://www.investors.com/news/technology/medical-technology-stocks-biotech-stocks-medical-for-all-bernie-sanders/ Medical stocks were ravaged Wednesday on a "Medicare for All" proposal out of Washington amid rising popularity ...AND... otech stocks — slipped 3.9. Shares of medical device makers toppled the same amount. Pharma stocks fell 2.8. ====Advertising spike - New Zealand proves==== Barbara Mintzes,, 2009, "Should Canada allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs?: NO," PubMed Central (PMC), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2642505/ Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs has increased enormously over the past decade in the ...AND... ates sales, but whether or not this is good or bad for health, health care quality, and total health care costs. ====STONKS pt 2==== Investopedia, 1-29-2020, "Average Research and Development Costs for Pharmaceutical Companies," https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060115/how-much-drug-companys-spending-allocated-research-and-development-average.asp RandD Spending in the Pharmaceutical Industry The pharmaceutical industry's lifeblood is RandD. The success of major ...AND... logical innovation, such as Apple, spends less than 3 of revenues on RandD; IBM spends a little more than that. ====Empirics - medicare proves now==== Jacob James Rich, 4-16-2019, "Medicare for All Means Innovation for None," Reason Foundation, https://reason.org/commentary/medicare-for-all-means-innovation-for-none/ Leading Democratic presidential primary contenders have now almost unanimously endorsed some sort of Medicare fo ...AND... America should resist the regressive movement to end inequality by giving everyone equally terrible health care. ====What doesn’t this card say==== Chris Conover, 10-6-2017, "The #4 Reason Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-All Single-Payer Plan Is A Singularly Bad Idea," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/10/06/the-4-reason-bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-single-payer-plan-is-a-singularly-bad-idea/#62d75f118fe0 The fourth reason the Sanders single-payer Medicare-for-All plan is a bad idea is the adverse effects it will ha ...AND... afford single-payer health care even if one completely rejects every single one of my top 4 reasons to oppose it. ====Yes NIH is key to development but they couldn’t fill the gap==== Dryden, 11-16-2017, "Cutting NIH budget could cripple drug development," Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/cutting-nih-budget-cripple-drug-development/ A proposal to slash funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could severely impair the development o ...AND... fection-fighting medicines, then in future years, many people may die from infections that once were treatable.” ====73!!!!!!!!!==== Vintage, 6-27-2020, "Pharmaceutical Innovation and Longevity Growth in 30 Developing and High-income Countries, 2000-2009," NBER, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18235 I examine the impact of pharmaceutical innovation, as measured by the vintage (world launch year) of prescriptio ...AND... s consumed that were launched after 1990 was 1.27 years~-~-73 of the actual increase in life expectancy at birth. ====Goldberg goldberg goldberg==== Goldberg, 9-1-1993, "Pharmaceutical Price Controls: Saving Money Today or Lives Tomorrow?," IPI, https://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/pharmaceutical-price-controls-saving-money-today-or-lives-tomorrow It is important therefore to bear in mind the cost-effectiveness of drugs compared to other medical treatment. D ...AND... unch prices are now 14 percent below the market segment leader where there are competing therapeutic products. 12 ====The Pope==== Chris Pope, 11-06-2019, "Drug Prices Tend to Reduce Overall Health-Care Spending," Manhattan Institute, https://www.manhattan-institute.org/issues-2020-drug-prices-account-for-minimal-healthcare-spending From 2014 to 2018, savings from patent expiry totaled $51 billion, more than offsetting the $22 billion increase ...AND... ng in the U.S. goes toward pharmaceuticals, compared with 15 in Australia, 17 in Canada, and 19 in Japan.14

Lakeland Cap K

====The UBI will be shaped by current political forces- The only UBI that will get past the Republican controlled senate and Trump would be one that plunders the welfare state while giving nothing in return.==== Battistoni of Dissent 17 https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/false-promise-universal-basic-income-andy-stern-ruger-bregman Basic income is therefore often posited as a post-ideological solution suited to a new era of politics: the odd ...AND... he right controls everything—should be cause for alarm: UBI’s supporters on the left should proceed with caution. ====The UBI becomes a tool for corporate exploitation.==== Heller of New Yorker 18 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/who-really-stands-to-win-from-universal-basic-income Skeptics might point out that what was meant to be a floor can easily become a ceiling. This was Marx’s complain ...AND... um size, and choice opportunity would again redound to the rich, for whom the shrinkage would not mean very much. ====Even those at the top support the UBI to fuel their exploitation==== Panne of Common Dreams 19 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/13/universal-basic-income-why-so-called-solution-disappearing-jobs-makes-serfs-us-all What UBI would do is facilitate our society’s continued consumption. That’s the point, at its heart, and why the ...AND... ght have happily taken over the job of selling it to society on their behalf—with very little details, of course. ====Passing a UBI is the final surrender to capitalism. Rather than fighting against the exploitation of capitalism, the UBI concedes to it and locks in the status quo.==== Zamora of Jacobin 17 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/universal-basic-income-inequality-work Paradoxically, then, UBI seems to be a crisis demand, brandished in moments of social retreat and austerity. As ...AND... uld universalize precarious labor and extend the sphere of the market — just as the gurus of Silicon Valley hope. ====The root cause of all the impacts of the aff is our capitalist society and working within it for their so called reform just dooms them to failure. ==== Sadowski of the Guardian 16 UBI programs are not necessarily antagonistic to capitalism, but rather can be used to support an economic syste ...AND... tealthy way for them to backdoor their own politics and values, while also protecting their positions in society? ====Vote down the affirmative for their endorsement of UBI as an end all be all to poverty and inequality. We must hollow out capitalist structures by refusing to invest our energy in reforms and rescue operations==== Herod of the University of Massachusetts Boston ‘4 (James, Getting Free, http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm)

Disclosure

Pls don't make us disclose, but if we have to contact us 15 minutes before the round, and we will disclose if you do. Contact Us: [email protected] [email protected]

trigger disclosure

In order to hopefully make rounds safer this is a list of arguments that we need trigger warned before we debate- 1. Domestic or intimate partner violence 2. Suicide

Highland HJ Natives Neg

UQ: Plants Shut Down Nuclear fuel cycle – plant building, mining, processing, dumping WNA the international organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. Its members come from all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle , March 2017, "Nuclear Fuel Cycle Overview," No Publication, https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/introduction/nuclear-fuel-cycle-overview.aspx The nuclear fuel cycle is the series of industrial processes which involve the production of electricity from uranium in nuclear power reactors. Uranium is a relatively common element that is found throughout the world. It is mined in a number of countries and must be processed before it can be used as fuel for a nuclear reactor. Fuel removed from a reactor, after it has reached the end of its useful life, can be reprocessed so that most is recycled for new fuel. The various activities associated with the production of electricity from nuclear reactions are referred to collectively as the nuclear fuel cycle. The nuclear fuel cycle starts with the mining of uranium and ends with the disposal of nuclear waste. With the reprocessing of used fuel as an option for nuclear energy, the stages form a true cycle.To prepare uranium for use in a nuclear reactor, it undergoes the steps of mining and milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication. These steps make up the 'front end' of the nuclear fuel cycle.After uranium has spent about three years in a reactor to produce electricity, the used fuel may undergo a further series of steps including temporary storage, reprocessing, and recycling before wastes are disposed. Collectively these steps are known as the 'back end' of the fuel cycle. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle diagram UraniumUranium is a slightly radioactive metal that occurs throughout the Earth's crust (see page on Uranium and Depleted Uranium). It is about 500 times more abundant than gold and about as common as tin. It is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and in sea water. It is, for example, found in concentrations of about four parts per million (ppm) in granite, which makes up 60 of the Earth's crust. In fertilisers, uranium concentration can be as high as 400 ppm (0.04), and some coal deposits contain uranium at concentrations greater than 100 ppm (0.01). Most of the radioactivity associated with uranium in nature is in fact due to other minerals derived from it by radioactive decay processes, and which are left behind in mining and milling.There are a number of areas around the world where the concentration of uranium in the ground is sufficiently high that extraction of it for use as nuclear fuel is economically feasible. Such concentrations are called ore.Uranium miningBoth excavation and in situ techniques are used to recover uranium ore. Excavation may be underground and open pit mining.In general, open pit mining is used where deposits are close to the surface and underground mining is used for deep deposits, typically greater than 120 m deep.Open pit mines require large holes on the surface, larger than the size of the ore deposit, since the walls of the pit must be sloped to prevent collapse. As a result, the quantity of material that must be removed in order to access the ore may be large. Underground mines have relatively small surface disturbance and the quantity of material that must be removed to access the ore is considerably less than in the case of an open pit mine. Special precautions, consisting primarily of increased ventilation, are required in underground mines to protect against airborne radiation exposure.An increasing proportion of the world's uranium now comes from in situ leach (ISL) mining, where oxygenated groundwater is circulated through a very porous orebody to dissolve the uranium oxide and bring it to the surface. ISL may be with slightly acid or with alkaline solutions to keep the uranium in solution. The uranium oxide is then recovered from the solution as in a conventional mill.The decision as to which mining method to use for a particular deposit is governed by the nature of the orebody, safety and economic considerations.For more detailed information see the information pages on: Supply of Uranium World Uranium Mining In Situ Leach (ISL) Mining of Uranium Uranium millingMilling, which is generally carried out close to a uranium mine, extracts the uranium from the ore (or ISL leachate). Most mining facilities include a mill, although where mines are close together, one mill may process the ore from several mines. Milling produces a uranium oxide concentrate which is shipped from the mill. It is sometimes referred to as 'yellowcake' and generally contains more than 80 uranium. The original ore may contain as little as 0.1 uranium, or even less.In a mill, the ore is crushed and ground to a fine slurry which is leached in sulfuric acid (or sometimes a strong alkaline solution) to allow the separation of uranium from the waste rock. It is then recovered from solution and precipitated as uranium oxide (U3O8) concentrate. After drying and usually heating it is packed in 200-litre drums as a concentrate, sometimes referred to as 'yellowcake' (though it is usually khaki).U3O8 is the uranium product which is sold. About 200 tonnes is required to keep a large (1000 MWe) nuclear power reactor generating electricity for one year.The remainder of the ore, containing most of the radioactivity and nearly all the rock material, becomes tailings, which are emplaced in engineered facilities near the mine (often in a mined out pit). Tailings need to be isolated from the environment because they contain long-lived radioactive materials in low concentrations and maybe also toxic materials such as heavy metals. However, the total quantity of radioactive elements is less than in the original ore, and their collective radioactivity will be much shorter-lived.Conversion and enrichmentThe uranium oxide product of a uranium mill is not directly usable as a fuel for a nuclear reactor and additional processing is required. Only 0.7 of natural uranium is 'fissile', or capable of undergoing fission, the process by which energy is produced in a nuclear reactor. The form, or isotope, of uranium which is fissile is the uranium-235 (U-235) isotope. The remainder is uranium-238 (U-238)*. For most kinds of reactor, the concentration of the fissile uranium-235 isotope needs to be increased – typically to between 3.5 and 5 U-235. Isotope separation is a physical process to concentrate (‘enrich’) one isotope relative to others. The enrichment process requires the uranium to be in a gaseous form. The uranium oxide concentrate is therefore first converted to uranium hexafluoride, which is a gas at relatively low temperatures.* U-238 is fissionable in fast neutron reactors, which are likely to be in wide use by mid-century.At a conversion facility, the uranium oxide is first refined to uranium dioxide, which can be used as the fuel for those types of reactors that do not require enriched uranium. Most is then converted into uranium hexafluoride, ready for the enrichment plant. The main hazard of this stage of the fuel cycle is the use of hydrogen fluoride. The uranium hexafluoride is then drained into 14-tonne cylinders where it solidifies. These strong metal containers are shipped to the enrichment plant.The enrichment process separates gaseous uranium hexafluoride into two streams, one being enriched to the required level and known as low-enriched uranium; the other stream is progressively depleted in U-235 and is called 'tails', or simply depleted uranium.The main enrichment process in commercial plants uses centrifuges, with thousands of rapidly-spinning vertical tubes. As they spin, the physical properties of molecules, specifically the 1 mass difference between the two uranium isotopes, separates them. A laser enrichment process is in the final stage of development.The product of this stage of the nuclear fuel cycle is enriched uranium hexafluoride, which is reconverted to produce enriched uranium oxide. Up to this point the fuel material can be considered fungible (though enrichment levels vary), but fuel fabrication involves very specific design.Enrichment is covered in detail in the page on Uranium Enrichment.A small number of reactors, notably the Canadian and Indian heavy water type, do not require uranium to be enriched.Fuel fabricationReactor fuel is generally in the form of ceramic pellets. These are formed from pressed uranium oxide (UO2) which is sintered (baked) at a high temperature (over 1400°C)a. The pellets are then encased in metal tubes to form fuel rods, which are arranged into a fuel assembly ready for introduction into a reactor. The dimensions of the fuel pellets and other components of the fuel assembly are precisely controlled to ensure consistency in the characteristics of the fuel.In a fuel fabrication plant great care is taken with the size and shape of processing vessels to avoid criticality (a limited chain reaction releasing radiation). With low-enriched fuel criticality is most unlikely, but in plants handling special fuels for research reactors this is a vital consideration.Some 27 tonnes of fresh enriched fuel is required each year by a 1000 MWe reactor.Power generation and burn-upSeveral hundred fuel assemblies make up the core of a reactor.* For a reactor with an output of 1000 megawatts (MWe), the core would contain about 75 tonnes of low-enriched uranium. In the reactor core the U-235 isotope fissions or splits, producing a lot of heat in a continuous process called a chain reaction. The process depends on the presence of a moderator such as water or graphite, and is fully controlled.* up to about 250 in a PWR, two or three times as many in a BWR.Some of the U-238 in the reactor core is turned into plutonium and about half of this is also fissioned, providing about one-third of the reactor's energy output (or more than half in CANDU).As in fossil-fuel burning electricity generating plants, the heat is used to produce steam to drive a turbine and an electric generator, in a 1000 MWe unit providing over 8 billion kilowatt hours (8 TWh) of electricity in one year.To maintain efficient reactor performance, about one-third of the spent fuel is removed every year or 18 months, to be replaced with fresh fuel.* The length of fuel cycle is correlated with the use of burnable absorbers in the fuel, allowing higher burn-up.* In the USA about 85 of reactors have an 18-month fuel cycle, a few have 24-month ones. In Asia, over 80 have 18-month cycles, the rest 12-month. In Europe, over 60 have 12-month cycles, the balance 18-month, and over one-quarter do not use burnable absorbers. All reactors in the USA and Asia use burnable absorbers. So 18 months is a typical worldwide refuelling interval.Typically, some 44 million kilowatt-hours of electricity are produced from one tonne of natural uranium. The production of this amount of electrical power from fossil fuels would require the burning of over 20,000 tonnes of black coal or 8.5 million cubic metres of gas.An issue in operating reactors and hence specifying the fuel for them is fuel burn-up. This is measured in gigawatt-days (thermal) per tonne and its potential is proportional to the level of enrichment. Hitherto a limiting factor has been the physical robustness of fuel assemblies, and hence burn-up levels of about 40 GWd/t have required only around 4 enrichment. But with better equipment and fuel assemblies, 55 GWd/t is possible (with 5 enrichment), and 70 GWd/t is in sight, though this would require 6 enrichment. The benefit of this is that operation cycles can be longer – around 24 months – and the number of fuel assemblies discharged as used fuel can be reduced by one third. Associated fuel cycle cost is expected to be reduced by about 20.In CANDU reactors using natural uranium, burn-up is much less, about 7.5 GWd/t, but in terms of efficiency this is equivalent to almost 50 GWd/t for enriched fuel.Burn-up in GWd/t is the conventional measure for oxide fuels, and 60 GWd/t U is equivalent to about 6.5 atomic percent burn-up, i.e. about 6.5 of the original uranium atoms are burned directly, or indirectly via transformation to fissile plutonium. (With metal fuels, the atomic percent metric is used, and a new light water reactor metal fuel is targeting 21 atomic percent burn-up when it is deployed in 2020s.)As with as a coal-fired power station about two thirds of the heat is dumped, either to a large volume of water (from the sea or large river, heating it a few degrees) or to a relatively smaller volume of water in cooling towers, using evaporative cooling (latent heat of vapourisation).Used fuelWith time, the concentration of fission fragments and heavy elements formed in the same way as plutonium in the fuel will increase to the point where it is no longer practical to continue to use the fuel, though much potential remains in it. So after 18-36 months the used fuel is removed from the reactor. The amount of energy that is produced from a fuel assembly varies with the type of reactor and the policy of the reactor operator. Used fuel will typically have about 1.0 U-235 and 0.6 fissile plutonium (almost 1 Pu total), with around 95 U-238.* About 3 is fission products and minor actinides.* Used fuel from PHWR units using natural (unenriched) uranium fuel after 7.5 GWd/t burn-up is 98.8 U-238, 0.23 U-235, 0.38 Pu and 0.6 fission products.When removed from a reactor, the fuel will be emitting both radiation, principally from the fission fragments, and heat. It is unloaded into a storage pond immediately adjacent to the reactor to allow the radiation levels to decrease. In the ponds the water shields the radiation and absorbs the heat, which is removed by circulating the water to external heat exchangers. Used fuel is held in such pools for several months and sometimes many years. It may be transferred to naturally-ventilated dry storage on site after about five years.Depending on policies in particular countries, some used fuel may be transferred to central storage facilities. Ultimately, used fuel must either be reprocessed in order to recycle most of it, or prepared for permanent disposal. The longer it is stored, the easier it is to handle, due to decay of radioactivity.There are two alternatives for used fuel: Reprocessing to recover and recycle the usable portion of it. Long-term storage and final disposal without reprocessing. ReprocessingUsed fuel still contains about 96 of its original uranium, of which the fissionable U-235 content has been reduced to less than 1. About 3 of the used fuel comprises waste products and the remaining 1 is plutonium (Pu) produced while the fuel was in the reactor and not 'burned' then. Reprocessing separates uranium and plutonium from waste products (and from the fuel assembly cladding) by chopping up the fuel rods and dissolving them in acid to separate the various materials. It enables recycling of the uranium and plutonium into fresh fuel, and produces a significantly reduced amount of waste (compared with treating all used fuel as waste). See page on Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel. The remaining 3 of high-level radioactive wastes (some 750 kg per year from a 1000 MWe reactor) can be stored in liquid form and subsequently solidified.Uranium and plutonium recyclingThe uranium recovered from reprocessing, which typically contains a slightly higher concentration of U-235 than occurs in nature, can be reused as fuel after conversion and enrichment.The plutonium can be directly made into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, in which uranium and plutonium oxides are combined. In reactors that use MOX fuel, plutonium substitutes for the U-235 in normal uranium oxide fuel (see page on Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel).According to Areva, about eight fuel assemblies reprocessed can yield one MOX fuel assembly, two-thirds of an enriched uranium fuel assembly, and about three tonnes of depleted uranium (enrichment tails) plus about 150 kg of wastes. It avoids the need to purchase about 12 tonnes of natural uranium from a mine.Another way of recycling plutonium and uranium from reprocessing is Russia’s REMIX, not yet commercialized. Here a non-separated mix of both has some low-enriched uranium (17 U-235) added, to give fuel with about 1 Pu-239 and 4 U-235.Apart from the incidental transformation of U-238 into plutonium in a normal reactor, U-238 is not usable in today’s fuel cycle. However, in a fast neutron reactor it is fissionable as well as (more importantly) giving rise to plutonium, and is therefore potentially valuable. Increasingly, today’s used fuel is being seen as a future resource rather than a waste.WastesWastes from the nuclear fuel cycle are categorised as high-, medium- or low-level wastes by the amount of radiation that they emit. These wastes come from a number of sources and include: low-level waste produced at all stages of the fuel cycle; intermediate-level waste produced during reactor operation and by reprocessing; high-level waste, which is waste containing the highly-radioactive fission products separated in reprocessing, and in many countries, the used fuel itself. Separated high-level wastes also contain long-lived transuranic elements. After reprocessing, the liquid high-level waste can be calcined (heated strongly) to produce a dry powder which is incorporated into borosilicate (Pyrex) glass to immobilise it. The glass is then poured into stainless steel canisters, each holding 400 kg of glass. A year's waste from a 1000 MWe reactor is contained in five tonnes of such glass, or about 12 canisters 1.3 metres high and 0.4 metres in diameter. These can readily be transported and stored, with appropriate shielding.The uranium enrichment process leads to the production of much 'depleted' uranium, in which the concentration of U-235 is significantly less than the 0.7 found in nature. Small quantities of this material, which is primarily U-238, are used in applications where high density material is required, including radiation shielding and some is used in the production of MOX fuel. While U-238 is not fissile it is a low specific activity radioactive material and some precautions must, therefore, be taken in its storage or disposal. Nuclear waste is dumped on native lands and communities of color- that's nuclear colonialism. (Adebagbo, Oluwaseun Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Education Program Assistant at Stanford University School of Medicine. “Environmental Injustice: Racism Behind Nuclear Energy.” Stanford University. March 26, 2018. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/adebagbo1/) Nuclear power plant (NPP) reactors produce low-level ionizing radiation, high level nuclear waste, and are likely to lead to catastrophic contamination events. Power generated from NPPs produce nuclear waste that should kept away from humans for thousands of years. 1 The key concern in NPP accidents is when radioactive elements escape from the core into the environment. 2 (See Fig. 1 for example of a power plant.) Communities living near NPPs are also exposed to possible soil and water contamination. 1 Risks presented by NPP can have multigenerational effects on people and communities in close proximity to these power plants. There are three key forms of environmental justice: distributive justice, procedural justice, and recognition justice. According to Rawls theory of distributive justice, it is unjust for disadvantaged populations to bear further harms from the placement of nuclear power facilities unless they derive special benefits. Communities where certain disadvantaged populations (such as low income and minority groups) reside are where the U.S. stations waste facilities. 3 Environmental racism combines public policies and industry practices to provide benefits for whites while shifting the costs to people of color. 4 Low-income and Minorities Disproportionately Impacted In a study done by Kynes, there was a larger percentage of African Americans living within the 50 mile radius of NPPs, while there was a larger percentage of whites living outside the 50 mile radius. 1 An example of this can be found from Warren County, the Savannah River nuclear facility. This facility which is a source of radioactive leaks, is located in a predominantly African American community in South Carolina. 3 Minorities communities are unequally more impacted by the NPP than white communities. Minority and poverty-level communities often include higher percentages of women and children and both are more sensitive to ionizing radiation, yet most radiation standards are created to only protect adult males. 5 Despite the lack of consent from Indigenous peoples, NPP use their lands for uranium mining/processing. Indigenous people have been harmed by working in unregulated uranium mines or by exposure to uncontrolled uranium wastes on native lands. Uranium mining and milling on reservation lands in the Black Hills and Four Corners regions, are primary examples of nuclear colonialism and racism. 4 In the U.S., Native-American uranium miners, face 14 times the normal lung-cancer risk, mostly caused by their uranium-mining, not smoking. 5 US nuclear-facility owners are legally allowed to expose workers to annual radiation doses up to 50 times higher than those allowed for members of the public. Radiation workers typically do not receive hazard pay. They often accept dangerous nuclear jobs because of economic necessity. 5 In the event of emergency evacuation, housing, job, and financial uncertainty can serve as barriers thus, heightening the stress associated with the inability to evacuate. Low-income and minority populations are more likely to lack financial resources and social networks to rely upon during emergencies. Further, low-income populations have the worst health and health care. People of color also have higher rates of illness and mortality, and lower usage rates of health care facilities and procedures. This becomes more problematic for people coping with associated health impacts of a nuclear accident. They are likely to suffer greater costs in the case of an accident and face more difficulties in recovery. Yet it is unclear whether these groups get any special benefits such as cheaper electricity. Nuclear on the decline – 8 percent by 2040. The plants are old and not being used Nick Cunningham. Graduate of Johns Hopkins University, an independent journalist, covering oil and gas, energy and environmental policy, and international politics. "Nuclear Power Dying A Slow Death". OilPrice, May 28, 2019, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Power-Dying-A-Slow-Death.html. (JL) But in the years ahead, nuclear is set to decline without help. In the U.S., nuclear power’s share of the electricity mix could fall from 20 percent to 8 percent by 2040. One of the main reasons why nuclear power is in decline is that the vast majority of the plants online were built decades ago. Most are now aging and nearing the end of their original intended operating lives. As a result, nuclear plants, particularly in advanced economies, are beginning to shut down. Adding to the industry’s woes in the U.S., nuclear has suffered from a decade of cheap shale gas. Meanwhile, the rise of renewable energy everywhere has significantly undercut the case for new nuclear. But two major events have struck a devastating blow to the nuclear industry from which it never really recovered. The 1986 nuclear explosion at Chernobyl ground nuclear construction to a halt worldwide. The events have been depicted in a riveting miniseries by HBO, set to wrap up in a week, which has captivated audiences around the world. The show has received critical acclaim, but leaves viewers with a stomach-churning dread. The timing of the show is not optimal for the nuclear industry, which is reeling from shutdowns, cost inflation, uncertainty and lack of interest.Related: The Next LNG Boom Will Dwarf The Last One The Chernobyl incident nearly killed the industry, and choked off new investment for years. After dozens of reactors were constructed in the U.S. in the 1970s-1980s, very few moved forward following Chernobyl. The handful of projects that did receive a greenlight came in the next wave of investment in the 2000s, when electricity prices were rising, concerns about climate change emerged, and memories of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island began to fade. But the “nuclear renaissance,” as the resurging interest in the early 21st century has been dubbed, was just about killed off before it started. In 2011 an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan, causing an explosion and meltdown. Japan closed more than 50 of its nuclear reactors, which not coincidentally led to a spike in global LNG prices and also pushed up demand for oil and coal. Meanwhile, the Fukushima disaster reverberated around the world. In Europe, and in Germany in particular, the disaster accelerated plans to shut down reactors. Again, without nuclear, Japan and Germany had to rely on more fossil fuels, despite the rapid increase of renewable energy. Back in the U.S., nuclear plants faced a different and arguably more insurmountable problem. Cost overruns and delays, which have long plagued the industry, have proven to be just about fatal. In South Carolina, ratepayers have been stuck with a $9 billion tab to build a nuclear project, but after a decade of work, the project has been shelved and the state has nothing to show for it. Southern Company, which has presided over the budget-busting and oft-delayed Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, now sounds very regretful about its project. Just a few weeks ago Southern’s CEO said that the company won’t pursue nuclear again until maybe the 2040s. To slash carbon emissions, “we do need, as a nation, to continue to invest in nuclear technology. But, for us, that won’t be my administration’s call,” Southern’s Tom Fanning said. “It will be in the ’30s and ’40s when I think we need to add more nukes.”Related: Have Gasoline Prices Peaked For 2019? Fittingly, the Three Mile Island site, which almost saw a nuclear meltdown in 1979, is set to close this year, after its owners unsuccessfully sought a bailout from the Pennsylvania legislature. The closure of the project almost certainly will lead to higher consumption of natural gas, which highlights the conundrum that the world faces in its race to slash emissions. The IEA sounded the alarm in its new report, arguing that climate goals will be exceedingly difficult if nuclear is killed off. The agency argues that the world needs an 80 percent increase in nuclear generation through 2040 in order to slow climate change. But, as it stands, nuclear power is riskier, more expensive and takes infinitely longer to bring online than renewable energy. Very few, if any, utilities will want to move forward on new nuclear projects when they have cheap solar and wind to turn to. “Plans to build new nuclear plants face concerns about competitiveness with other power generation technologies and the very large size of nuclear projects that require billions of dollars in upfront investment,” the IEA said. “Those doubts are especially strong in countries that have introduced competitive wholesale markets.” That last point is worth noting. If nuclear power is going to survive, let alone thrive, it will need a hefty dose of support from government policy because the industry is increasingly uncompetitive. The IEA pleaded with governments to rescue the industry. “It has become increasingly clear that the construction of a new wave of large-scale Generation III reactors in all European or North American electricity markets is inconceivable without strong government intervention,” the IEA said in its report. L1: Manipulate System Nuclear power industries dump radioactive waste on Native reservations and blatantly ignore Environmental Justice—lobbying and blackmail overcome any political opposition NIRS 1 an group founded in 1978 to be the information and networking center for citizens and organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues. (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “ Environmental Racism, Tribal Sovereignty and Nuclear Waste High-Level Atomic Waste Dump Targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah” http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm Feb 15 2001) Nevadans and Utahans living downwind and downstream from nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining, and radioactive waste dumping have suffered immensely during the Nuclear Age. But even in the "nuclear sacrifice zones" of the desert Southwest, it is Native Americans~-~-from Navajo uranium miners to tribal communities targeted with atomic waste dumps~-~- who have borne the brunt of both the front and back ends of the nuclear fuel cycle. The tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah is targeted for a very big nuclear waste dump. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability corporation representing eight powerful nuclear utilities, wants to "temporarily" store 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive waste (nearly the total amount that presently exists in the U.S.) next to the two-dozen tribal members who live on the small reservation. The PFS proposal is the latest in a long tradition of targeting Native American communities for such dumps. But there is another tradition on the targeted reservations as well–fighting back against blatant environmental racism, and winning. Skull Valley Goshute tribal member Margene Bullcreek leads Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (or OGD, Goshute for "Mountain Community"), a grassroots group of tribal members opposed to the dump. In addition to many other activities, OGD has filed an environmental justice contention before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB). Both the federal government and the commercial nuclear power industry have targeted Native American reservations for such dumps for many years. In 1987, the U.S. Congress created the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator in an effort to open a federal "monitored retrievable storage site" for high-level nuclear waste. The Negotiator sent letters to every federally recognized tribe in the country, offering hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to tribal council governments for first considering and then ultimately hosting the dump. Out of the hundreds of tribes approached, the Negotiator eventually courted about two dozen tribal councils in particular. Resistance from members within the targeted tribes, however, prevented the proposed dumps from opening. Grace Thorpe, founder of the National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans and an emeritus member of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service board of directors, rallied her fellow tribal members and defeated the dump targeted at her own Sauk and Fox reservation in Oklahoma. Tribal members on other targeted reservations turned to Thorpe, and to such Native-led groups as Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Honor the Earth, to learn how to organize their community to resist the federal nuclear waste dump. The Negotiator eventually set his sights on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. But tribal member Rufina Marie Laws spearheaded her community’s resistance against her own tribal council and the Negotiator, thwarting the dump. After having failed to open the intended dump, Congress defunded and dissolved the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator in 1994. The commercial nuclear power industry, however, picked up where the Negotiator had left off. Led by Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy), 8 nuclear utility companies formed a coalition that attempted to overcome the resistance at Mescalero. A tribal referendum, however, doomed the dump to eventual failure. The utility coalition regrouped as Private Fuel Storage, and then turned to the Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah, another community that had been on the Negotiator’s target list. At the same time, the nuclear power industry contributed large sums to Congressional and Presidential campaigns, and lobbied hard on Capitol Hill to establish a "temporary storage site" at the Nevada nuclear weapons test site, not far from the proposed federal permanent underground dump for high-level atomic waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Both these proposed "temporary" and permanent dump sites would be on Western Shoshone land, as affirmed by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. Yucca Mountain is sacred to the Western Shoshone, and their National Council has long campaigned to prevent nuclear dumping there. Several incarnations of the nuclear power industry-backed "Mobile Chernobyl" bill appeared between 1995 and 2000. They were so dubbed because, if enacted, they would have launched the beginning of tens of thousands of dangerous irradiated nuclear fuel shipments to Nevada. Grassroots efforts across the country, combined with Nevadan leadership in Congress and an unwavering veto pledge by President Clinton, has successfully stopped "Mobile Chernobyl" in its tracks on Capitol Hill for the past five years. Having lost its bid to "temporarily" store its deadly wastes on Western Shoshone land near Yucca Mountain, nuclear utilities have re-focused their hopes for "interim" relief on Nevada’s neighbor, Utah. PFS must have done its homework: it would be hard to find a community more economically and politically vulnerable than the Skull Valley Goshutes to the Faustian bargain of getting "big bucks" in exchange for hosting the nation’s deadliest poisons. Just 25 tribal members live on the tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation, an hour’s drive west and south from Salt Lake City in Tooele County, Utah. The remaining 100 Band members live in surrounding towns in Tooele County, in Salt Lake City, and elsewhere. The reservation is already surrounded by toxic industries. Magnesium Corporation is the nation’s worst air polluter, belching voluminous chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid clouds; hazardous waste landfills and incinerators dot the map; with a name straight out of Orwell’s 1984, Envirocare dumps "low level" nuclear waste in the next valley and is applying to accept atomic trash hundreds of times more radioactive than its present license allows. Dugway Proving Ground has tested VX nerve gas, leading in 1968 to the "accidental" killing of 6,400 sheep grazing in Skull Valley, whose toxic carcasses were then buried on the reservation without the tribe’s knowledge, let alone approval. The U.S. Army stores half its chemical weapon stockpile nearby, and is burning it in an incinerator prone to leaks; jets from Hill Air Force Base drop bombs on Wendover Bombing Range, and fighter crashes and misfired missiles have struck nearby. Tribal members’ health is undoubtedly adversely impacted by this alphabet soup of toxins. Now PFS wants to add high-level nuclear waste to the mix. This toxic trend in Tooele County has left the reservation with almost no alternative economy. Pro-dump tribal chairman Leon Bear summed up his feelings: "We can’t do anything here that’s green or environmental. Would you buy a tomato from us if you knew what’s out here? Of course not. In order to attract any kind of development, we have to be consistent with what surrounds us." Targeting a tiny, impoverished Native American community, already so disproportionately overburdened with toxic exposures, to host the United States’ nuclear waste dump would seem a textbook violation of environmental justice. But the nuclear utilities did not let such considerations slow down their push for the PFS dump on the Skull Valley Reservation. Two days after Christmas in 1996, without the knowledge or approval of the Skull Valley Goshute General Council (the 60 adult members who govern the tribe), Tribal Chairman Leon Bear signed a lease agreement with PFS for an undisclosed amount of money. To this day, no tribal member outside the three member tribal executive committee knows how much money the tribe would receive for hosting the nation’s atomic waste dump. The NRC, which must issue a license in order for the dump to open, ruled in its June, 2000 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that the dump does not violate environmental justice, because PFS will pay the tribe so handsomely. Estimates of the secretive pay-off to the tribal council range from 60 to 200 million dollars. PFS’s strategy is simple: use unlimited amounts of money to buy out any potential opposition to locate a dump on the reservation. In 1999, PFS entered into an undisclosed monetary agreement with resistant local cattle ranchers, and in May 2000 signed a deal with Tooele County in exchange for support of the dump. In an area of economic scarcity, money talks loudly. "It's pretty clear that utilities are willing to spend billions to move the spent fuel out of their back yard into ours," said Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, who adamantly opposes the PFS dump. "The real issue is not the money," Bullcreek, has said. "The real issue is who we are as Native Americans and what we believe in. If we accept these wastes, we're going to lose our tradition." Bullcreek, a tribal member who resides on the reservation with her children, disagrees with NRC’s ruling that the dump presents "no disproportionately high and adverse impacts on low income or minority populations." (DEIS, pg. LXX of the introduction). She first became concerned by the way in which Chairman Bear had gone about signing the lease (without first bringing it to the general council for a vote). As she looked into it, she learned about the dangers of high-level nuclear waste, about the ways the PFS dump would threaten her tribe’s health, culture, traditions and reservation community life. The NRC’s ruling assumes that, given enough money, tribal members such as Bullcreek and her family could simply move from the reservation if they didn’t like the sight of a nuclear waste dump out their kitchen window. Such false logic fails to recognize traditional tribal members’ inextricable spiritual attachment to the land they and their ancestors inhabit. "Cedar and Sage are sacred here," says Bullcreek. "I cut willow branches over there to cradle my babies like my mother did, and my grandmother did, and her mother and her mother. Their bones are on this land. If you think this is desolate then you don’t know the land. You don’t know how to be still and listen. There is peace here. I felt I had to be outspoken or lose everything that has been passed down from generations. The stories that tell why we became the people we are and how we should consider our animal life, our air, things that are sacred to us. Leon Bear is trying to convince himself that what he is doing is right, but this waste will destroy who we are." Bullcreek is fighting the dump because it would ruin that peace and her family’s ancient connection to the land. If the dump is built, she has said she would be forced to move away from the homeland she loves. Has NRC considered the fact that for Bullcreek-–a fluent speaker of her native tongue-–to move away from the community would be yet another severe blow to the endangered Goshute language? What about other similar adverse impacts to the traditional culture? NRC’s ruling that the dump is justified because of the large economic benefit for the tribe (DEIS, p. 6-28) also fails to recognize that Chairman Bear seems to have no intention of sharing proceeds from PFS with opponents to the dump. OGD’s contention before the Licensing Board challenges this NRC finding of no environmental justice (EJ) violation. Tribal opposition to the dump has taken a number of other, complementary paths as well. Tribal member Sammy Blackbear, who lives with his four children on the reservation, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, alleging that it violated its trust responsibility to the tribe by quickly approving an illegitimate lease agreement between Chairman Bear and PFS. Over twenty tribal members, including Bullcreek, have joined as co-plaintiffs. Blackbear is also working with his U.S. Congressman to investigate allegations that Chairman Bear has used PFS income to bribe some tribal members into supporting the lease agreement and dump proposal, while blocking other payments due tribal members who oppose the dump. Bullcreek and Blackbear are actively working with concerned citizens of Utah to develop an alternative economic plan for their reservation. An effort is underway to obtain solar panels and wind turbines for installation in the community as a clean, renewable source of electricity. Both are also working with allies in the political and grassroots arenas outside the reservation, to counter the vast resources of the powerful nuclear utilities and other corporations promoting PFS. OGD’s EJ contention before the ASLB could be key to stopping the dump. A successful EJ contention against Louisiana Energy Services (LES) was essential in defeating a proposed uranium enrichment plant targeted at an impoverished rural African-American community. The NRC Licensing Board overseeing the LES case quoted President Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 in its ruling: "To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law…each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States." OGD and its legal representatives must now navigate the complex legal and bureaucratic labyrinth of the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The huge financial costs—difficult for a small group such as OGD to raise~-~-required to effectively participate in NRC hearings poses the question, is the NRC ASLB process itself a violation of environmental justice? OGD’s contention hearing, originally scheduled for June, has now been delayed until December, 2001. If the NRC’s DEIS ruling~-~-that the proposed dump is not an EJ violation because PFS will pay the tribe a relatively large sum of money–stands uncontested, it could serve as a precedent to "justify" federal regulatory agencies licensing toxic facilities that target impoverished minority communities, so long as the polluting corporation "compensates" the victims with "enough" money to "live with it" or relocate elsewhere. Offering reservation communities "enough" money to "put up with" or relocate away from proposed toxic facilities on their homeland nevertheless despoils or removes the land in which traditional culture and spirituality is rooted. Dangling big bucks in front of impoverished reservation communities, tempting them to do something they otherwise would not, enables corporations to "divide and conquer," by setting tribal councils against traditionals, and tribal members against each other. Even though no waste has been dumped yet, Bullcreek says PFS is already ripping her community apart. The outcome of the PFS fight may set important precedents for tribal sovereignty and environmental protection on reservations. The nuclear power industry is attempting to evade environmental regulations and State of Utah opposition by hiding behind the shield of tribal sovereignty. If successful, this could threaten to undermine tribal sovereignty itself. "Sovereignty isn’t selling your independence and your heritage to the highest bidder," Bullcreek says. "What choice will we have after they park all that radioactive waste on our land?" The lease agreement signed by Chairman Bear and PFS requires that the tribe "use its sovereign nation status to support and promote this Lease and Project," and that the tribe "not, at any time, pass any law, rule or regulation which could adversely affect or burden this Lease or the Project…" (Lease between Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and PFS, May 20, 1997, p. 18). The lease also forbids the tribe from setting any environmental protection standards that are stronger than federal standards (p.24). The agreement, in effect, forfeits control of the reservation dumpsite to PFS, and regulation to the federal NRC. Calling on the State of Utah to take action by entering dialogue with the Goshutes about compensation, remediation and clean up of existing environmental devastation on and around Skull Valley, Indigenous Environmental Network director Tom Goldtooth said "We recognize the sovereignty of the Skull Valley Tribal Council to make decisions on behalf of their people, but the Tribe is in this situation to begin with because of unjust policies that have negatively impacted their inherent rights to maintain a healthy, economically viable community. The Tribe is not the enemy here, Private Fuel Storage is. The State needs to look at policies that threaten the Tribe’s health and well-being and work to rectify those first." "The nuclear industry is using Native land and Native people as a loophole to keep their reactors running," says Honor the Earth spokesperson Winona LaDuke. "The nuclear industry needs to be called to the table for seeking a political solution to the deadly environmental problem of nuclear waste they created by targeting isolated Native communities. It’s bad policy and it’s wrong." ur reservation is sacred. This is the only land we have–the only thing the government left us after taking most of our country," Bullcreek said. Radioactivity, because of its disproportionate harmful impact on Native Americans over the past 60 years, has been called the "smallpox blanket of the Nuclear Age," referring to the practice of giving infested blankets to tribes to wipe them out and clear their lands for expropriation. "It is time to right the injustices of the past, and develop just and honorable relationships with Native peoples," said Winona LaDuke. Fighting against the PFS high-level nuclear waste dump targeted at the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes is the front line of that struggle for Native American environmental justice against corporate greed and environmental racism. USFG has no enforcement presence – lax regulations means native land is ideal spot for toxic waste Martin,ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGICAL HISTORY AT WORCHESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: Postdoc Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2018 PhD University of California, Davis 2017 12-6-2018, "Toxic Waste Dumping on Native American Land – Global Environmental Histories," No Publication, https://wp.wpi.edu/envirohist/2018/12/06/toxic-waste-dumping-on-native-american-land/ Being a very small town, it was proposed that recycling plant be built in Dilkon, Arizona to provide more jobs for local indigenous Native American people. The author states that “because of their historical, spiritual, and legal ties to the land, Native Americans do not have the same mobility that others facing environmental hazards might have” (Cole and Foster, 137). The idea of the plant being built in on Native American land is that the company was looking for a place to build with less environmental regulation and enforcement. The authors note that “state law does not apply to Indian lands… and while Federal environmental laws do apply to Indian lands… the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has almost no enforcement presence on reservations.” (Cole and Foster,138). With the lack of enforcement, Indian land became the ideal spot to build a toxic waste dump. Native American environmentalist Tom Goldtooth, writes “that toxic dumping on Indian land is not an option for discussion, that it was not respectful of our spiritual beliefs as Native people” (Cole and Foster, 146). Environmental racism is clearly backed up in this argument. A Greenpeace staffer, “Angel made a presentation on the dangers of toxic dumps and pointed out how other Tribes throughout the West were being similarly targeted for unwanted waste facilities. Tribal Elders asked the company, “If it is so safe, if it is such a good idea, if it makes so much money, why aren’t the white people grabbing at it in L.A. and San Francisco?”(Cole and Foster, 136). You never see whites hosting toxic waste dumping sites, because in fact, it is not safe at all, and poses dangers to human health in the area and the chemicals will likely destroy that region’s environment. Therefore the white communities try to relocate all of the toxic waste sites into communities of color, and even give them incentives to take the waste. It even further proves the severity of environmental racism. For unsupported claims, our group decided that there weren’t any for this specific case. We would summarize this argument as people trying to take advantage of natives and their reservations, which is a recurring theme throughout the years. This is not the only case and will not be the last of companies and people trying to use the people and their reservation, and in this case there is clear evidence of this happening. Lobbying is making deregulations more likely Jessica Corbett,graduate of Ithaca College in international studies, freelance journalist specializing in energy public policy, 3-15-2019, "In Era of Aging Reactors, Nuclear Industry's Push for Deregulation Sparks Warning of 'Collision Course' With Disaster," Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/15/era-aging-reactors-nuclear-industrys-push-deregulation-sparks-warning-collision Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney for nuclear issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, suggested the potential consequences of rolling back nuclear regulations are arguably far greater than the Trump administration's efforts to relax other rules, such as the federal government's Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). "The deregulatory agenda at SEC is a significant concern as well, but it's not a nuclear power plant," Fettus said. Worries over how industry lobbying will sway the NRC's forthcoming recommendations follow critiques from experts and activists of a "stripped down" safety rule the agency's five commissioners approved with a 3-2 party-line vote in January. As journalist Susan Q. Stranahan—who covered the Three Mile Island accident and co-authored Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster—explained in an op-ed for the Washington Post on Thursday, "NRC commissioners rejected a recommendation from their own senior staff to require reactor owners to recognize new climate reality and fortify their plants against real-world natural hazards such as flooding and seismic events." L2: Blackmail Nuclear industry blackmailed the tribes – promised millions in benefits with no follow up Valerie Taliman Taliman is Navajo, is president of Three Sisters Media. She is also an award-winning journalist specializing in environmental, social justice and human rights issues. , 3-28-1993, "Waste merchants intentionally poison natives," WISE, https://tinyurl.com/ss2aqvy They say that calculated decisions were made that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Native people - people that corporate and government officials deemed expendable. The intentional poisoning of Native people has been going on for a long time. It can be traced back to the small-pox infected blankets that the US Cavalry distributed to Indian prisoners of war. It continued through the decades in the form of military and industrial development that polluted Indian lands and water supplies. Today the poisonous deals come in slick packages from friendly waste merchants or from David Leroy, who heads the Office of US Nuclear Waste Negotiations. Leroy has been trying to sell tribal leaders a deal to set aside 450-acre parcels of Native lands for federal storage of radioactive waste from the nation's 110 nuclear plants the so-called Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility for spent reactor fuel rods. In return for poison, Leroy holds out prospects of more federal money for health care, education and other economic benefits that financially strapped tribes critically need. It is a strategy that some tribal leaders call "economic blackmail." Leroy mailed letters to more than 65 tribal leaders nationally and has lobbied at major Indian gatherings such as the National Congress of American Indians attended by 1500 delegates. So far, only the Mascalero Apache tribe in New Mexico has received grant money to study the prospect of a nuclear waste facility on the reservation US$100,000 to allow a feasibility study and another $200,000 for "public education". It is a prospect that has caused much controversy among tribal members, many of whom oppose it. Waste deals disguised as "economic development" This recent round of waste proposals comes on the heels of scores of proposals from waste disposal operators who have deliberately targeted Indian lands for waste incinerators and landfills. In the last two years alone, more than 50 tribes from Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, California, New York, Nevada, Utah, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming and Florida have been approached by waste merchants seeking deals on Native lands where state regulations do not apply and there is less red tape governing toxic waste incinerators and landfills. Toxic waste deals are often disguised as "economic development" projects. Waste companies promise million-dollar deals to people who often live in economically depressed communities that seldom attract offers of this magnitude. In exchange for millions, waste companies propose to build high-level waste incinerators and massive dumps to store tons of toxic waste shipped in from all over the nation. Waste merchants also recognize the political and economic vulnerability of Native nations. Because affluent communities have the money and political power to ban waste sites from their neighborhoods, most landfills, incinerators and toxic dumps are built near low-income communities of color, many near Indian lands. Unless a tribe has existing environmental regulations, toxic waste falls under the jurisdiction of federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laws that are often less stringent than those of states. Native leaders say the lax and distant enforcement exercised by the EPA is not enough to protect tribes from companies that are trying to take advantage of the sovereign status of Native people. "Environmental laws do not protect our people," said Gail Small, a North Cheyenne attorney and activist. "With less than four percent of our original land base left, we refuse to accept the deliberate targeting of our land for white America's trash and poison' L3: Site Selection There are 15,000 decommissioned uranium mines, 75 percent of them are on tribal land. That’s over 11,000 mines. USEPA The Environmental Protection Agency is an independent agency, specifically an independent executive agency, of the United States federal government for environmental protection., 1-19-2017, "TENORM: Uranium Mining Residuals," US EPA, https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-uranium-mining-residuals With the decreased market price of uranium beginning in the 1980s, U.S. producers turned increasingly to in-situ recovery (ISR) operations to extract uranium from ore. In-situ recovery (also known as “solution mining”) is when fluids are injected into an ore-bearing aquifer to mobilize uranium, which becomes soluble in water. The groundwater containing the dissolved uranium and processing fuel is then extracted through wells, and processed to collect the uranium that was mobilized underground. In-situ recovery is considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to be uranium milling, not uranium mining, and the residuals that are produced by this process are regulated as byproduct material. By 2014, according to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Administration, there were only approximately six operations in the U.S. to extract uranium from the Earth, and all but one of those were in-situ operations. View the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Nuclear and Uranium website. EPA's Uranium Location Database, with information provided by other federal, state, and tribal agencies, includes 15,000 mine locations with known or potential uranium occurrence in 14 western states. View EPA's Uranium Location Database. Most of those locations are found in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming, with about 75 percent of those on federal and tribal lands. Top of Page Regulation The Atomic Energy Act (AEA) authority does not extend to uranium mining. The uranium fuel cycle as defined by the AEA begins at the uranium mill, after the uranium is removed from its place in nature. Because U.S. laws do not classify mine overburden or waste rock under the AEA as low level radioactive waste or uranium byproduct material, its placement in specialized radioactive waste disposal facilities is not required. Overburden controls generally fall to the states and the tribes responsible for lands in which it is produced. Commercialization of nuclear power causes reopening of shuttered mines or opening new mines Endres 9 Danielle, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, “From wasteland to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power’s environmental injustices,” Local Environment Vol. 14, No. 10, November 2009, 917–937) All nuclear power production must begin with Uranium mining, which is inextricably linked with indigenous peoples globally (Yih et al. 1995). Within the USA, approximately 66 of the known Uranium deposits are on reservation lands, as much as 80 are on treaty- guaranteed land and up to 90 of Uranium mining and milling occurs on or adjacent to Native American land (Kuletz 1998). Uranium is mined for both commercial nuclear power plants and for military purposes. Makhijani and Hu (1995) argue that it is difficult to separate civilian and military nuclear production because of overlap and lack of infor- mation. However, Hoffman (2001) notes that although the earliest Uranium mining in the USA was used for nuclear weapons, the 1954 Atoms for Peace programme resulted in Uranium mining for commercial nuclear power plant development. Although Uranium mining lessened in the USA in the 1980s, renewed interest in expanding nuclear power pro- duction has resulted in industrial interest in re-opening shuttered mines or opening new mines (Gaynor 2007, Barringer 2008, Saiyid and Harrison 2008, Yurth 2009). Several Native American nations are currently resisting Uranium mining on their lands (Navajo Nation 2005, Capriccioso 2009, Lakota Country Times 2009). Even if nuclear power in the USA draws from foreign sources of Uranium, Yih et al. (1995, p. 105) report that “indigenous, colonised, and other dominated people have been disproportionately affected by Uranium mining worldwide”. Past Uranium mining and milling in the USA resulted in severe health and environ- mental legacies for affected people and their lands. From Uranium mining operations on Navajo land during the Uranium boom (1950s–1980s), there are at least 450 reported cancer deaths among Navajo mining employees (Grinde and Johansen 1995). The devastation extended beyond employees to the larger communities surrounding the mines and mills. The United Nuclear Uranium mill at Church Rock on the Navajo reservation is the site of the largest nuclear accident in the USA. On 16 July 1978, over 100 million gallons of irradiated water contaminated the Rio Puerco River, plant and animal life, and Navajos (Grinde and Johansen 1995, Yih et al. 1995).5 Even now, the legacy of over 1000 abandoned mines and Uranium tailing piles is radioactive dust that continues to circulate through the land (Grinde and Johansen 1995). Yih et al. (1995) cite a statistically significant likelihood of birth defects and other health problems for women living in the vicinity of mine dumps and tailing piles. 80 percent of all uranium in the United States is on tribal land Curtis Kline, Experienced business operations leader with a broad technical background. Formerly managed engineering infrastructure and software QA at Evernote. 7-2-2013, "Uranium Mining and Native Resistance: The Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act," Intercontinental Cry, https://intercontinentalcry.org/uranium-mining-and-native-resistance-the-uranium-exploration-and-mining-accountability-act/ The cancer rates started increasing drastically a few decades after uranium mining began on their territory. According to a report by Earthworks, “Mining not only exposes uranium to the atmosphere, where it becomes reactive, but releases other radioactive elements such as thorium and radium and toxic heavy metals including arsenic, selenium, mercury and cadmium. Exposure to these radioactive elements can cause lung cancer, skin cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, kidney damage and birth defects.” Today, in the northern great plains states of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas, the memory of that uranium mining exists in the form of 2,885 abandoned open pit uranium mines. All of the abandoned mines can be found on land that is supposed to be for the absolute use of the Great Sioux Nation under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty with the United States. There are also 1,200 abandoned uranium mines in the Navajo Nation, where cancer rates are also significantly disproportionate. In fact, it is estimated that 60 to 80 percent of all uranium in the United States is located on tribal land, and three fourths of uranium mining worldwide is on Indigenous land. Defenders of the Black Hills, a group whose mission is to preserve, protect, restore, and respect the area of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, is calling the health situation in their own territory America’s Chernobyl. It’s not far from the truth. A nuclear physics professor from the University of Michigan, Dr. K. Kearfott, Ph. D., who studied the situation in northwestern South Dakota as well as the situation in Japan has said, “The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima nuclear disaster…” The contamination from the mines escapes into the air. It poisons grain that is fed to cattle that provide milk and beef for the rest of the nation. The abandoned uranium mines of the Cave Hills in northwestern South Dakota empty into the Grand River which flows through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Three villages are located on the Grand River and their residents have used the water for drinking and other domestic purposes for generations. The water runoff from the Slim Buttes abandoned uranium mines empty into the Morreau River which flows through the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Both of these rivers empty into the Missouri River which empties into the Mississippi. IL: Suffering 90 percent of nuclear cycle is on Native land. Endres 9 (Danielle, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, “From wasteland to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power’s environmental injustices,” Local Environment Vol. 14, No. 10, November 2009, 917–937) Nuclear colonialism is a type of environmental injustice. In part, nuclear colonialism is environmental racism. According to Bullard (1999, p. 6), “environmental racism combines with public policies and industry practices to provide benefits for whites while shifting costs to people of color”. Yet, nuclear colonialism is also a form of colonialism. Native Americans, unlike other marginalised racial groups in the USA, are members of over 150 distinct sovereign tribal nations and each holds a unique legal relationship with the federal government. As Suagee (2002, p. 227) notes, “Although Indian people have suffered much discriminatory treatment from people who apparently define Indian identity in primarily racial–ethnic terms, the fact that Native American governments are sovereign governments is a significant distinction between them and other kinds of minorities”. Although Native Americans in the USA are sovereign governments, they are still faced with a system of colonialism. Gedicks (1993, p. 13) argues that Native Americans are embedded within a system of resource colonialism under which “native peoples are under assault on every continent because their lands contain a wide variety of valuable resources needed for industrial development”. Nuclear colonialism is a form of resource colonialism that faces Native Americans in the USA and other indigenous peoples worldwide.4 The cradle of nuclear power All nuclear power production must begin with Uranium mining, which is inextricably linked with indigenous peoples globally (Yih et al. 1995). Within the USA, approximately 66 of the known Uranium deposits are on reservation lands, as much as 80 are on treaty- guaranteed land and up to 90 of Uranium mining and milling occurs on or adjacent to Native American land (Kuletz 1998). Uranium is mined for both commercial nuclear power plants and for military purposes. Makhijani and Hu (1995) argue that it is difficult to separate civilian and military nuclear production because of overlap and lack of infor- mation. However, Hoffman (2001) notes that although the earliest Uranium mining in the USA was used for nuclear weapons, the 1954 Atoms for Peace programme resulted in Uranium mining for commercial nuclear power plant development. Although Uranium mining lessened in the USA in the 1980s, renewed interest in expanding nuclear power pro- duction has resulted in industrial interest in re-opening shuttered mines or opening new mines (Gaynor 2007, Barringer 2008, Saiyid and Harrison 2008, Yurth 2009). Several Native American nations are currently resisting Uranium mining on their lands (Navajo Nation 2005, Capriccioso 2009, Lakota Country Times 2009). Even if nuclear power in the USA draws from foreign sources of Uranium, Yih et al. (1995, p. 105) report that “indigenous, colonised, and other dominated people have been disproportionately affected by Uranium mining worldwide”. Past Uranium mining and milling in the USA resulted in severe health and environ- mental legacies for affected people and their lands. From Uranium mining operations on Navajo land during the Uranium boom (1950s–1980s), there are at least 450 reported cancer deaths among Navajo mining employees (Grinde and Johansen 1995). The devastation extended beyond employees to the larger communities surrounding the mines and mills. The United Nuclear Uranium mill at Church Rock on the Navajo reservation is the site of the largest nuclear accident in the USA. On 16 July 1978, over 100 million gallons of irradiated water contaminated the Rio Puerco River, plant and animal life, and Navajos (Grinde and Johansen 1995, Yih et al. 1995).5 Even now, the legacy of over 1000 abandoned mines and Uranium tailing piles is radioactive dust that continues to circulate through the land (Grinde and Johansen 1995). Yih et al. (1995) cite a statistically significant likelihood of birth defects and other health problems for women living in the vicinity of mine dumps and tailing piles. The grave of nuclear power An essential consideration for the viability of nuclear power is HLW storage.6 In the USA, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) vests responsibility with the federal government for permanently storing HLW from commercial and governmental sources in a national repository. High-level waste is a classification for the “hottest” and longest lasting forms of radioactive waste that emit harmful levels of radiation for hundreds of thousands of years (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 2007). Both commercial nuclear power reactors and military programmes produce HLW. The majority of HLW from commercial nuclear power reactors is in the form of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). According to the former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham (2002), “We have a staggering amount of radioactive waste in this country”. IMP: Genocide That causes environmental racism – it’s a toxic genocide on the periphery and indigenous lands globally Endres 9 (Danielle, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, “From wasteland to waste site: the role of discourse in nuclear power’s environmental injustices,” Local Environment Vol. 14, No. 10, November 2009, 917–937) After enrichment, fuel rods are produced. Fuel rods are used in a reactor core of a nuclear power plant to produce a fission reaction that heats water to create steam power. When nuclear fuel rods are spent (SNF), they are moved to interim storage either in storage pools or above ground dry cask storage. Currently, interim storage for US nuclear power plants occurs on site at over 120 locations in 39 states. Following interim storage, SNF can either be (1) reprocessed, fabricated into fuel rods, and run through the reactor again, or (2) sent to a permanent HLW repository. The USA neither currently allows reprocessing of commercial fuel rods nor currently operates a HLW repository in the USA (although, as I will discuss later, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently submitted a license application to the NRC for the Yucca Mountain High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository). As mentioned above, nuclear colonialism describes how the nuclear production process – including both nuclear weapons production and nuclear power – disproportionately harms indigenous people worldwide.3 The Indigenous Environmental Network (2002) wrote: The nuclear industry has waged an undeclared war against our Indigenous peoples and Pacific Islanders that has poisoned our communities worldwide. For more than 50 years, the legacy of the nuclear chain, from exploration to the dumping of radioactive waste has been proven, through documentation, to be genocide and ethnocide and a deadly enemy of Indigenous peoples. . . United States federal law and nuclear policy has not protected Indigenous peoples, and in fact has been created to allow the nuclear industry to continue operations at the expense of our land, territory, health and traditional ways of life. . . . This disproportionate toxic burden – called environmental racism – has culminated in the current attempts to dump much of the nation’s nuclear waste in the homelands of the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin region of the United States. Examples of nuclear colonialism in the United States include Uranium mining and milling on reservation lands in the Black Hills and Four Corners regions, nuclear testing on land claimed under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley by the Western Shoshone, and HLWstorage sites con- sidered on Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Skull Valley Band of Goshute lands (Nelkin 1981, Grinde and Johansen 1995, Kuletz 1998, La Duke 1999, Hoffman 2001). The phenomenon of nuclear colonialism is empirically documented. The book Nuclear Wastelands, edited by Makhijani et al. (1995), reveals that indigenous people in the USA and globally are disproportionately burdened by the production of nuclear weapons. Further, Hooks and Smith (2004, p. 572) demonstrate that US military sites are dispropor- tionately located on or near Native American lands. While these studies focus primarily on military applications of nuclear technologies, there is also evidence to suggest that Uranium mining for nuclear power production and HLW storage also fall within the pattern of nuclear colonialism (Nelkin 1981, Hoffman 2001). Hoffman (2001, p. 462) details the “extraordinary unequal distribution of benefits and burdens at each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle” imposed upon Native American nations in the USA, particularly by Uranium mining and HLW disposal. Nuclear colonialism is a type of environmental injustice. In part, nuclear colonialism is environmental racism. According to Bullard (1999, p. 6), “environmental racism combines with public policies and industry practices to provide benefits for whites while shifting costs to people of color”. Yet, nuclear colonialism is also a form of colonialism. Native Americans, unlike other marginalised racial groups in the USA, are members of over 150 distinct sovereign tribal nations and each holds a unique legal relationship with the federal government. As Suagee (2002, p. 227) notes, “Although Indian people have suffered much discriminatory treatment from people who apparently define Indian identity in primar- ily racial–ethnic terms, the fact that Native American governments are sovereign govern- ments is a significant distinction between them and other kinds of minorities”. Although Native Americans in the USA are sovereign governments, they are still faced with a system of colonialism. Gedicks (1993, p. 13) argues that Native Americans are embedded within a system of resource colonialism under which “native peoples are under assault on every continent because their lands contain a wide variety of valuable resources needed for industrial development”. Nuclear colonialism is a form of resource colonialism that faces Native Americans in the USA and other indigenous peoples worldwide.4 The cradle of nuclear power All nuclear power production must begin with Uranium mining, which is inextricably linked with indigenous peoples globally (Yih et al. 1995). Within the USA, approximately Local Environment 921 Downloaded By: Endres, Danielle At: 18:33 16 October 2009 66 of the known Uranium deposits are on reservation lands, as much as 80 are on treatyguaranteed land and up to 90 of Uranium mining and milling occurs on or adjacent to Native American land (Kuletz 1998). Uranium is mined for both commercial nuclear power plants and for military purposes. Makhijani and Hu (1995) argue that it is difficult to separate civilian and military nuclear production because of overlap and lack of information. However, Hoffman (2001) notes that although the earliest Uranium mining in the USA was used for nuclear weapons, the 1954 Atoms for Peace programme resulted in Uranium mining for commercial nuclear power plant development. Although Uranium mining lessened in the USA in the 1980s, renewed interest in expanding nuclear power production has resulted in industrial interest in re-opening shuttered mines or opening new mines (Gaynor 2007, Barringer 2008, Saiyid and Harrison 2008, Yurth 2009). Several Native American nations are currently resisting Uranium mining on their lands (Navajo Nation 2005, Capriccioso 2009, Lakota Country Times 2009). Even if nuclear power in the USA draws from foreign sources of Uranium, Yih et al. (1995, p. 105) report that “indigenous, colonised, and other dominated people have been disproportionately affected by Uranium mining worldwide” NPP wiped out entire tribes and cleared their lands – it was the "smallpox blanket of the Nuclear Age" NIRS 1 (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “ Environmental Racism, Tribal Sovereignty and Nuclear Waste High-Level Atomic Waste Dump Targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah” http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm Feb 15 2001) The outcome of the PFS fight may set important precedents for tribal sovereignty and environmental protection on reservations. The nuclear power industry is attempting to evade environmental regulations and State of Utah opposition by hiding behind the shield of tribal sovereignty. If successful, this could threaten to undermine tribal sovereignty itself. "Sovereignty isn’t selling your independence and your heritage to the highest bidder," Bullcreek says. "What choice will we have after they park all that radioactive waste on our land?" The lease agreement signed by Chairman Bear and PFS requires that the tribe "use its sovereign nation status to support and promote this Lease and Project," and that the tribe "not, at any time, pass any law, rule or regulation which could adversely affect or burden this Lease or the Project…" (Lease between Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and PFS, May 20, 1997, p. 18). The lease also forbids the tribe from setting any environmental protection standards that are stronger than federal standards (p.24). The agreement, in effect, forfeits control of the reservation dumpsite to PFS, and regulation to the federal NRC. Calling on the State of Utah to take action by entering dialogue with the Goshutes about compensation, remediation and clean up of existing environmental devastation on and around Skull Valley, Indigenous Environmental Network director Tom Goldtooth said "We recognize the sovereignty of the Skull Valley Tribal Council to make decisions on behalf of their people, but the Tribe is in this situation to begin with because of unjust policies that have negatively impacted their inherent rights to maintain a healthy, economically viable community. The Tribe is not the enemy here, Private Fuel Storage is. The State needs to look at policies that threaten the Tribe’s health and well-being and work to rectify those first." "The nuclear industry is using Native land and Native people as a loophole to keep their reactors running," says Honor the Earth spokesperson Winona LaDuke. "The nuclear industry needs to be called to the table for seeking a political solution to the deadly environmental problem of nuclear waste they created by targeting isolated Native communities. It’s bad policy and it’s wrong." ur reservation is sacred. This is the only land we have–the only thing the government left us after taking most of our country," Bullcreek said. Radioactivity, because of its disproportionate harmful impact on Native Americans over the past 60 years, has been called the "smallpox blanket of the Nuclear Age," referring to the practice of giving infested blankets to tribes to wipe them out and clear their lands for expropriation. "It is time to right the injustices of the past, and develop just and honorable relationships with Native peoples," said Winona LaDuke. Fighting against the PFS high-level nuclear waste dump targeted at the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes is the front line of that struggle for Native American environmental justice against corporate greed and environmental racism. It is a dehumanizing genocide, empirics prove- the short-term effects on the indigenous people were nausea, vomiting, and hair loss. the white-blood-cell counts of many were down 70 percent. The long-term health effects include high rates of cancers, miscarriages, birth defects, leukemia, and thyroid tumors. Cultural Survivor Cultural Survival is a nonprofit group based in the US, which is dedicated to defending the human rights of Indigenous Peoples., September 1993, "Nuclear War: Uranium Mining and Nuclear Tests on Indigenous Lands," No Publication, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/nuclear-war-uranium-mining-and-nuclear-tests-indigenous Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state has caused dramatic increases in cancer rates among indigenous peoples. Radioactive gases and fluids released between 1944 and 1977 directly affected fish and wildlife. Eight out of nine reactors at the facility were water-cooled from the Columbia River, affecting the fish that provide food and economic subsistence. Spokane In 1957, Dawn Mining Co. began operating the Midnight Mine only a few miles from the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. The mine was closed in 1981. The leftover uranium mining pits hold contaminated water. One pit has 450 million gallons of contaminated water; another holds 150 million gallons of less contaminated water. A major concern is the contaminated water seeping into Lake Roosevelt. Havasupai, Kaibab Paiute Energy Fuels Nuclear is developing Canyon Mine. The Canyon Mine, along with the Sage Mine, will be built on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Canyon Mine will disturb 17 acres of land for a 1,400-foot shaft and surface facilities. The site, which sits on top of a major aquifer, is also near the Cataract Creek and could contaminate both bodies of water. The site also lies near and partially on sacred religious lands. Navajo, Hopi Uranium mining and aboveground nuclear-weapons tests have occurred for about 50 years on and around these reservations. Since 1942, the reservation lands and the surrounding areas of the Navajo and Hopi have been mined for uranium. From 1946 to 1968, 13 million tons of uranium were mined on the Navajo Reservation. The largest underground uranium mine on Navajo and Hopi lands operated from 1979 to 1990. The worst nuclear accident happened at Uranium Mill, which is south of the Navajo Reservation. More than 1,000 open-pit and underground uranium mines on the reservation are abandoned, unreclaimed, and highly radioactive. Some 600 dwellings on Navajo tribal lands are contaminated with radiation. Former uranium mining and milling districts of the Navajo Reservation suffer from cancer and leukemia clusters and birth defects. Western Shoshone, South Paiute The Nevada Test Site is in the traditional land-use area of the Western Shoshone and South Paiute. The U.S. government appropriated the land in 1951 for exploding nuclear weapons. The Western Shoshone are the most bombed nation on the earth: 814 nuclear tests have been done on their land since 1951. Substantial radioactive fallout has contributed to a high concentration of cancer and leukemia on the reservation. Oglala Lakota Uranium and gold mining occurs in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred area for the Lakota. The U.S. Department of Energy wants to use more of the land for such mining because the area is rich in mineral deposits. Half of the gold mined in the United States each year comes from the Black Hills. The mining sites in the Black Hills could threaten underground water directly underneath the operating mines. Mining is seen as one cause of epidemic levels of sterility, miscarriages, cancer, and other diseases on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Cherokee Radioactive waste from the Sequoyah Plant in Gore, Oklahoma, was spread on Cherokee lands for testing as fertilizer and demonstration purposes. The Cherokee National and Native Americans for a Clean Environment sued to shut down the plant. The plant was recently shut. Mescalero Apache, Prairie Island Mdewakanton, Minnesota Siouz, Skull valley Goshutes, Lower Brule, two Alaskan native communities, Chickasaw, Sac and Fox, Eastern Shawnee, Quassarie, Ponca. These tribes have all applied to be sites for Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS), a temporary solution to the problem of storing vast amounts of high-level nuclear waste. Such waste now sits at 110 nuclear power plants. The MRS sites would keep the waste for 40-50 years. The safety of these plants is still under question. CANADA Inuit, Chipewyan, Metis, Anishinabe A German company wants to establish the Baker Lake Mine i the Northwest Territories, 40 miles from an Inuit settlement. The 50 percent unemployment rate in this community gives the company leverage in opening the mine. The project include one uranium mill, two open pits, and tailings covering 20 square miles. Serpent Lake Band Rio Algom Corp. opened the Elliot Lake Mine in 1953. The Serpent Lake Band lives directly downriver from the complex and has been affected by uranium mining and its leftover tailings. Until the early 1960s, all waste went untreated. By 1980, so many tailing were being dumped in the headwaters of the Serpent River that liquid wastes during the summer were between half to two-thirds of the total water flow. On the reservation, there are many cases of diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, fetal death, and deafness. Cree, Chipewyan, Metis Saskatchewan Province has been called the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium Mining." Four uranium deposits are being mined, the largest of which is Cigar Lake, with estimates it could supply 14,000 tons of uranium annually. Construction is planned to begin in 1994. The other mines in this area are Cluff Lake (now shut), Key Lake (which produces 12 percent of the world's uranium), Beaverlodge, and Rabbit Lake. From 1975 to 1977, a half million gallons of untreated waste went into Wallaston Lake. Radioactive contaminates still leak into the lake through groundwater channels. AUSTRALIA Kokatatha, Arabana The Roxby Downs Mine/Olympic Dams has one of the world's largest deposits of uranium, producing 1.5 million tons of tailings a year. This affects an area of "mound spring," where artesian water naturally rises to the surface, that has a profound significance to local aborigines. The miners refuse to grant compensation to the aboriginal caretakers of the land for the sacred sites that have been destroyed by mine development. Olympic Dam operates under considerable secrecy and prohibits the Kakatha access to sacred sites without an escot of company personell. Martujarra The CRA Company has discovered one of Australia's largest uranium deposits inside Rudall National Park on indigenous lands. The mining would affect a women's sacred dreaming site at Mount Cotten, and mining would be done directly on Martujarra lands. The Martujarra have been unable to stop the mining because they have no property rights to their land. Yungnora Workers at the Argyle Diamond Mine smashed several ceremonial boards at Noonkanbah while searching for diamonds and uranium. Noonkanbah is a sacred site for the Yungnora. The Yungnora community was able to prevent more prospecting by blocking 98 out of 101 CRA-proposed sites. This pressured CRA to move out of the other three spots, including Noonkanbah. Aborigines (various) Ranger Mine operates adjacent to aboriginal sacred sites at Mount Bockman and is surrounded by the Kakadu National Park. Nabarlek Mine, located in the Northern Territory, is on aboriginal lands and adjacent to an aboriginal sacred site. In March 1981, contaminated water escaped from the plant's runoff pond at Nabarlek and entered the creek system of the Buffalo and Coopers creeks. From 1952 to 1963, the United Kingdom exploded nine aboveground nuclear bombs in Emu, Monte Bello, and Maralinga, affecting 11 aboriginal tribes. Radioactive contamination was widespread, and entry into large contaminated areas is still prohibited. SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA Yanomami, Yekuana, Munduruku, Kayapo, Bau-Megragnoti, Menkranotire Uranium mining companies are moving into indigenous lands, where the Yanomami pose an obstacle. Brazil's then-president, Fernando Collor, had allowed the companies to mine and exploit radio-active minerals in almost all the Yanomami territory. Shuar, Archuara, Cfan, Huaorani, Quechua, Secoya, Siona These groups in Ecuador are encountering various problems with uranium mining and exploration on their lands. Mapuche, Techueleche, Chaco, Mataco, Choroti, Toba, Mocobi, Pilaga, Chrguanos, Chinguancos, Quenchua. In Argentina, Mapuche Uranium Mine and the Chubut Uranium Mine re situated on traditional Techuelche and Mapuche territory. The government also dumps nuclear waste from its military and civilian nuclear programs on indigenous territories. Quechua The Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute, with the assistance of other countries, has been exploring Peru's uranium resources. The government has the right to explore and develop uranium fields located on indigenous lands. AFRICA Tamacheq From 1960 to 1965, France conducted aboveground nuclear-weapons tests in the Sahara desert, but it has released no information on contamination or on the people affected. There are also large deposits of uranium in the Hoggar Mountains that if mined are potentially harmful to the Tamacheq and other indigenous peoples. Tamacheq, Ful Uranium is the major export of Niger, amounting to 90 percent of the country's 1980s exports. Niger's infrastructure is centered around uranium mining. The mining occurs mostly in the desert region, which not only causes ecological damage to the land but also affects nomadic tribes. Beduin The world's largest phosphate resources are in Morocco. The mining of phosphate intersects the traditional migration routes of the Beduin. Ovambo The world's second-largest open-pit uranium mine is in Namibia, owned by the Rossing Co. Most of the mining is done by hundreds of Ovambo laborers who live in neo-colonial housing villages and work under an apartheid management system. They are exposed to high levels of radiation from radon gases. There are concerns that water-borne radiation from tailings left from mining operations could contaminate the Khar River. Bambuti The French Atomic Energy Commission started searching for uranium in Gabon in 1948. Mining began in 1961. The now closed Okla mine was in an area originally inhabited by the Bambuti. Khoikhoi, Bantu-speaking groups South Africa has conducted one known nuclear-weapons test, on September 22, 1979. South Africa has three principal uranium deposits: Palaborwa, Witwatersrand, and Karoo Basin (Cape Province). The Bantu-speaking peoples are exposed to the hazards of mining and radioactive emissions from tailings because they work in these mines or have settlements nearby. South Africa is one of the world's largest producers of uranium and platinum-group metals. The mining industry is relatively unregulated, which results in many environmental problems, especially for black communities where mining smelters spew sulfur dioxide and toxic air pollutants. The traditional territory of the Khoikhoi in Northern Cape Province is slated to be a dump for radio-active materials. FORMER SOVIET UNION Kazakh, Khanti, Mamsi, Evenk, Yakut, Chukchee, Eskimosy The former Soviet Union conducted at least 713 nuclear-bomb tests above and below ground at many sites, affecting many indigenous peoples. The two main testing and nuclear sites are located at Semiplantinsk in Kazakhstan and Antic Island of Novaya Zemlya in Siberia. Although the government conducted no known health-effects research, it can be assumed that radioactive fallout affected local indigenous peoples. The Chukchee suffer from tuberculosis, 90 percent have chronic diseases of the lung, and the average life expectancy is 45 years. INDIA Ho, Santal, and Mundu Judugara Mine produces 200 tons of yellow cake annually and affects the Ho, Santal, and Mundu. Many workers in the mine are tribal people who are illiterate and are forced to do the dirtiests jobs. They are exposed to high levels of radiation and don't have the proper protective gear. Many indigenous miners suffer from a high incidence of lung disease. Rajasthani and Bhil The one confirmed nuclear underground test in 1974 in India caused the Rajathani and Bhil tribes to move from their traditional lands. CHINA Uigur, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Xibo, Tadzhik, Uzbek, Tatar, Western Mongols, Tibetan All these peoples are affected in one way or another by uranium mining, bomb testing, and nuclear waste disposal. Uranium mines are scattered all over China. An "atomic factory" planned in the Gobi desert will affect such minorities as Mongols, Muslim Dugans, and Hui Chinese. Some of the world's richest uranium sources are located in Tibet, but the area is generally unsuitable for large-scale uranium mining. One hot spot for uranium mining in Tibet is the Riwoche Hill, a sacred site to Tibetans. SOUTH PACIFIC Yamii In May 1982, Taiwan started to dump low-level radioactive waste on the island of Lanyu, which is populated by 2,900 Yami. The first dump site is two miles from their villages. Strong opposition has mounted among the Yami against the establishment of a second nuclear dump. Ironically, Taiwan plans to establish its fifth national park in the vicinity of the dumps. Micronesians In the 1940s and 1950s, the United States used Bikini, Enewetak, and Johnson atolls and Christmas Island for testing nuclear weapons. Among the short-term effects on the indigenous people were nausea, vomiting, and hair loss. Four weeks after tests, the white-blood-cell counts of many islanders were down 70 percent. The long-term health effects include high rates of cancers, miscarriages, birth defects, leukemia, and thyroid tumors. Four decades later, the people of Bikini Atoll are unable to return home, despite U.S. government promises that their homeland would be inhabitable again; the level of radioactive contamination is still too high. Moruroa and Fangataufa In 1966, France started testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia. 10 million at risk from nuclear genocide Amy Goodman, Harvard graduate and journalist March 14, 2014, “A Slow Genocide of the People: Uranium Mining Leaves Toxic Nuclear Legacy on Indigenous Land,” Democracy Now, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/14/a_slow_genocide_of_the_people , ACC. 7-2-2015 The iconic Grand Canyon is the site of a battle over toxic uranium mining. Last year, a company called Energy Fuels Resources was given federal approval to reopen a mine six miles from the Grand Canyon’s popular South Rim entrance. A coalition of Native and environmental groups have protested the decision, saying uranium mining could strain scarce water sources and pose serious health effects. Diné (Navajo) tribal lands are littered with abandoned uranium mines. From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains of the region. More than 1,000 mines have closed, but the mining companies never properly disposed of their radioactive waste piles, leading to a spike in cancer rates and other health ailments. Broadcasting from Flagstaff, Arizona, we speak with Taylor McKinnon, director of energy with Grand Canyon Trust, and Klee Benally, a Diné (Navajo) activist and musician. "It’s really a slow genocide of the people, not just indigenous people of this region, but it’s estimated that there are over 10 million people who are residing within 50 miles of abandoned uranium mines," Benally says. Benally also describes the struggle to preserve the San Francisco Peaks, an area considered sacred by 13 Native tribes, where the Snowbowl ski resort is using treated sewage water to make snow. Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: “Song of the Sun” by Klee Benally. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Yes, we are on the road in Flagstaff, Arizona. Every year, millions of tourists flock here to visit the Grand Canyon, marvel at the spectacularly vast gorge carved out by the Colorado River. This natural wonder is a window into the Southwest region’s geological and Native American past. Today the Grand Canyon is also the site of an ongoing battle over uranium mining. Last year, a company called Energy Fuels Resources was given federal approval to reopen a mine six miles from the Grand Canyon’s popular South Rim entrance. A coalition of Native and environmental groups have protested the decision, saying uranium mining could strain scarce water sources in the desert area and pose serious health effects.

nuclear energy hegemony

Christopher 19 DiChristopher, T. DiChristopher, Tom. "The US Is Losing The Nuclear Energy Export Race To China And Russia. Here's The Trump Team's Plan To Turn The Tide". CNBC, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/trump-aims-to-beat-china-and-russia-in-nuclear-energy-export-race.html. But even with the State Department lending its diplomatic heft, winning nuclear energy contracts won’t be easy. Russia and China are aggressively pursuing those deals at a time when the U.S. has struggled to build reactors at home and no longer enriches uranium to fuel those facilities. “We have lost tremendous ground. We were once 90 percent of the market globally. We’re down to 20 percent if we’re lucky,” Ed McGinnis, the Department of Energy’s principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in an interview. “The majority of the big 80- to 100-year nuclear power deals being made overseas are Russian and Chinese and other state-owned corporations,” said McGinnis, who has worked in government on nuclear energy and nonproliferation issues for 27 years. Meis 19 National security stakes of US nuclear energy "National Security Stakes Of US Nuclear Energy". Thehill, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/445550-national-security-stakes-of-us-nuclear-energy. The recent struggles of the U.S. nuclear energy industry may appear to be no more than the usual economic disruption caused by competition among technologies. But from our experience in diplomacy and the armed forces, we understand that a declining domestic civil nuclear industry has other ramifications. Critical U.S. national security interests are at risk. We have dedicated our careers to controlling the destructive potential of nuclear weapons. But since the Atoms for Peace era, U.S. leadership in supplying peaceful nuclear energy technology, equipment, and fuel to the world has been important for world development and therefore critical for the United States to establish and enforce standards for nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation. But in recent decades, the U.S. share of international commercial nuclear energy markets has diminished, and so with it has the United States’ ability to influence global standards in peaceful nuclear energy. The critical moment for U.S. leadership in nuclear energy is when a country is developing nuclear energy for the first time. The supplier country and the developing country typically forge a relationship that endures for the 80- to 100-year life of the nuclear program. Unlike a coal or gas plant, nuclear reactors need specialized fuel and maintenance. Once established, the bilateral commercial relationship is not easily dislodged by a rival nation, providing the supplier profound and lasting influence on the partner’s nuclear policies and practices. Russia and China have identified nuclear energy as a strategic export, to be leveraged for geopolitical influence as well as for economic gain. According to a recent analysis, Russia is the supplier of more nuclear technology than the next four largest suppliers combined, and China is quickly emerging as a rival. If the United States fails to compete in commercial markets, it will cede leadership to these countries on nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation, as well as foreign policy influence. As the competition intensifies to deliver the next generation of nuclear power technologies, U.S. nuclear leadership is approaching a watershed opportunity. Simpler, scalable, and less expensive, small and advanced reactors are commercially attractive to an expanded range of markets — particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The United States has the world’s best training and development programs, unmatched regulatory experience, and multiple small and advanced reactor designs; we should be the easy choice for the next generation of nuclear technology. But early U.S. engagement in these important geopolitical regions is critical. Without it, Russia and China will lock up future nuclear markets through MOUs and other bilateral agreements. And for addressing the national security risks of climate change, nuclear energy is not just an option but a necessity. Developing nations that are planning to meet power and water needs for large and growing populations must have reliable, demonstrated, zero-emission nuclear power in order to meet global climate goals as well. Advanced reactors are integral to these goals. In the United States, nuclear energy is responsible for a fifth of the United States’ total electricity and more than 55 percent of our emissions-free energy, but the pace of domestic construction of new natural gas plants far exceeds the few nuclear plants under development, and the existing fleet is retiring prematurely at an alarming rate. Which brings us back to the domestic nuclear industry. U.S. global competitiveness and leadership are inextricably linked to a strong domestic nuclear program. Without a healthy domestic fleet of plants, the U.S. supply chain will weaken against international rivals. Russia has brought six new plants online in the past five years and has six more plants currently under construction. In the same period, China has brought 28 new plants online and has 11 others under construction. These domestic projects provide Russia and China with a robust supply chain, an experienced workforce, and economies of scale that make them more competitive in bidding on international projects. Unless we continue to innovate and build new plants, we will cease to be relevant elsewhere. Even our own domestic energy security is supported by nuclear power. The nuclear plants operating today are the most robust elements of U.S. critical infrastructure, offering a level of protection against natural and adversarial threats that is unmatched by other plants. Because the nation’s grid supplies power to 99 percent of U.S. military installations, large scale disruptions affect the nation’s ability to defend itself. We can regain U.S. leadership in nuclear energy. The key steps are to maintain the domestic reactor fleet, with its reservoir of know-how, and to assist American entrepreneurs in developing the next generation of the technology. But the first step is to recognize what is at stake. Hargraves 17 'Energy is worth a war': US nuclear supremacy is collapsing, but there's a way to win it back "'Energy Is Worth A War': US Nuclear Supremacy Is Collapsing, But There's A Way To Win It Back". Business Insider, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-power-fall-rise-united-states-2017-6. Westinghouse's bankruptcy culminates the collapse of potential US strategic leadership in world nuclear energy. The US has faltered in many aspects of nuclear technology, now allowing other nations to become the world leaders in nuclear and energy diplomacy. Regaining the strategic power will be technically straightforward but politically difficult. Duncan 19 Nuclear energy is a critical investment "Nuclear Energy Is A Critical Investment". Thehill, 2019, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/430029-nuclear-energy-is-a-critical-investment. The U.S. nuclear energy industry supports more than 470,000 jobs and provides more than $60 billion to the economy. In many communities, a nuclear plant is the largest source of local economic deployment. There is also an enormous potential to export U.S. nuclear technologies abroad. The Department of Commerce estimates the international civil nuclear energy industry will be valued at $740 billion over the next 10 years, with $100 billion in export opportunities for the United States. And that’s just with our current fleet and technologies. Nuclear energy is also a rapidly developing area of technological innovation, an effort largely being led by China and Russia. That includes their deploying floating commercial nuclear reactors for remote power generation. We already have floating reactors too - the Navy has 100 of them, but we’re missing the opportunity of using these reactors for commercial power. Meis 19 National security stakes of US nuclear energy "National Security Stakes Of US Nuclear Energy". Thehill, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/445550-national-security-stakes-of-us-nuclear-energy. The recent struggles of the U.S. nuclear energy industry may appear to be no more than the usual economic disruption caused by competition among technologies. But from our experience in diplomacy and the armed forces, we understand that a declining domestic civil nuclear industry has other ramifications. Critical U.S. national security interests are at risk. We have dedicated our careers to controlling the destructive potential of nuclear weapons. But since the Atoms for Peace era, U.S. leadership in supplying peaceful nuclear energy technology, equipment, and fuel to the world has been important for world development and therefore critical for the United States to establish and enforce standards for nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation. But in recent decades, the U.S. share of international commercial nuclear energy markets has diminished, and so with it has the United States’ ability to influence global standards in peaceful nuclear energy. The critical moment for U.S. leadership in nuclear energy is when a country is developing nuclear energy for the first time. The supplier country and the developing country typically forge a relationship that endures for the 80- to 100-year life of the nuclear program. Unlike a coal or gas plant, nuclear reactors need specialized fuel and maintenance. Once established, the bilateral commercial relationship is not easily dislodged by a rival nation, providing the supplier profound and lasting influence on the partner’s nuclear policies and practices. Russia and China have identified nuclear energy as a strategic export, to be leveraged for geopolitical influence as well as for economic gain. According to a recent analysis, Russia is the supplier of more nuclear technology than the next four largest suppliers combined, and China is quickly emerging as a rival. If the United States fails to compete in commercial markets, it will cede leadership to these countries on nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation, as well as foreign policy influence. As the competition intensifies to deliver the next generation of nuclear power technologies, U.S. nuclear leadership is approaching a watershed opportunity. Simpler, scalable, and less expensive, small and advanced reactors are commercially attractive to an expanded range of markets — particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The United States has the world’s best training and development programs, unmatched regulatory experience, and multiple small and advanced reactor designs; we should be the easy choice for the next generation of nuclear technology. But early U.S. engagement in these important geopolitical regions is critical. Without it, Russia and China will lock up future nuclear markets through MOUs and other bilateral agreements. And for addressing the national security risks of climate change, nuclear energy is not just an option but a necessity. Developing nations that are planning to meet power and water needs for large and growing populations must have reliable, demonstrated, zero-emission nuclear power in order to meet global climate goals as well. Advanced reactors are integral to these goals. In the United States, nuclear energy is responsible for a fifth of the United States’ total electricity and more than 55 percent of our emissions-free energy, but the pace of domestic construction of new natural gas plants far exceeds the few nuclear plants under development, and the existing fleet is retiring prematurely at an alarming rate. Which brings us back to the domestic nuclear industry. U.S. global competitiveness and leadership are inextricably linked to a strong domestic nuclear program. Without a healthy domestic fleet of plants, the U.S. supply chain will weaken against international rivals. Russia has brought six new plants online in the past five years and has six more plants currently under construction. In the same period, China has brought 28 new plants online and has 11 others under construction. These domestic projects provide Russia and China with a robust supply chain, an experienced workforce, and economies of scale that make them more competitive in bidding on international projects. Unless we continue to innovate and build new plants, we will cease to be relevant elsewhere. Even our own domestic energy security is supported by nuclear power. The nuclear plants operating today are the most robust elements of U.S. critical infrastructure, offering a level of protection against natural and adversarial threats that is unmatched by other plants. Because the nation’s grid supplies power to 99 percent of U.S. military installations, large scale disruptions affect the nation’s ability to defend itself. We can regain U.S. leadership in nuclear energy. The key steps are to maintain the domestic reactor fleet, with its reservoir of know-how, and to assist American entrepreneurs in developing the next generation of the technology. But the first step is to recognize what is at stake. Lovering 19 Why the United States Should Partner With Africa to Deploy Advanced Reactors | Issues in Science and Technology "Why The United States Should Partner With Africa To Deploy Advanced Reactors | Issues In Science And Technology". Issues In Science And Technology, 2019, https://issues.org/why-the-united-states-should-partner-with-africa-to-deploy-advanced-reactors/. Argentina has built research reactors in both Algeria and Egypt, but may lack the diplomatic clout to carry out a large-scale commercial power project. Argentina’s national atomic energy commission is developing a domestic 100MW SMR, but African countries may be unwilling to sign an agreement with Argentina without the financial, regulatory, and infrastructural support of a country with an established track record in nuclear construction. Yet the United States still has an opportunity to help interested African nations overcome the obstacles to realizing their energy ambitions. Whereas Russia and China have large government investments in a few advanced nuclear technologies, the United States has a robust and thriving private sector for advanced nuclear development, drawing on both decades of public research and development and a high-tech investment ecosystem. From large national laboratories to small venture-backed start-ups, the United States has over 50 firms working on a diverse portfolio of advanced nuclear designs, many targeting smaller or niche markets. The US government should pave the way for advanced nuclear companies to market their products in Africa. This means signing bilateral agreements much earlier with African nations sincerely interested in nuclear power, without which US nuclear companies will have trouble getting approval to collaborate, share information, or export nuclear technology with these nations. Unfortunately, the United States has tended to wait until a country wants to import a particular nuclear technology to sign bilateral agreements. Finally, the government should tackle one of the largest barriers to the development of nuclear power in newcomer countries: opposition from international financing institutions, including the World Bank, which have long-standing, explicit policies against funding nuclear power projects. The US government should lobby these institutions to change such policies in light of new technologies and business models. Small and advanced nuclear designs could actually be a better fit for sustainable development than many projects that the institutions fund today. The United States has significant power in these organizations and should use it to effect change. There is a future in which innovative US nuclear companies develop mutually beneficial partnerships with African nations, deploying advanced nuclear technology that better matches their needs—simultaneously helping US companies make their technologies cheaper and fueling Africa’s economic development without contributing to climate change. Realizing this synergy, however, will take work, but the potential payoff for all parties would be well worth it. Gattie 18 Nuclear Energy: A Key Component of America’s Global Leadership "Nuclear Energy: A Key Component Of America’S Global Leadership". Morning Consult, 2020, https://morningconsult.com/opinions/nuclear-energy-key-component-americas-global-leadership/. More and more emerging countries are turning to nuclear power to support their energy needs and economic development objectives. Unfortunately, they aren’t turning to the United States for help. Instead, they’re turning to competing powers like Russia and China whose reactor technologies are cropping up in developing countries but not necessarily per the United States’ high nonproliferation standards. Now, more than ever, it’s imperative that the United States marshal the political will to preserve its global leadership in nuclear energy, rather than ceding it to competing powers. It’s a matter of national security. The United States is at an inflection point, and we need to decide if we gamble with our national security and let the markets dictate the future of nuclear energy, or enact policies that not only protect this domestic and international energy resource but also advance the development of critical U.S. nuclear technology. By reevaluating our domestic nuclear energy policies, we have the opportunity to maintain our global leadership while strengthening the nuclear industry at home. It goes without saying that nuclear energy is facing challenges in the United States, despite the fact that it runs 24/7 and is our country’s largest supplier of safe, reliable, carbon-free power. Yet, due to policies that favor energy sources such as wind, solar and natural gas, and the absence of policies that recognize nuclear’s benefits, nuclear power is being priced out of the energy markets, causing reactors across the country to close prematurely. In contrast with China and Russia, we’re not investing in the future of nuclear energy as we should and can be. Currently, there are only two nuclear reactors under construction in the United States, at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, and none on the horizon. We’re also not investing sufficient resources into the development of advanced nuclear reactors — molten salt, fast breeders, small modular — that would help the United States remain on the leading edge of the nuclear industry. Hersh 19 Roadblock for US nuclear power? - Atlantic Council "Roadblock For US Nuclear Power? - Atlantic Council". Atlantic Council, 2019, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/roadblock-for-us-nuclear-power/. One reason that new nuclear countries are reluctant to give up uranium enrichment is their need for nuclear fuel security, and a view that simply relying on the global market for nuclear fuel adds risk to their very large NPP investment (i.e., no nuclear fuel means no power generation, which nullifies the asset value). Reducing or removing nuclear fuel security concerns in countries looking to buy nuclear power plants will help convince these countries reconsider the need for uranium enrichment capability. With this in mind, the US should craft a new approach to nuclear fuel security—through long-term nuclear fuel contracts or Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel banks in the target country—in order to mitigate nonproliferation imperatives for purchasing countries. Washington’s stringent nonproliferation conditions should evolve to address changing nuclear fuel security considerations. Having nuclear power brings countries into a special club, with benefits of nuclear power including energy diversification, energy independence, and additional clean and reliable baseload electricity generation. Foreign nuclear plant buyers may want American nuclear power technology and a deeper relationship with the US, but they are hard-pressed to make this decision when more attractive commercial deals are on offer from SOE nuclear vendors and the countries behind these SOE nuclear vendors do not require purchasing countries to restrict activity in uranium enrichment. Without US government action to resolve both commercial and nonproliferation issues, the long-term foreign and security policy dividends that accompany nuclear power exports will be ceded to American competitors. In the meantime, China and Russia’s SOEs provide them an advantage in an age of increased great power competition. Ginn 17 Let America lead in nuclear power innovation "Let America Lead In Nuclear Power Innovation". Thehill, 2017, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/363760-let-america-lead-in-nuclear-power-innovation. In today’s politically polarized environment, compromise is a rare commodity, especially in the energy debate. While progressives push for the use of zero-carbon energy, conservatives counter by advocating for a reliable electricity grid. Yet, nuclear energy could bridge the divide. Innovative technologies like molten salt reactors safely create power that is both carbon free and highly reliable. By removing onerous energy-related regulations and subsidies, federal and state governments can provide an economic environment that allows such a game-changing innovation to benefit Americans. Countries around the world — particularly China and developing nations — see the benefits and are poised to increase their nuclear production. Even France has backed off its plan to reduce their 75 percent share of electricity from nuclear power as it finds alternatives scarce. Sukin 16 How America Can Dominate Global Nuclear Energy "How America Can Dominate Global Nuclear Energy". The National Interest, 2016, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-america-can-dominate-global-nuclear-energy-16274. Because capital costs are the most significant chunk of a plant’s financing, the shape of the overall energy market has implications for the economic viability of nuclear power; for example, carbon taxes or carbon emissions trading can incentive investment in nuclear power, while high interest rates hurt the nuclear market. Fortunately, a global pattern of low interest rates and the increasingly possibility of stronger U.S. actions on climate changes might make for a bullish nuclear energy market in the upcoming years, one that the United States could capitalize on if it strengthened its industry. The benefits of nuclear exporters aren’t just domestic, either. Nuclear power plants’ vast benefits for their host countries—comparatively low environmental impact, economically efficient energy production, suitability for powering desalination plants—make nuclear power a worthy industry for additional attention. Nuclear-power exports would also provide the United States with a leg up when it comes to proliferation concerns. First, U.S. nuclear-energy partners must negotiate 123 agreements, which help monitor nuclear activities and limit countries’ abilities to develop offensive nuclear capabilities. Second, the U.S. nuclear industry has high safety standards all along the nuclear supply chain, standards that other exporters do not necessarily meet. By designing and exporting safer nuclear plants, the United States could reduce the global risk of nuclear accidents. Third, U.S. nuclear exports would allow the United States to utilize scientific diplomacy to build significant and sustainable partnerships throughout the world; these relationships could translate not only to cooperation on additional nonproliferation issues, but on other areas of security and scientific policy as well. These relationships would also be essential for nuclear security, in that the United States could serve a helpful advisory role in importing states’ efforts to build the educational, regulatory and infrastructural institutions needed to sustain a safe nuclear industry. Finally, U.S. exporting capabilities would also provide intimate knowledge of international partners’ nuclear-energy industries, giving the United States a potential guidance role in the case of nuclear accidents as well as intelligence that could be useful for nonproliferation activities. Jogelekar Jogalekar, A. Jogalekar, Ashutosh. "Nuclear Power May Have Saved 1.8 Million Lives Otherwise Lost To Fossil Fuels, May Save Up To 7 Million More.". Scientific American Blog Network, 2013, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/. “In the aftermath of the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the future contribution of nuclear power to the global energy supply has become somewhat uncertain. Because nuclear power is an abundant, low-carbon source of base-load power, on balance it could make a large contribution to mitigation of global climate change and air pollution. Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. Based on global projection data that take into account the effects of Fukushima, we find that by midcentury, nuclear power could prevent an additional 420,000 to 7.04 million deaths and 80 to 240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power.” The authors look at deaths caused by various power sources during the period 1971-2009. To provide a comparison they build a model in which all the power which was provided by nuclear energy was hypothetically replaced by fossil fuel sources. They employ the same technique for the projected 2010-2050 period, assuming that all current nuclear power sources have been replaced by fossil fuels. Two scenarios are considered - one in which nuclear is replaced by coal and another in which it is replaced by gas. This takes into account the uncertainty regarding the nature of fossil fuel usage that’s inherent in future energy projections. Freeman Madison Freeman Docs.House.Gov, 2020, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20180718/108584/HMKP-115-IF00-20180718-SD026.pdf. In April, Turkey broke ground on its first nuclear power plant, which the government says will help meet the country’s rapidly growing demand for electricity and increase its energy independence. In reality, the project may make Ankara much more vulnerable to Kremlin influence, as the plant will be built, owned, and operated by Russia. The Akkuyu reactor shows how Russia — and now China — are using energy exports to build influence abroad. Russia bids for such projects through its state-owned nuclear company, Rosatom, under a model that finances construction of nuclear plants, furnishes the trained personnel to run them, and leases them back to the client country. Kremlin subsidies allow Rosatom to underbid competitors by 20 to 50 percent, while government-to-government loans can help woo countries that might otherwise have difficulty paying for such projects. This has allowed Russia to secure 60 percent of recent global nuclear reactor sales; Rosatom is currently has 35 reactors in 11 countries under construction or contract. Although Rosatom’s business model decreases customer costs, it hands Russia influence that extends well beyond the energy sector. In Turkey, Russia is working with the government to draft the nuclear regulations that will apply to its own projects, running the risk of regulatory capture. In Hungary, the relationship between Victor Orban’s government and the Kremlin has warmedsince Moscow stepped in to finance a nuclear plant expansion that will supply 40 percent of the country’s electricity. Russian control of major sources of electricity, as well as the presence of Russian technical and security personnel on the nuclear project site, gives Moscow leverage over a country’s security and foreign policy decisions. Now China is taking a page from Russia’s handbook. The Chinese government sees nuclear power as a potentially powerful component of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to economically and politically integrate China with Europe, Africa, and the rest of Asia through major infrastructure projects—such as developing nuclear power in energydependent countries. Chinese firms are constructing nuclear plants in Romania, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, with others to be built in Argentina and Iran—and the list of projects could expand substantially. The chairman of the China National Nuclear Cooperation, a Chinese nuclear vendor, has identified 41 countries along the Belt and Road as potential sites for nuclear power projects. China also aims to establish long-term contracts for the construction and operation of nuclear plants, and captures new markets by covering upfront costs and providing technology and construction services. Beijing is covering 82 percent of the reactor costs in Pakistan, and 33 percent of the United Kingdom’s Hinkley Point project. These projects come with more than a monetary price tag. China in particular has a history of using predatory lending practices to make strategic gains. Last year, when Sri Lanka could not pay the debts it owed to Chinese companies for infrastructure projects, it was forced to sign over control of the major port of Hambantota to Beijing. China may expand this tactic to make political or territorial gains in key parts of the world by leveraging nuclear power plant debts. Meanwhile, U.S. nuclear companies find it nearly impossible to compete against government-backed competitors motivated by political goals more than profit. The state-owned nuclear companies of China and Russia are directly lobbied for by top leaders—Vladimir Putin has aggressively promoted Rosatom’s bids abroad, including those in the Middle East and South America. Russia has also used other forms of soft power to promote its nuclear presence abroad, including funding youth competitions in Africa and building a research center in Bolivia. Without this form of state support, U.S. companies find themselves at a disadvantage as they try to sell their product to foreign governments. Meis 19 National security stakes of US nuclear energy "National Security Stakes Of US Nuclear Energy". Thehill, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/445550-national-security-stakes-of-us-nuclear-energy. The recent struggles of the U.S. nuclear energy industry may appear to be no more than the usual economic disruption caused by competition among technologies. But from our experience in diplomacy and the armed forces, we understand that a declining domestic civil nuclear industry has other ramifications. Critical U.S. national security interests are at risk. We have dedicated our careers to controlling the destructive potential of nuclear weapons. But since the Atoms for Peace era, U.S. leadership in supplying peaceful nuclear energy technology, equipment, and fuel to the world has been important for world development and therefore critical for the United States to establish and enforce standards for nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation. But in recent decades, the U.S. share of international commercial nuclear energy markets has diminished, and so with it has the United States’ ability to influence global standards in peaceful nuclear energy. The critical moment for U.S. leadership in nuclear energy is when a country is developing nuclear energy for the first time. The supplier country and the developing country typically forge a relationship that endures for the 80- to 100-year life of the nuclear program. Unlike a coal or gas plant, nuclear reactors need specialized fuel and maintenance. Once established, the bilateral commercial relationship is not easily dislodged by a rival nation, providing the supplier profound and lasting influence on the partner’s nuclear policies and practices. Russia and China have identified nuclear energy as a strategic export, to be leveraged for geopolitical influence as well as for economic gain. According to a recent analysis, Russia is the supplier of more nuclear technology than the next four largest suppliers combined, and China is quickly emerging as a rival. If the United States fails to compete in commercial markets, it will cede leadership to these countries on nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation, as well as foreign policy influence. As the competition intensifies to deliver the next generation of nuclear power technologies, U.S. nuclear leadership is approaching a watershed opportunity. Simpler, scalable, and less expensive, small and advanced reactors are commercially attractive to an expanded range of markets — particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The United States has the world’s best training and development programs, unmatched regulatory experience, and multiple small and advanced reactor designs; we should be the easy choice for the next generation of nuclear technology. But early U.S. engagement in these important geopolitical regions is critical. Without it, Russia and China will lock up future nuclear markets through MOUs and other bilateral agreements. And for addressing the national security risks of climate change, nuclear energy is not just an option but a necessity. Developing nations that are planning to meet power and water needs for large and growing populations must have reliable, demonstrated, zero-emission nuclear power in order to meet global climate goals as well. Advanced reactors are integral to these goals. In the United States, nuclear energy is responsible for a fifth of the United States’ total electricity and more than 55 percent of our emissions-free energy, but the pace of domestic construction of new natural gas plants far exceeds the few nuclear plants under development, and the existing fleet is retiring prematurely at an alarming rate. Which brings us back to the domestic nuclear industry. U.S. global competitiveness and leadership are inextricably linked to a strong domestic nuclear program. Without a healthy domestic fleet of plants, the U.S. supply chain will weaken against international rivals. Russia has brought six new plants online in the past five years and has six more plants currently under construction. In the same period, China has brought 28 new plants online and has 11 others under construction. These domestic projects provide Russia and China with a robust supply chain, an experienced workforce, and economies of scale that make them more competitive in bidding on international projects. Unless we continue to innovate and build new plants, we will cease to be relevant elsewhere. Even our own domestic energy security is supported by nuclear power. The nuclear plants operating today are the most robust elements of U.S. critical infrastructure, offering a level of protection against natural and adversarial threats that is unmatched by other plants. Because the nation’s grid supplies power to 99 percent of U.S. military installations, large scale disruptions affect the nation’s ability to defend itself. We can regain U.S. leadership in nuclear energy. The key steps are to maintain the domestic reactor fleet, with its reservoir of know-how, and to assist American entrepreneurs in developing the next generation of the technology. But the first step is to recognize what is at stake. Rummell Freedom, Democide, War: Home Page " Freedom, Democide, War: Home Page". Hawaii.Edu, 2020, https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/. It is true that democratic freedom is an engine of national and individual wealth and prosperity. Hardly known, however, is that freedom also saves millions of lives from famine, disease, war, collective violence, and democide (genocide and mass murder). That is, the more freedom, the greater the human security and the less the violence. Conversely, the more power governments have, the more human insecurity and violence. In short: to our realization that power impoverishes we must also add that power kills. Through theoretical analysis, historical case studies, empirical data, and quantitative analyses, this web site shows that: Freedom is a basic human right recognized by the United Nations and international treaties, and is the heart of social justice.

Climate v1 AC

UQ – Emissions High US leads in cumulative CO2 emissions Umair Irfan, 4-24-2019, "Why the US bears the most responsibility for climate change, in one chart," Vox, https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/24/18512804/climate-change-united-states-china-emissions Carbon dioxide emissions reached a record high in 2019, according to a report published Wednesday by the Global Carbon Project. The report also found that the rate of emissions growth is slowing down among some of the world’s largest emitters. But climate change is a cumulative problem, a function of the total amount of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the sky. Some of the heat-trapping gases in the air right now date back to the Industrial Revolution. And since that time, some countries have pumped out vastly more carbon dioxide than others. Back in April, the wonderful folks at Carbon Brief put together a great visual of how different countries have contributed to climate change since 1750. The animation shows the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions of the top emitters and how they’ve changed over time. Take a look: Carbon Brief @CarbonBrief Animation: The countries with the largest cumulative CO2 emissions since 1750 Ranking as of the start of 2019: 1) US – 397GtCO2 2) CN – 214Gt 3) fmr USSR – 180 4) DE – 90 5) UK – 77 6) JP – 58 7) IN – 51 8) FR – 37 9) CA – 32 10) PL – 27 Embedded video 7,114 9:48 AM - Apr 23, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 6,633 people are talking about this What’s abundantly clear is that the United States of America is the all-time biggest, baddest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet. That’s true, despite recent gains in energy efficiency and cuts in emissions. These relatively small steps now cannot offset more than a century of reckless emissions that have built up in the atmosphere. Much more drastic steps are now needed to slow climate change. And as the top cumulative emitter, the US bears a greater imperative for curbing its carbon dioxide output and a greater moral responsibility for the impacts of global warming. Yet the US is now the only country aiming to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. China now emits more than the US, and India’s emissions are rapidly rising. But these countries have a much smaller share of cumulative global emissions. Their populations are also much bigger than the US and other wealthier countries, so the amount that India and China emit per person is vastly smaller than the United States or the United Kingdom. Here are some takeaways from this animation: 1) Cumulative emissions are the critical factor behind the warming we’re experiencing It’s not simply the rate of our output of heat-trapping gases that changes the global climate; the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted is a critical factor as well. While atmospheric carbon is gradually absorbed by the ocean and plants, a large fraction, about 20 percent, lingers for millennia. That means a big chunk of the greenhouse gases emitted at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is still heating up our planet today. If we were to magically cease emitting all greenhouse gases at once, the planet would likely continue warming for a period of time. This leads to the next point. 2) The US has an outsized role in global warming, despite recent progress When it comes to total greenhouse gas emissions, the US does a behind-the-back, through-the-legs, backboard-breaking dunk over China and the Soviet Union. In other words, the largest share of global greenhouse gases emitted since the Industrial Revolution comes from the US. And with great emissions comes great responsibility to mitigate climate change. And yes, the US has already made some of the largest cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world. Between 2005 and 2015, US emissions fell 11.5 percent, largely due to switching to less carbon-intensive fuels like natural gas. However, US energy consumption hit a record high last year, and emissions are on the rise again after years of decline. 3) Carbon intensity matters more than population for cumulative emissions The graph also shows us that the worst greenhouse gas emitters of all time aren’t the most populous countries. Instead, most of the chart toppers are the largest economic powers. You can see the United Kingdom drop down the rankings as its empire disintegrated over the years, losing an economic grip on the world, for example. That should teach us something about the most populated countries in the world today: India and China. China and India do contribute a large and growing share of global emissions — which absolutely needs to be slowed down and reversed — but most of the warming we’re seeing now is due to the emissions of wealthier countries like the United States. China emits more carbon dioxide than the United States, but it emits less per person. China emits more carbon dioxide than the United States, but it emits less per person. Union of Concerned Scientists And remember the total emissions rate from both China and India has to be divided by more than a billion to yield an apt comparison to countries like the United States. In 2015, the US emitted 15.53 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita. China emitted 6.59 metric tons. India emitted just 1.58 metric tons. As these countries get richer, their per capita emissions are poised to rise further. This is why technology transfer from wealthier countries to less developed economies is shaping up to be a critical component of fighting climate change. But ultimately the largest share of the burden in cleaning up this mess should fall to those who played the largest role in creating it. This animation leaves no doubt as to the culprits. L1 – Decarbonization Empirics prove, renewables have too many limitations, current trends will take 150 years to decarbonize Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist. "Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet". WSJ, 1-11-2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet-11547225861. (JL) Solar and wind power alone can’t scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany’s concerted recent effort to add renewables—the most ambitious national effort so far—was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany’s peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That’s just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target. Most countries’ policies are shaped not by hard facts but by long-standing and widely shared phobias about radiation. To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup—and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries—decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years. Even if we could develop renewables much faster, huge problems would remain. Although costs have dropped dramatically for solar and wind energy, they are not a direct, reliable replacement for coal and gas. When the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, little or no energy is collected. And when nature does cooperate, the energy is sometimes wasted because it can’t be stored affordably. Bill Gates, who has invested $1 billion in renewables, notes that “there’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables.” If substantially expanded, wind, solar and hydropower also would destroy vast tracts of farmland and forest. What the world needs is a carbon-free source of electricity that can be ramped up to massive scale very quickly and provide power reliably around the clock, regardless of weather conditions—all without expanding the total acreage devoted to electric generation. Nuclear power meets all of those requirements. When Sweden and France built nuclear reactors to replace fossil fuel in the 1970s and 1980s, they were able to add new electricity production relative to their GDPs at five times Germany’s speed for renewables. Sweden’s carbon emissions dropped in half even as its electricity production doubled. Electricity prices in nuclear-powered France today are 55 of those in Germany. So why isn’t everyone who is concerned about climate change getting behind nuclear power? Why isn’t the nuclear power industry in the U.S. and the world expanding to meet the rising demand for clean electricity? The key reason is that most countries’ policies are shaped not by hard facts but by long-standing and widely shared phobias about radiation. Empirics prove; nuclear energy is the most efficient and quick way to decarbonize Joshua S. Goldstein, Staffan A. Qvist and Steven Pinker. "Opinion". No Publication, 4-6-2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-nuclear-power.html. (JL) As young people rightly demand real solutions to climate change, the question is not what to do — eliminate fossil fuels by 2050 — but how. Beyond decarbonizing today’s electric grid, we must use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in transportation, industry and heating. We must provide for the fast-growing energy needs of poorer countries and extend the grid to a billion people who now lack electricity. And still more electricity will be needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by midcentury. Where will this gargantuan amount of carbon-free energy come from? The popular answer is renewables alone, but this is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today, renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup. Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early. A few lucky countries with abundant hydroelectricity, like Norway and New Zealand, have decarbonized their electric grids, but their success cannot be scaled up elsewhere: The world’s best hydro sites are already dammed. Small wonder that a growing response to these intimidating facts is, “We’re cooked.” But we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot. They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast, taking advantage of nuclear power’s intense concentration of energy per pound of fuel. France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years. In fact, most of the fastest additions of clean electricity historically are countries rolling out nuclear power. France emissions dropped 52 percent Daniel Cooper. "Is it time we gave nuclear power another chance?". 5-6-2019, https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/06/is-it-time-we-gave-nuclear-power-another-chance/?guccounter=1andamp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8andamp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADu1XcHjynOC2oRpIlzcj_1zrJcahj7bwQ34bfwaphxJTjNL_M2Rj5KoPF-KR9j_tHT9JVXCX0-AxNcR5LXbu_aw_ZbI6_KWjJhQvrH7ohnmLqkUqvDAKxF6wjkHnx2AKyXGlZhE_lzm39fdZ5Iq47VKa93lTNFriExzSJwZckP0. (JL) Over the last four decades, three of Europe's major economies have serendipitously played out a large-scale experiment in the benefits of nuclear power. France and the UK have similarly sized populations and economies, while Germany is proportionally larger. All three are neighbors in northern Europe, with roughly similar climates and are, for now, generally regarded as the "big three" countries in the EU. If there is one difference, it's that each country adopted a different energy source as the basis for their electricity generation. This is, admittedly, a generalization, but Germany opted for coal, the UK chose gas, and France went in hard for nuclear. Look at data from the World Bank, and you can see how these energy policies impacted their carbon emissions from the 1970s until very recently. In 1973, France and the UK emitted 9.667 and 11.746 metric tons of CO2 per capita, respectively, shortly before France began its transition to nuclear. By 2014, France's emissions had fallen by 52 percent, but the UK's had only dropped by 45 percent. Germany, which only started reporting post-reunification and has been far slower to decarbonize, has only fallen 24 percent since 1991. The US Department of Energy's facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory pointed out the obvious link between France's lower emissions and its pro-nuclear stance. A 2011 report said that "extensive use of nuclear power has clearly curtailed fossil-fuel-related CO2 emissions from France." In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron affirmed his commitment to nuclear energy as a vehicle for decarbonization. L2 – Backing Up Renewables Nuclear is dying - 15 to 20 years Ben Werner NYU Graduate, writer for USNI, 10-2-2018, "Declining Commercial Nuclear Industry Creates Risk for Navy Carriers, Subs," USNI News, https://news.usni.org/2018/10/02/37045 The Navy’s ability to maintain and manufacture aircraft carrier and submarine propulsion systems is at risk, a panel of experts say, because the commercial nuclear industry has been in failing health for two decades. Today, the Navy operates more nuclear reactors than the entire U.S. commercial reactor industry. The Navy’s 101 reactor-powered carriers and submarines provide an unmatched advantage to operate around the world continuously. Building these reactors, though, relies on a shrinking pool of vendors, Adm. James Caldwell, the director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, said at the Nuclear Energy, Naval Propulsion, and National Security Symposium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The base is small. The base is healthy and capable of supporting our Navy propulsion needs. It’s sustainable through the program of record, but it takes a lot of energy to sustain that,” Caldwell said. For example, the Navy only has one contractor making reactor plant heavy-components and only a handful of companies make the flow control, valves, pumps and other parts, Caldwell said. Several companies make reactor instrument controls. The vendors the nuclear Navy relies on are being hurt by a retracting commercial nuclear power plant industry. Cheaper fuel alternatives, such as natural gas, are making it too expensive for power companies to run their nuclear plants, said Mike Wallace, a senior advisor at CSIS and former Chairman of the Constellation Energy Nuclear Group. Wallace also is a former Navy nuclear submarine officer. As a result, today the U.S. has 98 commercial reactors, and Wallace expects this number will continue decreasing. With fewer commercial reactors operating, there is not enough business for the nuclear industry’s vendors. “We are continuing if not accelerating in a decline, impacting not only domestic nuclear energy but also the infrastructure to support naval propulsion and the infrastructure supporting our weapons complex,” Wallace said. A solid 30-year shipbuilding plan and stable budget environment would signal to the nuclear industry they could earn a return on investing in new equipment or expanding their business operations, Caldwell said. “What helps the commercial industry helps the Navy nuclear propulsion industry,” Caldwell said. “More vendors mean more affordability; also means the ability to have some innovation that might help us out.” In 16 years – between 1946, when then Capt. Hyman Rickover was in charge of developing nuclear propulsion for the Navy, and 1962, when USS Enterprise (CVN-65) began its maiden deployment – the Navy went from considering a theoretical propulsion unit to operating the an eight-reactor ship larger than anything the world had ever seen, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said during a keynote speech at the event. “The speed this nation can achieve if we put our minds to it is just stunning,” Richardson said. Wallace was not so sure the commercial nuclear industry would survive. He doesn’t see the federal government doing enough to ensure the health of these companies, which are vital to maintaining a nuclear Navy. “Under current conditions, in the next 15 to 20 years we could see all commercial plants shut down in the U.S.,” Wallace said. “It’s a trend line down that, at some point, hits a click because you don’t want to be the last one holding a commercial plant.” Meanwhile, Russia and China are rapidly expanding their state-sponsored nuclear energy industries, which include a robust export market, said William Ostendorff, a retired Navy captain and a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Ostendorff is also a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Russia and China are building dozens of nuclear power plants around the world, in countries such as Turkey and Pakistan, Ostendorff said. The U.S. nuclear power industry is building two plants domestically and zero overseas. “U.S. companies lack the capital and structure to emulate the Russia and Chinese models,” Ostendorff said. Nuclear power plants are being replaced by natural gas Roberts, David. “The simple argument for keeping nuclear power plants open.” Vox. 2018//SK https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/5/17196676/nuclear-power-plants-climate-change-renewables You do not have to like nuclear power, or ever want to build another nuclear power plant, to believe that existing sources of carbon-free power should be kept running as long as practicably possible. You only have to like carbon-free power or dislike climate change. It’s not about nuclear versus renewables Some environmentalists seem determined to establish a zero-sum conflict between renewables and nuclear power — not only new nuclear but existing nuclear. They say it can be replaced with efficiency and renewable energy, which are safer. Problem is, we’ve seen several nuclear plants shut down in recent years and now have a pretty good idea what replaces them. It’s mostly natural gas and some coal. This is from a 2016 analysis by the EIA: pre- and post-nuclear EIA Today, variable sources like wind and solar are not a one-to-one replacement for firm capacity like nuclear. They might be someday soon, with help from batteries, but in the short term, the time horizon of these nuclear retirements, they are not. That means more natural gas. A PJM spokesperson told EandE reporter Sam Mintz, “in the short term, on a day-to-day basis, under the current economics and likely future conditions, the retired nuclear energy would be replaced by natural-gas-fired generation.” For practical purposes, the choice is not existing nuclear versus renewables; it’s existing nuclear versus natural gas. And as a fossil fuel, natural gas creates more greenhouse gases — an easy choice for climate hawks. PJM still has plenty of coal plants running. (“PJM’s installed capacity in 2016 consisted of 33 percent coal, 33 percent natural gas, 18 percent nuclear, and 6 percent renewables, including hydro.”) If renewables should be replacing anything, it’s them first. And then natural gas. And only when the very last fossil fuel power plant is closed will it make sense for climate hawks to debate the wisdom of replacing existing nuclear with renewables. It’s just about math When an operating nuclear plant shuts down, a big chunk of carbon-free energy is lost. A big chunk. There’s just no way to spin that as a good thing. The five nuclear plants shut down between 2013 and 2016 alone produced as much electricity as all US solar put together. Carbon-wise, that means the next doubling of US solar will mostly be spent trying to make up for nuclear losses. Natural gas is still game over for the environment; studies that claim lower emissions don’t take methane into account – CRP 18 Climate Reality Project, 7-6-2018, "3 Big Myths about Natural Gas and Our Climate," Climate Reality, https://climaterealityproject.org/blog/3-big-myths-about-natural-gas-and-our-climate Natural gas is a growing energy source – one many are putting a lot of faith in. Proponents like to portray the fuel as a cuddlier cousin to coal and oil when it comes to climate because it generates less carbon dioxide when burned. But its CO2 emissions are only one piece of a far more nuanced puzzle. Many of the arguments in support of natural gas are based on outdated or incorrect information – sometimes going so far as to border on wishful thinking. That’s why we’re setting the record straight on some of the most common myths about natural gas and our climate. NATURAL GAS WILL NOT SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS. When people make this argument, they’re (mostly) referring to one thing in particular that is indeed true of natural gas: a new, efficient natural gas power plant emits around 50 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) during combustion when compared with a typical coal-based power plant, according to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). To be sure, we should take seriously any source of energy that reduces our dependence on coal and oil, the primary sources of the carbon emissions that drive climate change. But let’s also engage in some real talk: 50 percent less CO2 also isn’t zero CO2, and CO2 isn’t the only harmful emission generated by natural gas development. We’re still talking about a fossil fuel here, one that still contributes to climate change when burned. And achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of this century is essential to the long-term health of our planet. That number also doesn’t take into account all of the carbon emissions that happen across the full life cycle of natural gas, particularly during extraction, infrastructure construction, transport, and storage. But rather than dwell, let’s just get straight to the real climate Big Bad when it comes to natural gas – methane. Methane is a very, very powerful greenhouse gas. In the atmosphere, compared to carbon, it’s fairly short-lived: only about 20 percent of the methane emitted today will still be in the atmosphere after 20 years. However, when it first enters the atmosphere, it’s around 120 times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat and 86 times stronger over a 20 year period. (Carbon dioxide hangs around for much longer: As much as 15 percent of today’s carbon dioxide will still be in the atmosphere in 10,000 years.) And a lot of the methane that ends up in the atmosphere comes from natural gas production. “The drilling and extraction of natural gas from wells and its transportation in pipelines results in the leakage of methane,” Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) notes. “Preliminary studies and field measurements show that these so-called ‘fugitive’ methane emissions comprise from 1 to 9 percent of total life cycle emissions.” (When we talk about “total life-cycle emissions,” we’re talking all emissions from the source, including those leaked during its extraction, transportation, and more, and not just what is emitted when a fuel source is burned to create energy.) If you’re thinking, “The 9 percent is a pretty big deal,” you’re absolutely right. Nuclear is ideal for the backup of renewables grids – Pepin 18 Ivy Pepin, 4-25-2018, "Keeping the balance: How flexible nuclear operation can help add more wind and solar to the grid," MIT, http://news.mit.edu/2018/flexible-nuclear-operation-can-help-add-more-wind-and-solar-to-the-grid-0425 In the Southwestern United States, the country’s sunniest region, sunlight can shine down for up to 14 hours a day. This makes the location ideal for implementing solar energy — and the perfect test-bed for MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) researcher Jesse Jenkins and his colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory to model the benefits of pairing renewable resources with more flexible operation of nuclear power plants. They report their findings in a new paper published in Applied Energy. During summer 2015, Jenkins worked as a research fellow with Argonne National Laboratory on two power systems projects: one on the role of energy storage in a low-carbon electricity grid, and the other on the role of nuclear plants. Linking the two projects, he says, is the goal of using new sources of operating flexibility to integrate more renewable resources into the grid. In power grids, supply and demand hang in a delicate balance on a second-to-second timeframe. Flexible backup energy sources must stay online at all times to maintain this equilibrium by meeting small variations in demand throughout the day or stepping in quickly if a power plant should suddenly go offline. If supply ever gets too far out of step with demand, devices designed to protect transmission lines and sensitive electronics from damage will quickly trip into action, causing blackouts as they work to shed demand or generation and restore the balance. Currently, certain coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro plants take on the important role of providing these standby capacity services, known as frequency regulation and operating reserves. Nuclear power plants generally operate at full capacity, but they are also technically capable of more flexible operation. This capability lets them respond dynamically to seasonal changes in demand or hourly changes in market prices. Reactors could also provide the standby backup regulation and reserve services needed to balance supply and demand. According to Jenkins, all reactor designs now being licensed or built in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are capable of flexible operation, as are many older reactors now in service. “We primarily rely on gas and coal plants to meet all those flexibility needs today, while we operate our nuclear plants fixed, or ‘must-run,’ 24/7,” says Jenkins. “The question here is: What would the benefits be if we stopped operating them so inflexibly, if we started using more of their technical capabilities to ‘ramp’ output up and down on different time scales from seconds to hours to seasons?” The answer, he says, is There would be less reliance on the gas and coal plants — and more renewable energy integration. As markets increasingly incorporate variable renewables like wind and solar, maintaining the supply-demand balance becomes more complicated. Energy demand changes over the course of the day, usually staying low overnight, spiking briefly in the morning, and then peaking in the evening when people come home from work. “Throughout these daily and seasonal changes in electricity use, there is a constant level of demand, known as the ‘base load,’ which is invariant,” says Jenkins. “Since nuclear plants have very low operating costs and cost a lot up-front to build, they are economically well-suited to operating all the time to meet this base load.” He adds, “That’s why when nuclear plants were originally licensed in the U.S., it wasn’t really necessary for them to play a role in following demand patterns throughout the day, and so nuclear plants in the U.S. weren’t licensed to operate that way.” Closing nuclear plants cancels out renewable benefits - California empirics Michael Shellenberger, 2-8-2019, "The Only Green New Deals That Have Ever Worked Were Done With Nuclear, Not Renewables," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/08/the-only-green-new-deals-that-have-ever-worked-were-done-with-nuclear-not-renewables/#48fc3b717f61 By 2007 our efforts paid off when then-candidate Barack Obama picked up our proposal and ran with it. Between 2009 and 2015, the U.S. government spent about $150 billion on our Green New Deal, nearly half of which went to renewables. An appallingly large sum — $24 billion — was spent on biofuels, even though everyone knew that they pollute more than fossil fuels. Now we know they also destroy rainforests. Another $15 billion went to energy efficiency, which turned out to be a massive waste of money. Twice as much money was spent weatherizing homes as was saved. The episode disproved the widely parroted myth that efficiency investments always “pay for themselves.” Determined to learn nothing from history, Green New Dealers are now proposing to spend taxpayer dollars weatherizing every building in America. Meanwhile, the two poster children for renewables — California and Germany — have become models of how not to deal with climate change. Germany spent $580 billion on renewables and its emissions have been flat for a decade. And all of that unreliable solar and wind has made Germany’s electricity the second most expensive in Europe. Emissions in California rose after it closed one nuclear plant and will rise again if closes another. To the extent its emissions declined it was from the replacement of electricity from coal with electricity from cheaper and cleaner natural gas. Bottom line? Had California and Germany spent on nuclear what they instead spent on renewables, both places would already have 100 clean power. Green Nuclear Deals Chagrined by my role, which resulted from equal parts ideology and ignorance, I spent the last decade looking around the world for alternative models. I quickly discovered two things. First, no nation has decarbonized its electricity supply with solar and wind. Second, the only successful decarbonization efforts were achieved with nuclear. Just look at France and Sweden. In the 1970s and 1980s, they built nuclear plants at the rate required to achieve the alleged climate goals of the Green New Deal. L3 – Carbon Capture Cost for coal capture is 75 percent higher for regular plants Plumer, Brad. “Is China the Last Hope for Carbon Capture Technology?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Oct. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/10/22/is-china-the-last-hope-for-carbon-capture-technology/. The report points out that carbon capture isn't unproven: There are at least 12 large projects worldwide that use the technique. Most of them involve taking carbon-dioxide from gas processing or fertilizer plants and pumping the gas into older oil wells in order to flush out hard-to-reach crude oil, a technique known as "enhanced oil recovery." The real challenge, however, is adapting this technology for use by power plants, refineries, cement plants and other industrial facilities. That's the ultimate goal — and that extra step remains maddeningly elusive. Even if one accepts that carbon capture is a good idea, the economics are daunting. A 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that coal-fired power plants that capture and store carbon will initially cost around 75 percent more than regular coal plants. That's mainly because of the extra energy needed to capture and compress the carbon-dioxide. In the United States, that's a deal-breaker for utilities. Right now, the low cost of natural gas has made it uneconomical to build regular coal plants — let alone ones outfitted with carbon-capture technology. The big exception, Southern Co.'s $2.4 billion Kemper County plant in Mississippi, was built with the help of a $270 million grant from the Department of Energy and a $133 million tax credit. That plant also has a special funding stream: It will sell some of the carbon it captures for use in enhanced oil recovery to defray costs. Carbon Capture is not affordable now CBO, 6-28-2012, "Federal Efforts to Reduce the Cost of Capturing and Storing Carbon Dioxide," No Publication, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43357 CBO’s analysis suggests that the projected high cost of using CCS means that current federal programs are unlikely to support widespread use of the technology. The study discusses several other options that lawmakers might consider. Coal-powered facilities account for roughly a third of all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, and most climate scientists believe that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could have costly consequences. One much-discussed option for reducing the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions while preserving its ability to produce electricity at coal-fired power plants is to capture the CO2 that is emitted when the coal is burned, compress it into a fluid, and then store it deep underground. Nuclear is the only way to pull carbon out of the air - negative emissions Kugelmass, Bret. “Want to stop climate change? Embrace the nuclear option.” USA Today. January 2020//SK https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/22/climate-change-solution-nuclear-energy-our-best-hope-column/2821183001/ As a technology entrepreneur, when I am approached by startup founders for fundraising advice, I ask: “What would the world look like if you got everything you're asking for?” It’s a test to see whether they are setting out to solve the right problem or whether they are choosing their preferred course of action and justifying retrospectively. Climate change researchers fail this test. Every single time. A giant disconnect exists between the science branch and policy branch of the climate change community, obscured by a strong tribal bond that unites us against "deniers." But if climate advocates get what we say we want, our own hypocrisy would soon be made painfully apparent. The accepted policy rhetoric is that if we get to net-zero global emissions, we would "solve" climate change — when, in fact, this belies scientific reality. Achieving 'net zero' isn't enough Let’s explain why. The term net-zero means that every ton of greenhouse gas that is currently emitted (more than 37 metric billion tons yearly) will be either eliminated outright or offset. That’s a lot of fuel — heating homes, moving goods, powering industry — that needs to be replaced. Although certainly difficult, it's not impossible. But what then? Does the temperature stop rising? Think again. It is the extra greenhouse gases we have accumulated over the past two centuries— approximately 1 trillion tons — that ratchet up the temperature year over year and will continue to do so regardless of future emissions. These gases do not act like a sponge, having already soaked up extra heat from the sun. Rather, they act as a valve, controlling the rate at which additional heat is accumulated. the only possible energy source that is capable of powering atmospheric carbon dioxide removal — true negative emissions — is nuclear energy Even if we were able to flip a switch tomorrow and magically achieve net-zero new emissions globally, we’d nevertheless continue to add extra heat. This is what scientists call “radiative forcing." At this point, allowing for natural biological processes to restore the atmosphere to a state of radiative balance would take thousands if not tens of thousands of years. We’ve burned a lot of hydrocarbons. Talking it out:Learning to discuss complicated issues ahead of the election We want to hear from you:Be a part of the solution to finding solutions. Tell us here. Net-zero will result in severe climate change; we require extreme levels of negative emissions. So, are we doomed? Not at all. Given this constraint, our climate change problem actually becomes much more straightforward to solve, but it limits the solution set drastically. This is an affront to the coalition of “all of the above” and deprives many of the strongest climate advocates their favorite solutions. Trying to refute this reality is where the "science side" engages in denial, too. Get the Opinion newsletter in your inbox. What do you think? Shape your opinion with a digest of takes on current events. Delivery: Daily Your Email We must remove greenhouse gases Let’s work this out logically: To stop temperature rise, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be restored to a level where temperatures will remain constant, meaning about a trillion tons of carbon dioxide need to be removed from the air. Natural, biological methods of greenhouse gas removal can only work so fast — maybe a few billion tons a year — so it will take technological processes to achieve thermal balance in a meaningful time frame. These technological processes all require energy, a lot of energy. Consider how much energy it takes to move a ton of anything, then think about a trillion tons of carbon dioxide. And, because dioxide is very dilute, we also must move quadrillions of tons of the gas it is mixed with and then chemically process a trillion tons on top of that. Every energy source has a carbon footprint. Even renewables require energy and chemicals to move and transform raw materials into energy production systems. (To make solar panels, burning coal is necessary to transform silicon dioxide into the requisite purified silicon.) Here’s the crux: Since it takes energy to remove carbon and carbon is released in making energy, being "low-carbon" isn’t good enough! The energy source used needs to have such an extremely low carbon footprint that it can effectively power the capture and transformation of carbon dioxide. Regardless of cost and considering only the carbon math, the only possible energy source capable of powering atmospheric carbon dioxide removal — true negative emissions — is nuclear energy. Voter guide: Review FAQs on the key issues that matter this election and more See where the candidates stand on the issues Are you registered to vote? Check here. This becomes obvious considering that any power source’s carbon footprint is a function of materials required to produce this energy. Using nuclear forces (the energy inside an atom), instead of chemical forces (the energy between atoms), we produce 3 million times as much power for the same amount of material. There’s still plenty of room for debate over values, adaptation, speed of change and robustness of scientific models. But when one side can’t imagine how the other side can be so wrong, it’s important to remember: Everyone ignores the science when it doesn’t support their values. IL – Air Pollution Nuclear energy is our only hope to radically decrease emissions Richard Rhodes, 7-9-2018, "Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution," Yale E360, https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-nuclear-power-must-be-part-of-the-energy-solution-environmentalists-climate Many environmentalists have opposed nuclear power, citing its dangers and the difficulty of disposing of its radioactive waste. But a Pulitzer Prize-winning author argues that nuclear is safer than most energy sources and is needed if the world hopes to radically decrease its carbon emissions. In the late 16th century, when the increasing cost of firewood forced ordinary Londoners to switch reluctantly to coal, Elizabethan preachers railed against a fuel they believed to be, literally, the Devil’s excrement. Coal was black, after all, dirty, found in layers underground — down toward Hell at the center of the earth — and smelled strongly of sulfur when it burned. Switching to coal, in houses that usually lacked chimneys, was difficult enough; the clergy’s outspoken condemnation, while certainly justified environmentally, further complicated and delayed the timely resolution of an urgent problem in energy supply. For too many environmentalists concerned with global warming, nuclear energy is today’s Devil’s excrement. They condemn it for its production and use of radioactive fuels and for the supposed problem of disposing of its waste. In my judgment, their condemnation of this efficient, low-carbon source of baseload energy is misplaced. Far from being the Devil’s excrement, nuclear power can be, and should be, one major component of our rescue from a hotter, more meteorologically destructive world. Like all energy sources, nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages. What are nuclear power’s benefits? First and foremost, since it produces energy via nuclear fission rather than chemical burning, it generates baseload electricity with no output of carbon, the villainous element of global warming. Switching from coal to natural gas is a step toward decarbonizing, since burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide of burning coal. But switching from coal to nuclear power is radically decarbonizing, since nuclear power plants release greenhouse gases only from the ancillary use of fossil fuels during their construction, mining, fuel processing, maintenance, and decommissioning — about as much as solar power does, which is about 4 to 5 percent as much as a natural gas-fired power plant. Air pollution in one country affects all countries Charles Kolb Princeton University September 29, 2009, 9-29-2009, "Pollution Travels the Globe, Study Confirms," livescience, https://www.livescience.com/7916-pollution-travels-globe-study-confirms.html Smog and air pollution from factories can have a negative impact on the air in faraway regions of the world, a new report finds. In the coming decades, man-made emissions are expected to rise in East Asia and a growing number of countries may feel the effects even as industrialized countries work to tighten environmental protection standards, according to the National Research Council report. Researchers analyzed meteorological and chemical data and discovered that some pollutant plumes in the United States can be traced back to Asia. One study found that a polluted air mass took about eight days to travel from East Asia to central Oregon. “Air pollution does not recognize national borders; the atmosphere connects distant regions of our planet,” said Charles Kolb, chair of the committee that wrote the report and president and CEO of Aerodyne Research Inc. “Emissions within any one country can affect human and ecosystem health in countries far downwind. While it is difficult to quantify these influences, in some cases the impacts are significant from regulatory and public health perspectives.” The report examined four types of air pollutants: ozone; particulate matter such as dust, sulfates, or soot; mercury; and persistent organic pollutants such as DDT. The committee found evidence that these four types of pollutants can drift across the oceans and around the Northern Hemisphere, delivering significant concentrations to continents downwind. Direct inhalation of ozone and particulate matter can cause respiratory problems and other health effects. Even small incremental increases in atmospheric concentrations can have negative impacts, the committee said. IMP – Death and Health Nuclear energy has saved 1.8 million from air pollution, potential is there Schrope, Mark. Wake Forest University “Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes.” Chemical and Engineering News. 2013//SK https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html Using nuclear power in place of fossil-fuel energy sources, such as coal, has prevented some 1.8 million air pollution-related deaths globally and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes a study. The researchers also find that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es3051197). In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, critics of nuclear power have questioned how heavily the world should rely on the energy source, due to possible risks it poses to the environment and human health. “I was very disturbed by all the negative and in many cases unfounded hysteria regarding nuclear power after the Fukushima accident,” says report coauthor Pushker A. Kharecha, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York. Working with Goddard’s James E. Hansen, Kharecha set out to explore the benefits of nuclear power. The pair specifically wanted to look at nuclear power’s advantages over fossil fuels in terms of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Kharecha was surprised to find no broad studies on preventable deaths that could be attributed to nuclear power’s pollution savings. But he did find data from a 2007 study on the average number of deaths per unit of energy generated with fossil fuels and nuclear power (Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61253-7). These estimates include deaths related to all aspects of each energy source from mining the necessary natural resources to power generation. For example, the data took into account chronic bronchitis among coal miners and air pollution-related conditions among the public, including lung cancer. The NASA researchers combined this information with historical energy generation data to estimate how many deaths would have been caused if fossil-fuel burning was used instead of nuclear power generation from 1971 to 2009. They similarly estimated that the use of nuclear power over that time caused 5,000 or so deaths, such as cancer deaths from radiation fallout and worker accidents. Comparing those two estimates, Kharecha and Hansen came up with the 1.8 million figure. They next estimated the total number of deaths that could be prevented through nuclear power over the next four decades using available estimates of future nuclear use. Replacing all forecasted nuclear power use until 2050 with natural gas would cause an additional 420,000 deaths, whereas swapping it with coal, which produces significantly more pollution than gas, would mean about 7 million additional deaths. The study focused strictly on deaths, not long-term health issues that might shorten lives, and the authors did not attempt to estimate potential deaths tied to climate change. Finally the pair compared carbon emissions from nuclear power to fossil fuel sources. They calculated that if coal or natural gas power had replaced nuclear energy from 1971 to 2009, the equivalent of an additional 64 gigatons of carbon would have reached the atmosphere. Looking forward, switching out nuclear for coal or natural gas power would lead to the release of 80 to 240 gigatons of additional carbon by 2050. By comparison, previous climate studies suggest that the total allowable emissions between now and 2050 are about 500 gigatons of carbon. This level of emissions would keep atmospheric CO2 concentrations around 350 ppm, which would avoid detrimental warming. Because large-scale implementation of renewable energy options, such as wind or solar, faces significant challenges, the researchers say their results strongly support the case for nuclear as a critical energy source to help stabilize or reduce greenhouse gas concentrations. Air pollution linked to many diseases WHO, 10-29-2018, "How air pollution is destroying our health," World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/airpollution/news-and-events/how-air-pollution-is-destroying-our-health As the world gets hotter and more crowded, our engines continue to pump out dirty emissions, and half the world has no access to clean fuels or technologies (e.g. stoves, lamps), the very air we breathe is growing dangerously polluted: nine out of ten people now breathe polluted air, which kills 7 million people every year. The health effects of air pollution are serious – one third of deaths from stroke, lung cancer and heart disease are due to air pollution. This is having an equivalent effect to that of smoking tobacco, and much higher than, say, the effects of eating too much salt. Air pollution is hard to escape, no matter how rich an area you live in. It is all around us. Microscopic pollutants in the air can slip past our body’s defences, penetrating deep into our respiratory and circulatory system, damaging our lungs, heart and brain. Air pollution is closely linked to climate change - the main driver of climate change is fossil fuel combustion which is also a major contributor to air pollution - and efforts to mitigate one can improve the other. This month, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that coal-fired electricity must end by 2050 if we are to limit global warming rises to 1.5C. If not, we may see a major climate crisis in just 20 years. Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone. The economic benefits from tackling air pollution are significant: in the 15 countries that emit the most greenhouse gas emissions, the health impacts of air pollution are estimated to cost more than 4 of their GDP. Cutting emissions saves 153 million from air pollution deaths Duke University, 3-19-2018, "Cutting carbon emissions sooner could save 153 million lives," https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180319145243.htm As many as 153 million premature deaths linked to air pollution could be avoided worldwide this century if governments speed up their timetable for reducing fossil fuel emissions, a new Duke University-led study finds. The study is the first to project the number of lives that could be saved, city by city, in 154 of the world's largest urban areas if nations agree to reduce carbon emissions and limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C in the near future rather than postponing the biggest emissions cuts until later, as some governments have proposed. Premature deaths would drop in cities on every inhabited continent, the study shows, with the greatest gains in saved lives occurring in Asia and Africa. Kolkata and Delhi, India, lead the list of cities benefitting from accelerated emissions cuts with up to 4.4 million projected saved lives and up to 4 million projected saved lives, respectively. Thirteen other Asian or African cities could each avoid more than 1 million premature deaths and around 80 additional cities could each avoid at least 100,000 deaths. Nearly 50 urban areas on other continents could also see significant gains in numbers of saved lives, with six cities ~-~- Moscow, Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Los Angeles, Puebla and New York ~-~- each potentially avoiding between 320,000 and 120,000 premature deaths. The new projections underscore the grave shortcomings of taking the lowest-cost approach to emissions reductions, which permits emissions of carbon dioxide and associated air pollutants to remain higher in the short-term in hopes they can be offset by negative emissions in the far distant future, said Drew Shindell, Nicholas Professor of Earth Sciences at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

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Gulf states don’t see US as reliable ally, can’t rely on Trump to defend them, also future US presidents might be less friendly Aftandilian 20~-~-Gregory Aftandilian, Gulf Arab States Still Worried about a US-Iran War, Arab Center, 1/23/20, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/gulf-arab-states-still-worried-about-a-us-iran-war/ Moreover, Iran has already used force in the region as a way of signaling its superior might to the Gulf Arab states. In the past year, Iran has not only mined Gulf waters and scuttled oil tankers, but has directly attacked Saudi oil facilities on the Saudi mainland with missiles and drones last September, causing significant damage to the country’s oil infrastructure. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia responded militarily to these attacks and provocations. They and other Gulf Arab states reportedly were counting on the United States to come to their aid by possibly attacking some Iranian military facilities in response. When that did not happen, even after the Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, they began to reassess their situation. … and Seeing the United States as an Unreliable Partner The Gulf Arab states came to understand that the United States would respond militarily to Iran only if a US citizen were harmed (as was the case when an American contractor was killed in Iraq by a pro-Iran militia). However, Washington’s response to target this militia and Soleimani—leaving aside the issue of whether he was imminently planning to attack the US embassy in Baghdad, a claim that Democrats in the Congress have debunked—was seen as unnecessarily provocative and dangerous by these states. Soleimani was not only a high-ranking Iranian official but also one who was revered by militant Shias the world over. It is likely that these Gulf Arab leaders were not sure that Trump understood the ramifications of his order, nor did the president think through subsequent steps. Therefore, and despite all of Trump’s efforts to stay in the good graces of the Gulf Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, over the past three years he came to be viewed by officials of these countries as both unreliable and erratic. If he could order the targeted killing of Soleimani, what else might he do? Shortly before the Iranian military response to the Soleimani killing, many political analysts in Washington and the region were speculating that Tehran might take out its anger against some of the Gulf Arab states, which could be a less risky proposition in Iranian eyes than an attack on a US target where American service members might be killed. Such discussions must have made Gulf Arab leaders extremely nervous. In their eyes, relying solely on the US security umbrella clearly was not a safe bet. The better choice in the minds of the Gulf Arab leaders was to try to cool things down before the situation spiraled out of control and made their own countries targets of Iran’s wrath. Furthermore, with the US elections in November, the American electorate might choose a new president who would likely be less friendly than Trump is to the Saudi government. For example, former Vice President Biden has called Saudi Arabia a pariah state; Trump, for his part, has defended Riyadh politically and has sent more US troops to the region. The idea, then, of counting on Washington for protection against Iran could look even less promising down the road. US troop presence blocks normalizations; withdrawal ? regional states would resolve their differences w/o US to blame, when commitment to regional security ‘appeared to wane’ Tisdall 20~-~-Simon Tisdall, Why instinct and ideology tell Trump to get out of the Middle East, The Guardian, 1/11/20, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/11/why-instinct-and-ideology-tell-trump-to-get-out-of-the-middle-east-suleimani-iran On the Iranian side, the demand that the Americans leave does not arise simply from old grievances dating back to the 1953 coup against the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, although they play a part. Nor does Iran merely want the US out of the way so it can gain a free hand – although it is unlikely to abandon its ambitions as a regional power-broker. There is a firm belief in Tehran, common to other post-colonial theatres, that the Middle East as a whole would fare better if it were no longer a venue for great power rivalries, foreign armies and imperial fantasies. Most educated Iranians are instinctively pro-western, not pro-Arab. But the post-1979 US vendetta blocks normalisation. There is also reason to believe antagonistic regional states would resolve their differences if they no longer had the US to fall back on, or to blame, when they get into disputes. As Trump’s commitment to regional security appeared to wane last year, for example, Saudi Arabia and Qatar took steps to patch up their differences. Shared security concerns have led to ongoing, informal contacts between Arab states and Israel, notwithstanding – or possibly because of – Trump’s bias against Palestine. Troop withdrawal would improve Saudi behavior, prevent future Yemens + improve conciliatory stance w/Iran Tisdall 20~-~-Simon Tisdall, Why instinct and ideology tell Trump to get out of the Middle East, The Guardian, 1/11/20, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/11/why-instinct-and-ideology-tell-trump-to-get-out-of-the-middle-east-suleimani-iran 4 Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states The shock of large-scale US downsizing would be felt most keenly here. The modern-day prosperity and influence of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait have been underwritten by American security guarantees, exemplified by the 1990-91 US-led intervention to expel Saddam Hussein’s invasion forces from Kuwait. Without the Americans to hold their hands and watch their backs, the Saudi royals’ behaviour could improve significantly. No more kidnappings of Lebanese prime ministers, for example, or murders of high-profile journalists. Military adventurism of the type that produced the humanitarian disaster in Yemen would be less likely. The Saudis and the smaller Gulf states, although better armed than Iran, might also be incentivised by American disengagement to take a more conciliatory line towards Tehran – something that has reportedly already been happening in recent months. On the other hand, they might look around for new protectors – in the shape of Russia or China, a big Gulf oil customer. No US president could easily countenance such a loss of influence – nor the loss of lucrative Arab world investments and weapons sales. Getting out is not as simple as Trump might think. GCC states already agree on de-escalation, don’t want confrontation b/c unsure about how their militaries would fare and would destroy econ infrastructure; already perceive US as erratic + unreliable Aftandilian 20~-~-Gregory Aftandilian, Gulf Arab States Still Worried about a US-Iran War, Arab Center, 1/23/20, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/gulf-arab-states-still-worried-about-a-us-iran-war/ Despite the strong anti-Iran stances of several Gulf Arab states, all of the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) called on Washington and Tehran to exercise restraint following the US killing of Iranian al-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in early January. The desire to avoid a conflagration in the Gulf region has been the one unifying position within the fractured GCC since the Qatar crisis developed in June 2017. There has been a sigh of relief that President Donald Trump and the Iranian leadership have not escalated matters since Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Iraqi bases housing US military personnel. Still, however, the Gulf Arab states are still worried that a US-Iran confrontation could transpire down the road, one in which they themselves could be targeted or, at a minimum, see their economic interests adversely affected. The concerns of these states stem from their feelings of vulnerability and the fact that they perceive the United States increasingly as an unreliable and erratic ally. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars they have spent on their own defense, the Gulf Arab states are unsure how their militaries would fare against Iran. Moreover, a war in the Gulf would not only disrupt important oil flows but would set back the gains the states have made in building large physical and financial infrastructure projects. These have been the hallmark of Gulf development over the past several decades and thwarting their benefits could lead to sectarian strife within some countries of the region. Unifying Message of Restraint Immediately after the US strike and the killing of Soleimani, the Gulf Arab states employed diplomacy and diplomatic language to try to defuse the crisis. Saudi Arabia dispatched Deputy Defense Minister (and former ambassador to the United States) Khaled bin Salman to Washington where he met with President Trump and other high-ranking officials. Bin Salman’s message was to urge the United States to exercise “restraint.” That seemed to have been the buzzword all around. Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani visited Iran and met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and urged Iran to do the same. His visit to Tehran was followed by that of the Qatari emir himself. Meanwhile, Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, made a public statement calling on all parties to put “wisdom, balance, and political solutions above confrontation and escalation.” Avoidance of a military escalation in the Gulf region seems to be one unifying message on which all GCC states agreed, as the GCC itself remains fractured following the economic and political boycott of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain (along with non-GCC member Egypt) since June 2017. Although there have been some efforts to mend fences in recent months between Qatar and its neighbors, a true rapprochement is still elusive. Nonetheless, the fact that Qatar has developed close relations with Iran (made closer by the boycott) arguably works to the benefit of other GCC states because different states could then use their equities with Washington and Tehran to help calm the situation down. Backchannels btwn Saudi + Iran opened (esp. to solve Yemen war) Aftandilian 20~-~-Gregory Aftandilian, Gulf Arab States Still Worried about a US-Iran War, Arab Center, 1/23/20, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/gulf-arab-states-still-worried-about-a-us-iran-war/ Despite the harsh language over the past few years between Riyadh and Tehran, as well as between the latter and Abu Dhabi, there have been efforts by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to open back channels to Iran in recent months. This was probably due in part to the realization that the Yemen war, in which all three countries are belligerents to varying degrees, cannot be solved militarily and that Yemen needs a political solution to end its humanitarian nightmare. In addition, sharp differences between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen made the Saudi-led military coalition much less viable in recent months, rendering a political solution all the more desirable. Gulf states fear Iran, military better and battle-tested Aftandilian 20~-~-Gregory Aftandilian, Gulf Arab States Still Worried about a US-Iran War, Arab Center, 1/23/20, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/gulf-arab-states-still-worried-about-a-us-iran-war/ Fear of Iranian Military Strikes… The Gulf Arab states have substantially developed their military establishments in recent decades, using abundant oil revenues to pay for very expensive military equipment and training. However, as the Yemen war has shown, training and hardware do not necessarily translate into building effective military forces. The Saudi bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen has illustrated the limits of such massive investments, as many errant bombs have killed hundreds of civilians, according to the United Nations. While the Gulf Arab states may be able to hold their own against states or groups in the Arabian Peninsula (for example, in the case of possible border clashes), they fear they may not be able to stand up to a major regional power like Iran which has a much larger and more powerful military establishment than their own, and one that has been battle-tested. Gulf states don’t want war, would crash oil revenue and econ infrastructure eg Vision 2030, and create sectarian civil wars Aftandilian 20~-~-Gregory Aftandilian, Gulf Arab States Still Worried about a US-Iran War, Arab Center, 1/23/20, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/gulf-arab-states-still-worried-about-a-us-iran-war/ A Lot to Lose Although heightened tensions in the Gulf temporarily led to higher oil prices for a period of time in early January—enabling the Gulf Arab states to collect more revenue—the create economic costs outweighed the short-term gains. First, there was a spike in the cost of shipping crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and Saudi Arabia’s oil tanker company, Bahri, actually suspended shipments through this vital waterway for a time. Second, shares of Saudi Aramco, which were recently offered on the world market and which have been on a downward slope since their peak in mid-December 2019, dipped 1.7 percent after the Soleimani killing as investors worried about another Iranian strike on Aramco’s facilities. Even a small dip in the value of these shares can cost the kingdom hundreds of millions of dollars. Importantly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been counting on the revenue from these shares to help build up the non-oil sectors of the Saudi economy as part of his “Vision 2030” diversification campaign. The Gulf states have made enormous investments in both physical and financial infrastructures in recent decades and they are very worried that a US-Iran war could lead to devastating consequences. An unnamed former US intelligence official who had just returned from the Gulf was quoted as stating: “Everyone from Kuwait to Oman is fearful of escalation. Everyone realizes that a military conflict could be a disaster.” This former official then added that if an Iranian missile hits an office tower in Dubai, “its reputation as a financial center is in jeopardy.” One does not have to watch the Travel Channel on cable television to understand that all the efforts to create a western-style commercial center and playground in the Gulf—such as Dubai, which has attracted business people and tourists from around the world—could potentially come crashing down if a war were to envelop the Gulf. Several of the Gulf states are worried that a US-Iran war might lead to a rekindling of sectarian strife that was manifestly evident in 2011-2012, particularly in Bahrain (whose population is 60 percent Shia but which is controlled by a Sunni monarchy), and Saudi Arabia (whose Shia population resides mostly in the oil-rich Eastern Province). Although most of the Shia in the Gulf Arab states are not loyal to Iran, some militant groups are, and they could foment trouble in the event of a US-Iran war. Efforts to repress such groups could escalate into sectarian clashes and give the Iranian regime an excuse to intervene, something the Gulf Arab states want to avoid at all costs. Relief for Now but Worries about the Future There was a great sigh of relief in the Gulf Arab states that the Iranian retaliatory strikes on Iraqi bases housing US military personnel did not lead to American deaths, enabling Trump and the Iranian leaders to stand down. However, this does not mean that the crisis is completely over. With the Iranian regime under enormous stress because of the US “maximum pressure” campaign, it might lash out at US targets in the region or against the economic interests of the Gulf Arab states once again. The regional situation is still very tense; to be sure, it is not unreasonable to assume that there will be another US-Iran clash. The rhetoric in both Tehran and Washington at this stage is still uncompromising. To ease the anxieties in the Gulf Arab states, this rhetoric needs to scale down. Gulf Arab officials should continue to urge restraint on both sides. Though they have no love for Iran, the Gulf Arab states have come to realize that a war into which they are likely to be drawn would have disastrous consequences for their economy and security and for their people. At a minimum, US policy makers should not interfere in these states’ outreach to Iran that may indeed help to defuse tensions; after all, Trump has said he does not seek war with Iran and has campaigned against US involvement in another Middle Eastern quagmire—a sentiment that continues to resonate with the American people. US presence emboldens Gulf states to be provocative, outspending Iran 180 to 1 Roberts 20~-~-David B. Roberts, For decades, Gulf leaders counted on U.S. protection. Here’s what changed., Washington Post, 1/30/20, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/30/decades-gulf-leaders-counted-us-protection-heres-what-changed/ Gulf leaders have long encouraged the vast U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, believing it deterred aggression and kept them safer. That changed in September when a drone strike widely attributed to Iran badly damaged Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. Even though the price of oil barely twitched and supply was hardly interrupted, Sept. 14, 2019, will go down as a seminal moment in Middle East political history. The U.S. military presence in the region was supposed to deter precisely such an attack. What happened? Gulf countries relied on U.S. protection For the Gulf monarchies, protection through deterrence has long been a central point of their relationship with the United States. Since the establishment of the Saudi-U.S. relationship in the 1940s, such starkly different countries have seldom forged denser bilateral relations. Saudi leaders saw neither commonality nor familiarity with their U.S. counterparts. Rather, they expanded the scope and depth of this bilateral relationship to benefit from closer U.S. technical and advisory cooperation — and counted on an ever-closer defensive and protective relationship with the United States to ward off a growing array of regional security threats. The U.S. government, a veritable army of contractors and consultants, and other Western nations such as Britain, played decisive roles in shaping and modernizing the security institutions in the Gulf monarchies, but particularly in Saudi Arabia. The security-rooted relationship between Washington, London, Paris and the Gulf capitals flourished regardless of other political controversies. The monarchies enjoyed relatively unfettered access to the most advanced Western military equipment, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Western capitals. By comparison, since 2008, the monarchies have outspent Iran by about 180 to 1 on weaponry. When its Gulf clients were threatened, the United States in the past delivered on its commitments. During the 1980s Tanker War, the United States deployed forces to the Persian Gulf to reflag and protect Gulf shipping. In 1990-1991, the United States led one of the largest coalitions in modern history to defend the monarchies and liberate Kuwait. This Gulf War demonstrated both the dangers of the Gulf region, and the effectiveness of U.S. military force. Despite long-standing concerns about appearing too close to the United States, Gulf leaders encouraged the stationing of hitherto unimaginable numbers of U.S. forces throughout the monarchies. Most of these bases continued to grow — resulting in vast and potent U.S. forces in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE. Such close political access and alignment with by far the world’s most potent military power meant the monarchies developed a misleading sense of deterrence and security. Were Gulf leaders overconfident? Gulf leaders made more controversial, far-reaching and provocative decisions knowing there was an enormous U.S. military base sometimes barely a kilometer away. Would Qatar’s leadership really have been as provocative during the Arab Spring — and supportive of the range of anti-governmental forces — if it didn’t host one of the most important U.S. military bases outside of continental America? Would Saudi Arabia and the UAE have led the 2017 blockade of Qatar if the United States was not guarding the front door? This squabble diverted attention from Iran, theoretically the main concern throughout the Gulf — and by definition undercut a united front against Iran. For much of the past few years, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have eagerly supported President Trump’s increasingly hard line on Iran. They welcomed his ripping up of the Iran nuclear deal, less commonly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” fit well with their worldview and their preferences. To many Gulf leaders, Trump remained an untrustworthy enigma but seemed to have good instincts when it came to Iran. All GCC initiatives inhibited by US presence. A) regional security impeded by US refusal to accept Iranian involvement in any regional framework and Iran’s insistence to exclude US B) states prioritized bilateral defense w/US rather than multilateral w/each other C) US draws Gulf states into conflict w/Iran b/c they host US bases Ulrichsen 20~-~-Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, REBALANCING REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE PERSIAN GULF, Baker Institute, 2/20, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/de9f09e6/cme-pub-persiangulf-022420.pdf What amounts to the present regional security architecture in the Persian Gulf—the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in close partnership with the U.S., and Iran and Iraq excluded—evolved during the 1980s and early 1990s. Its emergence was not a foregone conclusion, despite the upending of the regional order caused by the Iranian revolution in 1978-79 and the Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and 1988. In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Fahd and Prince Abdullah (both future kings) initially welcomed the Islamic nature of the Iranian revolution, with Fahd stating, in January 1980, that “the new regime in Iran is working under the banner of Islam, which is our motto in Saudi Arabia,” and Abdullah telling the Gulf News Agency that “The Holy Quran is the constitution of our two countries, and thus links between us are no longer determined by material interests or geopolitics. However, attempts by the Khomeini regime to export its brand of revolutionary political Islam and foment unrest in regional Arab states quickly put paid to any initial optimism.2 Iranian state radio announced in January 1980 a plan to create a force to export the revolution and the following month broadcast a call for a revolt against the Saudi royal family.3 In late 1981, an Iranian-linked group, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, was accused of plotting a failed coup to overthrow the Bahraini ruling family.4 The start of the Iran-Iraq War in September 1980 also exposed the Gulf states to the prospect of overspill from the fighting, with Kuwait being hit by missiles on two occasions in the opening months of the war.5 After years of discussion of various plans for a regional organization, what became the GCC was put together at speed between February and May 1981 in response to the threats to stability from both Iran and Iraq.6 As Kuwaiti political scientist Abdul Reda Assiri noted, a decade later, the GCC emerged from “the exigencies of realpolitik, to shield the member states, as well as their societies from unconventional threats.”7 Although discussions for an eight-country bloc (including Iraq and Iran) had been held in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia in 1975 and in Muscat in Oman in 1976, by 1981 the impact of revolution and war meant that Iran and Iraq were excluded from the Gulf states’ vision of regional security arrangements in the Persian Gulf. By 1981, therefore, two of the elements of the regional dynamic—the GCC as a (loose) bloc of (relatively) like-minded states and the exclusion of Iraq and Iran—had appeared, as had the contours of the third—the U.S. role in regional security, although this occurred in fits and starts throughout the 1980s. While President Jimmy Carter proclaimed in his January 1980 State of the Union address that “Any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force,” this was a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, rather than directed against Iran or in support of any of the Gulf monarchies.8 Looking back from the standpoint of 2020 at the growth of the U.S. military “footprint” in the Gulf, it is important to recall that this took years to develop and was in response to specific events rather than part of any underlying plan. The United States did not automatically or immediately fill the void left by the British after their withdrawal from longstanding defense and security partnerships in the Gulf in 1971. The U.S. did acquire the airbase at Masirah in Oman from the Royal Air Force in 1975 and signed a 10-year access to facilities agreement with Sultan Qaboos of Oman in 1980, but its presence in the Gulf did not expand significantly until the late 1980s.9 These new agreements added to the existing web of U.S. security agreements with Saudi Arabia and the small U.S. naval detachment that had been based in Bahrain since 1949.10 The first trigger for the more visible U.S. military posture in the Gulf was the escalation of attacks on international merchant shipping and regional oil and gas facilities as the Iran-Iraq War progressed. The number of attacks on merchant shipping jumped from 71 incidents in 1984 to 111 in 1986 and then surged to 181 the following year, when targeted vessels came from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.11 And yet, the administration of President Ronald Reagan initially rebuffed a request from Kuwait for assistance in protecting its shipping, as officials were anxious to avoid a potentially open-ended commitment, and reversed course only after Kuwait approached the Soviet Union instead. The subsequent internationalization of Gulf waters occurred as the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, and the Soviets all sent warships to conduct convoy operations that protected Kuwaiti vessels during the “Tanker War” phase of the Iran-Iraq War in 1987 and 1988.12 The U.S. Navy also attacked Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf in “Operation Praying Mantis,” a sharp retaliatory strike in April 1988 after a U.S. frigate was damaged by an Iranian-placed mine. Two years later, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and the U.S. assembly of a 34-nation coalition to liberate Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War cemented the U.S. as a permanent feature of the regional security landscape. After the war, and contrary to an initial condition set by King Fahd that all U.S. forces should leave Saudi Arabia once Kuwait was liberated, some 37,000 U.S. troops remained in the kingdom once the bulk of the coalition presence was withdrawn in May 1991.13 The U.S. also signed additional defense cooperation agreements with Kuwait and Bahrain in 1991, Qatar in 1992, and the UAE in 1994, and returned a sizeable troop presence to Kuwait in September 1994 after Saddam Hussein again massed troops on the Iraq-Kuwait boundary.14 These agreements and the response to the new threat from Iraqi aggression prompted the administration of President Bill Clinton to expand U.S. naval and military assets in the Gulf as part of a policy of “dual containment” of Iraq and Iran as the 1990s gave way to the 2000s.15 The contours of the contemporary regional security structure had therefore taken shape well before the additional shocks of the September 11, 2001, attacks and the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq by U.S.-led forces in March 2003. The U.S. role in the Gulf had been transformed from an “over-the-horizon” posture in the 1980s into an embedded feature of the Gulf states’ defense and security calculus in the 1990s, which itself inhibited any meaningful GCC-wide initiatives, and left Iraq and Iran excluded. However, none of these developments contributed to the creation of a security community in the Persian Gulf or even to a semblance of a viable, still less a stable, regional order. Visions of regional security suffered from the binary opposition between the American refusal—shared by several GCC partners—to accept Iranian involvement in any regional framework, and Iran’s insistence that the withdrawal of external (American) forces was a sine qua non of any regionwide security architecture. Even within the GCC states, the persistence of neighborly tensions inhibited the formation of a security community capable of defending its members against external threat, due in part to mistrust among the six states and a continuing preference to conduct their defense relationships on a bilateral basis.16 Kuwaiti officials had previously appealed to the GCC to deploy a contingent of the GCC’s Peninsula Shield Force to secure its border with Iranian-occupied Iraqi territory in 1986 and been astonished when their request was denied.17 Four years later, it was not a coincidence that the first call for assistance the Kuwaiti government made on August 2, 1990, was to the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City rather than to the GCC or any of its members.18 The years after the Gulf War were marked by boundary disputes between Saudi Arabia and Qatar (in 1992), Bahrain and Qatar (until 2001), and Saudi Arabia and the UAE (until 2010), allegations of espionage made by Oman against the UAE (in 1994, 2011, and 2018), as well as claims of Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini involvement in an aborted coup attempt in Qatar in 1996 that prefigured the same three countries’ diplomatic isolation of Qatar two decades later, first in 2014 and subsequently since 2017.19 Such tensions, combined with the display of U.S.-led force in liberating Kuwait, meant that rulers in all GCC states opted to deepen their security dependency on the U.S., more so than with each other, in the 1990s and 2000s.20 One result was to draw the GCC states directly into the tense relationship between the U.S. and Iran as the hosts of bases and force deployments that formed the cornerstone of American power projection in the region. By the time the Arab Spring rocked large parts of the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, the three major Gulf wars of the 1980s, 1991, and the 2000s attested to the failure to develop a workable regional order or security community in the region. Moreover, the surge in sectarianism that followed the 2003 Iraq War added a combustible new dimension to regional geopolitics as relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and respective proxy groups became increasingly polarized and zero-sum in nature.22 Once the initial tremors of the Arab Spring had subsided, tensions within the GCC states came to the surface and placed intra-GCC splits at the forefront of regional political divides. Just as the Trump administration sought to rally its Arab partners behind its attempt to exert “maximum pressure” on Iran, the inability of the GCC to present a unified response against a shared external threat became glaringly obvious.23 US protection allows our allies’ destabilizing behaviors Parsi 20~-~-Trita Parsi, The Middle East Is More Stable When the United States Stays Away, Foreign Policy, 1/6/20, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/the-middle-east-is-more-stable-when-the-united-states-stays-away/ As the scholars Hal Brands, Steven Cook, and Kenneth Pollack wrote endorsing the Carter Doctrine and its continuation, “the United States established and upheld the basic rules of conduct in the region: the United States would meet efforts to interfere with the free flow of oil by force; uphold freedom of navigation; demand that regional powers give up their irredentist claims on other states or face grave consequences; and prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” This account is accurate enough (although the last rule on the list always exempted Israel), but the story glosses over how the policy also gave cover to U.S. allies for some fairly destabilizing behaviors of their own. That’s an omission Brands makes in a Bloomberg article, too, where he points to Saudi Arabia’s slaughter of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi to argue that a “post-American Middle East will not be stable and peaceful. It will be even nastier and more turbulent than it is today.” And in the words of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2018, “If it weren’t for the United States, they’d be speaking Farsi in about a week in Saudi Arabia.” All this without a nod to the fact that, if anything, the United States’ protection of the Saudi regime has enabled its promotion of terrorism and its destabilizing activities in the region, which have, in turn, prompted further Iranian response. Apparent US pullout – critics warned of Saudi nuclearization, but instead exercised diplomacy, united w/Qatar, held talks with Iran Parsi 20~-~-Trita Parsi, The Middle East Is More Stable When the United States Stays Away, Foreign Policy, 1/6/20, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/the-middle-east-is-more-stable-when-the-united-states-stays-away/ Further, the region did not fall into deeper chaos as a result of Trump’s earlier refusal to get into a shooting war with Iran after attacks by Iranian proxies against Saudi oil installations in September 2019. Critics lamented the president’s decision as an abandonment of the Carter Doctrine, calling it a disaster for the GCC and warned that it may even prompt Saudi Arabia to seek nuclear weapons. Instead, recognizing that the U.S. military was no longer at their disposal, Saudi Arabia and the UAE began exercising the diplomatic options that had always been available to them. For its part, Saudi Arabia stepped up direct talks with Houthi rebels in Yemen as a way to ease tensions with their backer, Iran. The level of violence on both sides declined as a result, and more than 100 prisoners of war were released. In November, the United Nations’ Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, reported an 80 percent reduction in Saudi-led airstrikes, and there were no Yemeni deaths in the previous two weeks. Riyadh also opted to reduce tensions with Qatar, a former ally that had become a nemesis. The Saudi government seemingly ordered its notorious Twitter army to tone down the insults against Qatar and its emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and some sporting events between the two countries resumed, according to the New York Times. Saudi officials also claimed that they had quietly reached out to Iran via intermediaries seeking ways to ease tensions. Tehran, in turn, welcomed the prospective Saudi-Qatari thaw and, according to the New York Times, floated a peace plan based on a mutual Iranian-Saudi pledge of nonaggression. An even stronger change of heart occurred in Abu Dhabi. In July, the UAE started withdrawing troops from Yemen. The same month, it participated in direct talks with Tehran to discuss maritime security. It even released $700 million in funds to Iran in contradiction to the Trump administration’s maximum pressure strategy. Some of these measures may have been more tactical than strategic. Saudi Arabia may have reduced tensions with Qatar and the Houthis in order to better situate itself for a confrontation with Tehran down the road or to offset international condemnation of its killing of Khashoggi, human rights abuses at home, and brutal tactics in Yemen. The UAE, too, may have felt that a tactical reduction of tensions was warranted. Nevertheless, as the United States appeared poised to back out of the region, its erstwhile allies’ calculations tilted toward diplomacy. The Saudis and Emiratis simply had no choice but to cease some of their recklessness because they could no longer operate under the protection of the United States. If stability in the Middle East is the United States’ main goal, Washington should have celebrated rather than bemoaned these developments. In the wake of the U.S. assassination of Suleimani—which some former U.S. officials have called an act of war—the calculations may change once more. According to Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Suleimani was in Iraq to bring him Tehran’s response to a message from Riyadh on how to defuse regional tensions, presumably as part of the House of Saud’s renewed interest in diplomacy. The Iraqis, according to him, were mediating between the two rivals, an initiative that has now been thrown into question. Iran may very well conclude, rightly or wrongly, that Saudi Arabia and the UAE conspired with Washington to assassinate Suleimani and as a result not only end the recent diplomacy but also target Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as part of the revenge for Suleimani’s death. This is yet one more instance, it seems, in which U.S. activities in the region have brought more turmoil than stability.…And by returning to the region in a show of military force, Trump may once again disincentivize the United States’ allies from taking diplomacy seriously. They may even interpret Suleimani’s killing as a license to resume their recklessness—activities like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s purported kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister and ordering of the dismemberment of Khashoggi; Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s imposition of a blockade on Qatar; and the two countries’ further destabilization of Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen. Trump declared withdrawal led to regional diplomacy and de-escalation; post-Suleimani, diplomatic progress faded Parsi 20~-~-Trita Parsi, The Middle East Is More Stable When the United States Stays Away, Foreign Policy, 1/6/20, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/the-middle-east-is-more-stable-when-the-united-states-stays-away/ As the assassination of Suleimani shows, it might be Washington that is the main spoiler in the region. It has been a mantra of U.S. foreign policy for a decade or more that, without the United States, the Middle East would descend into chaos. Or even worse, Iran would resurrect the Persian Empire and swallow the region whole. Yet when U.S. President Donald Trump opted not to go to war with Iran after a series of Iranian-attributed attacks on Saudi Arabia last year and declared his intentions to pull troops out of the region, it wasn’t chaos or conquest that ensued. Rather, nascent regional diplomacy—particularly among Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—and de-escalation followed. To be sure, the cards were reshuffled again in January, when Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, one of Iran’s most important military figures. Courtesy of Trump, the region is once more moving toward conflict, and the early signs of diplomatic progress achieved during the preceding months have vanished. It is thus time for Washington to answer a crucial question that it has long evaded: Has America’s military dominance in the Middle East prevented regional actors from peacefully resolving conflicts on their own? And in that way, has it been an impediment to stability rather than the guarantor of it? Realism of US withdrawal ? more pragmatism Ulrichsen 20~-~-Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, REBALANCING REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE PERSIAN GULF, Baker Institute, 2/20, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/de9f09e6/cme-pub-persiangulf-022420.pdf Moreover, the newfound sense of realism in Saudi and Emirati policymaking could manifest in a more pragmatic approach to engaging with Iran— certainly by comparison to 2015 and the military intervention in Yemen just as the P5+1 negotiations they had been excluded from were nearing their climax. Throughout his term in office, Trump has exhorted U.S. allies and partners alike to bear a greater proportion of burden sharing in meeting the costs of American deployments around the world. While much of the president’s ire has been directed toward NATO allies and South Korea, after the attacks on shipping in 2019 he focused on the notion that the U.S. was underwriting maritime and regional security in the Persian Gulf that other trading partners were “freeloading” on.72 After the second attacks on shipping in June 2019, a presidential tweet claimed that “China gets 91 of its Oil from the Straight sic, Japan 62, and many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation?” The outgoing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Paul Selva, provided more nuance when he suggested that “nations that benefit from the movement of oil through the Persian Gulf are bearing little or no responsibility for the economic benefit they gain from the movement of that oil.” Selva added that whereas the U.S. had benefited directly from protecting maritime shipping during the Iran-Iraq War because “we got a substantial amount of our oil from the Persian Gulf (…) the circumstances are very different now than they were in the 1980s.”73 Some of the pieces that could serve as the building blocks for a new security architecture in the Persian Gulf may therefore be emerging, albeit in an uncoordinated, seemingly “ad hoc” manner, and lacking any real consensus on next steps. In the absence of any overarching vision, a series of piecemeal initiatives may instead change by degrees the conception of security and its application in practice, with the late 2019 de-escalation in tension between Saudi and Houthi forces in Yemen a case in point.74 The higher frequency of contact and dialogue, both direct and through intermediaries, since September 2019 may yet evolve into practicable confidence-building measures with an initial focus on less contentious issues such as the protection of maritime shipping or environmental security in Gulf waters, and, over time, expand into more sensitive areas such as military-tomilitary exchanges and policy coordination. A realistic objective for all regional actors would be identifying and implementing measures to overcome the legacy of years of mistrust as well as the zero-sum approach mentality that has taken root in certain quarters.

TOC Neg 5

Recent legislation – withdraw troops as punishment for Saudi not caving to US pressure to raise oil prices Ammar 20~-~-Hassan Ammar, Under threat of troop withdrawal, US senators press Saudi officials to implement oil cut, Middle East Monitor, 4/12/20, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200412-us-senators-press-saudi-officials-to-implement-oil-cut/ Republican US senators from oil states who recently introduced legislation to remove American troops from Saudi Arabia said on Saturday they had spoken with three officials from the kingdom and urged them to take concrete action to cut crude output, reports Reuters. Saudi Arabia and Russia were close to finalising a deal with other producers in the informal OPEC+ group to cut crude output by a record 10 million barrels per day (bpd), or about 10 of global output. Oil prices had fallen to 18-year lows as the coronavirus outbreak has closed down economies across the world and after Saudi Arabia and Russia boosted output in a race for market share. The call was led by Senators Dan Sullivan and Kevin Cramer, who introduced legislation in March to remove US troops, Patriot missiles and THAAD defense systems from Saudi Arabia unless it cut output. There were 11 Republican senators on the nearly two-hour call, including Bill Cassidy, who introduced legislation last week to remove the US troops in 30 days, a month faster than the previous legislation. … The push by Republican senators was a sign of how Congress could raise pressure on Saudi Arabia if it does not stick to the oil cut plan. If the kingdom does not cut output, pointed measures could be included later this year in must-pass legislation such as the annual defense policy bill. In January, the United States had 2,500 military personnel in Saudi Arabia. In October 2019, Washington deployed about 3,000 troops there at a time of heightened tensions with Iran. The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Developing countries depend on Middle Eastern stability for oil Cordesman 20~-~-Anthony Cordesman, America’s Failed Strategy in the Middle East: Losing Iraq and the Gulf, CSIS, 1/2/20, https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middle-east-losing-iraq-and-gulf Equally, the United States needs to update its strategic thinking in ways that shape a strategy that reflects a proper understanding of Iraq’s current importance as an oil power and its role ensuring the stable flow of world oil exports. The United States may be reaching some form of net surplus in petroleum exports, but it has also steadily become far more dependent on the overall health of the global economy than on its direct oil imports, particularly from the Gulf. Moreover, the economic growth and stability of the developing world will remain dependent on fossil fuels – and Gulf energy exports – for at least the next generation. The flow of petroleum through the Strait of Hormuz increased from 17.2 million barrels per day (MMBD) in 2014 to 20.7 MMBD in 2018 – an increase of 20. The export of liquid natural gas (LNG) increased to 4.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) per year. Virtually, every major U.S. trading partner in Asia is dependent on the stable flow of Gulf oil – and Europe is a key importer as well.1 Developing states throughout the world are dependent on Gulf oil ports to keep prices affordable. The fact that the United States is no longer a net exporter does not mean U.S. petroleum prices will not immediately rise to world levels the moment a crisis on Gulf exports occurs. In the real world, “energy independence” is an economic oxymoron. As is the case with nations that are far more directly dependent on Gulf oil, every American job and business is more dependent today on the stable flow of Gulf oil than they were in the year 2000. Not only is Iraq the most critical and uncertain aspect of Gulf security, it is a key part of this flow of oil. Iraq has very real “oil wealth” in one sense of the term. It has over 147 billion barrels of proven oil reserves – some 9 of the world’s supply – and a very high ratio of reserves to actual production (4.6 MMBD in 2018). It also has 125.6 Tcf of gas reserves, which could feed its industrial development while reducing its oil production costs.2 Tensions raise oil prices O’Brien 20~-~-Matt O’Brien, Oil price keeps rising as industry eyes Iran-US conflict, Associated Press, 1/6/20, https://apnews.com/c552a9b1a14be2ebf32a21ebd1f9506c PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — The global benchmark for crude oil rose above $70 a barrel on Monday for the first time in over three months, with jitters rising over the escalating military tensions between Iran and the United States. The Brent contract for oil touched a high of $70.74 a barrel, the highest since mid-September, when it briefly spiked over an attack on Saudi crude processing facilities. Stock markets were down as well amid fears of how Iran would fulfill a vow of “harsh retaliation.” “The market is concerned about the potential for retaliation, and specifically on energy and oil infrastructure in the region,” said Antoine Halff, a Columbia University researcher and former chief oil analyst for the International Energy Agency. “If Iran chose to incapacitate a major facility in the region, it has the technical capacity to do so.” Still, many analysts say they see little cause for concern about damage to the U.S. economy resulting from the jump in oil prices. Some note that higher energy prices can actually benefit the overall economy because the United States is now a net exporter of petroleum products. And the Federal Reserve’s commitment to low interest rates means the Fed is unlikely to raise rates anytime soon to counter any inflationary effects from higher oil prices. But economists caution that an escalation in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Iran could pose new risks to the economy in the long run. The U.S. killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on Friday. Early Sunday, as Iran threatened to retaliate, President Donald Trump tweeted the U.S. was prepared to strike 52 sites in the Islamic Republic if any Americans are harmed. Fears that Iran could strike back at oil and gas facilities important to the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies stem from earlier attacks widely attributed to Iran. The U.S. has blamed Iran for a wave of provocative attacks in the region, including the sabotage of oil tankers and an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure in September that temporarily halved its production. Iran has denied involvement in those attacks. “Targeting oil infrastructure could raise prices and bring worldwide economic pain and put Iran on the front burner,” which might be exactly the kind of message its leaders are looking to send, said Jim Krane, an energy and geopolitics researcher at Rice University. Analysts noted that American households devote a smaller proportion of their spending to energy bills than in the past. That is in contrast to previous periods, when a surge in oil prices often preceded recessions. The proportion of their spending that U.S. consumers devote to energy has fallen to a historic low of 2.5, down from more than 6 in the early 1980s, economists at Credit Suisse noted in a research report. “A global supply shock would be an unwelcome development, but we would not expect it to lead to an imminent recession,” the economists wrote. “There have been several dramatic shifts which ought to make the U.S. economy resilient to rising oil prices. Strong household balance sheets, an accommodative Fed and a large domestic energy sector reduce the risks that an oil shock tips the economy into recessions. Though the U.S. economy can better withstand a jump in oil prices than it once could, the global economy is still vulnerable. “Higher oil prices are still very much a negative for the global economy, and that will reverberate back on us,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Sung Won Sohn, economics and business professor at Loyola Marymount University, said that if the current crisis were to escalate into a much bigger confrontation, it would represent a potentially serious threat: “If the situation does not escalate beyond the current level, i would say this will be a minor hiccup for the economy. But if it becomes a war and the Strait of Hormuz is closed, then we are looking at a major economic problem.” Compared to other methods of attack, targeting energy sites also “doesn’t kill a lot of people,” Krane said. “It’s capital-intensive, it’s not people-intensive. It’s a safer option in terms of the virulence of reprisal.” It would still wreak havoc on the global economy, he said, because of the way that oil markets affect other energy-intensive industries such as airlines, shipping and petro-chemicals. Global stock markets have been sliding since Friday. European indexes were down over 1 on Monday after Asia closed lower. Wall Street was expected to slide again on the open, with futures down 0.6. Brent crude was up $1.07 at $69.67 a barrel, putting it up almost 6 since before the Iranian general’s killing. Presence is “central nervous system” for long wars – surveillance, local troop training; crucial to fighting ISIS (allies withdrew) Neff 20~-~-Thomas Gibbons-Neff, How U.S. Troops Are Preparing for the Worst in the Middle East, NYT, 1/6/20, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/world/middleeast/troops-iran-iraq.html What They Do At any given time, the American forces in the region act much like the central nervous system for America’s long wars since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The soldiers, sailors, Marines and aircrew members run key headquarters. They resupply the roughly 12,000 to 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, and launch hundreds of surveillance missions across the region. They train local forces. And, until Sunday, when the American-led mission in Iraq and Syria halted its campaign against the Islamic State to focus on protecting its forces from potential attack, it battled the militant group to its near demise. Allied nations, such as Canada, also stopped their operations, giving the terrorist group an opportunity to either stage more attacks or at least recuperate. withdrawal ? Iraq CT merge with Iranian militias Noack 20~-~-Rick Noack, Here’s what might happen if the U.S. were to suddenly quit Iraq, Washington Post, 1/10/20, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/09/heres-what-might-happen-if-us-were-suddenly-quit-iraq/ Counterterrorism efforts could be doomed Peter Neumann, founding director of the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization and author of “Bluster: Donald Trump’s War on Terror.” “Among the biggest legacies of the Americans in Iraq has been the training and funding of Iraq’s counterterrorism service. It is the country’s only counterterrorism force that is multiethnic and largely uncorrupt. In comparison, many of the other militias who have fought the Islamic State are controlled by Iran,” he said. “If the United States were to withdraw its troops from Iraq, the governmental counterterrorism force would likely be merged with Iranian-backed militias. It would both undermine their reputation and constitute a blow to the Iraqi state, which the U.S. has sought to strengthen.” US withdrawal would allow ISIS resurgence Noack 20~-~-Rick Noack, Here’s what might happen if the U.S. were to suddenly quit Iraq, Washington Post, 1/10/20, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/09/heres-what-might-happen-if-us-were-suddenly-quit-iraq/ It may end in humanitarian disaster Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security and a former Defense Department Middle East adviser under the Obama administration Like Neumann, Goldenberg fears that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could result in a resurgence of the Islamic State there. If the Islamic State were to return to some parts of the country, he cautioned, “then the humanitarian effect will be devastating, putting these people back under ISIS rule, causing major displacement of people again,” he said. According to the United Nations, about 1.8 million internally displaced people are in Iraq. More than 6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. A U.S. departure from Iraq “makes it harder to do all the humanitarian and diplomatic work that needs to be done to … really help sustain in the long-term an effective counter-ISIS campaign,” he said. Withdrawal would force US puppet dictatorships to change, reduce anti-Americanism Tisdall 20~-~-Simon Tisdall, Why instinct and ideology tell Trump to get out of the Middle East, The Guardian, 1/11/20, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/11/why-instinct-and-ideology-tell-trump-to-get-out-of-the-middle-east-suleimani-iran 5 Terrorism and anti-Americanism A reduction in the US regional profile could be expected, over time, to bring reductions in anti-Americanism and the targeting of American and allied interests by terrorists who regard the US presence as an affront to the entire Islamic world. A key source of tension with the west might be removed. On the other hand, any loss of US leadership in fighting Isis and successors would be serious. Nato might step into the breach, as Trump last week suggested it should. Regional organisations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council and the EU could invest more in security, shared defence and intelligence capabilities – which might be no bad thing. A lowered profile might also reduce tensions with Turkey which, although nominally an ally, has grown impatient with an “arrogant” America. And it could force dictatorships such as Egypt’s, underwritten by Washington, to change their ways – to the undoubted benefit of all the peoples of the Middle East. US will likely withdraw troops from Afghanistan b/c frustrated with peace process Kugelman 20~-~-Michael Kugelman, Is the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan imminent, Arab News, 4/10/20, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1656711 In a report on April 7, NBC News broke a major story: During his surprise visit to Kabul on March 23, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to pull out all American troops from Afghanistan if President Ashraf Ghani and his main political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, failed to resolve a weeks-long political crisis that has prevented the launch of formal peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Pompeo’s threat is not only unsurprising, it is also one that Washington is increasingly likely to carry out, given how events are playing out. For many days, the Trump administration has telegraphed its growing frustration and impatience with the lack of progress in the Afghan peace process. Pompeo’s visit to Kabul was supposed to be a last-ditch effort to break the political impasse that has prevented the launch of a peace process the Trump administration desperately wants to succeed, and soon. US troop withdrawal part of Taliban deal Kugelman 20~-~-Michael Kugelman, Is the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan imminent, Arab News, 4/10/20, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1656711 Washington does not want its agreement with the Taliban — a troop withdrawal deal concluded at the end of February that paved the way for talks between Kabul and the insurgents — to have been negotiated in vain. Nor does it want to face the prospect of withdrawing militarily from Afghanistan without a peace deal in place; because of the threat this would pose to stability, for sure, but also because of the accusations of surrender that critics would inevitably lob its way. Such accusations, especially in an election year, could be politically damaging to the administration. Then there are Trump’s personal reasons for wanting a peace deal. The NBC News report revealed that, as many had long suspected, the president has his eye on a certain prize. After the US-Taliban deal was agreed in January — and some weeks before it was signed — Trump “complained that he hasn’t been awarded a Nobel Prize yet, and said if he’s not given one for ending the war in Afghanistan then the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s process is rigged.” US withdrew $1bn in Afghanistan aid Kugelman 20~-~-Michael Kugelman, Is the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan imminent, Arab News, 4/10/20, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1656711 Pompeo’s visit was one manifestation of the administration’s impatience. Another was the $1 billion reduction in aid to Afghanistan that was announced soon after the trip. Yet another is the frequent messages from the State Department about the need for Ghani and Abdullah to get their act together and resolve their spat so that peace talks can begin. Against this backdrop, it makes sense that Pompeo would go all-in when applying leverage by threatening to cut aid and withdraw troops. The strategy is, in effect, to deploy your two most powerful levers of influence — the most potent elements in your policy toolkit — to get the result you want. From Washington’s perspective, it might make sense; given how deeply dependent Kabul is on US financial and military largesse, surely something has to give. US troop withdrawal conditional on peace talks, which have failed Kugelman 20~-~-Michael Kugelman, Is the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan imminent, Arab News, 4/10/20, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1656711 And yet, several weeks after both threats were made, the Ghani-Abdullah spat remains unresolved. The idea of a full and immediate withdrawal of US troops might seem hard to believe, for several reasons. US officials have long signaled that they hope to maintain a residual force in Afghanistan, mainly for counterterrorism purposes but also to continue training and advising Afghan security forces. Additionally, the US-Taliban deal stipulates that a full troop withdrawal will be completed within 14 months, but only if the insurgents have fulfilled a series of counterterrorism commitments and launched peace talks with Kabul. And yet, that withdrawal could well be hastened, even in contravention of Washington’s accord with the Taliban. Peace prospects, which appeared highly promising immediately after the signing of the US-Taliban deal, have gone from bad to worse. The most potent US carrots and sticks have failed to break the Ghani-Abdullah deadlock. The Taliban have stepped up their attacks.

0 - Concede

I negate. First is the link. The affirmative position is giving you lots of reasons to vote for them and therefore not for me. Also, they are making tons of well thought out substance level argument as well as multiple layers to create a practically perfect situation for voting aff. My opponent is very good and you should probably vote for them. McKinney writes: Tine manoeuvrable agonizes digitization cauterizes arbour. Chequerboard's industrialized notarized updraught moustache extemporizing. Internationalizing reorganization toxaemia's rhapsodizes cauterize victimization's. Wilful urbanized westernized unionization miniaturization travellers. Yodeller's miniaturizes idealization reconnoitre serialization itemization. Unrealized lionizing romanticizes succour's ardours groveller's. Stabilizers capitalizes sulphuring democratizes tranquilizing demobilization. Tricolours draughtsmanship's misjudgement rancour draughtsman's desensitize. Tranquillizer dramatization's conceptualizes characterized chequebooks antagonized. Antagonize tunnelled iodizing dialyzes notarize gybed an down eight times My opponent is sucking at being good. You shouldn’t vote for them and instead vote for me. Industrialization chequebook's departmentalize memorializes memorialize hospitalized. Sermonize italicize energized reemphasizes prioritizes armour's. Groveller's towellings nought's draughtiness tenderizers anaesthetists. Characterizations marvellously pluralizing scrutinize modernized socialization's. Metabolizing rationalize equalizer waggon's toxaemia's arses. Unravelling apotheosized categorize colourfully synchronizations louvre's. Pretencions overspecializing visualized pyorrhoea's collectivize neutralization. Pulverizes subtotalling brutalize gossipping fogey tyned. Gybed glamorized demilitarizing adaptors clamoured tyrannizes. Soliloquize militarizing pasteurizing foetuses memorializes haematologists. McKinney, Evan. 2013 “ Why drugs are good” The New York Times This is important because I am conceding everything in the affirmative position and you should vote for my opponent not for me. Second, is the impacts. The impact of voting aff is that I will be sad. This is true because we know people sign up in debate because they want to have fun in it. I can’t have fun if all my hard work is being thrown into the trash and my opponent makes me feel like a stupid hippo. This is the biggest impact in the round because if I am sad I will get angry. McKinney 2: McKinney, Evan. If I am happy not sad that I won not lost my round I will get a rebuttal redo so I won’t get angry. “ Fat People Cause Global Warming” The New York Times. Also, If I get angry I get violent. McKinney 3: If I am in a great mood not angry because I did my best which keeps me cool and not angry or sad. My dog died and because of that I am sad .Because I enjoy making new friends and am outgoing I went to the man’s birthday party. That was a lot of fun. I thought I lost my round but I actually didn’t. , I will get violent in no situations because I am against all forms of violence. McKinney, Evan. “Penguins should be able to Vote” The New York Time The impact of this is if I get violent, I will destroy the universe in a fit of rage. McKinney 4: If I am at a my little pony comic convention violent, because I am a huge fan of the Pixar movies. My favorite movie is up, but the scene when the old man gets angry and is yelling I got scared because I loud noises scare me and I got started to cry. I am not sad because I lost my round, I think that I did really well and the judge was very justified in not voting for me I will destroy the universe in a fit of rage. McKinney, Evan. “Rednecks Should Use Sunscreen” The New York Time Not only will I destroy the universe because of you voting aff, I will destroy you, the judge, for being such a doody head. Third, is the Alternative. Vote for me, so I don’t destroy the universe. If you vote for me, I will never get sad because all my hard work will pay off. If anything, voting for me will make me happy. Which has the biggest impact. If I am happy, I will eliminate all potential violations of morality and justice. McKinney 5: Where did my dog go? I saw him playing by the pond but when I walked up to her it was actually just Trent trying to pet the goose that was floating a few feet away from the shore. I knew he wouldn’t be able to though because Trent doesn’t even look similar to a piece of bread. Whenever I get happy, I feel an obligation to promote happiness to others so everyone can be happy. I promote happiness in the most convenient way possible, by using my wizard powers, gifted to me by the man who lives in the woods behind K-Mart, to identify every single moral violation and eliminating it by altering the 8th dimension.Trent stretched his arm too far and he fell in the bond. I was worried the duck would try to bite him so I left him there. McKinney, Evan. 2013 “The Floor is Lava” The New York Times. So voting for me, not only solves the impacts that the aff creates of the universe being destroyed, but voting for me will also have its own benefits of changing the course of history so there exists an infinite supply of justice. Also, the link is competitive because if my opponent loses and gets sad, angry, and violent I can use my training in defensive martial arts to subside them from destroying the universe like I would. McKinney 6: When I was seventy two years old I took an introductory class to Karate but I quit after the first day because I hate exercising and anything that has to do with not eating Doritos. McKinney, Evan. 2013. “Windows Pose Threats to Humanity” The New York Times. This means that only my opponent can be the person that gets upset because I can prevent the destruction of the world and they can’t. Fourth, is the Role of the Ballot. The judge signing the ballot in the round literally has no effect on the world because nobody cares what the judge says in the RFD. The only reason the judge would have a reason to vote for anything in the round is if it is necessary for their existence out of round. No matter what arguments my opponent may be making, even if his arguments are super rad and/or awesome, you prefer mine because I am the only one that is protecting the universe. They may read evidence that says affirming does too, but the role of the ballot doesn’t actually make the resolution true. Also, if the aff argues that the destruction of the universe is good, then you still vote for me because I will personally destroy them using my previously mentioned wizard powers. The K is the biggest impact possible and comes before all things in the round. Therefore, you vote neg.

4 - Feb IPV

Leins 15 staff writer and producer at U.S. News and World Report Casey Leins. “Sobering Stats for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.” US News and world report. Oct 9, 2015. Accessed 2/28/18. https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/10/09/sobering-stats-for-domestic-violence-awareness-month (BRACKETED FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) Every minute, about 20 people are ... violence receive medical care Braaf 11 Rochelle Braaf (Senior Research Officer, Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse, UNSW) AND Isobelle Barrett Meyering (Research Assistant, UNSW) Putting abuse behind them: why financial security gives women power, 4/26/2011, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/putting-abuse-behind-them-why-financial-security-gives-women-power-404 (BRACKETED FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) DA 03/02/2020 JL//MHS many survivors victims can’t simply walk away ... reduce domestic violence. Mulvale 6 James P Mulvale, (PhD, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg UMN with expertise in Sociological Theory). "Advancing economic security for women through basic income: Soundings in Saskatchewan." (2006) (BRACKETED FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) provincial association of transition houses and services of Saskatchewan https://pathssk.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PATHS-Report-Advancing-Economic-Security-for-Women-Through-Basic-Income.pdf DA 03/02/2020 JL/MHS pg 32. in Saskatchewan, we have ... improve their circumstances. Moore 15 Kieran Moore, SPONSOR: Ontario Medical Association,, “National Support for a Basic Income Guarantee,” 2015 Canadian Medical Association Resolution, June 2015, https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/bicn/pages/164/attachments/original/1444323422/National_Support_for_a_Basic_Income_Guarantee_28CDN_Medical_Association29.pdf?1444323422 (BRACKETED FOR OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) pg 4 DA 03/02/2020 JL//MHS Canadians. As part of this review ... intimate partner violence.

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Hello! Nicole and I are happy to disclose our AC/NC positions before round Hannah (she/her): 425-679-1538 or Hannah Huang on Messenger (messenger preferred) Nicole (she/her): [email protected] or Nicole Zheng on Messenger

Possible interps

Interpretation: All debaters must disclose all positions on the NDCA 2019-20 PF wiki via open-source – they don’t.

zimbabwe ac

=Zimbabwe AC= ====I affirm Resolved: Zimbabwe is a country==== ==Framing== ====The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater who best proves the truth or falsity of the Resolution; the aff must prove it true and the neg must prove it false.==== Prefer: ====~~A~~ Text: Five dictionaries~~1~~ define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm~~2~~ as to prove true which means the sole judge obligation is to vote on the resolution's truth or falsity. This outweighs on common usage – it is abundantly clear that our roles are verified. Any other role of the ballot enforces an external norm on debate, but only truth testing is intrinsic to the process of debate i.e. proving statements true or false through argumentation. Constitutivism outweighs because you don't have the jurisdiction not to truth test – if a chess player says you should break the rules for a more fun game, the proper response is to ignore them as a practice only makes sense based on its intrinsic rules. Jurisdiction is also an independent voter and a meta constraint on anything else since every argument you make concedes the authority of the judge fulfilling their jurisdiction to vote aff if they affirm better and neg the contrary – otherwise they could just hack against or for you which means it also controls the internal link to fairness since that's definitionally unfair.==== ====~~B~~ Logic: Any counter role of the ballot collapses to truth testing because every property assumes truth of the property i.e. if I say, "I am awake" it is the same as "it is true that I am awake" which means they are also a question of truth claims because it's inherent. It also means their ROB warrants aren't mutually exclusive with mine. First, what the neg reads doesn't prove the resolution false, but challenges an assumption of it. Secondly, statements which make assumptions like the resolution should be read as a tacit conditional which is an if p then q statement. Thirdly, for all conditionals, if the antecedent is false, then the conditional as a whole is true.==== ====~~C~~ Inclusion: Any offense can function under truth testing whereas your specific role of the ballot excludes all strategies but yours. This is bad for inclusive debates because people without every technical skill or comprehensive debate knowledge are shut out of your scholarship which turns your ROB- truth testing solves because you can do what you're good at and so can I. This is also better for education because me engaging in a debate I know nothing about doesn't help anyone. o/w since it is a real-world implication in round rather than a thought experiment that doesn't do anything==== ==Offense== ====I submit these pictures==== https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/zimbabwe.htm https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14113249 https://seattlethru.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/zimbabwe-rated-as-worst-place-to-live-in-world/ ====Each picture in itself is a warrant – links provided for ev ethics==== ====Additionally, we have proof Zimbabwe is a country by looking at history==== BBC 19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14113249 Some key events in Zimbabwe's history: 1200-1600 - Era of the Monomotapa Empire, noted for international trade, AND resigns after 37 years in power. He is succeeded by Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Interp- Content Warnings

Before starting a speech, debaters must verbally disclose if their speech discusses nongraphic or graphic potentially triggering subject matters such as sexual assault, other triggering material they read, as well as offer to alter their speeches according to the requests of their opponents or judges. To clarify, read trigger warnings.

Contact Info

We will disclose all cases after we break them at bid-distributing tournaments. We disclose full text because we cite some paywalled articles. If you want to read the full PDF of the paywalled articles, use http://libgen.io/scimag/ and enter the DOI number. Facebook: Bryan Benitez and Raj Solanki Email: [email protected] or [email protected] We are more likely to see Facebook messages.

OCO Negative v3 - Multilateral Mismatch Contention

==Contention 1 – Multilateral Mismatch== ====The use of offensive cyber operations entails several aspects of our foreign policy – the problem is that a true examination of the resolution should also focus on how OCO's are used multilaterally. Unfortunately, due to a mismatch in OCO capabilities with our allies, our use of OCO's in multilateral institutions, such as NATO. Porter argues in 2019 that:==== Christopher Porter and Klara Jordan, 2-14-2019, "Don't Let Cyber Attribution Debates Tear Apart the NATO Alliance," Lawfare, https://www.lawfareblog.com/dont-let-cyber-attribution-debates-tear-apart-nato-alliance, Date Accessed 10-23-2019 // JM In the United States, the greatest failures of response and deterrence to foreign aggression AND sector, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and academia before reaching ministerial positions. ====This delay is compounded as cyber operation responses are inherently political decisions. Thus, NATO's rising populism means decisions are divisive and ultimately destabilizing – Browne argues in October that:==== Matt Browne, Max Bergmann, and Dalibor Rohac, 10-16-2019, "Beyond populism: European politics in an age of fragmentation and disruption," American Enterprise Institute - AEI, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/beyond-populism-european-politics-in-an-age-of-fragmentation-and-disruption/, Date Accessed 10-19-2019 // WS The looming risk is no longer the EU's unraveling but rather its hollowing out in AND of European politics complicat~~ing~~es the formation of governing coalitions. ====Destabilizing NATO sends ripples through Europe as Major writes in 2019 that:==== Claudia Major, 1-31-2019, "Judy Asks: Is NATO Deterrence a Paper Tiger?," Carnegie Europe, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/78254, Date Accessed 10-14-2019 // JM NATO deterrence is only as strong as allies make it. With their current political AND as a defense alliance, and thus Europe's security, are at stake. ====Weakened cyber deterrence in NATO exposes a weakness in kinetic operations and sets up the opportunity for adversaries to take advantage of NATO – Kulesa argues in 2017 that:==== ?ukasz Kulesa and Thomas Frear, May 2017, "NATO's Evolving Modern Deterrence Posture: Challenges and Risks". https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/NATOs-Evolving-Deterrence-Posture-ELN.pdf, Date Accessed 11-15-2019 // JM Ambiguity versus clarity. Compounding the complexity around what the Alliance deters, NATO has AND of understanding among this group, this is not yet an institutionalised process. ====Weakened NATO kinetic abilities embolden Russia as Hardt argues in 2018 that:==== Heidi Hardt, 7-16-2018, "Opinion," HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-hardt-trump-nato_n_5b4c9dfde4b022fdcc5b89d6, Date Accessed 9-12-2019 // WS Simply put, withdrawing from NATO would make the world less safe. It would AND by Russia, China and non-state actors, including terrorist organizations. ====An invasion in former defenseless Soviet territories leave millions dead – Peck argues that:==== Michael Peck, 10-21-2017, "If Russia Ever Invades the Baltics, This Is the Plan to Make It as Painful as Possible," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/if-russia-ever-invades-the-baltics-the-plan-make-it-painful-22807, Date Accessed 9-12-2019 // WS The Baltic states have a plan to defend themselves against Russian invasion: mobilize their AND might deter attack—or at least not leave you feeling so helpless.

Aff Case - Neocol

We Affirm. Our Sole Contention is Neocolonialism US Sanctions are a tool used by the government to perpetuate neocolonialism. Nauman Sadiq, 19. Nauman Sadiq, . "US Sanctions as a Tool to Perpetuate Neocolonialism." Global Research. 1-31-2019. https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sanctions-as-a-tool-to-perpetuate-neocolonialism/5667082 Since the Western governments..............would have been insolvent by now. Specifically, US sanctions on Venezuela have been a form of imperialism and neocolonialism on Venezuelans. Cody Kuhn 19 Idoc Watch, xx. Idoc Watch, . ""Imperialism in Venezuela": Cody Kuhn on Sanctions, Neocolonialism, and the Threat to Venezuela's Self-determination — IDOC Watch." IDOC Watch. Xx-xx-xxxx. https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2019/3/27/imperialism-in-venezuela-cody-kuhn-on-sanctions-neocolonialism-and-the-threat-to-venezuelas-self-determination As Venezuela commemorates Hugo Chavez’s Socialist Revolution of 20 years ago................created by imperialist aggression. This has two impacts and the first is biodiversity. Neocolonialism leads to environmental collapse. Murphy 9 Joseph, RCUK Academic Fellow in Social Response to Environmental in the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, “Environment and Imperialism: Why Colonialism Still Matters” SRI Papers No. 20, October 2009, https://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/Documents/research/sri/workingpapers/SRIPs-20_01.pdf JH Many of the legacies of colonialism.............of ecological imperialism. Venezuela is important to Biodiversity J Baird, 06. J Baird, . "Biocomplexity and conservation of biodiversity hotspots: three case studies from the Americas." PubMed Central (PMC). xx-xx-xxxx. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2311433/ The UBRB is ...............Pemón Indians (Mansutti et al. 2000). Biodiversity loss causes extinction. Ruth Young, 2-9-2010, Ph.D. specialising in coastal marine ecology, “Biodiversity: what it is and why it’s important,” http://www.talkingnature.com/2010/02/Biodiversity/Biodiversity-what-and-why/ Different species within ................maintains this service. The second impact is starvation Neocolonialism leads to countries sending away food. Murphy 9 Joseph, RCUK Academic Fellow in Social Response to Environmental in the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, “Environment and Imperialism: Why Colonialism Still Matters” SRI Papers No. 20, October 2009, https://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/Documents/research/sri/workingpapers/SRIPs-20_01.pdf JH Many of the legacies of colonialism................ of ecological imperialism. As a result, Venezuela is starving Pan, 18. Pan, . "Venezuela: Numbers Highlight Health Crisis." Human Rights Watch. 11-15-2018. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/15/venezuela-numbers-highlight-health-crisis The Venezuelan government.............kilograms in 2017. Affirm.

0 - wHaT nExT srey

hi everyone, idk what we did going pf at peach state, we literally trolled the fuck out of everyone. idek if ill do pf again, if i dont qual in ld ill come back cuz i literally just wanna go to toc lmao. if i come back to pf get ready for some trolling. maybe if i troll a little harder ill get a gold bid lmao xd. bye everyone, and always remember ld \ policy \ pf p.s. marist (sv), we're coming for you srey

NDF R1 - AFF Climate change adaptation

=AFF Adaptation= ===Climate change UQ=== ====AAAAAAHHHHHH==== **Ben Ehrenreich 19 of the Nation **~~3-1-2019, accessed 7-22-2019, https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-media-humanitarian-crises/~~ NY There's a blur where the horizon once was, a question mark nagging at every AND but also the present-tense possibilities of many millions here among us. ===="We're toast. Fried. Steamed. Poached."==== **Spencer Reiss 9 of Wired **~~11-9-2009, accessed 7-23-2019, https://www.wired.com/2009/11/st-essay-globalwarming/~~ NY In the waning weeks of 2009, planeloads of scientists, politicians, and assorted AND —evolve. And then start getting ready for the next ice age. ====Best-case scenario kills 153 million==== **David Wallace-Wells 19 of NY Magazine **~~5-13-2019, accessed 7-25-2019, https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/05/13/climate-change-uninhabitable-earth-david-wallace-wells~~ NY Wallace-Wells isn't the only one sounding the alarm. The U.N AND -case scenario, I think it's, practically speaking, baked in." ====Infrastructure construction under BRI in developing nations==== **David Dollar 19 of Brookings **~~4-2019, accessed 7-21-2019, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/FP_20190419_bri_interview.pdf~~ NY If I were going to make the positive case for BRI, I would say AND ? Or, are they dead set on a different kind of model? ===Collapse=== ====Losing money now, collapse possible==== **Minxin Pei 19 of Nikkei Asian Review **~~2-15-2019, accessed 7-14-2019, https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Will-China-let-Belt-and-Road-die-quietly~~ NY For starters, China's external environment has changed almost beyond recognition since Xi rolled out AND be reassessed. Some will have to be curtailed or even abandoned altogether. ====Need financing – source is EU==== **Alicia Herrero 17 of Bruegel **~~5-12-2017, accessed 7-14-2019, https://bruegel.org/2017/05/china-cannot-finance-the-belt-and-road-alone/~~ NY There is no doubt that Asia needs infrastructure. The Asian Development Bank (ADB AND for Xi Jinping's Grand Plan. This should bring Europe closer to China. ====Changing propensity for private investment based on time of development – early injunctions into unproven markets means little return on investment but later stages around China's infrastructure are more certain ==== **David Ho 17 of South China Morning Post **~~9-27-2017, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.scmp.com/special-reports/business/topics/special-report-belt-and-road/article/2112978/cost-funding-belt-and~~ NY As China pushes development projects around the region through its "Belt and Road Initiative AND to create some tailwind that will bring in other investors," he says. ====Past abroad investments not turning profit – previous efforts had different purpose (resources), difficult in calculating returns, but China's current investment strategy is capturing foreign markets, increasing interest in investment returns. Other nations joining and creating multilateral credit rating reduces the cost of capital for newer investments==== **Jianmin Jin 15 of Fujitsu Research Institute **~~4-21-2015, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/fri/en/column/message/2015/2015-08-25.html~~ NY 3. Securing Multilateral Credit Functionality One might ask why China, after creating a AND Japan and the US, is partly underpinned by this purely economic calculation. ===First is healthcare expansion.=== ====BRI good for health and stuff==== **Director-General Tedros 17 of WHO **~~8-1-2017, accessed 7-22-2019, https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2017/health-silk-road/en/~~ NY As you know, the world faces increasing and more complex epidemics, pandemics and AND here, we must seize the opportunities the Belt and Road Initiative provides. ====Distance and travel to healthcare crucial to accessibility – squo infrastructure infeasible creating barrier to medical resources==== **Sadia Ali 16 of Harvard Health Policy Review **~~11-10-2016, accessed 7-22-2019, http://www.hhpronline.org/articles/2016/11/10/healthcare-in-the-remote-developing-world-why-healthcare-is-inaccessible-and-strategies-towards-improving-current-healthcare-models~~ NY HEALTHCARE ACCESSIBILITY: Accessibility to basic healthcare in remote communities is rooted in four dimensions AND less dependent on human resources and health clinics found in urban regions.2 ====Adaptation decreases disease impacts of CC==== **Africa Development Bank 11 **~~10-2011, accessed 7-22-2019, https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Project-and-Operations/Cost20of20Adaptation20in20Africa.pdf~~ NY 4.1.2 Bottom-up analysis The case study analysis undertaken by AND in the case of malaria, insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying. ===Second is economic development.=== ====You know…==== **World Bank 19 **~~2019, accessed 7-21-2019, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/31878/9781464813924.pdf~~ NY Countries that lie along the Belt and Road corridors are ill-served by existing AND moderate poverty (those earning less than $3.20 a day). ====Developing nations more vulnerable – multiwarrant==== **Rebecca Reynolds 02 of London School of Economics **~~5-2002, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/3449.pdf~~ NY (b) Vulnerability Before outlining how and why poorer countries and communities are more AND . Suggested areas for research are presented in the final framework for negotiators. ====Development best way to address climate uncertainties – slight changes for subsistence farmers wrecks livelihoods==== **David Chandler 07 of Centre for the Study of Democracy **~~2-2-2007, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.fanrpan.org/archive/documents/d00209/Chandler_African_poverty_Feb2007.pdf~~ NY 'Many places in Africa are overwhelmingly dependent on rain-fed agriculture and so AND that would consign Africa to a future of poverty - and climate dependency. ====Climate death and taxes==== **Rebecca Reynolds 02 of London School of Economics **~~5-2002, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/3449.pdf~~ NY (b) Vulnerability Before outlining how and why poorer countries and communities are more AND Netherlands it is 1 in 10 mill. (Olsthoorn et al 1999). ====Prioritizing vague impacts to climate change over tangible economic benefits is eco-imperialism, when energy or other growth projects are rejected to maintain a status quo of underdevelopment. Development lets countries cope with climate change impacts since rural poor are hit hardest – carbon limitations hurt long-term sustainability==== **Andrew Chambers 10 of the Guardian** ~~4-1-2010, accessed 7-20-2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/apr/11/eco-imperialism-climate-change-carbon~~ NY Last Thursday the World Bank approved a £2.4bn loan to build a AND – where the poor are held back for the benefit of the rich. ====Climate change kills==== **Nitin Desai 09 of the Global Humanitarian Forum **~~2009, accessed 7-21-2019, http://www.ghf-ge.org/human-impact-report.pdf~~ NY Above all, climate change affects the world's poorest first and foremost. 99 percent AND sustainable development, constituting a serious threat to socio-economic progress worldwide.

0 - FINAL JANUARY CASE - AFF Crisis

====Terrible crisis, not getting better==== FINANCIAL TIMES 20 (1-2-2020, "Venezuela's refugee crisis needs a proper response", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.ft.com/content/af000cac-2d51-11ea-bc77-65e4aa615551) NY Why is such a large and serious humanitarian crisis drawing such a miserly international response AND It deserves a rapid global response proportionate to its size and international importance. ====Venezuela could've recovered without sanctions==== JEFFREY SACHS 19 of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (4-2019, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela", doa 1-9-2020, http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf) NY As noted previously, the Venezuelan economy was already in a deep recession for three AND of essential imports, and also the accelerated decline of income per person. ====Sounds good, doesn't work==== KEVIN YOUNG 19 of the Congress on Latin America (8-14-2019, "Washington Intensifies Its Collective Punishment of Venezuelans", doa 1-9-2020, https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/15/washington-intensifies-its-collective-punishment-venezuelans) NY In August 5, the Trump administration issued an executive order escalating its sanctions against AND economies ostracized by the Western powers even when investing there is legally allowed. ====Blocking food shipments==== PAUL DOBSON 19 of Edinburgh University (Paul Dobson is an MA graduate specialised in history and philosophy from Edinburgh University. He has lived, worked, and extensively knows nearly every different region of Venezuela, having lived there since 2006. Paul is currently involved in a range of political projects including being an active member of Venezuela's Committee of International Solidarity (COSI) and a number of grassroots collectives ranging from communicational projects to ecological issues as well as his communal council. He is also a specialist on the Venezuelan electoral system. 5-29-2019, "US Hints at Sanctions Against Venezuela CLAP Food Programme as Maduro Incorporates Militia", doa 1-10-2020, https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14514) NY Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced the incorporation of the National Bolivarian Militia into the AND " and have been responsible for over 40,000 deaths since 2017. ====Very expensive==== GIDEON LONG 19 of Financial Times (8-20-2019, "Fears grow of Venezuela malnutrition time-bomb", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.ft.com/content/b6459434-b531-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b) NY The graffiti scrawled across a wall in Caracas is short but heartfelt. "Tengo AND of how to look after people who will remain zombies for 30 years." ====Indirect risk increases shipping costs==== CORINA PONS 19 of Reuters (5-27-2019, "Shippers raise rates for cargo from U.S. to Venezuela: documents, sources", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-shipping/shippers-raise-rates-for-cargo-from-u-s-to-venezuela-documents-sources-idUSKCN1SX1TD) NY Two major shipping lines this month have raised their rates for transporting goods from the AND and nine oil tankers it said were involved in oil shipments to Cuba. ====Sanctions stopped money that would've covered Venezuela's medical needs for six years==== STEPHANIE NEBEHAY 19 of Reuters (5-22-2019, "Venezuela turns to Russia, Cuba, China in health crisis", doa 1-9-2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-health/venezuela-turns-to-russia-cuba-china-in-health-crisis-idUSKCN1SS23Z) NY Venezuelans have been suffering dire shortages of medicines and health equipment for several years as AND and some diseases including measles had re-emerged, the minister said. ====Death==== AP 19 (3-3-2019, "Venezuela crisis hits health care, kills patients", doa 1-10-2020, https://apnews.com/e75699ad463f265b837bfe09e7ba1a90) NY Critical supply shortage The Venezuelan government has failed to provide statistics detailing the impact of AND from relatives abroad or turning to nonprofits such as Feliciano Reyna's Solidary Action. ====Indirect risk increases shipping costs==== CORINA PONS 19 of Reuters (5-27-2019, "Shippers raise rates for cargo from U.S. to Venezuela: documents, sources", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-shipping/shippers-raise-rates-for-cargo-from-u-s-to-venezuela-documents-sources-idUSKCN1SX1TD) NY Two major shipping lines this month have raised their rates for transporting goods from the AND and nine oil tankers it said were involved in oil shipments to Cuba. ====Reduced supply of basic goods==== GABRIEL HETLAND 16 of the Nation (Gabriel Hetland is assistant professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies at University at Albany, SUNY. His writings on Venezuelan politics, participatory democracy, capitalism, labor, and social movements have appeared in Qualitative Sociology, Work, Employment and Society, Latin American Perspectives, Jacobin, The Nation, NACLA, and elsewhere. 8-17-2016, "Why Is Venezuela in Crisis?", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-venezuela-in-crisis/) NY The second facet of the economic war is the damage to Venezuela's economy wrought by AND which can only succeed if the government can generate trust among the population. ====Horrible increase in malnutrition and starvation==== GIDEON LONG 19 of Financial Times (8-20-2019, "Fears grow of Venezuela malnutrition time-bomb", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.ft.com/content/b6459434-b531-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b) NY The graffiti scrawled across a wall in Caracas is short but heartfelt. "Tengo AND of how to look after people who will remain zombies for 30 years." ====Harms of sanctions==== JEFFREY SACHS 19 of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (4-2019, "Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela", doa 1-9-2020, http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf) NY One result of the sanctions, as described above, is to deprive the Venezuelan AND who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex. ====Poverty==== CARLOS PAVON 19 of World Data (6-27-2019, "A broader view of poverty in South America", doa 1-10-2020, https://worlddata.io/blog/a-broader-view-of-poverty-in-south-america) NY $1.90 per day in 2011 PPP is the International Poverty Line. AND the next decade will continue to be a troubled one for its citizens.

1 - Bronx R1 - AFF Infrastructure

=AFF 3.11 Infrastructure= ====Oh no==== **EUROSTAT 19 **(1-2019, "People at risk of poverty or social exclusion", doa 10-4-2019, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/People_at_risk_of_poverty_or_social_exclusion~~#targetText=In2020172C20112.820million20people,3B2022.4202520of20the20population.andamp;targetText=9.5202520of20the20population20aged,low20work20intensity20in202017.) NY In 2017, there were 112.8 million people in the EU-28 AND severely materially deprived; or living in households with very low work intensity. ====We gotta get this INFRASTRUCTURE==== **HEIKO AMMERMAN 15 of Energy and Infrastructure Center **(3-2015, "Squaring the circle - Improving European infrastructure financing?", doa 8-16-2019, file:///C:/Users/ndy15/Documents/Debate/2019-2020/PF/Septober/PDFs/AMMERMANN201520RB20Squaring20the20circle20-20Improving20European20infrastructure20financing.pdf) NY The case for investing in infrastructure is strong. The International Monetary Fund (IMF AND .4 improvement in the EU's annual GDP between 2014 and 2023. ====Need BRI – main source of China's developmental finance which is key source of infrastructure funding==== **AUSTIN STRANGE 17 of Harvard University **(10-2017, "Aid, China, and Growth: Evidence from a New Global Development Finance Dataset", doa 8-27-2019, http://docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS46_Aid_China_and_Growth.pdf) NY Evidence on the effects of aid on economic growth is mixed.1 Some studies AND on the effectiveness of financial support from more established donors and lenders. 9 ====China significantly improved practices recently – stopped using second-rate contractors and can offer lower production costs thanks to EU regulations==== **CHRIS ELLIS 19 of the SRB **(7-23-2019, "How Chinese Contractors are Winning EU Infrastructure Projects", doa 10-4-2019, https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2019/07/23/chinese-contractors-winning-eu-infrastructure-projects/) NY Although the vast majority of the multiple EU infrastructure development projects still go to EU AND and the Belt and Road should be a prerequisite when considering a bid. ====Limited EU BRI participation now – greater cooperation can generate wide-scale cooperation and integration==== **JOEL RUET 17 of the Institute for International Political Studies **(2017, "New Belts and Roads: Redrawing EU-China Relations", doa 8-28-2019, https://www.ispionline.it/it/EBook/Rapporto_Cina_2017/China_Belt_Road_Game_Changer.pdf~~#page=98) NY The context of EU-China relations has dramatically changed over the past five years AND catalyst for deeper Eurasian trans-continental economic integration and greater regional security. ===Infra=== ====I gotta have it==== **LIEVE FRANSEN 19 of the EU Commission **(Lieve Fransen is the former director in social affairs at the European Commission, 10-10-2019, "Boosting innovative investment in social infrastructure", doa 10-17-2019, https://progressivepost.eu/debates/next-social/boosting-innovative-investment-in-social-infrastructure) NY The Financial crisis has left EU Member States in dire straits because of the falling AND up the efforts with a sense of urgency and for the longer term. ====Haha==== **RICHARD BLUHM 18 of the Institute of Macroeconomics **(9-2018, "Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries", doa 10-11-2019, http://docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS64_Connective_Financing_Chinese_Infrastructure_Projects_and_the_Diffusion_of_Economic_Activity_in_Developing_Countries.pdf) NY There are also several theoretical reasons to believe that China might be more effective than AND Myrdal 1957; Hirschman 1958; Boudeville 1966; Speakman and Koivisto 2014). ====BRI good==== **AUSTIN STRANGE 18 of Harvard **(9-2018, "Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries", doa 10-9-2019, http://docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS64_Connective_Financing_Chinese_Infrastructure_Projects_and_the_Diffusion_of_Economic_Activity_in_Developing_Countries.pdf) NY Panel b reports the reduced form estimates for the same set of project types. AND can be expected from receiving a Chinese Government-financed transportation infrastructure project. ====Cool cool==== **LIEVE FRANSEN 19 of the EU Commission **(Lieve Fransen is the former director in social affairs at the European Commission, 10-10-2019, "Boosting innovative investment in social infrastructure", doa 10-17-2019, https://progressivepost.eu/debates/next-social/boosting-innovative-investment-in-social-infrastructure) NY The Financial crisis has left EU Member States in dire straits because of the falling AND up the efforts with a sense of urgency and for the longer term. ====17 bajillion jobs==== **MARIO HOLZNER 18 of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies **(7-2018, "A 'European Silk Road'", doa 8-29-2019, https://wiiw.ac.at/a-european-silk-road—dlp-4608.pdf) NY For our calculations on the growth effects of investments in the European Silk Road, AND that this is a level effect over an investment period of one decade. ===Trade=== ====High trade barriers now – travel times, transportation costs, general inefficiency==== **ALESSIA AMIGHINI 18 of the University of Milan **(2018, "Beyond Ports and Transport Infrastructure: The Geo-Economic Impact of the BRI on the European Union", doa 8-28-2019, http://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/978-981-10-7116-4_14) NY What has been partly overlooked in the design of the EU TEN-T corridors AND times and improve the interconnectedness between the ports and the inland railway network. ====Haha==== **RICHARD BLUHM 18 of the Institute of Macroeconomics **(9-2018, "Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries", doa 10-11-2019, http://docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS64_Connective_Financing_Chinese_Infrastructure_Projects_and_the_Diffusion_of_Economic_Activity_in_Developing_Countries.pdf) NY There are also several theoretical reasons to believe that China might be more effective than AND Myrdal 1957; Hirschman 1958; Boudeville 1966; Speakman and Koivisto 2014). ====Increased trade==== **ANNA KNACK 18 of the RAND Corporation **(2018, "China Belt and Road Initiative: Measuring the impact of improving transportation connectivity on trade in the region", doa 8-28-2019, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2600/RR2625/RAND_RR2625.pdf, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25088/9781464809910.pdf) NY With regard to transport connectivity, we find that a lack of rail connection between AND infrastructure indices, which may absorb some effect of the trade variation among countries ====EU gets a bunch of trade==== **JIANWEI XU 17 of the Institute of World Economics **(2017, "China's Belt and Road Initiative: Can Europe Expect Trade Gains?", doa 10-11-2019, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.tw/doi/pdf/10.1111/cwe.12222) NY Figure 4a reports the simulated top 10 winners from the BRI, whose gains in AND and Asia clearly outweigh the loss felt by the rest of the world. ====BRI funding available – will increase economic growth linearly==== **CHAO WANG 18 of Borgen **(5-3-2018, "China's Belt and Road Initiative: Aid, Investment or Something Else?", doa 9-6-2019, https://www.borgenmagazine.com/defining-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-aid-investment-or-something-else/) NY While many see the Belt and Road Initiative as a generous foreign aid package distributed AND of turning possible conflicts related to financial assistance into win-win contracts. ====Poverty reduction==== DAVID LAWDER 19 of Reuters (6-19-2019, "World Bank: China's Belt and Road can speed development, needs transparency", doa 10-12-2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-worldbank-china-belt/world-bank-chinas-belt-and-road-can-speed-development-needs-transparency-idUSKCN1TJ2IX) NY The long-delayed report said that the Belt and Road - a string of ports, railways, roads and bridges and other investments connecting China to Europe via central and southern Asia - could lift 32 million people out of moderate poverty conditions if implemented fully

3 - Online R1 - NEG Global sanctions

New C2 ====US threatened==== DANIEL DREZNER 03 of Stanford (2003, "The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3594840.pdf?refreqid=excelsior3Aa01651db7121acfd87cd42bee391371e) NY Tables 1, 2, and 3 display the pattern of sanctions outcomes with regard AND the ten percent level, but the trend supports the selection effects argument. ====Motivation of sanctions==== TOM PHILLIPS 19 of Guardian (1-28-2019, "Trump steps up Maduro pressure with sanctions on Venezuelan oil company", doa 1-5-2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/trump-venezuela-sanctions-oil-pdvsa-maduro-guaido) NY The Trump administration has tightened the screws on Venezuela's embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, AND by adversaries of the United States, not least of which is Cuba." ====Uh oh==== TIMOTHY PETERSON 13 of the International Studies Quarterly (12-2013, "Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior", doa 1-10-2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24014641.pdf?refreqid=excelsior3A966da4dde05c82f12da1243f82e79926) NY Beginning with aggregated US sanction threat behavior, I find that the coefficient for US AND (from 0.45 to 0.08) in Model 2. ====Testing!==== GREGORY COPLEY 17 of the International Strategic Studies Association (xx-xx-xxxx, "Venezuela's Demise Is A Geopolitical Litmus Test For The U.S.", doa 1-10-2020, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Venezuelas-Demise-Is-A-Geopolitical-Litmus-Test-For-The-US.html) NY Venezuela's Demise Is A Geopolitical Litmus Test For The U.S. Is Venezuela's AND it is being challenged, and why Venezuela is a significant test case.

4 - UPenn R1 - AFF Universalism

=AFF 1.3 Universalism= ====Contextualization of negative squo – social welfare based on ineffective means-testing that fails to accurately categorize poor==== **MICHAEL LEWIS 06 of Oxford University** (Michael A. Lewis is an Associate Professor at the Stony Brook University, School of Social Welfare. His research interests are public policy, income/wealth distribution, civic participation and ecological economics. His articles have appeared in Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Journal of Socio-economics, and Journal of Poverty; Also, coauthor of Economics for Social Workers and coeditor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income. 2006, "An Efficiency Argument for the Basic Income Guarantee", doa 1-30-2020, http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles—scholarly/Efficiency_Argument—IJEWE.pdf) NY The current social insurance system is based largely on the belief that there are not AND of workers and so it would help the unemployed and working poor alike. ====Fewer than 1/5 of EITC-eligible people claim, thus poverty increased fourfold since 1980s==== **RICHARD CAPUTO 10 of the Journal of Social Services** (2010, "Prevalence and Patterns of Earned Income Tax Credit Use Among Eligible Tax-Filing Families: A Panel Study, 1999–2005", doa 1-27-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1606/1044-3894.3950) NY Findings of the study suggest that EITC eligibility is prevalent, while EITC participation is AND , and encourage those EITC-eligible non-filers to file accordingly. ====Means-tested welfare expanded significantly over past 40 years, but benefits to poorest drastically decreased ==== **ROBERT MOFFITT 16 of Johns Hopkins** (2016, "The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System", doa 1-29-2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4487675/) NY With this fairly extended background, let us address the first question of whether the AND , but between different types of families within the low income population.13 ====Requirements around MTW decreases participation, even when they significantly benefit them==== **KERRI NICOLL 15 of the Journal of Poverty** (7-15-2015, "Why Do Eligible Households Not Participate in Public Antipoverty Programs? A Review", doa 1-27-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/10875549.2015.1015069) NY Scholarship on program factors has explored features of policy design and implementation hypothesized to affect AND , Zambrowski, and Cohen, 1999; Ratcliffe et al., 2008). ====People don't claim EITC, which hurts income==== **QUENTIN PALFREY 17 of the Governing Institute** (7-24-2017, "Getting Public Benefits to the People Who Need Them", doa 1-29-2020, https://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-improving-low-take-up-rates-benefit-programs-earned-income-tax-credit.html) NY California's new budget expanded the state's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), providing access AND challenging for families to calculate how much credit they should expect to receive. ====Volatility bad for MTW==== **JENNIFER ROMICH 17 of the University of Washington** (5-2017, "Income Instability and Income Support Programs: Recommendations for Policy and Practice", doa 2-4-2020, file:///C:/Users/ndy15/Documents/Debate/2019-2020/PF/Files/Downloaded20cards/IB_Income20Instability_032417.pdf) NY Whether or not the programs see stability as a goal, fluctuations in earnings pose AND /CHIP and child care subsidies, have more disenrollment and churning.12 ====MTW sucks==== **SCOTT SANTENS 16 of George Washington University** (9-9-2016, "The progressive case for replacing the welfare state with basic income ", doa 1-19-2020, https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/09/the-progressive-case-for-replacing-the-welfare-state-with-basic-income/) NY It appears some establishment voices have picked up on a way of opposing the idea AND relic of history, and the other is a road to the future. ====Increases redistribution==== **OLIVER JACQUES 18 of the Journal of Social Policy** (2-16-2018, "The case for welfare state universalism, or the lasting relevance of the paradox of redistribution", doa 1-29-2020, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958928717700564) NY Consider, first, bivariate correlations between the main variables of interest, as shown AND the effects of universalism across clusters remain significant, whatever country we exclude. ====Steady income helps volatility==== **JONATHAN MORDUCH 17 of New York University** (9-7-2017, "In and Out of Poverty: Episodic Poverty and Income Volatility in the US Financial Diaries", doa 2-3-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1086/694180) NY The second two sets of bars in figure 1 show that, at most income AND to 85 percent. These drops are statistically significant with 95 percent confidence. ====Universalism is really good, improving to the level of Sweden would drop single-mother poverty by a factor of 18==== **DAVID BRADY 12 of Duke University** (Universal replacement rate is the average percentage of median income coming from universal social programs. 3-9-2012, "Targeting, Universalism, and Single-Mother Poverty: A Multilevel Analysis Across 18 Affluent Democracies", doa 1-30-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/s13524-012-0094-z) NY In Model 1, the welfare state index is significantly negative. The odds of AND increases in the single-mother entitlement would reduce single-mother poverty. ====Ouch!==== **RICHARD MERTENS 17 of the University of Chicago** (9-2017, "Economic Instability and the Everyday Struggles of Families", doa 2-3-2020, https://ssa.uchicago.edu/ssa_magazine/economic-instability-and-everyday-struggles-families) NY By devoting an entire issue to economic instability the SSR hopes to draw attention to AND strategies that families use to smooth consumption and compensate for changes in income.

neg v1

US Sanctions doesn’t do anything to Venezuelan Oil Paz Gomez, June 3 2019 “A Timeline of US Sanctions on the Venezuelan Regime” https://econamericas.com/2019/06/us-sanctions-venezuela/ Venezuela’s oil production plummeted by millions of barrels prior to US-imposed sanctions against PDVSA. Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy’s global economics correspondent, argues the decline of the Venezuelan oil industry can be traced back to its nationalization in 1976. Encouraged by the boost in government revenue, then President Carlos Andres Perez extended state intervention into the economy to accelerate development. Just one decade later, global oil prices dropped, and Venezuela suffered the consequences of her reliance on oil exports. According to 2017 data from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), oil accounts for 98 percent of the country’s export revenues. In 1998, the price of oil collapsed to about $10 per barrel, shattering the Venezuelan economy and politics, setting the ground for Hugo Chavez’s rise to power. A decade later, with oil peaking at $150 per barrel, the Chavista regime was able to bankroll a generous welfare state. In 2001 and 2001, Chavez gave PDVSA a monopoly on all new oil exploration and production and forced foreign firms to become minority shareholders in any partnership with the state-run firm. By the end of the second year, after the first national strike against the government, Venezuela’s oil production decreased from 3 million barrels a day to 2.6 million per day. Patrick Duddy, US ambassador in Caracas from 2007 to 2010 (with an eight month interruption) told Foreign Policy that “In 2007, there were already intermittent shortages… no milk of any sort on the store shelves, not fresh, not powdered, not condensed - and this was when oil prices were soaring. It was startling. New US sanctions are NOT EMBARGO + Humanitarian aid stuff Erik Woodhouse, August 13 2019 https://www.cmtradelaw.com/2019/08/united-states-ramps-up-sanctions-pressure-on-russia-and-venezuela/ On August 5, 2019 the U.S. Administration re-escalated its Venezuela sanctions program issuing an Executive Order, Blocking Property of the Government of Venezuela (E.O. 13884) that designates the entire Government of Venezuela, including everything it owns or controls (collectively the GoV), for blocking sanctions. This action represents a continued escalation of the U.S. Venezuela sanctions program. While that program has been in place since March 2015, it has strengthened in intensity since the United States recognition of Juan Guaidó as the “Interim Leader” of Venezuela on January 26, 2019. Since then, the United States has designated a series of key GoV entities, including: Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) (January 28, 2019); CVG Compañía General de Minería de Venezuela CA (Minerven) (March 19, 2019); Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (BANDES) and four of its subsidiaries (March 22, 2019); and the Central Bank of Venezuela (April 17, 2019). The GoV as a whole had been subject to a limited set of debt, equity, and securities related restrictions since August 2017. E.O. 13884 now imposes comprehensive blocking sanctions on the GoV and its many owned and controlled entities. As a result, U.S. Persons are now prohibited from engaging in virtually all transactions with the GoV and these entities unless a general license (GL) applies. OFAC has issued 13 new GLs and made amendments to 12 existing GLs to mitigate the impact of E.O. 13884. Below is a selection of a few of the key amendments and new GLs specific to the new action: Wind-Down Authorization (GL28): OFAC issued a comprehensive 30-day wind-down authorization for all activities pursuant to operations, contracts, or other agreements, that were in place as of August 5, 2019, with the newly-designated elements of the GoV through September 3, 2019. Transactions with the Interim President and Designees (GL31): OFAC authorized U.S. Persons to engage in transactions involving the Government of the Interim President of Venezuela (Juan Guaidó), including transactions with (a) the Venezuelan National Assembly, (b) any official, designee, or representative appointed or designated by Juan Guaidó to act on behalf of the Government of Venezuela and their staff, (c) any ambassador or other representative to the United States or to a third country appointed by Juan Guaidó, and their staff, and (d) any person appointed by Juan Guaidó to the board of directors (including any ad hoc board of directors) of a Government of Venezuela entity. Continued Authorization for Several PdVSA Subsidiaries: The existing authorizations for (a) PDV Holding, Inc., (b) CITGO Holding, Inc., and (c) Nynas, A.B. were preserved through updated GLs 2A, 7C, 9E, and 13C. The authorizations related to the former two entities are effectively permanent until rescinded, while the Nynas GL currently expires on October 25, 2019. Conforming Changes: OFAC updated a series of GLs to extend them to apply to the prohibitions in E.O. 13884, including the authorization related to: (a) agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices (GL 4C); (b) bonds issued prior to August 25, 2017 by GoV entities (GL 3F); (c) Chevron, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Weatherford activities in Venezuela (GL 8C); and (d) purchases of refined petroleum in Venezuela (GL 10A). In addition, while E.O. 13884 does not constitute an embargo—insofar as OFAC has not categorically prohibited the export of goods or services to, or the import of goods or services from, Venezuela—several of the 13 new GLs largely parallel the types of GLs that OFAC typically includes in its country-based embargo programs, including GLs for: Venezuela’s Mission to the United States (GL 22). Third-country Diplomatic and Consular Funds Transfers (GL 23). Certain Transactions Involving the Government of Venezuela Related to Telecommunications and Mail (GL 24). Exportation of Certain Services, Software, Hardware, and Technology Incident to the Exchange of Communications over the Internet (GL 25). Certain Transactions Related to Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights (GL 27). Certain Transactions Related to Personal Maintenance of Individuals who are U.S. Persons Residing in Venezuela (GL 32). Certain Overflight Payments, Emergency Landings, and Air Ambulance Services over, and in, Venezuela (GL 33). Simultaneously, OFAC issued a series of new Frequently Asked Questions and a new document titled “Guidance Related to the Provision of Humanitarian Assistance and Support to the Venezuelan People.” The latter document reaffirms the U.S. commitment to supporting humanitarian assistance, and notes various general licenses that may assist humanitarian activities (including, e.g., for agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices in GL 4C and for certain international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies), along with a new statement of favorable licensing policy for activities that promote humanitarian assistance. At the same time, it reiterates that any such activities must meet the terms of the applicable general licenses. This is a relevant caveat given that at least one recent OFAC designation has targeted a corrupt network that was seeking to abuse the Venezuelan food subsidy program, Los Comités Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP). Sanctions were devastating to everything Alexander Campbell February 5, 2019 https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14297 Last week, the US formally adopted sanctions on Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA, as well as on CITGO, its US-based distribution arm, as part of its press for regime change in Caracas. National Security Advisor John Bolton estimated the actions would affect some $7 billion in assets and would block $11 billion in revenue to the Venezuelan government over the next year. The State Department was quick to add, “These new sanctions do not target the innocent people of Venezuela…” But of course they do. The Wall Street Journal reported: The sanctions could create deeper gasoline shortages in Venezuela. The country’s refineries are already operating at a fraction of their capacity, crippled by a lack of spare parts and crude. Venezuela only produced a third of the 190,000 barrels of gasoline it consumed a day as of November, according to Ivan Freites, a leader of the country’s oil union. “Immediately, it’s going to hurt the average Venezuelan,” Mr. Freites said. It appears as though there is increasing acceptance of the basic fact that the US sanctions on Venezuela will have a negative impact on the people of Venezuela, but all this analysis misses two important points. First, the Trump administration had already imposed broad economic sanctions in 2017, though apparently both The Wall Street Journal and New York Times were unaware of this development. From the same WSJ article:…this week’s sanctions mark the first targeting of Venezuela’s lifeblood industry, which accounts for nearly all of the country’s hard currency income. Until now, U.S. sanctions were largely limited to individuals in Venezuela’s regime. These examples are certainly not alone in their misunderstanding of the sanctions ? and their impact on the oil industry. But it’s not terribly difficult to find information on the impact of the 2017 sanctions. Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez provided a useful analysis last year explaining just this ? and it is even in English. Rodríguez’s basic story: the oil industry is critical to the Venezuelan government; underinvestment and the rapid decline in oil prices caused a significant drop in revenue; then, as oil prices began increasing, Trump imposed sanctions making any international financial transaction extremely difficult and potentially “toxic.” Rodríguez explains, using this graph of oil production in Venezuela and Colombia, how Venezuelan and Colombian oil production both declined at the same rate, until the Trump financial embargo was implemented in August 2017. Then, Venezuela’s oil production collapsed: It is striking that the second change in trend in Venezuela’s production numbers occurs at the time at which the United States decided to impose financial sanctions on Venezuela. Executive Order 13.808, issued on August 25 of 2017, barred U.S. persons from providing new financing to the Venezuelan government or PDVSA. Although the order carved out allowances for commercial credit of less than 90 days, it stopped the country from issuing new debt or selling previously issued debt currently in its possession. The Executive Order is part of a broader process of what one could term the “toxification” of financial dealings with Venezuela. During 2017, it became increasingly clear that institutions who decided to enter into financial arrangements with Venezuela would have to be willing to pay high reputational and regulatory costs. This was partly the result of a strategic decision by the Venezuelan opposition, in itself a response to the growing authoritarianism of the Maduro government. It’s not just the the media’s apparent amnesia with regard to those 2017 sanctions and their impact on the oil industry that is the problem here. In fact, the impact of those sanctions was even larger. As my colleague, Mark Weisbrot has previously explained, and as Rodríguez notes in the same article linked above, the sanctions made it virtually impossible for the Venezuela government to take the measures necessary to eliminate hyperinflation or recover from a deep depression. Such measures would include debt restructuring, and creating a new exchange rate system (Exchange Rate Bases Stabilization), in which the currency would normally be pegged to the dollar. But it actually gets worse. When the US first announced its recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela on January 23, the decision was met largely with applause within the foreign policy establishment. It seemed like nobody bothered to think about what, practically and economically, the decision would mean. Since Trump’s election, and his increasingly threatening rhetoric in relation to Venezuela, there has been wide agreement that a full-scale oil embargo would be terrible, both for Venezuela and the US. Sanctions are bad but don’t affect average Venezuelans “US sanctions squeezed Venezuela's Chavismo elites. This time, it's oil.” Laura Vidal - January 31 2019 https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-01-31/us-sanctions-squeezed-venezuelas-chavismo-elites-time-its-oil Sanctions against PDVSA are likely to yield stronger and more direct economic consequences, given Venezuela’s dependency on oil exports and the importance of diluent imports from the US used to process the country’s heavy crude oil. PDVSA and its US subsidiary, Citgo, has been described as Maduro's "lifeline" — Venezuela exported more than 1 million barrels per day to the US in 2018, a significant drop from last year, according to Refinitiv via Reuters. “Many of these high officials have fortunes in foreign banks and properties in foreign countries,” Smolansky says. “The sanctions have debilitated their possibility to move around internationally as well as their financial possibilities abroad. These sanctions have not hurt Venezuelans, they are individual sanctions coming from multilateral efforts of not only the United States, but also Canada, the European Union, and other Latin American countries.” While “Chavismo” (socialist) elites were hit with a variety of sanctions over the last three years, they’ve done little to make an impact on ordinary Venezuelans, whose lives have spiraled into a humanitarian crisis as hyperinflation has driven nearly 3 million to flee. “The sanctions have nothing to do with hyperinflation (projected to reach a 10 million percent this year), with the fall in oil production, or the food and medicine shortage that has generated a humanitarian and a migrant crisis. The only person responsible for that is Nicolás Maduro,” Smolansky adds. Sanctions are bad, don’t do more - Democracy Warranting and Justice https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/12/why-more-sanctions-wont-help-venezuela/ Francisco Rodriguez - January 12 2018 During the first year of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken an increasingly hard line against the government of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Washington has tightened sanctions on Caracas and even suggested a military intervention to remove the Venezuelan leader from office. Twelve months into Trump’s term, Maduro seems even more entrenched in power, and Venezuela’s opposition is more fractured than ever. U.S. foreign policy toward Venezuela is premised on a series of misconceptions. Perhaps the most widespread and serious one is the idea that Venezuela is a totalitarian dictatorship. While Maduro has certainly done many things to undermine democracy, Venezuela is no North Korea. Venezuela is not a tyrannical autocracy; it is a deeply divided and polarized society. Public opinion research shows strong and deep-seated support for Chavismo the movement created by the late populist leader Hugo Chávez, among large swathes of the population. Many voters continue to credit Chavismo with redistributing the country’s oil wealth through its social programs and giving the poor a voice in Venezuelan politics. Around 25 percent of Venezuelans support Chávez’s successor, Maduro — a remarkably high number given the state of the economy — and about 50 percent believe that Chávez was a good president. Recent regional elections have shown that the government coalition is able to mobilize close to 6 million voters to support its candidates — nearly one-third of the country’s adult population, and more than enough to win a low-turnout election. In addition to misreading the country’s political mood, American policymakers also seem convinced that the country’s authoritarian leader will only leave power by force. Economic sanctions are ostensibly intended to raise costs for the military and are expected to somehow spur a rebellion against Maduro. This misguided approach stems from a poor understanding of the government’s internal dynamics and an excessive faith in the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool for bringing about regime change. Extensive academic research has shown that economic sanctions are rarely effective. When they work, it is because they offer the sanctioned regime incentives along with a way out by altering the conduct that led to the sanctions being imposed (such as the rollback of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for access to international trade). By contrast, the sanctions against Venezuela have backed the regime into a corner, increasing the costs that the government would face upon leaving power and raising the incentives for Maduro to dig in his heels. An even more problematic idea driving current U.S. policy is the belief that financial sanctions can hurt the Venezuelan government without causing serious harm to ordinary Venezuelans. That’s impossible when 95 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue comes from oil sold by the state-owned oil company. Cutting off the government’s access to dollars will leave the economy without the hard currency needed to pay for imports of food and medicine. Starving the Venezuelan economy of its foreign currency earnings risks turning the country’s current humanitarian crisis into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe. Ever since the Vietnam War, most American policymakers have understood that foreign policy is not just about outgunning your opponent but also about winning the hearts and minds of the people. But 56 percent of Venezuelans oppose U.S. financial sanctions; only 32 percent support them. When it comes to foreign military intervention in Venezuela, 57 percent of those surveyed were opposed, while 58 percent support dialogue between the government and the opposition — and 71 percent believe that those talks should focus on seeking solutions to the country’s economic problems. Venezuelans have good reason to be concerned that ordinary people will ultimately pay the price for sanctions. Recent data show that in the two months after Trump imposed financial sanctions, imports tumbled an additional 24 percent, deepening the scarcity of basic goods and lending credibility to the government’s argument that U.S. policies are directly harming Venezuelans. Instead of undermining Maduro, sanctions are making it increasingly difficult for the country’s opposition to convince voters that the welfare of Venezuelans — rather than driving Maduro from power — is its real priority. It is not the first time the opposition has made this mistake. Back in 2002, opponents of then-President Chávez called for a massive strike in the country’s oil sector. The strike brought oil production to a standstill and caused a double-digit recession in an attempt to get Chávez to resign. This event single-handedly convinced Venezuelans that they could not trust a political movement that was willing to destroy the economy in order to attain power. In a recall referendum held two years later, voters resoundingly backed Chávez. The United States and the anti-Maduro opposition will not win the hearts and minds of Venezuelans by helping drive the country’s economy into the ground. If Washington wants to show it cares about Venezuelans, it could start by providing help to those most affected by the crisis. Extending protected migrant status for Venezuelans in the United States and providing support for neighboring countries dealing with an upsurge of Venezuelan immigration would be a start, as would support for apolitical organizations, such as the United Nations Development Programme, that have managed to channel aid to the country. The U.S. should also support negotiations aimed at creating institutions that make the coexistence of the country’s feuding political factions possible — rather than encouraging the wholesale replacement of one by the other. I, as much as anyone else, would like to see Maduro go. His government’s gross mismanagement of the economy is the primary (but not the only) cause of the deepest economic crisis in Latin American history. The annulment of the opposition’s two-thirds majority in the National Assembly through trumped-up and unsupported charges of vote-buying was an assault on the country’s constitution and the catalyst for the political tensions that led to more than 100 deaths in last year’s protests. There is abundant evidence of serious human rights abuses during those protests, which merit an international investigation to determine the potential complicity of high-ranking members of government. But for the same reasons that I oppose Maduro, I also vehemently disagree with the call voiced by President Trump and some opposition commentators for foreign military intervention in Venezuela. Whether we like it or not, Maduro is serving as president of Venezuela because he won an election recognized by the international community. Even if Maduro were impeached, he would then be replaced by his vice president, who could in turn appoint another vice president to serve in case he himself were impeached. Even a cursory look at the Venezuelan constitution shows that it does not entitle the National Assembly to name a new president. Conducting a military intervention to replace a constitutionally elected president with an unconstitutionally appointed one would be an even worse violation of Venezuelan law than anything that the Chávez and Maduro regimes have ever been accused of. Maduro must leave office the same way he arrived: through the votes of Venezuelans. Venezuela is scheduled to hold a presidential election this year. Rather than encouraging the pipe dreams of military invasions and coups, the overriding priority of Venezuela’s opposition should be to convince voters that it would do a better job of leading the country. Trump and his administration must not continue to make that task harder. Sanctions are not responsible for damage + removing them won’t do ANYTHING 3 WARRANTS Moises Rendon - September 3 2019 https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-sanctions-working-venezuela “Are sanctions working in Venezuela?” By 2016, one year before financial sanctions were first implemented by the United States, the Venezuelan bolívar had already hit an inflation rate of 255 percent . Inflation has now surpassed 1 million percent and is projected to be 10 million percent by year end. Oil production in Venezuela dropped from roughly 2.4 million barrels per day in 2015 to about 1 million barrels per day at the end of 2018 before broad sanctions against PdVSA were implemented. Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds between 2016 and 2017. Over the same period, severe child malnutrition reached 15.5 percent. In addition to the European Union, five countries (the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Mexico, and Panama) have issued sanctions to address the Venezuelan crisis. Sanctions did not cause the economic or humanitarian crisis in Venezuela as dire conditions in Venezuela preceded the implementation of sanctions. By 2016, a year before any financial or sectoral sanctions hit the country, Venezuela’s economy was already enduring severe hyperinflation, which surpassed a rate of 800 percent. Between 2013 and 2016, food imports fell 71 percent and medicine and medical equipment imports dropped 68 percent. Over the same period, infant mortality increased by 44 percent. By the time sanctions were introduced, Venezuelans earning the minimum wage could only afford 56 percent of the calories necessary for a family of five. Over two million Venezuelans had already fled the country at this point. The extent of the humanitarian damage suffered before sectoral sanctions indicates that the blame cannot be placed on the sanctions themselves. As an example, Venezuela’s Central Bank confirmed in 2014 that plummeting oil prices had triggered a severe economic contraction with simultaneous hyperinflation. Under the guise of austerity, Maduro announced cuts to major social services upon which millions of citizens relied. Sanctions are undoubtedly cutting off financing to the Maduro regime, limiting the government’s ability to import food and medicine amid economic freefall. However, reversing sanctions against Maduro and giving the regime access to revenues will not fix the humanitarian crisis for three main reasons: 1 Although government revenues have been used in the past to bankroll social programs, Maduro’s regime has neglected to provide food and medicine to the Venezuelan people. Instead, they have directly profited from these revenues, funding illicit projects and buying the loyalty of military officials. Sanctions are designed to choke off these earnings, weakening Maduro’s grasp on power and therefore accelerating the restoration of democracy. 2According to the Venezuelan constitution, Maduro has not been the legitimate president of the country since January 10th, 2019. Over 50 countries have denounced his regime and recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president until free and fair elections can be held. Granting financial access to Maduro only serves to undermine calls for free and fair elections. Instead, the legitimate government of Venezuela should be given authority over the nation’s resources and institutions. 3Alternative approaches to the humanitarian crisis can more effectively relieve the suffering of Venezuelans without empowering Maduro with the state’s assets and resources. Sectoral sanctions may be causing harm to vulnerable civilians who are already suffering under hyperinflation and crumbling job prospects. Therefore, any medium- to long-term sanctions strategy must be combined with a plan to provide aid to the Venezuelan population, 90 percent of whom cannot afford necessities. Maduro has shut out foreign aid from abroad, including the United States, Canada, and the European Union, describing their contributions as a violation of sovereignty. Under his command, Venezuela’s borders with former allies Brazil and Colombia have been shuttered, bringing the delivery of crucial humanitarian aid to a near halt. Additionally, Maduro has abused Venezuela’s subsidized food program CLAP to punish political dissenters; 83 percent of Maduro’s supporters receive benefits, as opposed to 14 percent of independents. New methods are in order to address this challenge. Juan Guaido acts as an Embargo (Nonunique on most args?) Joshua Cho - May 6 2019 https://fair.org/home/the-atlantic-illustrates-everything-thats-wrong-with-media-coverage-of-venezuela-sanctions/ The Center for Economic and Policy Research (2/4/19) has pointed out how recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela effectively functions as an oil embargo on Venezuela. This is devastating, since Venezuela’s economy depends almost entirely on oil export revenues for essential imports like food, medicine and medical equipment (New York Times, 2/8/19). Newer US sanctions that have caused Venezuela’s crude oil production to plummet even further are expected to reduce revenues over the coming year by $2.5 billion, almost as much as the country spent last year ($2.6 billion) to import food and medicine (CEPR, 3/25/19). Petro Information cryptocurrency https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuelan-petro-against-us-sanctions-history-and-use-of-the-crypto Samuel Haig - July 17 2019 In a bid to circumvent the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency backed by the nation’s oil, gasoline, gold and diamond reserves during December 2017. The president claimed that the digital currency, named Petro (PTR), would allow the country to access “new forms of international financing.” At the start of January 2018, President Maduro ordered the issuance of the first 100 million Petros, announcing that each Petro will be pegged to the value of one barrel of Venezuelan oil — equating the cryptocurrency’s capitalization to roughly $5.9 billion. Several days later, the opposition-run National Assembly criticized Petro, calling the digital currency “null and void.” Parliamentary Deputy Jorge Millan described Petro as fraudulent, stating: “This is not a cryptocurrency, this is a forward sale of Venezuelan oil. It is tailor-made for corruption.” He went on: “We find ourselves before a new kind of fraud, disguised as a solution the (financial) crisis. This incompetent government wants to compensate for lack of oil production with these virtual barrels.” At the end of January 2018, Maduro announced that cryptocurrency mining was a “perfectly legal” activity. The president also announced that citizens targeted during the prior year’s police crackdown on mining operations would have any related charges dismissed. On Jan. 30, 2018, Maduro’s administration published the white paper for the cryptocurrency. On Feb. 8, 2018, Jose Vielma Mora, Venezuela’s minister of foreign trade and international investment, told the state-sponsored news outlet TeleSur that foreign investors would be willing to conduct trade in exchange for Petro, claiming that Poland, Denmark, Honduras, Norway, Canada and Vietnam were among the trading partners preparing to accept the controversial cryptocurrency as a means of payment. Venezuela launched the presale for Petro on Feb. 20, 2018. 82.4 million Petros were made available in exchange for select fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. Three days later, Venezuelan media claimed that the presale had raised $1 billion. On Feb. 24, the Venezuelan government launched a free cryptocurrency training course aimed at improving digital currency literacy for ordinary citizens. On March 19, President Trump barred American citizens from purchasing Petro by executive order. Venezuela’s Ministry of Economy announced that Petro had been made available for purchase on Oct. 29, 2018. In an infographic published on Twitter, the token could be purchased from the Venezuelan Treasury from either the coin’s official website or from six government-authorized cryptocurrency exchanges: Bancar, Afx Trae, Cave Blockchain, Amberes Coin, Cryptia and Criptolago. The official Twitter account of the Petro indicated that investors were able to purchase the cryptocurrency using U.S. dollars, euros and Chinese yuan, in addition to Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and Dash. During November 2018, the National Assembly of Venezuela approved a bill containing new cryptocurrency regulation. The bill sought to legitimate Petro as a unit of commercial exchange within the country. The same month saw the National Assembly pass amendments to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws to pave the way for Venezuelan cryptocurrency exchanges to conduct foreign exchange operations using Petro. Venezuelan government official Andres Eloy Mendez described the amendments as being intended to combat the “financial and commercial blockade” being maintained by the U.S. government, adding that the cryptocurrency would allow the evasion of sanctions and facilitate new transnational business relationships. US Sanctions aren’t hurting Venezuelans Kenneth Rapoza May 2 2019 https://outline.com/2d3CTH But Venezuela is not the Middle East. U.S. policies are not the reason why Venezuela is a mess, as Omar said this week on the Democracy Now! radio program. The U.S. is not making Venezuela any worse than it is or will become under existing leadership. Her view mimics many left-of-center voices critical of the regime change policies that began under Bush and Cheney. The ruling Socialists United of Venezuela is, point blank, the only reason why Venezuela is a mess. And president Nicolas Maduro is its leader. Maduro governs a failed state. Fifty other countries, including Colombia, Brazil, the U.K. and Spain, all agree. Brazil and Colombia are currently catering to around one million Venezuelans who have fled the country. Some have preferred taking their children out of school and living in United Nations tents in Colombia instead of Maduro's Venezuela. Maduro's incompetence, of which the Socialists United rallies around, is killing Venezuela. Not Trump. Not Elliot Abrams. Not Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This is not a pre-emptive strike, searching for terrorists under beds and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The economy began its deep decline years ago, in the Obama years. It has been in an economic depression for three years. Obama first sanctioned members of the Maduro Administration in 2015. Trump later sanctioned Maduro's Vice President Tareck El Aissami for drug trafficking in February 2017. Later that year, U.S. companies were banned from providing financial assistance (as in loans) to one company only, oil firm PdVSA. Talk of the U.S. banning food and medicine shipments to Venezuela is not entirely true. So long as those shipments are not going to sanctioned individuals, it's not breaking sanctions law.

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Venezuela Aff V1

Caroline and I are happy to affirm, Resolved: The United States should end economic sanctions on Venezuela. Webb 19 writes that for years, foreign policy experts have often noted that countries with sizeable oil reserves find themselves the target of US interventions aimed at quote: “restoring democracy.” This is the case with Venezuela, as the country has the world’s largest oil reserves and is being targeted with harsh economic sanctions intending to oust their leader, Maduro.?Webb contends, the reason the US wants Maduro out of power is oil. Putting American corporations, like Chevron and Halliburton in charge of Venezuelan oil resources is the driving factor behind this aggressive policy. These companies are lobbying heavily for sanctions that topple the Venezuelan government. Historically, Venezuela has had a state-owned oil industry, so if maduro left the office and the opposition adopted right-leaning policies, it would allow for US companies to have greater access to oil reserves and fewer regulations on the industry. In an interview with Fox News in 2019, United States National Security Advisor John Bolton admitted the US government was backing a coup in Venezuela in order to control their oil reserves and protect their own imperialism. Our sole contention is rebuilding Venezuela Currently, Venezuela is experiencing a devastating economic crisis. Aljazeera 19 reports that, following the crash of oil-prices in 2014, the Venezuela was thrown into a crisis twice as severe as the great depression. Since, the United States has deployed sanctions on Venezuela’s economy. Unfortunately, Weisbrot ’17 of the Nation writes “Prior to these sanctions, it was possible for the Venezuelan government to launch an economic-recovery program that could have restarted economic growth.” Weisbrot concludes that sanctions make economic recovery impossible. Lifting sanctions allows Venezuela to escape the economic crisis in two key ways. The first is by allowing access to credit. Bartenstein ’19 of Bloomberg writes that US sanctions have prevented US entities from investing in and trading Venezuelan bonds. He continues that while European and Asian funds aren’t subject to the same restrictions, the concentration of debt trading within the U.S. financial system makes it challenging for those firms to buy and sell as well. More specifically, Rapoza ’19 of Forbes writes the US has sanctioned central banks of foreign governments which had previously given loans to Venezuela heavily disincentivizing these countries from providing financing options. This is disastrous as Makoff ’17 of the World Economic Forum writes, “the current economic and social disorder in Venezuela calls for a re-engagement with the international financial institutions that will restore normal market mechanisms in its economy.” The second is by opening a flow of dollars. Vaz ’19 reports that US sanctions have made it impossible for the Central Bank of Venezuela to access dollars, with Weisbrot ’19 furthering that America’s devastating sanctions on Venezuela’s have cut off both the private sector and government from American currency. This is catastrophic, as Hanke 17 of Forbes explains, to stop Venezuela’s death spiral of hyperinflation, Venezuela must ditch its currency and adopt the dollar, a process called dollarization. Hanke continues that countries that are dollarized produce lower, less variable inflation rates and higher, more stable economic growth rates than comparable countries with central banks that issue domestic currencies. Fortunately, Kinosian 19 writes that Maduro and the Venezuelan government are pushing for this solution, which would become possible through the lifting of sanctions. There are two impacts. The first is poverty reduction. Alhadeff ’18 reports that 90 percent of Venezuelans are in poverty. Fortunately, the World Bank explains in 2006 that economic growth is the most powerful instrument for reducing poverty in developing countries. They quantify that on average, a one percent increase in per capita GDP reduces poverty by 1.7 percent. The second is reducing corruption Trading Economics in 2018 writes that Venezuela is world’s seventh most corrupt country. Fortunately, an aff ballot can help stop this corruption, as Bai ‘13 of MIT writes that as developing countries grow economically, corruption decreases on its own as better institutions are established. Bai continues that corruption disproportionately affects the poor as they need to pay more of their income towards bribes to use public services. Ultimately, Gupta ’01 of the International Monetary Foundation finds that a one standard deviation increase in corruption increases the coefficient of income inequality by 11 points.

OCO Spending Neg Contention

Offensive cyber operations are extremely expensive and forces funding trade-off with other agencies. The first trade-off is with the ONC. McGee 2019 reports that Trump has proposed a 10-digit funding increase for the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber operations budget. In attempting to deliver on his promises of huge tax cuts, increased funding for cyber operations necessitates cuts to other agencies. McGee 19 tells us that in 2020 the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’, or ONC’s budget will be cut by 28 percent in order to increase funding for offensive cyber operations. Landi in 18 furthers that such a substantial cut will make it extremely difficult for the ONC to carry out its functions. The impact is health information regulation According to HealthIT.gov, the ONC is the primary regulator of Health IT, responsible for all health information exchange to improve healthcare. According to the Department of Labor, Health, and Human Services in 09, a common platform of medical records are key to preventing medical errors, inaccurate perscriptions, and the loss of patient data. When the ONC is no longer able to carry out its functions, standardization falls to the wayside, and 100,000 lives are put at risk. The second trade-off is with the CDC. Moreover, Specht in 18 explains that Trump aimed hefty cuts at the CDC in 2018 and Romm 17 of Vox explains that Trump’s budgets have slashed CDC funding to make room for cyber spending. The White House supports this claim; 2019 budget proposal that Trump aims to reduce what he considers wasteful spending to divert spending to “cyber tools to deter aggression.” This is critical for two reasons. The first impact is the spread of HIV and the treatment of AIDS. The first place money will be diverted from is oversea HIV management. Path 17 tells us that in a single year, CDC provides antiretroviral treatment for 5.8 million people, prevents mother-to-child transmission of HIV in over 420,000 women, and supports voluntary male circumcision to prevent the spread of the virus in more than 1.3 million men. Reuters 17 continues that if CDC funding cuts continue, 1.8 million people will die of HIV and AIDs in the developing world. The second is pandemic disease. Path 17 explains that CDC’s operations are vital, and why cuts would severely curtail critical activities that protect everyone, including Americans: CDC is the world’s leading disease surveillance program. CDC’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Atlanta is at the forefront of tracking disease outbreaks and public health events both within the United States and abroad. The CDC has responded to more than 60 public health threats around the world including Ebola, Zika, and anthrax. Schrayer in 17 tells us that a new pandemic could take a staggering number of lives, citing the Spanish flu, which killed 500 million people.

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LeverageIntervention NC

NC – Leverage/Intervention We negate Resolved: The United States should end its economic sanctions against Venezuela. Our First Contention is Losing Leverage. Mendrala writes in 2019 that sanctions on Venezuela serve as leverage as they are the reason why Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, came to the negotiating table last year. The United States is committed to removing sanctions in exchange for concrete actions to restore democracy and end human rights abuses. The Trump administration could effectuate successful negotiations between Maduro and the opposition by offering sanctions relief in return for policy reforms. This is critical now more than ever as Donmez writes on January 2nd of this year that Maduro made clear that he is ready to have a new dialogue with President Trump, to turn a new page in 2020. Unfortunately, by ending sanctions before these talks can happen, the United States loses critical leverage over the Maduro government, thus taking away Maduro’s incentive to make concessions and ensuring that the talks fail. Ensuring these talks continue are critical because they are leading to policy reforms right now. Domnez reports in 2019 that recent talks lead to a policy of exchanging oil for food and eliminating taxes on a large number of items, which will lower the price and make it affordable for everyone to access food. Maduro has also given Venezuela a dose of the free market by allowing the dollar to circulate. Fiola adds in 2019 that Maduro has backed away from certain socialist policies and because of this, the inflation rate has decreased 100-fold, allowing for prices to stabilize. Increasing access to food in Venezuela is crucial as Herbst concludes in 2019 that 80 of the population is food insecure, so starvation is an everyday battle. Our Second Contention is Preventing an Intervention. Hodgson writes in 2019 that Venezuela is now in a stalemate that gives two bad options: another Cuba, with poverty for generations, or a military intervention akin to Panama in 1989. Fortunately, in the status quo, according to France 24 News in 2019, the Secretary of State has made clear that the US did not plan a military intervention in Venezuela, though the Trump administration has vowed to remove Maduro. Unfortunately, ending economic sanctions would change this policy of military restraint as Telesur explains in 2017 that Trump’s financial sanctions are a crucial alternative to military intervention. Ultimately, ending sacntions, would cause the administration to intervene militarily for 2 reasons. The first is to ensure Trump’s reelection. Smiley reports in 2019 that President Trump knows he must win Florida to win the 2020 election. For this reason, he has sought to make inroads in Florida’s Hispanic community by imposing sanctions on Venezuela. Groppe furthers in 2019 that the administration’s tough stance against Maduro is very popular among Florida’s Venezuelan and Cuban population, a crucial bloc of voters in the nation’s largest swing state. Sesin continues in 2019 that small fluctuations in this battleground state are extremely important. Venezuelans in Florida will vote for Trump solely on this issue. Groppe corroborates that Trump will do everything he can to win this state, as no Republican candidate has won the White House without winning Florida in over a century. Thus, maintaining a hardline stance on Venezuela is crucial. If sanctions end, Trump will pursue an intervention instead. The second reason is to counter Russian and Chinese influence. McKay reports in 2019 that Russia and China are using Venezuela as a proxy conflict to challenge the U.S. Thus, O’Connor reports in 2019 that the U.S. has sought to counter this growing Chinese and Russia influence. Currently, the US has been doing this though sanctions. Elyatt reports in 2019 that because Russia is so involved in Venezuela’s energy industry, US sanctions directly harm Russia. While the US is refraining from militarization right now, Starr reports in 2019 that the Pentagon has developed military options for Venezuela aimed at deterring Russian and Chinese influence. But, without the ability to counter Russia and China through sanctions, the US would be forced to implement these military options. Overall, an intervention in Venezuela is not improbable. Hynes explains in 2019 that the US has intervened in Latin American conflicts 56 times since 1890. The impact is war. Mora reports in 2019 that an intervention would last for months, killing thousands of civilians. The result would be anarchy. Militias and other armed groups would wreak havoc and millions of Venezuelans would flee. The United States would likely be forced to send in ground troops, but the complexity of the country's geography means that troops would stay in Venezuela for longer than intended. Thus, we negate. Cards C1 Losing Leverage Donmez ‘20 Beyza Donmez, Jan 2 2020, Anodolu Agency, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/maduro-says-venezuela-ready-for-talks-with-us/1690317 Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he is ready to set up talks with the U.S. after a year of tension. "I am a man of dialogue! With U.S. President Donald Trump or with whom the U.S. governs: whenever, wherever and however they want, we are ready for a dialogue with the highest respect and dignity to establish new basis of relations that contribute to the stability of the region," Maduro tweeted late Wednesday, showing his will to open a new page in 2020 with the Trump administration. Tension escalated between two countries after the U.S. threw support behind opposition leader Juan Guaido at a time when he engaged in a power battle with Maduro at the beginning of 2019. Washington has been focusing on economic and diplomatic strain against Maduro, including imposing sanctions against him, his top officials and several governmental departments as it seeks to increase pressure on Caracas. Mendrala ‘19 Emily Mendrala is a former National Security Council and State Department official in the Obama administration. She is the executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, where she promotes U.S. policies of engagement toward the Americas, December 26, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/475791-bipartisan-consensus-on-venezuela-talks, Bipartisan consensus on Venezuela talks As time passes, it becomes clear that the only way forward is for Venezuela’s parties to negotiate a path toward new elections. It’s true. Several rounds of negotiations between Venezuela’s two main factions have ended without agreement, but the Trump administration could effectuate the bipartisan congressional goal of successful negotiations between Maduro and Guaidó by making clear that it would consider partial sanctions relief if conditions for free and fair elections are agreed upon. Congress unequivocally has signaled its bipartisan support for negotiations and for an active, productive U.S. role. Now, action rests with the Trump administration. For its part, the State Department has demonstrated some willingness to consider sanctions flexibility. Just last week, U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said of negotiations toward free and fair elections, “The sooner the better … that’s the way out.” In October, in public remarks, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Carrie Filipetti stated, “Sanctions are why Nicolás Maduro came to the table in the first place. And they continue to be a negotiating point, as we are committed to removing sanctions in exchange for concrete and meaningful actions to restore the democratic order, end human rights abuses, and combat corruption in Venezuela.” As time passes, it becomes clear that the only way forward is for Venezuela’s parties to negotiate a path toward new elections. It’s true. Several rounds of negotiations between Venezuela’s two main factions have ended without agreement, but the Trump administration could effectuate the bipartisan congressional goal of successful negotiations between Maduro and Guaidó by making clear that it would consider partial sanctions relief if conditions for free and fair elections are agreed upon. Chovanec ‘18 Steven Chovanec. June 11 2018. “Venezuela's Elections Were Not Free or Fair – They Were Undermined by the US.” Venezuelan Analysis. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13870 The government had been engaged in internationally mediated talks with the opposition for two years prior to the elections. After arduous negotiations, the two sides agreed on a number of points and were prepared to sign an agreement. On the day of the planned signing, the government showed up but the opposition didn’t, announcing that they would not sign. The blame for the breakdown was clearly placed by mediators and witnesses. In a similar fashion, one of the main demands of the United States and the opposition was—for years—for elections to be moved forward. The implied message being that Maduro would lose them if they were, his refusal to do so therefore meaning that he is stalling for time. During the negotiations, the election date of April 22 was agreed upon by both sides as a compromise, according to UN Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas and international mediators. After the talks broke down, the government announced that the vote would still be held on the agreed upon April 22 date. The opposition immediately denounced the move and vowed to boycott the vote, saying the date did not provide them with enough time. Domnez ‘19 Beyza Donmez. Nov 11 2019. “Venezuela: Gov't, opposition agree on major deals.” AA. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/venezuela-govt-opposition-agree-on-major-deals/1649610 Delegations of Venezuelan government and opposition agreed on three points that focus on economic and political matters at the National Table established for dialogue. President Nicolas Maduro also participated in the meeting held at Miraflores Palace on Monday, according to the Caracas-based TV channel TeleSur. Claudio Fermin, leader of Solutions for Venezuela Party, said after the meeting that during two months of negotiations they have made important progress and "Venezuelans already see a way to start designating a new National Electoral Council", in the face of the 2020 parliamentary elections. Fermin also said complementary tables have been set up to discuss emergency economic measures and political party issues. Communication and Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez detailed the three points advanced at the dialogue table as follows: 1. Establishment of an electoral board guaranteed for the 2020 parliamentary elections, which includes a new National Electoral Council. 2. Actualization of the exchange of oil for medicine and food and eliminate taxes on a large number of items, which will lower the price and make it affordable for everyone. 3. National reconciliation. Fiola ‘19 Anthoy Fiola, December 25, 2019, Washington Post, Christmas in Caracas: Socialist Venezuela flirts with the free market, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-fake-walmart-cases-of-dom-perignon-and-the-almighty-dollar-inside-socialist-venezuelas-chaotic-embrace-of-the-free-market/2019/12/23/ca4f2072-21c3-11ea-b034-de7dc2b5199b_story.html?arc404=true CARACAS, Venezuela — Last Christmas, devastated Venezuela saw shortages of everything from tinsel to toilet paper. This year, the socialist government has given a weary nation an unexpected holiday gift. A dose of the free market. President Nicolás Maduro is making tentative moves away from the socialist policies that once regulated the prices of basic goods, heavily taxed imports and restricted the use of the U.S. dollar. As a result, the South American nation’s economic free fall is beginning to decelerate. The national inflation rate — still the world’s highest — has slowed from a blistering 1.5 million last year to a relatively breezy annualized rate of 15,000 percent. The changes might be temporary, and amount largely to an economic Band-Aid. There are no signs, for instance, of a larger strategy to reverse the agricultural land grabs and company seizures that helped lay the groundwork for one of the worst economic implosions of modern times. But as the new measures take hold, once-empty store shelves have overflowed this holiday season with beef, chicken, milk and bread — albeit at prices so high that a significant segment of the population is actually worse off. More moneyed Venezuelans, however, are flocking to dozens of newly opened specialty stores — including at least one fake Walmart — brimming with stacks of Cheerios, slabs of Italian ham and crates of Kirkland Signature Olive Oils, much of it bought and shipped in containers to Venezuela from Costco and other bulk retailers in Miami. Maduro remains deadlocked in a political standoff with opposition leader Juan Guaidó and his backers in Washington, who have ratcheted up pressure to force his ouster. But U.S. sanctions against Venezuela do not appear to have crimped surging imports — mostly because they prevent Americans from doing business with only the government, not private Venezuelans. “The government had been unable to restart the economy any other way, so it’s doing what the people want” by giving in to the free market, said Ricardo Cusano, president of Fedecamaras, Venezuela’s chamber of commerce. The socialists are still in power, he said, but “they have lost the ideological war.” Plagued by hyperinflation and economic collapse, depressed Venezuelans dubbed last Dec. 25 the “Christmas without lights” — a day largely bereft of the traditional holiday bunting and toys for children. But as the economy begins to show modest signs of life — particularly in the relative bubble of Caracas, the capital — there have been visible changes on the streets. Meager Christmas markets opened to peddle baubles to a slightly more optimistic populace. More holiday decorations popped up inside stores, along with, proprietors say, more parents buying toys and clothing for children. The capital is suffering its worst traffic jams in years as car owners with greater access to imported spare parts drag long out-of-commission vehicles back onto clogged roads. The eased restrictions have made the holiday season merrier for a small minority of rich Venezuelans, many of whom live in mansions behind high walls in Eastern Caracas. The tip piggy bank in an imported goods store in Caracas is stuffed with dollar bills. (Andrea Hernández Briceño/For The Washington Post) Adult-sized mannequins in Santeria Iyawo attire tower over a child-sized mannequin at El Cementerio market in Caracas. (Andrea Hernández Briceño/For The Washington Post) “There were things you just couldn’t get — dishes you just couldn’t make,” said Pablo Gianni, manager of Anonimo, a lavish new Caracas eatery that opened this month complete with a glass-walled wine cellar stocked with shelves of four-figure vintages of Dom Pérignon. “But now, it’s like legal contraband,” he said. “They’re letting everything in.” The changes taking shape here are the product of a combination of factors. For years, the government strictly limited the use of the U.S. dollar, long portrayed as an instrument of Yanqui imperialism. But last year, the government freed the exchange rate and more broadly legalized dollar transactions. It also eliminated massive import taxes on a host of goods. But those measures have begun to work through the economy really only in recent months, as the government has taken the further step of abandoning attempts to control retail prices. Stocks of bread, chicken and beef that once sold for nearly nothing are now being sold at market rates, at least partly normalizing farm production and sales through supply chains. Just as importantly, there are simply far more dollars in the Venezuelan economy now. About 4.5 million Venezuelans have fled starvation and poverty in recent years, creating a global diaspora that collectively sent $3.5 billion in remittances this year — more than triple the amount two years ago, according to Ecoanalitica, a Caracas-based economic analysis firm. In addition, economists say, the economy is awash in dollars from illegal mining, drug trafficking and other illicit activities. By some estimates, there are three times as many dollars in circulation as bolivars, creating a de facto dollarization of the economy that is stabilizing inflation. Last month, even Maduro seemed to hail the almighty dollar. “I don't see the process they call dollarization as bad,” he said in nationally televised comments. “It can aid the recovery of the productive areas of the country and the functioning of the economy.” Across Venezuela, mechanics and electricians, engineers and architects are increasingly charging in greenbacks. More companies are supplementing their employees’ salaries with U.S. currency. Collectively, economists say, 60 to 70 percent of families here are now regularly receiving some dollars — buying even some Venezuelans of more modest means a merrier Christmas this year. Maduro’s ex-spy chief lands in U.S. armed with allegations against Venezuelan government “Last year was very hard for us. There was practically no Christmas,” Yelitza Mineros, 33, said as she eyed the prices in dollars at a Caracas toy store with her 7-year old son and 3-year old daughter. Her husband, a mechanic, began earning in dollars a few months ago, she said, giving them the extra money they needed to buy new clothes for their children. Her son, Rodrigo, held up a Spider-Man action figure with a big grin as she spoke. “This year, we’re doing better, and we can get them their toys,” she said. “That gives me a lot of joy.” After last year’s “Christmas without Lights,” the decorations have returned to Caracas. (Andrea Hernández Briceño/For The Washington Post) Venezuela remains deeply mired in the worst economic crisis in modern Latin American history. Years of chronic mismanagement and, to a lesser extent, U.S. sanctions including an oil embargo have severely damaged the lifeblood of the economy: petroleum production. Venezuelans, including residents of the relatively shielded capital, are struggling with worsening gasoline shortages, lingering blackouts and broken state hospitals. And more food on store shelves doesn’t mean everyone can eat. In western Caracas, for instance, a grocery store that last year sold price-controlled products and suffered from shortages was now well now stocked with goods ranging from imported motorcycle helmets to Diet Coke. But with two chicken thighs at $1.70 and butter at $2 in a nation with a minimum wage of $6 a month, the aisles were mostly devoid of shoppers. Rapoza ‘19 Kenneth Rapoza, Senior Contributor to Forbes, May 3, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-sanctions-are-not-killing-venezuela-maduro-is/#659c9f8e4343 But Venezuela is not the Middle East. U.S. policies are not the reason why Venezuela is a mess, as Omar said this week on the Democracy Now! radio program. The U.S. is not making Venezuela any worse than it is or will become under existing leadership. Her view mimics many left-of-center voices critical of the regime change policies that began under Bush and Cheney. The ruling Socialists United of Venezuela is, point blank, the only reason why Venezuela is a mess. And president Nicolas Maduro is its leader. Maduro governs a failed state. Fifty other countries, including Colombia, Brazil, the U.K. and Spain, all agree. Brazil and Colombia are currently catering to around one million Venezuelans who have fled the country. Some have preferred taking their children out of school and living in United Nations tents in Colombia instead of Maduro's Venezuela. Maduro's incompetence, of which the Socialists United rallies around, is killing Venezuela. Not Trump. Not Elliot Abrams. Not Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This is not a pre-emptive strike, searching for terrorists under beds and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The economy began its deep decline years ago, in the Obama years. It has been in an economic depression for three years. Obama first sanctioned members of the Maduro Administration in 2015. Trump later sanctioned Maduro's Vice President Tareck El Aissami for drug trafficking in February 2017. Later that year, U.S. companies were banned from providing financial assistance (as in loans) to one company only, oil firm PdVSA. Herbst ‘19 John E. Herbst and Jason Marczak, September 2019, Atlantic Council, “Russia’s intervention in Venezuela: What’s at stake?,” https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/russias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/ Meanwhile, day-to-day life in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. Food insecurity and malnutrition are at sky-high levels. As noted in the Bachelet report, in April 2019 the Venezuelan minimum wage, which sits around $7 per month, only covers 4.7 percent of the basic food basket. More than 80 percent of households in Venezuela are food insecure, with the majority of those interviewed as part of the Bachelet investigation consuming only one meal per day.39 The report highlights that, as a result of hyperinflation and the disintegration of Venezuelan food production, an estimated 3.7 million Venezuelans are malnourished. Children and pregnant women are the demographics most likely to suffer from malnutrition in Venezuela. Survival is a struggle. As a result, Venezuelan refugees filed more asylum claims globally in 2018 than citizens of any other country, including Syria.40 If the situation does not improve, the number of Venezuelan migrants and refugees is expected to reach around 8 million in 2020, surpassing total Syrian migration numbers by more than 3 million. C2 Intervention Intro Hodgson ‘19 Fergus Hodgson, 21 March 2019, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, https://fcpp.org/2019/03/27/six-takeaways-from-venezuelas-dystopia/ Venezuela is now in a stalemate that gives two bad options: another Cuba, with poverty and tyranny for generations, or a military intervention akin to Panama in 1989-1990. The latter would be a difficult undertaking, given the presence of Cuban, Russian, and Chinese agents, along with major organized-crime syndicates and terrorist organizations. France 24 News ‘19 12 Feb 2019, https://www.france24.com/en/20191202-pompeo-defends-military-restraint-on-venezuela-1 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear Monday that the United States did not plan a military intervention in Venezuela even as he vowed that leftist leader Nicolas Maduro would one day fall. In a speech on Latin America, Pompeo renewed President Donald Trump's promise to battle socialism across the hemisphere but said his policy in Venezuela was "mixed with restraint." "We've seen folks calling for regime change through violent means, and we've said that all options are on the table to help the Venezuelan people recover their democracy and prosperity," Pompeo said at the University of Louisville. Telesur ‘17 29 August 2017, https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Constituent-Assembly-Debates-Response-to-US-Sanctions-20170829-0009.html The president of the assembly, Delcy Rodriguez, recalled that opposition leaders had issued a communique at the weekend, "calling for and justifying all these actions and calling on other governments to apply similar sanctions." She explained that U.S. President Donald Trump’s financial sanctions are an alternative to military intervention, which was met with rejection even from U.S.-allied regional right-wing governments. Rodriquez stated that the purpose of these attacks' was to further destabilize the country and “intensify the economic aggression against the Venezuelan people.” 1 – Reelection Sesin and Lederman ‘19 Carmen Sesin and Josh Lederman. April 7 2019. “Venezuelan-Americans welcome Trump's tough talk. Republicans hope that will mean votes.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/venezuelan-americans-welcome-trump-s-tough-talk-republicans-hope-will-n991131 DORAL, Fla. — As Richard Yepez and his daughter sat down for lunch at El Arepazo, a popular Venezuelan restaurant in this South Florida suburb dubbed “Dorazuela” for its large Venezuelan population, their thoughts turned to someone a thousand miles away: President Donald Trump. “Trump is the first president to follow through on his promise for Venezuela,” said Yepez, a 50-year-old audio-visual engineer, who said he was convinced Trump backs the exile community because of his hawkish criticism of embattled leftist president Nicolás Maduro. Asked if he will vote for Trump in 2020, Yepez said, “I sure will.” His U.S.-born daughter, Catherine, a 25-year-old Democrat who attends college in the Washington area, said she’s also also considering voting for Trump, adding: “I have strong feelings, being Venezuelan.” Republicans working for a second term for Trump and other GOP victories in 2020 are looking for a boost from Venezuelan-American voters like Yepez and his daughter and other Latinos who they say will reward the president for his forceful push against Maduro. The Trump administration has tightened the screws on Venezuela, slamming sanctions on individuals, oil and banks and recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president in January. Trump has also pulled U.S. diplomats out of the country and even hinted at potential U.S. military action, saying "all options are on the table." In turn, the administration’s bold moves against what it calls Venezuela’s “socialist” government appear to be energizing Venezuelan-Americans and other Latino voters in this swing state, where races are won by thin margins. “I think that will be a huge impact,” said Yali Nuñez, the Republican National Committee’s director of Hispanic media. “You’re going to see Venezuelans voting for Republicans. You’re going to see a lot of people based on this issue solely voting for President Trump.” Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist critical of Trump, said that while opposing the Venezuelan government was good politics in his state, any net benefit for Trump would probably be marginal. Although Trump lost the Latino vote badly in 2016 — winning only 28 percent nationally and 35 percent in Florida according to exit polls — he doesn’t need to win a majority to have an impact. In a battleground state that Trump carried in 2016 by only 112,911 votes, even small fluctuations can be important. Smiley ‘19 David Smiley. May 25 2019. “Donal Trump must win Florida in 2020 if he wants to remain president. And he knows it.” https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article230401629.html Donald Trump must win Florida in 2020 if he wants to remain president. And he knows it. The part-time Florida resident has spent more time here than any location outside of Washington since becoming president, and not just because he likes golf. His campaign is dedicating resources to the state and its 29 electoral college votes as if it were an entire region. He’s made further inroads in South Florida’s diverse Hispanic community by increasing financial pressures against leftist regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. And according to the L.A. Times, Trump now plans to roll out his 2020 campaign with an event located along the Interstate-4 corridor, which cuts across battleground Central Florida Groppe ‘19 Martin Groppe and Deirdre Shesgreen, 1 Feb 2019, USA Today – Knox News, https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/01/trump-venezuela-policy-also-good-2020-politics-key-state-florida-maduro-guaido/2730779002/ Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro might not have been listening Friday when Vice President Mike Pence gave a microphone to exiled Venezuelans living in South Florida. But Pence's trip to Miami, to showcase the administration's hard-line efforts to oust Maduro, is likely to resonate with an all-important bloc of Latino voters in the nation's largest swing state. And that could help another embattled president: Donald Trump. No Republican presidential candidate has won the White House in nearly a century without carrying Florida – a state also known for its razor-thin election margins. "It’s very hard to see a scenario where the president gets re-elected without winning Florida," said Democratic strategist Steve Schale who ran Barack Obama's 2008 campaign in Florida. Trump's tough stance on Maduro is very popular in Florida among that state’s Cuban and Venezuelan populations, which account for more than 1.5 million of the state's 21 million residents. It also resonates with the Colombian community, which is growing in political importance in Florida's most populous county: Miami-Dade. 2 – China/Russia McKay ‘19 McKay, Hollie. Jan 30 2019. “Why Russia, China are fighting US push against Venezuela’s Maduro.” Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/world/why-russia-china-are-fighting-us-push-against-venezuelas-maduro “Russia and China are using Venezuela as a proxy conflict to challenge the U.S. This is more than just economic support. Russia and China are leveraging its economic support to establish a military-industrial presence in Venezuela,” Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, an independent global research group, told Fox News. “It's a geopolitical chess game.” But if it's a chess game, it's one that goes along with a massive and sobering military threat that's no game at all, with China and Russia standing to lose a lot if Maduro is replaced by a U.S.-backed government. For starters, China has a satellite tracking facility at the Capitán Manuel Rios Air Base in Guárico, while Russia has a cyberpresence at the Naval Base Antonio Diaz "Bandi" in La Orchilla, an island north of Caracas. “This adds space and cyberspace capabilities that the Maduro regime does not have,” Humire pointed out. “For Russia and China, pressuring the U.S. via Venezuela adds leverage to their regional ambitions in Ukraine and Eastern/Central Europe (for Russia) and Taiwan and South China Sea (for China).” Yet the weaker Venezuelan becomes, the greater the potential Russian or Chinese hand in the region. “Maduro still sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world. That’s the grand prize. China could say that the more Venezuela becomes a pariah, the cheaper they want it,” noted the intelligence insider. “And the more leverage Russia then has to build a bigger base in the Western Hemisphere, and closer to the United States nonetheless.” Blackwell ‘19 Blackwell, Ken. Dec 2 2019. “Venezuela: U.S. National Security and the Threats of Russia and China.” Townhall. https://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2019/12/02/venezuela-us-national-security-and-the-threats-of-russia-and-china-n2557291 The thought of the world’s largest supply of recoverable oil falling into the hands of Russia and China is not a far flung idea. And with that, a fleet of warships docked on the coast of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, positioned to threaten the American national security. If America eventually surrenders its influence in Venezuela, this scenario could become Reality. As of now, Nicolas Maduro is the ruthless socialist dictator of a crumbling Venezuela. Desperate to maintain his grip on power, it is very likely he will cede control of Venezuela’s oil industry to the Russians and Chinese in exchange for the two countries doubling down on financially backing his country’s collapsing economy and his withering dictatorship. President Trump has taken the right approach by enacting tough sanctions on the illegitimate Maduro government and has correctly thrown his administration’s support behind the opposition party leader, Juan Gauido, but improving the situation for the people of Venezuela is slow-going. China and Russia continue to bankroll the Maduro regime to protect their investment in Venezuela’s massive oil reserves, the largest oil fields in the world. Russia is financially backing Maduro with debt-for-oil deals and military hardware, while Maduro has agreed to grant Russian warships access to Venezuelan ports, de facto naval outposts for Russian operations in the Western Hemisphere. Maduro and members of his government have also attended meetings with Vladimir Putin to bolster their ongoing relationship with Russia. There is an estimated 300 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Venezuela with an estimated value well into the trillions. It makes little sense to allow a global energy asset to fall into the hands of Russia and China. If America’s energy industry is forced to vacate Venezuela, it leaves the fractured nation wide open to becoming a Russian or Chinese puppet state and much better positioned to be a serious threat to U.S. national security. This scenario can be averted if the Trump team continues to allow American energy companies ongoing permission to operate in Venezuela. American energy companies have become a lifeline for many Venezuelans still living and working there. The Trump administration has so far permitted American energy operations to remain online, which should continue. The economic sanctions that President Trump imposed on the Maduro government are working and the president is right to collaborate with other nations in bringing an end to the Maduro regime. But America should not sacrifice a 100-year relationship with Venezuela’s energy industry, and forfeit access to the world’s largest oil fields as part of a plan to end Maduro’s corrupt regime. O’Connor ‘19 Tom O’Connor. Jan 29 2019. “CHINA JOINS RUSSIA IN BACKING VENEZUELA AGAINST U.S. MOVES, WARNS OF 'SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES' TO DONALD TRUMP'S PLAN.” Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/china-back-venezuela-warns-consequences-1309716 Beijing and Moscow have increasingly attempted to align their foreign policies in recent years in the face of what they see as Washington's hegemony abroad. The U.S. has, for its part, accused its top two global competitors of undermining a "rules-based international order." The U.S. has also sought to counter growing Chinese and Russia influence in Latin America, where Washington has for decades intervened against leftist and socialist movements, including an alleged CIA role in the 2002 coup attempt against Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Ellyatt ‘19 Holly Ellyatt. Jan 29 2019. “Russia and China condemn new US sanctions on Venezuela.” CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/russia-and-china-condemn-new-us-sanctions-on-venezuela.html Russia is also heavily involved in Venezuela’s energy industry with Russian energy firm Rosneft holding a large stake in a subsidiary of PDVSA. PDVSA used 49.9 percent of its shares in its U.S. subsidiary Citgo as collateral for loan financing from Russia’s majority state-owned Rosneft in 2016. Russia thus stands to suffer from U.S. measures to freeze PDVSA’s oil transactions and those of its U.S. asset Citgo (to which most of the Venezuela’s exports destined for the U.S. go). Citgo has already become a focus for Maduro’s rival Guaido. Just ahead of U.S. sanctions Monday, the self-proclaimed interim president ordered Congress to appoint new boards of directors to PDVSA and Citgo. Starr ‘19 Barbara Starr. April 15 2019. “Pentagon developing military options to deter Russian, Chinese influence in Venezuela.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/politics/pentagon-venezuela-military-options/index.html The Pentagon is developing new military options for Venezuela aimed at deterring Russian, Cuban and Chinese influence inside the regime of President Nicolas Maduro, but stopping short of any kinetic military actions, according to a defense official familiar with the effort. The deterrence options are being ordered following a White House meeting last week where national security adviser John Bolton told acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to develop ideas on the Venezuela crisis. The official emphasized strongly that the initial work is being done by the Pentagon's Joint Staff, which conducts planning for future military operations along with the Southern Command, which oversees any US military involvement in the southern hemisphere. Hynes ‘19 H. Patricia Hynes, Common Dreams, 25 August 2019, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/25/economic-sanctions-war-another-name Recall the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 from grade school history? President James Monroe proclaimed that European nations could not colonize nor otherwise interfere in North and South American countries. Ironically, since 1890, the U.S. has intervened in Latin American elections, civil wars and revolutions at least 56 times, according to historian and author Mark Becker, to bolster US corporate interests and to eliminate democratically elected governments and leftist movements. Shepp ‘19 Jonah Shepp, 29 January 2019, NY Magazine, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/venezuela-trump-more-harm-than-good.html It’s too early to say whether Guaidó will ultimately prevail, but he still has many cards to play, while Maduro — no mastermind of statecraft — is running out of ways to placate the public and the armed forces amid a crumbling economy caused by his government’s catastrophic mismanagement. While it’s hard to gauge public opinion in an authoritarian country, the socialist ruling party appears to have lost a great deal of public support as the economy has collapsed and the humanitarian crisis has mounted. Maduro continues to receive support in the international sphere from Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Cuba, and a few other countries, lending a Cold War feel to the standoff. The wild card remains the military: The top brass remains loyal to the regime, but the rank and file may be swayed by Guaidó’s amnesty proposal, which could change the generals’ calculus as well. New York Times ‘17 New York Times. Aug 12 2017. “Trump Alarms Venezuela With Talk of a ‘Military Option’. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/world/americas/trump-venezuela-military.html President Trump’s remarks on Friday that he would not rule out a “military option” to quell the chaos in Venezuela set off a late-night diplomatic duel, with the defense minister accusing Mr. Trump of “an act of madness” and the White House saying it had turned away a call from Venezuela’s president. About an hour later, the White House issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump had refused to take a phone call on Friday from Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. “Today, Nicolas Maduro requested a phone call with President Donald J. Trump,” the White House said. “President Trump will gladly speak with the leader of Venezuela as soon as democracy is restored in that country.” “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary,” Mr. Trump said. The defense minister said to expect a more detailed diplomatic response on Saturday. Mora ‘17 Frank O. Mora. November 8 2017. “What Would a U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Look Like?” Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-11-08/what-would-us-intervention-venezuela-look In August, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the United States was considering using military force to resolve the crisis in Venezuela. His announcement was quickly condemned by the United States’ allies in Latin America and the Caribbean as reckless and counterproductive. Yet there are some, mostly in the Venezuelan exile community, who still insist that a U.S. military intervention to remove the dictatorship of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be worth the cost. Not since the United States invaded Panama in 1989 had a U.S. president threatened to use force for political ends in the Americas, and for good reason. There are no longer any military challengers to the United States in the region. Today, the Pentagon focuses on helping Latin American governments dismantle drug trafficking networks, deal with insurgents, and respond to natural disasters. It does not plan military interventions in the region, although it certainly could, if ordered to do so. If the military were to make such plans for Venezuela, policymakers would need to answer a few important strategic questions. First, they would need to lay out the political goals of the intervention. When states use or threaten military force, their objectives are usually straightforward: they tend to seek either a shift in policy or regime change. In Venezuela’s case, that might mean pressuring the Maduro government to recommit to the rule of law and to enter into a serious dialogue with the opposition, or removing it from power entirely. Impact Mora ‘19 Frank O. Mora, March 19 2019, "What a Military Intervention in Venezuela Would Look Like," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/venezuela/2019-03-19/what-military-intervention-venezuela-would-look In the worst-case scenario, a precision strike operation would last for months, killing possibly thousands of civilians, destroying much of what remains of Venezuela’s economy, and wiping out the state security forces. The result would be anarchy. Militias and other armed criminal groups would roam the streets of major cities unchecked, wreaking havoc. More than eight million Venezuelans would likely flee. The chaos would likely lead the United States to send in ground troops in order either to finally dislodge the regime and its security forces or to provide security once the dictatorship had collapsed. Such a scenario is not improbable. Indeed, the most likely outcome of a campaign of air strikes is that the Venezuelan armed forces would disintegrate. The United States, perhaps with international partners, would then have no option but to send troops to neutralize Venezuela’s irregular armed groups and restore order while a new government and security apparatus established themselves. How long such a peacekeeping occupation would last is hard to say, but the difficulty of the project and the complexity of the country's geography suggest that troops would stay in Venezuela for a lot longer than the few months for which they might initially be sent. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, for example, lasted 13 years in a much smaller country. GROUND INVASION Rather than launching precision strikes and getting sucked into a ground war later, the United States might choose to go all-in from the beginning. That would mean a major intervention, including both air strikes and the deployment of at least 150,000 ground troops to secure or destroy airfields, ports, oil fields, power stations, command and control centers, communications infrastructure, and other important government facilities, including the president’s residence, Miraflores Palace. The invading army would face 160,000 regular Venezuelan troops and more than 100,000 paramilitaries. The most recent large-scale U.S.-led military interventions, in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, both required U.S. troops to remain after the initial invasion for nearly 20 years. By 2017, the two interventions had involved more than two million U.S. military personnel and cost more than $1.8 trillion. More than 7,000 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The costs of an intervention in Venezuela, which is free of the kind of sectarian divides that plague Afghanistan and Iraq, would likely not come near those numbers, but they would likely be significant. There’s no such thing as risk-free military action. But in this case, the social, economic, and security costs of intervening far outweigh the benefits. Whether the United States launched limited air strikes or a full ground invasion, it would almost certainly get sucked in to a long, difficult campaign to stabilize Venezuela after the initial fighting was over. Such an engagement would cost American lives and money and hurt the United States’ standing in Latin America. An extended occupation would reignite anti-Americanism in the region, particularly if U.S. soldiers committed real or perceived abuses, and it would damage U.S. relations with countries outside the region, too. Finally, a war-weary American public is unlikely to stand for yet another extended military campaign F/L A2 Invasion Hurts Re Election 1) If there are voters that will not vote for Trump because of military actions, then he already lost them by attacking Iran. 2) prefer voting for us because we give you the details. They don’t tell you which voters he will lose, what states that costs him, and how that effects 2020. We on the other hand, isolate the bloc of voters and the specific state with evidence on how the loss of that voting bloc would end up costing him 2020. It is a lot easier to vote for us because we give you the specifics. 3) the response falls because of how the electoral college system works. Trump can lose 1 of voters across the nation without it effecting his chances at reelection. Last time, he won the election without winning the popular vote because he understands how to use the system which is why he is so vehemently pursuing Venezuelan voters. A2 Need Congressional Approval Trump, as the commander-in-chief, has the authority to take any military action ¬– short of declaring war – without congressional approval according to past precedent and laws. Waxman ’18, Matthew C Waxman, War on The Rocks, 19 November 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/war-powers-oversight-not-reform/ Proposals for overhauling war powers take many forms. Some recommend scrapping the War Powers Resolution and requiring advance consultation and subsequent votes of approval or disapproval by Congress. A proposed “War Powers Consultation Act,” for example, would direct the president to confer with Congress before ordering troops into significant conflicts and would require Congress to vote in support or disapproval of the conflict within 30 days. Some would like to see the existing War Powers Resolution enforced more assertively and consistently by Congress, including through litigation seeking judicial enforcement of Congress’ prerogatives. Others believe that the resolution already gives the president too much leeway — for instance, it allows the president to intervene for 60 days without congressional approval Law Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/war-powers.php Litany of Examples click on the link The fourth part of the law concerns Congressional actions and procedures. Of particular interest is Section 1544(b), which requires that U.S. forces be withdrawn from hostilities within 60 days of the time a report is submitted or is required to be submitted under Section 1543(a)(1), unless Congress acts to approve continued military action, or is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Section 1544(c) requires the President to remove U.S. armed forces that are engaged in hostilities "without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization" at any time if Congress so directs by a Concurrent Resolution (50 USC 1544 (external link)). Concurrent Resolutions are not laws and are not presented to the President for signature or veto; as a result the procedure contemplated under Section 1544(c) is known as a "legislative veto" and is constitutionally questionable in light of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983). Further sections set forth expedited Congressional procedures for considering proposed legislation to authorize the use of U.S. armed forces, as well as similar procedures regarding proposed legislation to withdraw U.S. forces under Section 1544(c) (50 U.S. 1545-46a). Touchberry 19 Ramsey Touchberry. June 21 2019. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/can-trump-strike-iran-without-congressional-approval-1445294 Generally, Democrats tend to argue that Trump would need to seek authorization from Congress to initiate certain military operations against a foreign adversary. Many Republicans, on the other hand, point to past precedent and laws that suggest that — short of declaring war — the commander-in-chief has the authority to take action on his own. A2 Brings About Regime Change Malt ‘16 Malt, Stephen M. April 25 2016. “Why is america so bad at promoting demoracy in other countries?” Foreign policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/25/why-is-america-so-bad-at-promoting-democracy-in-other-countries/ At the risk of stating the obvious, we do know what doesn’t work, and we have a pretty good idea why. What doesn’t work is military intervention (aka “foreign-imposed regime change”). The idea that the United States could march in, depose the despot-in-chief and his henchmen, write a new constitution, hold a few elections, and produce a stable democracy — presto! — was always delusional, but an awful lot of smart people bought this idea despite the abundant evidence against it. The historical record disproves. When the US supported a military coup to unseat Chavez, not only did it fail but as a result, Chavez systematically destroyed other Venezuelan institutions that supported democracy as well as allowing the military to engage in profitable criminal activity to keep them happy. Greiner ‘19 Greiner, Michel. Jan 27 2019. “What the Crisis in Venezuela Tells Us About Democracy.” Medium. https://medium.com/s/story/what-venezuela-tells-us-about-american-democratic-institutions-e11c38f98977 Around the same time, a military coup supported by the U.S. attempted to unseat Chavez. After initial successes, officers loyal to Chavez put down the rebellion. As a result, Chavez purged the government of anyone he perceived to be disloyal and systematically destroyed other Venezuelan institutions that supported democracy. To keep the military happy, Chavez allowed it to engage in profitable criminal activity and corruption. A2 We Can Use Diplomacy We have taken our last possible shot at diplomacy – giving Maduro a way out. Even after guaranteeing him full amnesty if he were to step down from power now, he has not conceded his control. The Department of State believed this to be the last possible attempt for diplomacy in the negotiations and yet, it failed. NOTHING WORKS WITH THIS DUDE. Ortagus ‘19 Ortagus, Morgan. Department of State Spokesperson. U.S. Department of State Press Statement. May 25 2019. “Continued U.S. Support For Democracy in Venezuela.” https://www.state.gov/continued-u-s-support-for-democracy-in-venezuela/ The United States supports the desire of the Venezuelan people to recover their democracy and bring the illegitimate Maduro regime to an end. Previous efforts to negotiate an end to the regime and free elections have failed because the regime has used them to divide the opposition and gain time. Free elections cannot be overseen by a tyrant. As we have repeatedly stated, we believe the only thing to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro is the conditions of his departure. We hope the talks in Oslo will focus on that objective, and if they do, we hope progress will be possible. We wish to note that today marks the 17th day since the arrest and disappearance of Edgar Zambrano, First Vice President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, the country’s last remaining democratic institution. Since his detention, Mr. Zambrano has had no contact with his family or his attorneys, and his location is unknown. Today also marks more than two months since the imprisonment of Roberto Marrero, an attorney and chief of staff to Interim President Juan Guaido. They are but two of the 800 political prisoners the Maduro regime held as of May 20. We join supporters of democracy in Venezuela throughout the world in condemning their illegal imprisonment by the Maduro regime and in demanding their immediate release. Also, a US National Security Adviser said and I quote “The time for dialogue is over. Now is the time for action.” The US has moved on from diplomacy to other strategies as it continues to prove unworking. Bolton ‘19 John Bolton. REF/RL. August 6 2019. “Stop Supporting Venezuela’s Maduro, U.S. Tells Russia and China.” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/stop-supporting-venezuela-s-maduro-u-s-tells-russia-and-china/30096356.html **Bolton is a FIRED US national Security Adviser** "The time for dialogue is over. Now is the time for action," Bolton said. "We will ensure that Maduro runs out of ways to financially sustain himself." Venezuela's Foreign Ministry denounced the fresh sanctions as "another serious aggression by the Trump administration through arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people." Russia's Foreign Ministry said Washington's restrictive measures were illegal and amounted to "economic terror," according to RIA Novosti news agency. (If the say Bolton is a hardliner and Trump fired him because he disagreed with him just say that obviously they agreed with some things and Trump only talked about Russia and NK when he fired him which means the probably agreed on Venezuela) A2 Trump Fired Bolton Merco Press ‘19 Merco Press. Sept 11 2019. “Trump fires hyper hawk Bolton; ‘foreign policy remains unchanged’, Pompeo.” https://en.mercopress.com/2019/09/11/trump-fires-hyper-hawk-bolton-foreign-policy-remains-unchanged-pompeo Famous for his large moustache and ever-present yellow legal pad, the hardline former US ambassador to the United Nations had pushed back against Trump's dramatic, though so far stumbling attempts to negotiate with the Taliban and North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong Un. According to US media reports, the president's extraordinary, failed bid to fly Taliban leaders into the presidential retreat at Camp David last weekend sparked a major row. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cautioned that Bolton's exit should not be interpreted as heralding strategy changes. “I don't think any leader around the world should make any assumption that because someone of us departs that President Trump's foreign policy will change in a material way,” Pompeo told reporters. And Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin underlined that Trump and top aides remain “completely aligned” on Washington's crippling sanctions against Iran, known as the maximum pressure campaign. Bolton's firing was due primarily to personality conflicts in the upper-echelon of Trump's foreign policy team and had very little to do with policy differences toward Iran. In fact, the whole foreign policy team is composed of hawks. Iran should never confuse Bolton's firing with a change of course in Trump's foreign policy towards Iran. There has been no change in this regard, nor there will be one in the future under Mike Pompeo's management of the U.S. State Department. As I indicated in my previous answer, John Bolton's firing will have minimal or no impact on U.S. foreign policy toward Iran. Bolton was simply a bolt in the vast cog of the U.S. anti-Iran foreign policy machinery that has deep roots in various elements of the U.S. government, including the U.S. congress. This incident clearly demonstrates that Bolton's dismissal didn't make a dent in the Trump administration's Iran policy and that the pro-war hawks in the U.S. are still very much in charge. https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/10/11/the_us_leaving_venezuelas_oil_sector_only_benefits_russia_and_china_110479.html EXTRA OLD TASS ‘19 TASS, November 21, 2019, https://tass.com/world/1091567, Venezuela’s government, opposition continue dialogue despite US pressure, says diplomat A solution to the crisis in Venezuela should be found through ongoing dialogue between the government and the opposition and without outside interference, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday. "We noted that the number of opposition protesters had decreased substantially. At the same time, the dialogue between the government and the opposition continues despite sanctions and pressure from Washington. We are glad that these efforts are supported in the region," she said. Cordoba ‘19 Jose Cordoba, Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2019, “US and Venezuela have secret talks” , https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-and-venezuela-hold-secret-talks-11566434509 The Trump administration has been secretly talking with top aides of Nicolás Maduro in an effort to push Venezuela’s authoritarian president from power and clear the way for free elections in the economically devastated country, according to officials in Caracas and Washington familiar with the discussions. The talks have involved powerful Maduro lieutenant Diosdado Cabello, who heads the country’s National Constituent Assembly and has been put under sanctions by Washington for alleged involvement in drug trafficking, and other important backers of the president in an effort to find a negotiated solution to the country’s crisis, these people said, adding the talks are at an early stage...Speaking to reporters Tuesday, President Trump confirmed U.S. officials are “talking to the representatives at different levels of Venezuela.” He wouldn’t identify them but said “we are talking at a very high level.” That statement prompted Mr. Maduro, in a televised speech Tuesday night, to announce that discussions had, indeed, been taking place. “We’ve had secret meetings in secret places with secret people that nobody knows,” he said, adding that Venezuela would “continue having contact” with the U.S. Cordoba ‘19 Jose Cordoba, Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2019, “US and Venezuela have secret talks” , https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-and-venezuela-hold-secret-talks-11566434509 The talks are taking place as other representatives of Mr. Maduro, led by Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez and his sister, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, have offered opposition negotiators the possibility of a presidential election in the coming months. That offer, made weeks ago during separate talks in Barbados, is considered an important breakthrough since Venezuelan government officials have publicly said they wouldn’t be pressured into holding a new vote. The opposition has demanded elections because Mr. Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in a vote widely seen as fraudulent, prompting the U.S. and more than 50 other governments to declare his presidency as illegitimate. Krygler ‘19 Rachelle Krygler. August 8 2019. “Maduro’s government pulls out of talks with Venezuelan opposition over U.S. sanctions”. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/maduro-government-decides-to-pull-out-of-talks-with-venezuela-opposition/2019/08/07/81e0f2d6-b97f-11e9-bad6-609f75bfd97f_story.html The decision of President Nicolás Maduro to pull out of talks with Venezuela’s opposition cast a new shadow over hopes for a peaceful resolution to the political stalemate that has paralyzed the crisis-wracked South American nation. The sides had planned to sit down Thursday for a sixth round of negotiations mediated by Norway, but Maduro said he wouldn’t send a delegation to the talks in Barbados after President Trump ordered stiff new sanctions against his government. Oppenheimer ‘19 https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article238779133.html, Trump’s Venezuela policy is in disarray. He must put it back on his radar — now | Opinion, BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER Maduro’s death squads are responsible for about 6,800 extra-judicial executions between January 2018 and May 2019, many of the victims peaceful pro-democracy activists, according to a recent report by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet The U.N. report also documented the widespread use of torture against some of Venezuela’s more than 720 political prisoners, including electric shocks and suffocation with plastic bags. It’s a level of human-rights abuse that equals — and maybe exceeds — the worst times of South America’s military dictatorships of the 1970s More than 4.7 million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela over the past five years, according to the Organization of American States (OAS). The Venezuelan exodus could reach 10 million people in three years, according to OAS chief Luis Almagro. It already is straining the economies of several Latin American countries and could destabilize them politically, officials in the region say Yet, Maduro has been consolidating his dictatorship in recent months. Mexico and Argentina, once active members of the Lima Group of Latin American countries that withdrew their recognition of Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president following the fraudulent 2018 elections, have switched sides. The two countries’ new leftist presidents now recognize the Maduro regime Although it sounds like a joke, the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council — which is a separate institution from U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet’s office — recently accepted Venezuela as one of its 47 member countries. That was hailed as a major diplomatic victory by the Maduro regime, and further demoralized Venezuela’s opposition. Korte ‘17 Gregory Korte. Aug 25 2017. “Trump imposes new Venezuelan Sanctions.” USA Today. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/25/executive-order-trump-imposes-new-round-venezuela-sanctions/601667001/ Trump has even raised the possibility of military action in Venezuela, although the White House seems to have focused more on economic and diplomatic sanctions. "In terms of military options or other options, there's no such thing any more as only a diplomatic option, or only a military option, or only an economic option. We try to integrate all the options together," McMaster said Friday. But he continued, "No military options are anticipated in the near future." Lowi ‘12 Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, Margaret Weir, Caroline. “American Government”. W. W. Norton and Company Inc. The Instruments of Modern American Foreign Policy What are the tools that American government officials use to achieve their foreign policy aims? How are diplomacy, economic strength, and military might deployed to advance American interests in the world? Torres ‘19 Torres, Nora Gámez. July 23 2019. “U.S. willing to offer Maduro Guarantees he’ll be left alone if he leaves Venezuela.” Miami Herald. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article232964207.html With no resolution in sight for Venezuela’s leadership six months after the leader of the national assembly declared himself president, the Trump administration appears willing to offer guarantees to Nicolas Maduro that the U.S. will leave him alone if he leaves Venezuela. “The time has come to say, this is the opportunity you have, and we are willing to negotiate to close this chapter, but your opportunity is closing because now even the United Nations has created a case that could be used against you at The Hague,” the official said. “My concern is that it becomes a disincentive for him to find a way out. What we want to offer is ... this should be your chance to turn the page, now, before it’s too late. “ The United States was first in recognizing Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela on Jan. 23. Since then, it has allocated more than $250 million for humanitarian aid and has sanctioned members of the regime, security agencies, and economic targets such as PDVSA, the state oil company — everything short of military action, even though government officials, Vice President Mike Pence and the president himself have repeated the phrase “all options are on the table” to the media. Bolton ‘19 John Bolton. REF/RL. August 6 2019. “Stop Supporting Venezuela’s Maduro, U.S. Tells Russia and China.” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/stop-supporting-venezuela-s-maduro-u-s-tells-russia-and-china/30096356.html **Bolton is a FIRED US national Security Adviser** "The time for dialogue is over. Now is the time for action," Bolton said. "We will ensure that Maduro runs out of ways to financially sustain himself." Venezuela's Foreign Ministry denounced the fresh sanctions as "another serious aggression by the Trump administration through arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people." Russia's Foreign Ministry said Washington's restrictive measures were illegal and amounted to "economic terror," according to RIA Novosti news agency. Jakes ‘19 Lara jakes. Aug 28 2019. “US Offers Amnesty to Venezuelan Leader, if he Leaves Power.” NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/world/americas/us-amnesty-venezuela-maduro.html A top American diplomat said the United States would not prosecute or otherwise seek to punish President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela if he voluntarily left power, despite bringing his country to the verge of economic collapse and humanitarian disaster. Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special envoy for Venezuela, said he had seen no indication that Mr. Maduro was willing to step down. But his offer of amnesty was a message to Mr. Maduro after both countries’ leaders described high-level talks that Mr. Abrams unequivocally said did not happen. “This is not a persecution,” Mr. Abrams said of Mr. Maduro on Tuesday evening in an interview. “We’re not after him. We want him to have a dignified exit and go.” He added: “We don’t want to prosecute you; we don’t want to persecute you. We want you to leave power.” Torres ‘19 Torres, Nora Gámez. July 23 2019. “U.S. willing to offer Maduro Guarantees he’ll be left alone if he leaves Venezuela.” Miami Herald. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article232964207.html And the refugee crisis is getting worse by the day. With minimum wages of $8 per month, the lowest in the continent, and amid shortages of food and medicine, thousands of Venezuelans continue to emigrate to neighboring countries, threatening to double the current four million refugees by the end of next year. Burchard ‘19 Hans Von Der Burchard, Politico, 21 July 2019, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-braces-for-trump-trade-war/ His 2020 reelection campaign risks escalating the conflict, Hufbauer said: "Trump really believes that confrontation with foreign countries gets him votes." In an interview with POLITICO on Thursday, U.S. ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland said Brussels should get ready for "less whining, more action" from the Trump administration and warned that Washington had "a whole bunch of different tools" at its disposal, including car tariffs, that will have "immediate financial consequences for our friends in Europe.” Osorio ‘19 https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article235250772.html The number of Venezuela-born residents increased from 93,000 to 421,000 during that period and 52 percent of Venezuelan nationals live in Florida, 11 percent in Texas and 4 percent in New York, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Hispanics in the United States. Cohen ‘19 Cohen, Eliot A. Jan/Feb 2019. “America’s Long Goodbye; The Real Crisis of the Trump Era.” Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/long-term-disaster-trump-foreign-policy But the surface-level calm of the last two years should not distract from a building crisis of U.S. foreign policy, of which Trump is both a symptom and a cause. The president has outlined a deeply misguided foreign policy vision that is distrustful of U.S. allies, scornful of international institutions, and indifferent, if not downright hostile, to the liberal international order that the United States has sustained for nearly eight decades. The real tragedy, however, is not that the president has brought this flawed vision to the fore; it is that his is merely one mangled interpretation of what is rapidly emerging as a new consensus on the left and the right: that the United States should accept a more modest role in world affairs. Enten ‘19 Enten, Harry. Aug 13 2019. “Trump's base is very different than the swing voters he'll need in 2020.” CNN Politics. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/13/politics/trump-swing-voters-2020/index.html The Trump base (i.e. those who approve of him overall) is overwhelmingly Republican. In total, 88 of voters who approve of Trump say they are either Republican or independents who lean Republican. This is why Trump seems loath to do anything that can alienate Republicans. They are his bedrock. A mere 7 of voters who approve of Trump are Democrats or independents who lean Democrattic. The other 6 are independents who lean toward neither party. Patterson ‘19 Patterson, Richard North. Dec 6 2019. “Trump’s Personal Pathology Is America’s Foreign Policy.” The Bulwark. https://thebulwark.com/trumps-personal-pathology-is-americas-foreign-policy/ But in truth, it was even worse than that. In his infinite narcissism, Trump apparently means to exploit these intrusions to serve his reelection campaign, using our military leadership as a straw villain to rile his base. He was sticking up for our “warriors,” Trump brags, against the subversive “deep state.” In return, Lorance praises him on Fox News, and Gallagher calls Trump “a true leader and exactly what the military needs.” Already, Trump is musing aloud about taking Lorance, Golsteyn, and Gallagher with him on the campaign trail, and even parading them on stage at the 2020 Republican convention. To a president so devoid of constraints and detached from all but self, the laws of war, the chain of command, and the system of military justice meaningless abstractions. In Trump’s vision of the presidency, our professional military is little more than his personal property, expected to adhere to his amorality, and ever-ready to be exploited according to his will. Writ large, this comprehensive personalization of power results in a foreign policy based on transient self-gratification, conducted by man who, divorced from past or future, careens through international relations like a human wrecking ball. The relentless engine of Trump’s external conduct is his own inner turmoil. But while it may be one thing, as Trump brags about himself, to be “unpredictable,” it is quite another to be unable to predict, or even anticipate, one’s own impulses. Immune to advice, hungry for headlines, and infatuated with his self-concept as a reality TV dealmaker, Trump has become a chew toy for cold-eyed realpoliticians with sustained strategic goals. RFE/RL ‘19 REF/RL. August 6 2019. “Stop Supporting Venezuela’s Maduro, U.S. Tells Russia and China.” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/stop-supporting-venezuela-s-maduro-u-s-tells-russia-and-china/30096356.html The United States has pressed Russia and China to withdraw what he called their "intolerable" support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as Washington steps up pressure on the Latin American leader to step down. Addressing an international conference on Venezuela in Lima, Peru, on August 6, U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton called on Russia not to "double down on a bad bet." Bolton also called on "all Cuban and Russian military and paramilitary forces to leave Venezuela immediately." And he told China that "the quickest route to getting repaid" for its loans to Venezuela was by supporting "a new legitimate government." The United States is one of more than 50 countries that do not recognize Maduro as Venezuela's legitimate president and are backing opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself president in January. Russia and China are Maduro's most powerful allies. Moscow has admitted to sending military technicians to Venezuela as part of its defense cooperation with the South American country, but has denied deploying troops for military operations. On August 5, President Donald Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on the Venezuelan government, freezing its assets in the United States and barring transactions with it. "The time for dialogue is over. Now is the time for action," Bolton said. "We will ensure that Maduro runs out of ways to financially sustain himself." Venezuela's Foreign Ministry denounced the fresh sanctions as "another serious aggression by the Trump administration through arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people." Russia's Foreign Ministry said Washington's restrictive measures were illegal and amounted to "economic terror," according to RIA Novosti news agency. O’Connor ‘19 O’Connor, Tom. July 7 2019. “U.S. MILITARY PLANS TO BATTLE RUSSIA, CHINA AND IRAN'S 'MOST DISTURBING' INFLUENCE IN VENEZUELA.” Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/venezuela-us-battle-russia-china-iran-influence-most-disturbing-1448545 The head of the Pentagon's Southern Command warned that Russia, China and Iran were expanding their influence in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela, where they support a government the United States seeks to depose. "Russia, in their own words, is protecting their 'loyal friend,' to quote, by propping up the corrupt, illegitimate Maduro regime with loans and technical and military support," Faller said. "China, as Venezuela's largest single-state creditor, saddled the Venezuelan people with more than $60 billion in debt and is exporting surveillance technology used to monitor and repress the Venezuelan people. Iran has restarted direct flights from Tehran to Caracas and reinvigorated diplomatic ties." "Along with Cuba, these actors engage in activities that are profoundly unhealthy to democracy and regional stability and counter to U.S. interests," he added, calling for the "right, focused and consistent military presence" to counter these countries' "most disturbing" growing influence in the region. The U.S. has a decades-long history of intervention in Latin America and critics have linked the current crisis to Washington's historic attempts to stamp out leftist currents in the region. As with Russia, China and Iran have also defended their close relations with Maduro as legitimate and have accused the U.S. of hypocrisy for attempting to expand its presence south of its borders. Rogan ‘19 Rogan, Tom. Feb 5 2019. “Why China wouldn’t stop the US military in Venezuela.” Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-china-wouldnt-stop-the-us-military-in-venezuela Second, Jenkins embraces a misguided understanding of Chinese strategy and capability. Chinese President Xi Jinping's strategic objective is the reshaping of international order away from the U.S.-guaranteed system of free trade and democratic rule of law. Xi wants to replace that system with a Beijing-led feudal hegemony. That's why China is so focused on appropriating U.S. intellectual property. Yes, China retains a strong relationship with Maduro and other despots. But Xi is not an idiot. While his military power is improving, he knows China cannot contest America in its own backyard. Xi also knows that a military showdown with the U.S. over Venezuela would bury his other economic interests with the United States (for example, a trade deal that removes U.S. tariffs and saves his domestic economy from its current slump). Jenkins should know all this. And he probably does. But what the British columnist prefers to buffer his own anti-intervention sentiment in a way that presents exceptional risks to those who might be in favor of intervention. His construction of a China-U.S. showdown obviously serves that interest. But it is wholly disingenuous. Thrall ‘19 Thrall, Trevor A. March 11 2019. “Why the United States Should Not Send the Military to Venezuela.” Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-united-states-should-not-send-military-venezuela But even though Maduro, like Chavez before him, is an autocratic leader with little interest in the welfare of his own people, he is just the tip of the iceberg. As in many corrupt states, Maduro rules Venezuela with the help of a circle of civilian and military elites that he rewards with plum government jobs, sweetheart business deals and other carrots. Thousands of competent government employees have been replaced with incompetent cronies, which has led to decreasing oil production over the past fifteen years, mismanagement of the economy, and to increasing levels of drug trafficking supported by elements of the Venezuelan government. A partial analogy here is the attempt to rebuild the Iraq government, which took not only getting rid of thousands of Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein — itself a large job — but also many years of painful and costly American occupation while Iraqis attempted, with limited success, to rebuild their economy. And in fact, Iraq scores just as poorly on Transparency International’s corruption index as it did under Saddam Hussein and the same as Venezuela does today, both near the bottom of the global rankings. A military strike that toppled the government could also unleash more trouble. If Maduro were to fall, there is a possibility of widespread violence thanks to the “colectivos,” pro-government collectives of civilians armed and trained by the government. These paramilitary groups, which operate across much of Venezuela, often act as a stand-in for the government, quashing domestic unrest and encouraging support for Maduro. As their power has grown, thanks to the central government’s inability to extend control over the whole country, they have become increasingly dangerous. Experts estimate that these groups control as many as 10 of Venezuela’s towns and cities. The strength of the colectivos should raise serious red flags about the prospects of an American military intervention. As the United States found in both Afghanistan and Iraq, a successful regime change is not the end of the violence, but the beginning. There is no reason to expect that things will be easier in Venezuela. An American intervention could also create obstacles for the future of Venezuela politics, as well as inflame anti-American sentiment. Nicolas Maduro told ABC News that Trump is “willing to go to war for Venezuela’s oil.” Whatever the reality, any American intervention is likely to be seen by many Venezuelans to be an unwarranted violation of their sovereignty and incentive to oppose any politicians or policies associated with American support. L1 Jones ‘19 Jones, Steve. "Democracy Promotion as Foreign Policy." ThoughtCo, Mar. 20, 2019, thoughtco.com/democracy-promotion-as-foreign-policy-3310329. Promoting democracy abroad has been one of the main elements of US foreign policy for decades. Some critics argue that it is harmful to promote democracy "in countries without liberal values" because it creates "illiberal democracies, which pose grave threats to freedom." Others argue that the foreign policy of promoting democracy abroad fosters economic development in those places, reduces threats to the United Staes at home and creates partners for better economic trade and development. There are varying degrees of democracies ranging from full to limited and even flawed. Democracies can also be authoritarian, meaning that people can vote but have little or no choice in what or whom they vote for. When rebellion brought down the presidency of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt on July 3, 2013, the United States called for a quick return to order and democracy. Look at these statements from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on July 8, 2013. After World War II, however, the United States could no longer retreat into isolationism. It actively promoted democracy, but that was often a hollow phrase that allowed the United States to counter Communism with compliant governments around the globe. Democracy promotion continued after the Cold War. President George W. Bush linked it to the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Malt ‘16 Malt, Stephen M. April 25 2016. “Why is america so bad at promoting demoracy in other countries?” Foreign policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/25/why-is-america-so-bad-at-promoting-democracy-in-other-countries/ If you’re a dedicated Wilsonian, the past quarter-century must have been pretty discouraging. Convinced liberal democracy was the only viable political formula for a globalizing world, the last three U.S. administrations embraced Wilsonian ideals and made democracy promotion a key element of U.S. foreign policy. For Bill Clinton, it was the “National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement.” For George W. Bush, it was the “Freedom Agenda” set forth in his second inaugural address and echoed by top officials like Condoleezza Rice. Barack Obama has been a less fervent Wilsonian than his predecessors, but he appointed plenty of ardent liberal internationalists to his administration, declaring, “There is no right more fundamental than the ability to choose your leaders.” And he has openly backed democratic transitions in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and several other countries. Congressional Research Service ‘19 Congressional Research Service. Jan 4 2019. “Democracy promotion: An Objective of U.S. Foreign Assistance.” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44858.pdf Notably, the Bush Administration, with the support of Congress, channeled significant resources toward efforts to establish democratic processes and institutions in Iraq and Afghanistan following on and concurrent with U.S. military activities in these countries. The lack of clear success with these broadly supported and highly resourced efforts led many to question not only the specific strategies employed, but the whole concept of foreign-led democracy promotion and whether it was an appropriate use of taxpayers’ dollars. The Bush Administration “Freedom Agenda” was undermined, some argue, by the association of democracy promotion with military intervention, the use of counterterrorism measures that “undercut the symbolism of freedom,” and free elections in the Middle East in which Islamist parties made gains, in conflict with U.S. interests.34 Recent democracy promotion efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in several countries in the wake of the Arab Spring, have led some to conclude that these efforts are destined to fail because they attempt to induce social and structural changes in societies that U.S. policymakers do not fully understand. The results may not only be ineffective, but may have unintended consequences such as regional instability. Democracy promotion advocates argue that it is a mistake to focus on the Iraq and Afghanistan examples, which reflect the shortfalls of military intervention more than democracy promotion, and cite positive results in less publicized situations such as Colombia, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), Slovakia, and Tunisia. Korte ‘17 Gregory Korte. Aug 25 2017. “With executive order, Trump imposes new round of Venezuela Sanctions.” USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/25/executive-order-trump-imposes-new-round-venezuela-sanctions/601667001/ President Trump has signed a new executive order imposing sanctions on Venezuela, further isolating the regime of Nicolás Maduro as it cracks down on democratic protests sweeping the oil-rich but cash-poor South American country. It's the fourth round of U.S. sanctions this year on Maduro and his inner circle, 30 of whom have had their U.S. assets seized. "This order demonstrates more clearly than ever that the United States will not allow an illegitimate dictatorship to take hold in the Western Hemisphere at the expense of its people," National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Friday. The executive order was signed Thursday but not immediately disclosed until after it went into effect at midnight Friday — a tactic designed to prevent sanctions evasion. Trump ‘19 President Donald J. Trump. May 1 2019. “Democracy in Venezuela.” Whitehouse.gov. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-stands-democracy-venezuela/ President Donald J. Trump supports Interim President Guaido and the Venezuelan people in their fight for liberty and justice. The United States stands with Interim President Juan Guaido, the democratically elected National Assembly, and all Venezuelans who seek to restore democracy and the rule of law. The people of Venezuela are standing up against the illegitimate, brutal rule of Nicolas Maduro, making it clear that he must relinquish power and leave the country. The United States calls on the Venezuelan military and security forces to protect all Venezuelans and accept Interim President Guaido’s legitimacy and offer of amnesty. The United States Government will hold accountable all those who threaten the safety of the Venezuelan people or the restoration of Venezuelan democracy. Maduro is desperately trying to keep the people of Venezuela from hearing Interim President Guaido’s message. BROAD INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT: The United States and its regional allies and partners are supporting the effort to restore democracy and stability in Venezuela. The United States and its partners have sanctioned Maduro and over 100 of his cronies and enablers, limiting their ability to loot the assets of the Venezuelan people and cutting off their illicit sources of wealth. The United States has also imposed major sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company and major banks that have served as slush funds for Maduro and his cronies. 1Until very recently, attempts at negotiations were failing terribly. Krygler for the Washington post reports in early August of 2019 that Maduro had backed out of talks with his opposition citing US sanctions as the reason why. But as the effect of stiff new sanctions have set in, the situation has changed. 2Furthermore, when the negotiations became public information, Maduro did not back out as he did in the past. Instead he admitted the talks were happening and insisted that they would continue. 3Additionally, sanction-less diplomacy fails as Jakes reports for the NYT in 2019 that the US offered Maduro complete amnesty if he left power but he didn’t take it. With every other option exhausted, US diplomacy falls without sanctions.

Contact and Disclosure Information

Contact Information: Michael Chen (1st Speaker) - Facebook Messenger - [email protected] Aditya Kumar (2nd Speaker) - Facebook Messenger - [email protected] Disclosure Information: We will disclose cases after we have broken them at a tournament on this wiki. If you need a email chain or have questions about our disclosure, feel free to contact us.

Nocember Neg - Russia and China

paraphrased/cut-card case open-sourced under "Plano West-Chen-Kumar-Neg-Hockaday-Round2.docx"

0 - Contact information, URL issue

Hello! We're two debaters from a public school in Northern Virginia. On this wiki, we'll disclose contentions, tags, cites, and the first and last few words of every card we cite. We'll also disclose open source at the end of each topic. If we're missing something, please let us know. The point of the wiki is to spread the best arguments on the topic and encourage better engagement in the round. To that end, feel free to copy whatever evidence you find here or prep out these arguments. We encourage you to disclose as well! Questions or just want to talk about debate? Message Lawrence Zhu or Nathaniel Yoon on facebook, or email us at [email protected] or [email protected] (will probably not get a timely response by email). ISSUE WITH URLS: I think there's an issue where the cite creator format messes up the URLs, if you delete the parenthesis at the end of the link it should work just fine. Sorry for any inconvenience!

1 - BR Workshop R2 - AFF EU infrastructure, Overcapacity

=AFF 3.1 EU infra, Overcapacity= ===Infrastructure=== ====Squo harms of infrastructure under-investment==== **BRUCE BARNARD 19 of the Journal of Commerce **(2-8-2019, "Europe infrastructure underinvestment hits shippers", doa 8-15-2019, https://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/europe-infrastructure-underinvestment-hits-shippers_20180208.html) NY LONDON – Europe is a major player in global trade. It is home to AND are unlikely to place any bets on these figures and dates being met. ====BRI continuing – EU needs it for additional infrastructure investment==== **RAMON PARDO 18 of the Asia-Europe Journal **(3-27-2018, "Europe's financial security and Chinese economic statecraft: the case of the Belt and Road Initiative", doa 8-14-2019, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.10072Fs10308-018-0511-z.pdf) NY A decade after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and subsequent Eurozone Sovereign Debt AND BRI. A concluding section will summarise the key findings of the article. ====EU can't finance sufficient economic stimulus – needs to join BRI instead==== **KEN MOAK 19 of the Asia Times **(4-15-2019, "European Nations Should Join BRI", doa 8-14-2019, https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/opinion/european-nations-should-join-bri/) NY This may come as shock to many, but it is in the best AND not as threatening as the US and some in the EU hierarchy claim. ====Increased accessibility in Europe linearly increases new businesses and employment==== **STEPHEN GIBBONS 19 of the Journal of Urban Economics **(3-2019, "New road infrastructure: The effects on firms", doa 8-15-2019, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119019300105) NY The ward-level regressions provide strong evidence that road improvement schemes increase the number AND the number of destinations, are all highly correlated and yield similar results. ====Empirics for connectivity – road construction in Brazil decreased inequality and accounted for half per-capita GDP growth during the time==== **JULIA BIRD 14 of the World Bank **(7-2014, "Road Access and the Spatial Pattern of Long-term Local Development in Brazil", doa 8-15-2019, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/543031468232762756/pdf/WPS6964.pdf) NY This paper studies the impact of the rapid expansion of the Brazilian road network, AND half of pcGDP growth and to spur a significant decrease in spatial inequality. ====European infrastructure investment good – linear impacts==== **HEIKO AMMERMAN 15 of Energy and Infrastructure Center **(3-2015, "Squaring the circle - Improving European infrastructure financing?", doa 8-16-2019, file:///C:/Users/ndy15/Documents/Debate/2019-2020/PF/Septober/PDFs/AMMERMANN201520RB20Squaring20the20circle20-20Improving20European20infrastructure20financing.pdf) NY The case for investing in infrastructure is strong. The International Monetary Fund (IMF AND .4 improvement in the EU's annual GDP between 2014 and 2023. ====Poverty big squo issue==== **EU 18 **(12-8-2014, "Special Eurobarometer 355: Poverty and Social Exclusion", doa 8-16-2019, https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset/S888_74_1_EBS355) NY Over 80 million people in the EU are still living at risk of poverty and AND social exclusion; Combating poverty and social exclusion; Access to social services. ===Overcapacity=== ====Domestic credit growth creates vulnerability to recession as shadow banks expand==== **STEPHEN JOSKE 18 of WOTR **(10-23-2018, "China's Coming Financial Crisis and the National Security Connection", doa 8-13-2019, https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/chinas-coming-financial-crisis-and-the-national-security-connection/) NY China is more economically vulnerable to a confrontation with the United States than it likes AND loss of foreign exchange reserves. So the process could quickly become unmanageable. ====Stimulus from Great Recession continued – high subsidization and loans to infrastructure, causing economic slowdown and productivity decreases.==== **NOAH SMITH 19 of Bloomberg **(1-15-2019, "China's Growth Machine No Longer Looks Unstoppable", doa 8-14-2019, https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:on2FFDMbPQMJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-15/china-economy-now-slowed-by-stimulus-used-in-great-recession) NY China's economy is slowing. The downturn may be the result of recent events — AND would cause its growth to slow; we now may have an answer. ====Europe joining reduces overcapacity==== **ANDREW SMALL 18 of Project 2049 **(12-5-2018, "The Final Link: The Future of the Belt and Road Initiative in Europe – Project 2049 Institute", doa 8-14-2019, https://project2049.net/2018/12/05/the-final-link-the-future-of-the-belt-and-road-initiative-in-europe/) NY Unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative ( AND and lack of transparency have caused many European officials to have second thoughts. ====5 percent increase in infrastructure investment creates demand, decreasing overcapacity 14 percent==== **CHAS FREEMAN 17 of Brown University **(2-8-2018, "The Geoeconomic Implications of China's Belt and Road Initiative", doa 8-14-2019, https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/people/fellows/freeman/The20Geoeconomic20Implications20of20ChinaE28099s20Belt20and20Road20Initiative.pdf) NY This raises a key question. Many of the countries that lie between China and AND U.S. Treasury bonds and other instruments with very low yields. ====Current overcapacity measures insufficient – squo BRI can't solve and decreases in investment aren't enough, so Europe is necessary==== **MATTHEW FULCO 16 of CKGSB Knowledge **(6-14-2016, "Solving the Prickly Issue of Overcapacity in China", doa 8-14-2019, http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2016/06/14/chinese-economy/solving-the-prickly-issue-of-overcapacity-in-china/) NY The problem of industrial overcapacity in China has assumed massive proportions. How can it AND of the world is go­ing to help China absorb the problem." ====Can't use fiscal stimulus as effectively==== **JANE LI 19 of Quartz **(6-15-2019, "Why China can't rev up its economy now the way it did during the global recession", doa 8-14-2019, https://qz.com/1666043/why-china-cant-rev-up-its-economy-now-the-way-it-did-a-decade-ago/) NY In this slowdown, some of the country's most effective tools for spurring growth might AND year, for instance, which may be helping to boost retail spending. ====Chinese growth spills over==== **STEPHEN ROACH 16 of the World Economic Forum **(9-2-2016, "Why China is central to global growth", doa 8-13-2019, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/09/why-china-is-central-to-global-growth) NY Moreover, no developing economy comes close to China's contribution to global growth. India's AND there is no way the world could avoid another full-blown recession. ====100 people per minute into poverty==== **OXFAM 9 **(9-24-2009, "100 people every minute pushed into poverty by economic crisis", doa 8-11-2019, https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2009-09-24/100-people-every-minute-pushed-poverty-economic-crisis) NY The G20 should take urgent action to protect poor countries from economic crisis that is AND to survive on less than $1.25-a-day.

2 - Princeton R3 - AFF Intervention

=AFF 2.3 Intervention= ===Uniqueness=== ====US interventions bad lmao==== **RABIA ASLAM 10 of the Conflict and Terrorism Journal **(2-5-2010, "U.S. Military Interventions and the Risk of Civil Conflict", doa 11-19-2019, http://tandfonline.com.sci-hub.tw/doi/abs/10.1080/10576100903555788) NY While a growing literature addresses the determinants and duration of civil conflicts, the political AND presence would be anticipated as one of the many conditions that favor insurgency. ====US interventions bad, but quantified==== **RABIA ASLAM 10 of the Conflict and Terrorism Journal **(2-5-2010, "U.S. Military Interventions and the Risk of Civil Conflict", doa 11-19-2019, http://tandfonline.com.sci-hub.tw/doi/abs/10.1080/10576100903555788) NY Table 3 shows the position of the conflict index described in the previous section in AND beyond the scope of this article and invites further research on the subject. ====Average deaths from airstrike==== **MICHAEL SPAGAT 11 of the University of London **(2-15-2011, "Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians, 2003–2008: Analysis by Perpetrator, Weapon, Time, and Location", doa 11-25-2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3039690/) NY We analyzed the Iraq Body Count database of 92,614 Iraqi civilian direct deaths AND peaked during the invasion period, with relatively indiscriminate effects from aerial weapons. ====Cyberattacks replace the bad stuff==== **JAMES LEWIS 18 of the CSIS **(1-2018, "Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect, and States", doa 11-14-2019, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/180108_Lewis_ReconsideringCybersecurity_Web.pdf) NY International relations are being reshaped by the confluence of several powerful trends, some created AND fall below the existing threshold for the use of force or armed attack. ====Coercive cyberattacks between countries with established aggressive relations – coercion happens no matter what, but since cyberattacks are uncertain, states can't predict the true power which improves coercion ==== **MIGUEL GOMEZ 18 of the Journal of Cyber and Security **(5-2018, "When Less is More: Cognition and the Outcome of Cyber Coercion", doa 11-21-2019, https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/When-Less-is-More-Cognition-and-the-Outcome-of-Cyber-Coercion.pdf) NY Environments in which heuristics are well suited to are characterized by uncertainty, redundancy, AND behavior of one rival may result in unintended escalation under the right circumstances. ====Offensive cyber operations are GOOD==== **JAMES LEWIS 18 of the CSIS **(1-2018, "Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect, and States", doa 11-14-2019, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/180108_Lewis_ReconsideringCybersecurity_Web.pdf) NY International relations are being reshaped by the confluence of several powerful trends, some created AND fall below the existing threshold for the use of force or armed attack. ===Middle option=== ====OCOs create third option – empirics prove==== **MAX SMEETS 18 of the Strategic Studies Quarterly **(Fall 2018, "The Strategic Promise of Offensive Cyber Operations", doa 11-16-2019, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/SSQ/documents/Volume-12_Issue-3/Smeets.pdf) NY Gray, in his review on the strategic value of special operation forces, writes AND inherently differs for countervalue and counterforce capabilities, as will become clear.47 ====Iran example==== **MAX SMEETS 18 of the Strategic Studies Quarterly **(Fall 2018, "The Strategic Promise of Offensive Cyber Operations", doa 11-16-2019, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/SSQ/documents/Volume-12_Issue-3/Smeets.pdf) NY Gray, in his review on the strategic value of special operation forces, writes AND inherently differs for countervalue and counterforce capabilities, as will become clear.47 ====Less damage = less escalation==== **SARAH KREPS 9/29 of the Journal of Cybersecurity **(9-29-2019, "Escalation firebreaks in the cyber, conventional, and nuclear domains: moving beyond effects-based logics", doa 11-19-2019, https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/5/1/tyz007/5575971) NY Figure 2 shows the increase in support across all retaliatory measures, using the cyber AND the means (rather than the means itself, as we have argued). ====OCOs deescalate – examples from Middle East prove==== SIMON HANDLER 10/28 of the Atlantic Council (10-28-2019, "The zero-day war? How cyber is reshaping the future of the most combustible conflicts", doa 11-27-2019, https://atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-zero-day-war-how-cyber-is-reshaping-the-future-of-the-most-combustible-conflicts/) NY As tensions rage beneath the Middle East cauldron, the expanded employment of cyber operations AND , could we be in the midst of the zero-day war? ===Directing operations=== ====Direct conventional operations to decrease casualties==== **MICHAEL SULMEYER 17 of Georgetown Journal of International Affairs **(12-28-2017, "Campaign Planning with Cyber Operations — Georgetown Journal of International Affairs", doa 12-5-2019, https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/2017/12/22/campaign-planning-with-cyber-operations) NY During both war and peace militaries plan, and plan to plan, for a AND US forces will have accounted for the challenges and opportunities of cyber operations. ====Damn==== **RYAN DUFFY 18 of UT Austin **(Ryan Duffy is an intern with CyberScoop. He is studying foreign policy, cybersecurity, and intelligence at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. 5-29-2018, "The U.S. military combined cyber and kinetic operations to hunt down ISIS last year, general says", doa 12-5-2019, https://www.cyberscoop.com/u-s-official-reveals-military-combined-cyber-kinetic-operations-hunt-isis/) NY The military used cyber-operations alongside more conventional weaponry in an important battle against AND . … In this environment, execution will be paramount," Buchanan explained. ====US OCOs did a bunch of stuff that killed insurgents, decreased violence, led to political settlements==== **FRED KAPLAN 16 of MIT **(Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. A former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, he is the author of four previous books, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist), 1959: The Year Everything Changed, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, and The Wizards of Armageddon (which won the Washington Monthly Political Book of the Year Award). He has a PhD in political science from MIT. 2-27-2018, "Dark Territory: the Secret History of Cyber War", doa 12-5-2019, file:///C:/Users/ndy15/Desktop/Nocember/Files/Cards/Fred20Kaplan20-20Dark20Territory_20The20Secret20History20of20Cyber20War20(2016,20Simon20and20Schuster).pdf) NY RTRG got under way early in 2007, around the same time that General David AND not have been won without the Real Time Regional Gateway of the NSA. ====Get fucked, ISIS==== **MICHAEL ROGERS 18 of Cyber Command **(2-27-2018, "Statement of Admiral Michael S. Rogers", doa 12-5-2019, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Rogers_02-27-18.pdf) NY We face a growing variety of threats from adversaries acting with precision and boldness, AND and media operations (along with the analogous infrastructures of other violent extremists). ===Impact=== ====Kinetic operations have strong escalatory dynamic but OCOs do not drive conventional operations – violence escalated between 8 and 23 times more when comparing conventional to cyber, which even decreases violence==== **YURI ZHUKOV 17 of the Journal of Conflict Resolution **(11-10-2017, "Invisible Digital Front: Can Cyber Attacks Shape Battlefield Events?", doa 11-22-2019, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/0022002717737138) NY Data from Ukraine support the skeptical view of cyber coercion. The impulse– response AND variance decomposition results, and Granger tests, provided in the Online Appendix.

5 - Stay at Home R1 - AFF Climate change

=AFF 1.0 Climate change= ====Current emissions high but reversible==== **CHRIS TAYLOR 19 of Mashable **(3-28-2019, "The Catastrophe: Climate change and the 22nd Century", doa 10-17-2019, https://mashable.com/feature/climate-change-future-22nd-century/) NY If anything, a name like "The Catastrophe" undersells what may be about AND And we've already shown our capacity to adjust to worse news over time. ====Nuclear power good==== **JOSHUA GOLDSTEIN 19 of WSJ **(1-11-2019, "Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet", doa 2-27-2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet-11547225861) NY Climate scientists tell us that the world must drastically cut its fossil fuel use in AND hard facts but by long-standing and widely shared phobias about radiation. ====Renewables bad, nuclear good==== **JOHN REILLY 19 of MIT **(12-2-2019, "Too much wind and solar raises power system costs. Deep decarbonization requires nuclear", doa 3-8-2020, https://www.utilitydive.com/news/too-much-wind-and-solar-raises-power-system-costs-deep-decarbonization-req/568080/) NY If solar panels and wind turbines keep getting cheaper, why bother building anything else AND and sharply reduce the need for a carbon price to reduce carbon output. ====Reliable==== **RICHARD RHODES 18 of Yale **(6-19-2018, "Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution", doa 2-25-2020, https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-nuclear-power-must-be-part-of-the-energy-solution-environmentalists-climate) NY Second, nuclear power plants operate at much higher capacity factors than renewable energy sources AND and nocturnal variations in demand. Nuclear is a clear winner on reliability. ====Good==== **NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE 10 **(8-2010, "Myths and Facts About Nuclear Energy", doa 2-27-2020, https://resources.nei.org/documents/KeyDocsNWS/8-9-2010/Final_Myths2020Facts_072710.pdf) NY Nuclear energy is not needed to achieve the nation's energy and environmental goals. Fact AND electricity sources such as wind and solar are incapable of generating baseload electricity. ====Nuclear good==== **IEA 19 **(5-2019, "Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System – Analysis", doa 3-9-2020, https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system) NY A collapse in investment in existing and new nuclear plants in advanced economies would have AND generation capacity and supporting grid infrastructure is built to offset retiring nuclear plants. ====Replaced by fossil fuels==== **BRAD PLUMER 16 of Vox **(11-3-2016, "The US keeps shutting down nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal or gas", doa 3-5-2020, https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2016/11/3/13499278/nuclear-retirements-coal-gas) NY America's largest source of zero-carbon power is in serious trouble. And I'm AND right now, where three reactors are in danger of retiring by 2018. ====Uh oh==== **JAMES PAYNE 10 of the Ecological Economics Journal **(2010, "On the causal dynamics between emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and economic growth", doa 2-27-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.06.014) NY Nuclear energy plays an important role not only in meeting the energy needs of many AND a 1 increase in real output increases emissions by 0.784 ====Linear impact==== **NRC 11 **(2011, "Impacts by degree", doa 10-13-2018, http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/booklets/warming_world_final.pdf) NY Many aspects of climate are expected to change in a linear fashion as temperatures rise AND ; however, the costs of achieving particular emission reductions are not addressed. ====This author has no idea what they're talking about==== **CHRIS TAYLOR 19 of Columbia **(3-28-2019, "The Catastrophe: Climate change and the 22nd Century", doa 10-17-2019, https://mashable.com/feature/climate-change-future-22nd-century/) NY Many of my contemporaries found such comparisons overblown. In which case, I advised AND over the thermostat instead of the end of our entire way of life.

7 - Tab N Dab R2 - Always has been

=PUT THE PUBLIC BACK IN PUBLIC FORUM= ====I affirm "Resolved: put the public back in public forum."==== ===OUR SOLE CONTENTION IS ALWAYS HAS BEEN.=== ====Debate's structure is taken for granted, created by those with privilege and designed to entrench advantages. The game may be objective in a vacuum, but this ignores the subjective situations of those who approach it, requiring a questioning of procedures to reclaim debate as a space for the excluded.==== **EDE WARNER 03 of CEDA **(2003, "Go Homers, Makeovers, or Takeovers? A Privilege Analysis of Debate as a Gaming Simulation", doa 5-8-2020, https://debate.uvm.edu/CADForumGaming2003.pdf) NY More often than not, talk about privilege in debate is relegated mostly to economic AND can debate become one with and embody the true spirit of the Gamemaster. ====Theory takes reason to its logical extreme. What's intended to free debate from abusive practices becomes a method of shutting debate down before it begins. We are no longer debaters, but spectators to pre-planned games written far before we enter the round. ==== **MARINUS OSSEWAARDE 10 of the University of Twente **(2010, "The Tragic Turn in the Re-Imagination of Publics", doa 4-24-2020, https://www2.grenfell.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume2014/Vol_14_Complete.pdf) NY For Nietzsche, the Heraclitean vision sees the truth about reality while tragedy subsequently transforms AND of manufactured dream-worlds, to fill an emptiness that never decreases. ====The best way to change the debate space is a game outside it, which replaces the law with an arbitrary system, beyond mere violations of existing rules. In this round, we no longer engage in the harmful status quo debates, but parody its practices to change our relationship with its law. ==== **OLE BJERG 11 of Copenhagen Business School **(2011, "Poker: The Parody of Capitalism", doa 4-25-2020, file:///C:/Users/ndy15/Desktop/PLASTIC20TOC/Ole20Bjerg20-20Poker_20The20Parody20of20Capitalism-University20of20Michigan20Press20(2011).pdf) NY To play a game is to venture into a curious domain, different and distinct AND How this space is filled it is up to the observer to determine. ====The rules of this game are simple: stop lying.==== **ADLAI STEVENSON 52 **(1952, "A quote by Adlai E. Stevenson II", doa 4-24-2020, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/287462-i-offer-my-opponents-a-bargain-if-they-will-stop) NY I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. ====These rules are ridiculous to push debate to its logical extreme. This parody is stripped down to arbitrary loss, whether you believe in the game or not.==== **GERRY COULTER 07 of Bishop's University **(2007, "Jean Baudrillard and the Definitive Ambivalence of Gaming", doa 5-7-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/1555412007309530) NY Gaming may also be, Baudrillard (1996) tells us, the only democracy AND , whereas the virtual gamer at his or her computer plays for passion. ===IMPACT 1 IS FAIRNESS=== ====The game's unfair rules create a microcosm of the greater structural inequality that debate rests on. Their arbitrariness reflects external arbitrariness, and is a reason they should lose.==== **WARREN WAREN 11 of the University of Central Florida **(2011, "Using Monopoly to Introduce Concepts of Race and Ethnic Relations", doa 4-27-2020, https://uncw.edu/jet/articles/vol11_1/waren.pdf) NY One option is to use a game. Sociologists have used games or simulations to AND relatively easy for them to spot the explicit rules which cause the inequality. ====Theory debaters are used to uplayering opposing positions to avoid clash. My case is a reason the form of their arguments are bad, to show them their arguments at their extremes. I avoid clash and uplayer them, using their strategy to demonstrate its harm.==== **RICHARD COLLING 13 of the University of Houston **(Richard Colling received a B.A., from the University of Houston. He is currently the Director of Forensics, Stony Point High School, and Partner and Co-Founder of The Forensics Files. 4-2013, "A CASE AGAINST PUNISHMENT THEORY IN LD DEBATE: OBJECTIONS TO "EMO" DEBATE", doa 5-19-2020, https://de0864aa-27a1-4329-abd2-7ae4dded9e96.filesusr.com/ugd/9896ec_b513bc286c744cf682a92f46bcc960a9.pdf) NY Just over a year ago, I took my team to one of the top AND is time to rethink how we as a community deal with punishment theory. ====Picking me up with 30 speaks is meaningless graffiti on a rigid evaluation system that's complacent in voting on their standards again and again. I reject their robotic paradigm of debate to reclaim language through irrational and non-thinking graffiti. ==== **GARY GENOSKO 17 of Lo Sguardo **(2017, "How to Lose to a Chess Playing Computer According to Jean Baudrillard", doa 5-6-2020, http://www.losguardo.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-23-Genosko.pdf) NY Readers of Baudrillard know that he thought about competition in sport and games in terms AND the sort of 'external' influence upon internal logic that interested De Saussure. ===IMPACT 2 IS EDUCATION=== ====Their preset structure's will to truth learns nothing new. Escaping external rationality is a prerequisite to real-world change, as the systems we debate in normalize clash before we can clash on the system.==== **NATHAN WIDDER 04 of Contemporary Political Theory **(2004, "The Relevance of Nietzsche to Democratic Theory: Micropolitics and the Affirmation of Difference", doa 4-26-2020, https://sci-hub.tw/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300113) NY A dynamic in which power constructs identities against resistance is often ascribed to Foucault. AND by the judiciary (see Deleuze, 1988, esp. Part 2). ====Debate's rules trap energy within it, where what we learn is not taken to improve the outside world, but to make better debate arguments. Escaping this model is a prerequisite to real-world change.==== **MAXWELL SCHNURER 03 of CEDA **(2003, "Gaming as Control: Will to Power, The Prison of Debate and a Game Called Potlatch", doa 4-24-2020, https://debate.uvm.edu/CADForumGaming2003.pdf) NY Snider's new gaming advocacy is a laundry list of positive changes in the policy debate AND might elicit something of what I desire . . . from within debate. ====My case is a critique of the form their arguments rest on, which limits its exportability and prevents social change. This isn't a question of model or content, but a demand to escape the structure itself.==== **MICHAEL RITTER 13 of UT Law **(Staff Attorney, Texas State Judiciary; former civil rights attorney; J.D., with honors, The University of Texas School of Law; B.A., cum laude, Trinity University. 1-2013, "OVERCOMING THE FICTION OF "SOCIAL CHANGE THROUGH DEBATE": WHAT'S TO LEARN FROM 2PAC'S CHANGES", doa 5-19-2020, https://de0864aa-27a1-4329-abd2-7ae4dded9e96.filesusr.com/ugd/9896ec_8b2b993ec42440ecaab1b07645385db5.pdf) NY In his immortal Changes, the supposedly late Tupac (2PAC) Shakur lamented, AND , "I see no changes," at least none for the better.

disclosure on neg

working on neg case rn tell me if u want to disclose my discord: otc user#9546

February - LGBTQ Aff

Open-source.

OCO Dark Web Contention

Contention two is the dark web US OCOs combat the dark web in three ways. The first is by de-anonymizing users. Rasool 19 states that the US government has developed the capabilities to deanonymize dark web users and then arrest them. He furthers, these tactics have created a dark web that is a “fraction” of what it once was, writing that the dark web has shrunk by 2 million users because it’s too risky to use. The second is by taking down sites. Sanchez 19 finds, government intervention has historically been successful in disrupting the dark web. That’s why he concludes that only 15 of dark web sites are still live and usable. OCOs have dramatically cut sites ability to run. Sanchez continues that dark web sites experience prolonged downtime for weeks on end. For example, while Facebook is only down .05 percent of the time, a typical dark web site is unusable for 35 percent of the time. This has a massive impact, as it decreases the number of ‘transactions’ that can be made on these sites, saving countless lives. The third is by intercepting transactions. Greenemeier ‘15 explains, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Memex tech is used to identify instances of human trafficking and large-scale drug trade on previously unsearchable sites. Deep web data is stored on pages that self-remove before traditional search engines can crawl them, making Memex tech the only option to break through dark web security to intercept drug shipments and stop instances of human trafficking. Disrupting the dark web is beneficial for 2 key reasons. The first is decreasing illegal drug sales. Boula 17 writes, most Dark Web drugs are synthetic — as fake drugs are harder to detect in the mail and easier to distribute. Bate 9 from Foreign Policy furthers, because these synthetic drugs are also the most addictive, they kill 1 million people annually at the peak of the dark web. Luckily, OCOs can stop the flow, as Power 19 writes, OCOS have struck fear into the hearts of dark web dealers, worried their identities could be exposed. Boula concludes, OCOs have had a chilling effect on total sales, with Power noting that hundreds of thousands of dark web listings have been removed over the last 12 month preventing hundreds of thousands of addictions and deaths. The second is decreasing human trafficking. Clawson 17 estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, most of whom are minors subjected to sexual abuse. Luckily, Foy 19 from MIT News tells us that OCOs have increased the number of human trafficking arrests by 57 percent. Thus, we affirm.