Round 2

1AC
 1AC
The United States should significantly reduce counter-anti-access/area-
denial strike presence in Northeast Asia, including removal of carrier
strike groups.
Current military policy is defined by fear of Chinese naval
modernization; this has facilitated both discursive and material
securitization against China’s rise through adoption of the Air-Sea Battle
concept and stationing of naval presence in Northeast Asia
- No single root cause of Chinese modernization, and it’s not just a response to the
U.S.
- Securitization  huge increases in military spending
Fredrik Nillson 12, graduate student, Department of Political Science @ Lund University,
“Securitizing China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’: An Empirical Study of the U.S. Approach to Chinese
Trade Practices, Military Modernization and Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea,”
http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2740544&fileOId=27
43569, paraphrased for ableist language
4.3 Securitizing China’s maritime capabilities
During the 2011 visit by China’s president Hu to Washington, leaders of both countries emphasized the importance of increased cooperation not least in the military sector (Chase

The U.S. has repeatedly stated that it supports a more powerful and prosperous
2011; 133).

China (ibid), and China has since 2002 repeatedly stated its intentions of a ‘peaceful rise’ (Guo 2006;
39). The need for cooperation is often deemed critical. Australian strategist Hugh White has argued that if China continues on
its current trajectory, a new order in the region will need to be established; one that takes into account the new power relativities, and that “if this doesn’t happen, there is no reason to

China has since continued on the same trajectory, but no

expect that the peace can be kept” (White 2008; 91).

further significant military cooperation or regional order has yet been on any
significant agenda. The peace has so far been kept, and the urgency of cooperation has been repeatedly
emphasized, but no major change has taken place. Rather, the relationship has during the past four
years rather gone in the opposite direction and become increasingly antagonistic. Some Chinese scholars argue that the bilateral

relations are good on the surface but that the U.S. is increasingly working towards a
containment policy (Chase 2011; 135)
The Obama administration has chosen to take a tougher approach to China’s military
modernization as the cooperation has proven to be difficult (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 53). For example, military cooperation and mutual visits were
suspended by Beijing in a reaction to a U.S.-Taiwan arms deal in 2010 (Pomfret 2010). Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated at the 2010 Shangri-La Dialogue, that the
increasing Chinese capabilities directed at Taiwan requires the U.S. to supply Taiwan with arms and that disruptions in military-tomilitary relations with China will not change U.S.

policy toward Taiwan (Gates 2010).Many people in China view Washington’s approach as increasingly
worrying and the idea that the U.S. is trying to restrain Chinese power ambitions is
getting stronger (Chase 2011; 133-134). Richard Weitz argued that the good relations established by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates were largely due to
Gates’ personal commitment and that his retirement might retard [slow] the progress (Weitz 2011). Weitz assertion seems accurate because since Gates retired military-

to-military cooperation is conspicuously absent and the Obama administration has

increasingly started to securitize China’s growing capabilities.
China’s annual military budget has over the past ten years grown faster than the overall economy, measured in GDP (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 51). There are many
different speculations as to why China is developing its military at such a rapid rate, now having the world’s second largest military budget only after the United States (The SIPRI
Military Expenditure Database). A lack of military transparency is fueling suspicion about China’s intentions in regional states and the resulting uncertainty is a source of reoccurring

recently has Beijing started to reveal some of the

diplomatic tensions (Kiselycznyk and Saunders 2010; 4-5). Only

developments that they seek to achieve. Amongst other things, China has admitted
their intention to deploy an aircraft carrier group in the near future (Wong 2010). They also
have increased submarine capabilities and they operate an underground submarine
base that enables Chinese submarines to reach deep waters rapidly and deploy
submarines to vital sea lanes with great stealth (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2010; 2)
Sea power is pursued for two main purposes. The first one is to protect SLOCs (Sea-Lanes of Communication) and seaborne commerce in peacetime, and to ensure protection of these
through sea-denial or sea-control in times of war. The second purpose is for offensive military power and aggression (Howarth 2006; 4). Howarth writes mainly about the intentions
behind Chinese submarine development and states that:

Although originally conceived to play primarily a defensive role in naval operations, the submarine has more often been the instrument of choice for offensive operations by inferior

possession of advanced, offensive weapons has often provided weaker states with
navies. And

the confidence to launch asymmetric wars against stronger opponents (Howarth 2006; 9-10)
This observation is true not only for China in this region, but also for surrounding countries like Vietnam, who, in order to hedge its
bets against China, is developing significant submarine capabilities to defend its interests in the South China Sea.

The supposed reasons behind China’s rapid and extensively developed maritime capabilities are grounded in its issues with Taiwan. Some argue that
China’s naval modernization started with the 1996 incident in which the U.S. carriers
blocked the Taiwan Strait and denied China any possibility of attack (see for example Office of the
Secretary of Defense 2011; 57). In the case of Taiwan trying to declare independence, China would use force to enforce its claims to the territory (Ross 2000; 87). The United

States has a long-standing alignment with Taiwan, something that was illustrated when the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers into the
Taiwan Strait in 1996 to counter Chinese coercive diplomacy against Taiwan (Ross 2000; 88). Even though Taiwan might be the highest priority, it is not the

only reason for China’s modernization efforts. Other goals include protecting
Chinese interest in the South China Sea; preventing piracy; protecting vital energy supply
lines; displacing U.S. power and influence in the Asia Pacific (O’Rourke 2012; 5).
the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the $5.8 billion arms package to Taiwan. This was not
In September 2011,

well received in Beijing, and the Chinese Ambassador in Washington said there would be consequences (Minnick 2011). China believes it has legitimate
reasons for being outraged about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan because of the 1982 communiqué that outlines the long-term U.S. policy towards Taiwan with a gradual decrease in arms

U.S. officials believe

sales with the goal of a future resolution (Junbo 2011). In line with the commitment of China not to let Taiwan secede from Mainland China,

that China has planned its military development in a way that will enable
enforcements of its claims of Taiwan without outside interference. This suspicion is
visible in several official documents, for example in the following statement in a
Department of Defense report to Congress:
Beijing is
The PLA seeks the capability to deter Taiwan independence and influence Taiwan to settle the dispute on Beijing’s terms. In pursuit of this objective,

developing capabilities intended to deter, delay, or deny possible U.S. support for the island
in the event of conflict. The balance of cross-Strait military forces and capabilities continues to shift in the mainland’s favor (Office of the Secretary of
Defense 2011; I).

Despite arguments that the PLAN is of little direct threat to the United States, the Obama
administration has chosen to securitize the rise of the Chinese naval capabilities. In the
strategic guidance for the Department of Defense in 2012, Obama writes in a letter that:
we will
As we end today’s wars and reshape our Armed Forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies. In particular,

continue to invest in the capabilities critical to future success, including intelligence, surveillance,
 reconnaissance; counterterrorism; countering weapons of mass destruction; operating in antiaccess
and

environments; and prevailing in all domains, including cyber (Obama’s note in Department of Defense 2012).
it officially raises the issue of operating in anti-access
The statement covers a lot of ground but, most significantly,

environment on the military security agenda. The report also makes clear the redirected focus of U.S. military strategy, saying:
“while the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-

Pacific region” (Department of Defense 2012; 2). The necessity lies in maintaining competitiveness and regional sea control. In the context of China’s lacking
transparency in military modernization, the report raises the importance of increased U.S.-Sino cooperation but also immediately addresses the inherent difficulties in doing so:

The United States will continue to make the necessary investments to ensure that we
“

maintain regional access and the ability to operate freely in keeping with out treaty
obligations and with international law ” (Department of Defense 2012; 2) and that:
China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power
States such as

projection capabilities… Accordingly, the U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its
ability to operate effectively in antiaccess and area denial (A2/AD) environments. This will
include implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept, sustaining our undersea capabilities, developing a new stealth bomber, improving missile defenses, and continuing efforts
to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based capabilities (Department of Defense 2012; 4-5).

the best way

The measures that the Department of Defense is taking to deal with China might prove difficult to justify to a wider audience. In times of budget restraints,

to justify developing increasingly advanced and costly capabilities might be through

securitization of China’s naval rise. This is what the U nited States is currently doing.
There is clear suspicion from the United States in Chinese intentions largely due to its lacking transparency and the ambiguous nature of government communications. For example,
regarding China’s policy of ‘no first strike’ a 2011 report to congress states that:

If China loosely defines a ‘strike’ to encompass some political action, this significantly alters the purportedly ‘defensive’ nature of this strategic construct. This implies that PLA forces
might be employed preemptively in the name of defense (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 25).

the U.S. has chosen to securitize China’s anti-ship ballistic

With U.S. alliances and primacy in the Western Pacific,

missiles (ASBMs) because they pose the greatest threat to U.S. ships in the event of a
Chinese anti-access operation (Wishik II 2011; 39). The A2/AD concept is not used by China, but their ASCEL (Active Strategic Counterattacks on
Exterior Lines) has many similar features, although Wishik (2011) argues that ASCEL might be seen as more extensive than A2/AD.

According to a New York Times article, the new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed Washington’s worries about
China:
We’re concerned about China… The most important thing we can do is to project our
force into the Pacific – to have our carriers there, to have our fleet there, to be able to make very
clear to China that we are going to protect international rights to be able to move across the oceans freely (Panetta quoted in Bumiller 2011).

This statement bluntly points out China as the perpetrator in the Pacific. With this serious security concern, it
also, without hedging, identifies a strong military presence as the most important thing we can

do and that U.S. interests will be protected using this military presence. The
statement lift the issue to another level of urgency, possibly so as to justify further spending
on new capabilities.
there is an inherent dichotomy in U.S.
It can be observed, by looking at U.S. discourse surrounding China’s military modernization, that

posture towards China. Chinese scholars have called this the ‘two-handed’ China policy, which features
characteristics of both engagement and containment (Chase 2011; 134). Chase argues that the Chinese
misconceptions of U.S. intentions might create a situation that proves difficult to
manage because of the attempt to employ both a firm approach of balancing power
and simultaneously accommodating China’s rise (Chase 2011; 135). The confusion is generated
by ambiguous messages in statements such as the following made by Barack Obama :
And we’ll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation. We will
do this, even as we continue to speak candidly to Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms (Obama 2011a).

Washington’s attempt to both shape and

The issues outlined are inseparable in the wider relationship, and

accommodate China is antagonistic. The securitization of China’s military

modernization might be seen as a natural development. However, it is a conscious political choice that is
effectively transforming China’s increased military security into U.S. insecurity in a
prime example of a security dilemma. The, at times, two-handed policy can be seen as a U.S. attempt to desecuritize certain threats for the
purpose of cooperation. However, in the current climate, this has been deemed increasingly complicated.

4.4 Extraordinary measures

Arguably, the easiest way to determine whether a securitization speech act has been successful or not is by looking at how a perceived threat discourse has shaped policy, and how
extraordinary measures have been adopted to deal with a specific threat (Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde 1998; 26). In the two sections dealing with the political and the military sectors,
the extraordinary measures have come in the form of a concerted development in a wider political and strategic development. There are arguably three overarching, cross-sectorial,

extraordinary measures that can be identified as being employed in direct response to

the securitizations discussed above.
Firstly, to deal with the issues of territorial sovereignty and China’s claims to disputed territory, and to protect international rules and norms, the U.S. has increased its military
cooperation with the Philippines. In early 2012, the U.S. and Philippines performed major joint naval exercises as a way to increase Philippine capabilities and to enable the U.S. to
charter the volatile waters of the South China Sea (Odgaard 2003; 16). The U.S. also worked to improve its relationship with Vietnam. Secondly, as a wider measure to increase
presence and flexibility in the region, president Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the stationing of the U.S. Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) in
Australia’s Northern Territory with the goal of having 2500 marines stationed there for six months per year by 2016 (White House 2011). This officially aims to improve relations with
Australia and to enable fast-reaction operations in response to natural disasters. But the context of the announcement, and the current developments in the region has prompted

deployment is a piece in a much larger puzzle to circle China. Thirdly, and perhaps the
suspicion that the

most extensive measure employed, is the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) developed by the United
States. The central purpose of the JOAC (2012) is stated as follows:
As a global power with global interests, the United States must maintain the credible capability to project military force into any region of the world in support of those interests. This

the ability to project force both into the global commons to ensure their use and
includes

into foreign territory as required. Moreover, the credible ability to do so can serve as a
reassurance to U.S. partners and a powerful deterrent to those contemplating
actions that threaten U.S. interests (JOAC 2012; 2)
the new Air-Sea Battle concept, which aims to bring together the Navy and
The JOAC includes

the Air Force in developing integration between the different forces to deal with a
wider range of threats from cyber to A2/AD threats (JOAC 2012; 4). This concept is central to
U.S. securitizations in the Asia Pacific region and constitutes a wide range of
emergency measures to deal with the growing threat of Chinese military
modernization towards which it is most clearly directed. These developments are but the most significant. They are all arguably
integrated into what might resemble a ‘grand strategy’.

These force deployments lead to everyday structural violence through

land seizures and environmental damage
- Nuclear carrier puts Tokyo at risk, land seizures on Jeju Islands, harassment by
soldiers, environmental damage, decrease in social spending
Joseph Gerson 12, directs the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American
Friends Service Committee’s Northeast region, member of the Working Group for Peace
and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific, 9/13/12, “Reinforcing Washington’s Asia-Pacific Hegemony,”
http://www.ips-dc.org/reinforcing_washingtons_asia-pacific_hegemony/

Military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand, which serve as “the fulcrum for our strategi c turn to
Having adopted an air-sea battle doctrine, the Pentagon has
the Asia-Pacific,” are being revitalized.
committed to deploying 60 percent of its nuclear-armed and high-tech navy to the
Asia-Pacific. According to the New York Times, this includes “six aircraft carriers and a majority of the Navy’s
cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines , [and] an accelerated pace of naval
exercises and port calls in the Pacific.”

Recognizing that relying on military power alone is not a winning strategy, especially given the near-equal influence of economic power,
the Obama administration has also pressed a diplomatic campaign to negotiate a “Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The goal is to create the
world’s largest and most demanding free-trade area in ways that deepen the economic integration of the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific allies
while simultaneously reducing their economic dependence on China.

The expansion has come at a price for the region’s people.

In Japan it means reaffirming the nuclear alliance, despite President Obama’s ostensible commitment to creating a nuclear -weapons-free
world. It also means amplified efforts to pacify Okinawan resistance to decades of U.S.
military colonization, the continued and dangerous basing of the nuclear-capable USS George
Washington aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay, the deployment of accident-prone Osprey aircraft in the urban Futenma base in
Okinawa, accelerated missile defense deployments, and expanded joint intelligence operations targeting China and North Korea.

In South Korea, where the U.S. military continues to have authority over all South Korean military operations in wartime, joint military
exercises have been expanded — including in the Yellow Sea, where in defiance of Chinese warnings, the United States recently deployed
the George Washington. To take the naval challenge closer to the Chinese coast, a massive
Korean naval base is being built at a World Heritage site in Jeju Island’s Gangjeon village, which according to
Yonhap News will “accommodate submarines and up to 20 warships, including U.S. Aegis-equipped destroyers and their missile defense
systems.” This has sparked intense and disciplined nonviolent resistance in Korea.
In Southeast Asia, the Obama administration upped the military ante by responding to China’s increasingly militarized claims to nearly
all of the mineral-rich South China Sea—through which 40 percent of the world’s commerce passes—by declaring (U.S.-policed) free
navigation of the seas a U.S. strategic priority. Reinforcing Philippine claims to the “West Philippine Sea,” the Pentagon ha s also increased
weapons sales to the Philippines, accelerated joint military exercises, and explored the return of military bases. The pivot also entails
strengthening the U.S. military’s relationships with Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam, with the latter eng aging in joint
military exercises and under its “friends with all nations” policies, providing access for U.S. and allied navies at Cam Rahn Bay.
Washington’s renewed ties and military-to-military contacts with Burma, which could restrict China’s access to the Indian Ocean, have
also raised serious concerns in Beijing.

To complete China’s encirclement, the Obama administration has established a new Indian Ocean base in Darwin, Australia, purs ued a
tacit alliance with India, and is expanding its “partnerships” with New Zealand and Mongolia. In April, the Unit ed States even won an
agreement to keep a yet-to-be-determined number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan through 2024. Closer to home, Hawaii is to host nearly
3,000 more Marines, Osprey warplanes, and further base expansions.

Meanwhile the Chamorro people of Guam, whose tiny island nation’s strategic location makes it an ideal fallback site for the day when
U.S. troops are finally ejected from Japan, are bearing the brunt of the pivot. Even though U.S. bases already occupy 28 percent of the 500-
square-mile island, 3,000 more U.S. Marines and their families are scheduled to be redeployed to Guam from Okinawa, and there are
plans for massive expansions of existing bases.

In an August 2012 speech in Japan, Cara Flores-Mays of Guam explained what the pivot will mean for her Chamorro grandfather: “He has
not known freedom,” she said, “and it’s likely that he never will.” The same applies to the peoples of many other Asia-Pacific nations, who
have largely been shunted aside in the great-power calculus governing U.S. policy in the region.

The Peace Movement’s Pivot

The United States and China, joined by other Asian and Pacific nations, are now engaged in a dangerous,
expensive arms race reminiscent of the Cold War.
When great powers compete, the peoples and interests of smaller nations are often
sacrificed. Caught between China’s rising influence and the U.S. pivot, the people of “host” nations and
communities are paying the greatest price. Over two centuries ago, the authors of the U.S. Declaration of
Independence identified the peacetime presence of British troops in their communities as the source of “abuses and usurpation s”
necessitating rebellion. Now it is the
peoples of the Pacific and Asia who are suffering and
increasingly resisting the impacts of the pivot, be they land seizures, harassment by
U.S. soldiers, terrorizing low-altitude flight exercises, assaults on the environment,
distorted national budgets, or the increased dangers of catastrophic warfare.
If catastrophic wars are to be prevented and limited national resources devoted to
ensuring genuine economic and environmental security, the U.S. peace movement
must begin challenging the pivot and its consequences . Already, there are indications that the
movement’s own “pivot” has begun.

It also makes war and nuclear escalation likely – offensive naval

presence means both sides will have use-or-lose pressures in a crisis
David W. Kearn 14, is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Politics
at St. John’s University, “Air-Sea Battle, the Challenge of Access, and U.S. National Security
Strategy,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 36:34-43
The explicit objectives of ASB of defeating the adversary may only
• Regional Stability:

exacerbate existing mistrust between Washington and Beijing and reinforce Beijing’s
fears about U.S. intentions in the region. 51 In turn, this could make China more
assertive and difficult to negotiate with in the future and increase the probability of a
crisis or conflict over Taiwan or other disputed territories in the region. More specifically, if a
political crisis arose, the U.S. commitment to a highly offensive ASB concept could
lead Beijing to view a first strike as preferable to allowing the United States to seize
the initiative. Finally, this approach and subsequent envisioned developments may
only exacerbate what may be a nascent arms race in the region, decreasing overall
stability and security and potentially making a conflict more likely.52
a second major concern about
• Escalation: At the same time, while China is not a clear peer competitor (as was the Soviet Union),

the adoption of ASB as a U.S. response to a future conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere
in East Asia is China’s possession of nuclear weapons. The potential escalation
dangers inherent in ASB as it is presented are alarming.53 Considering that the key
objective of ASB seems to be precisely the “blinding” or “dazzling” of the enemy to
attain the ability to launch effective in-depth offensive operations, the United States
would face the danger of possibly targeting the specific capacity to keep a conflict
limited and avoid loss of control of strategic weapons by Beijing. By most estimates, China’s strategic
deterrent remains relatively small, although the opaque nature of China’s military programs has led some analysts to argue that this deterrent may be much
larger. Nonetheless, Beijing’s policy seems focused on maintaining a “guaranteed retaliation” capability, meaning that even if it were to suffer a major attack,
assuming that Beijing could maintain
it would still have the capacity to respond and inflict prohibitive damage. However,

control of its weapons under an ASB attack, any perceived threat to its strategic
deterrent capability could unleash a “use it or lose it” dynamic that could result in
the use of nuclear weapons. Finally, if the regime perceived that U.S. objectives were not
limited and were focused on regime change or if a devastating loss (of Taiwan
perhaps) would make likely the regime’s demise, the pressure to use nuclear
weapons could be significant.

This impact is supported by large dataset statistical testing and robust

case studies
Michael Ryan Kraig 13, assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command
and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base; and Leon J. Perkowski, PhD candidate in the
history of US foreign relations senior instructor in the Department of International Security
and Military Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, Summer 2013, “Shaping Air and
Sea Power for the “Asia Pivot”: Military Planning to Support Limited Geopolitical
Objectives,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, p. 114-136
One might argue that the capability to win such a large war decisively would inherently
deter an opponent from escalating to that point. However, in the security studies literature, the
concept and empirical reality of diplomatically destabilizing weapons capabilities has been
thoroughly analyzed and described under the rubric of “offensive dominance,” as opposed to “defense” or “deterrence
dominance.” Large dataset statistical testing, together with in-depth case studies covering the
great-power periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have together shown
across different methodologies that when major powers harbor weapons at an
operational level that can easily preempt the other side’s forces quickly, this
exacerbates the grand strategy–level condition known as “international anarchy.” The decision
calculus can quickly veer toward preventive war or preemptive strikes because decision
makers are tempted through both opportunity and genuine fear to “strike first” to
keep a rival from gaining a decisive operational, and hence, strategic edge.39
Thus, a
US approach to force procurement and employment that is overly focused on offensive
strategic interdiction in order to secure victory—even of a nonnuclear variety—could easily have a
deleterious strategic political effect during both periods of “general deterrence” in
peacetime and during a diplomatic-military crisis. In essence, Bernard Brodie’s 1959 assessment of
nuclear deterrence strategies is generally applicable here: “[A] plan and policy which offers a good promise of deterring war is . . . better
in every way than one which depreciates the objectives of deterrence in order to improve somewhat the chances of winning” (emphasis
added).40

Carrier presence uniquely increases escalation risks – removal from

Northeast Asia resolves the use-or-lose dilemma
Robert Haddick 13, Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal, independent contractor to U.S.
Special Operations Command, he has advised the State Department, the National
Intelligence Council, and U.S. Central Command, “CRISIS MANAGEMENT NEEDS A
MAKEOVER,” Nov. 18, http://warontherocks.com/2013/11/crisis-management-needs-a-
makeover/
the old U.S. crisis management playbook may in the future accelerate
Indeed, long-familiar moves in

rather than de-escalate some crises. For example, moving U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups
closer to the crisis, previously a strong signal of U.S. resolve, could paradoxically
induce an attack on the carriers and other U.S. forward bases by Chinese missile
forces. In a crisis, Chinese military commanders will have an incentive to strike the
aircraft carriers before the carriers’ aircraft come in range of Chinese targets. Having made
that decision, Chinese commanders may reason that they should attack U.S. forward air

bases in the region too.

The very high weighting of short-
This exposes an increasingly perilous flaw in the current structure of U.S. military power in the region.

range tactical air power in the U.S. portfolio, based at vulnerable forward bases and
on aircraft carriers, creates a potentially dangerous “use it, or lose it” urgency during
future crises. If more of U.S. striking power had a longer range and was based at more secure sites
farther from crisis flashpoints, U.S. decision-makers and commanders would find
themselves under much less pressure during crises. Similarly, adversaries would not
find an advantage in striking first, nor would they be compelled to assume that U.S.
policy-makers were under that same pressure.

Withdrawing strike presence significantly reduces the propensity for

US/China war – addressing the particular variables that have increased
the risk conflict is most productive
- Propensity for war is more heavily influenced by situational variables than root
causes
G. John Ikenberry 14, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton
University, with Adam P. Liff, Assistant Professor of East Asian International Relations at
Indiana University's School of Global and International Studies, “Racing toward Tragedy?:
China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma,” Fall,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ISEC_a_00176#.Ve5kZhFViko
While the sources of security dilemma military competition may have deep
structural roots, in the Asia Pacific today, its intensity is heavily contingent on
situational variables—uncertainty, misperceptions, strategic mistrust, and the
failure to establish credible assurances of restraint. Indeed, if the involved states recognize that current tensions are to
some degree driven by a security dilemma, opportunities to ameliorate frictions exist . Specific to China's rise and its consequences,
five types of steps may be particularly effective. Given space constraints, we focus our recommendations specifically on the United States and China.¶ First, Beijing and Washington

Self-understood defensively oriented policies

must both recognize that they are at least partially caught in a security dilemma.

are generating insecurity and military responses on the other side that make both
countries less secure and trigger new rounds of competition. The United States must
avoid being unnecessarily provocative in its strategic moves and rhetoric, more proactively
explaining the comprehensive (not military-specific) nature of its growing focus on the Asia Pacific and linking it explicitly to a stable regional status quo that serves the interests of all.
China's leaders need to appreciate the security dilemma as a concept—and as a security problem that threatens China's own interests—and adopt measures to significantly reduce
widespread uncertainty about Beijing's military capabilities and intentions. China must recognize that its rise is not occurring in a strategic vacuum; while it has the right to develop
military power commensurate with its coveted status, regardless of its true intentions, under anarchy doing so will have consequences as other states adopt measures to enhance their
own security. Yet anarchy is by no means determinative of outcomes; without major changes to its policies and rhetoric, Beijing's military buildup may trigger even more severe, and
unwelcome, defensive responses from the United States and others. Even well-intentioned states whose leaders do not harbor what Beijing often uncritically dismisses as “ulterior
motives” to “contain China's peaceful rise” are likely to respond to its growing capabilities and uncertainty over its future intentions in ways that will leave China less secure. For
leaders on both sides to acknowledge a security dilemma at work is to open up a bargaining space for reciprocal steps to manage and moderate the otherwise potentially dangerous
spirals of competition.¶ Second, each side should do more to candidly share information about its interpretations of the other's policies and rhetoric. To do so effectively necessitates
more active diplomacy—dialogues, exchanges, and ongoing intergovernmental working groups—and this must be a two-way street. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue held
annually among policymakers in Washington and Beijing is a good first step. The goal of these dialogues is to provide more systematic and credible information about the intentions of
the other side. This is particularly important in the area of intermilitary dialogues, where both sides must candidly explain their strategic intentions, operational goals, and doctrines.
Intermilitary dialogues have increased, but remain infrequent, under-institutionalized, and superficial. They must not be conditional on the vicissitudes of political relations.¶ Third,
both sides should increase transparency of their military capabilities, strategic objectives, and military policy decisionmaking. Greater transparency can reduce uncertainty, thereby
decreasing the risks of miscalculations that lead to war. Washington must more effectively explain why exactly China's low transparency harms strategic trust, making clear how the
paucity of reliable information creates strong incentives for defensively oriented worst-case scenario planning. Beijing should understand that if its motives are in fact status quo-
oriented, it does both itself and its neighbors a severe disservice by not being more transparent about the drivers and content of its military policies. Regardless of per capita income
or other developmental metrics, China has the world's second-largest economy and military budget, with both growing rapidly. Under these conditions, and regardless of the Chinese
Communist Party's and PLA's extremely conservative political culture and traditions, for policymaking to remain a closed and opaque system is unnecessarily destabilizing and invites
miscalculation and military competition.¶ Fourth, both sides should establish and strengthen diplomatic mechanisms for bargaining. When the presence of a security dilemma is
recognized by both sides, mechanisms need to be available for leaders to offer reciprocal, and verifiable, gestures of restraint. These sorts of bargains will ultimately need to be
negotiated at the highest levels. Beijing and Washington also have strong incentives to significantly expand routine communications and strengthen personal relationships at all levels,
which help to build confidence generally and, in the event of an unintended clash, can also significantly enhance crisis management.¶ Finally, China, the United States, and other
countries in the region need to continue to shape and improve the wider political and strategic context in which military competition is unfolding. One check on security dilemma–
driven military competition is the diffuse benefits in other domains (e.g., political, economic) put at risk by worsening spirals and strategic rivalry. Even in the military domain,
cooperation in other areas—such as nontraditional security—can facilitate confidence building and expand the aperture beyond an exclusive focus of leaders on areas of friction and
potential threat. The involvement of the PLA Navy in the 2014 RIMPAC multilateral exercises and, since 2008, the multinational antipiracy operation in the Gulf of Aden have
demonstrated mutually beneficial gains from cooperation. With regard to maritime and territorial sovereignty disputes, until peaceful resolutions are achieved, the likelihood of an
unintended clash can be reduced significantly through concrete and enforceable codes of conduct, shared exploitation of resources in the disputed areas, side payments, enhanced
crisis management mechanisms, and regular investments in active diplomacy.¶ Not all military competition in the Asia Pacific in driven by the security dilemma logic, nor can all
security dilemmas be solved through diplomatic bargains and policies of reassurance. There are no guarantees that any of the above steps will dramatically reverse the worsening

While its
strategic environment in the Asia Pacific, much less end strategic rivalry and military competition. China's rise is ongoing, and its true intentions are unknowable.

provocative policies vis-à-vis maritime and territorial sovereignty claims present

serious grounds for concern, especially regarding whether its leaders grasp how its policies are perceived outside China, a clash is by
no means predetermined.¶ While history teaches us to be wary of security dilemma–
induced military competition and war, it also demonstrates that not all cases of
rising powers end tragically. No outcome is inevitable. How current frictions play out
will be contingent on the choices of leaders. Given the catastrophic regional and global consequences of a war in the Asia Pacific
today—recognized by leaders on both sides—even modest steps to reduce uncertainty and engender

restraint are worthwhile. If Washington is to make the first move, it should make the steps delineated above one condition for possible future conferral
upon China of Beijing's coveted recognition as a “great power.” The “new-type great power relations” concept proposed by President Xi remains, at best, vague in specifics, and
Washington's acceptance of it today is ill advised.126 The concept, however, appears to be predicated at least partially on an encouraging, and shared, understanding of one obvious
truth: avoiding a tragic race to military conflict is in the best interests of all states in the Asia Pacific, especially China.

Militarism results from the confluence of a diffuse set of causal factors –

as such, searching for pragmatic solutions to particular instances is the
most effective way to challenge it
- Militarism is not caused by a specific group of elites, not an inevitable outcome
- Analogous to pollution – caused by confluence of many decisions made without
careful cost-benefit analysis
- Policies to resist militarism must be politically feasible, not too sweeping
- Similar to pollution, militarism must be undone by incremental improvements
Andrew Bacevich 13, Professor of History and International Relations at Boston University
and Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, The New American
Militarism, p. 205-210
There is, wrote H. L. Mencken, “always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”1 Mencken’s aphorism applies in spades
To imagine that there exists a simple antidote to the “military
to the subject of this account.

metaphysic” to which the people and government of the United States have fallen
prey is to misconstrue the problem. As the foregoing chapters make plain, the origins of America’s
present-day infatuation with military power are anything but simple. American
militarism is not the invention of a cabal nursing fantasies of global empire and
manipulating an unsuspecting people frightened by the events of 9/11. Further, it is
counterproductive to think in these terms— to assign culpability to a particular president or administration and to
imagine that throwing the bums out will put things right. Yet neither does the present-day status of the United

States as sole superpower reveal an essential truth, whether positive or negative,

about the American project. Enthusiasts (mostly on the right) who interpret America’s possession of unrivaled
 are deluded. But so too are those
and unprecedented armed might as proof that the United States enjoys the mandate of heaven

(mostly on the left) who see in the far-flung doings of today’s U.S. military
establishment substantiation of Major General Smedley Butler’s old chestnut that “war is just a racket” and the
American soldier “a gangster for capitalism” sent abroad to do the bidding of Big Business
or Big Oil.2 Neither the will of God nor the venality of Wall Street suffices to explain how
the United States managed to become stuck in World War IV. Rather, the new American militarism is a little like

pollution—the perhaps unintended, but foreseeable by-product of prior choices and

decisions made without taking fully into account the full range of costs likely to be
incurred. In making the industrial revolution, the captains of American enterprise did not consciously set out to foul the environment, but as they
harnessed the waters, crisscrossed the nation with rails, and built their mills and refineries, negative consequences ensued. Lakes and rivers became choked
with refuse, the soil contaminated, and the air in American cities filthy. By the time that the industrial age approached its zenith in the middle of the
twentieth century, most Americans had come to take this for granted; a degraded environment seemed the price you had to pay in exchange for material
abundance and by extension for freedom and opportunity. Americans might not like pollution, but there seemed to be no choice except to put up with it. To
appreciate that this was, in fact, not the case, Americans needed a different consciousness. This is where the environmental movement, beginning more or
less in the 1960s, made its essential contribution. Environmentalists enabled Americans to see the natural world and their relationship to that world in a
.
different light. They argued that the obvious deterioration in the environment was unacceptable and not at all inevitable. Alternatives did exist

Different policies and practices could stanch and even reverse the damage. Purists in
that movement insisted upon the primacy of environmental needs, everywhere and in all cases. Theirs was (and is) a principled position

deserving to be heard. To act on their recommendations, however, would likely mean

shutting down the economy, an impractical and politically infeasible course of action. Pragmatists

advanced a different argument. They suggested that it was possible to negotiate a

compromise between economic needs and environmental imperatives. This compromise might
oblige Americans to curtail certain bad habits, but it did not require changing the fundamentals of how they lived their lives. Americans could keep their cars
and continue their love affair with consumption; but at the same time they could also have cleaner air and cleaner water. Implementing this compromise has
produced an outcome that environmental radicals (and on the other side, believers in laissez-faire capitalism) today find unsatisfactory. In practice, it turns
out, once begun negotiations never end. Bargaining is continuous, contentious, and deeply politicized. Participants in the process seldom come away with
everything they want. Settling for half a loaf when you covet the whole is inevitably frustrating.
But the results are self-evident. Environmental conditions in the United States today are palpably
better than they were a half century ago. Pollution has not been vanquished, but it has become
more manageable. Furthermore, the nation has achieved those improvements without imposing on citizens undue burdens and without
preventing its entrepreneurs from innovating, creating, and turning a profit. Restoring a semblance of balance and good sense to the

way that Americans think about military power will require a similarly pragmatic
approach. Undoing all of the negative effects that result from having been seduced by war may lie
beyond reach, but Americans can at least make them more manageable and thereby salvage
their democracy. In explaining the origins of the new American militarism, this account has not sought to assign or to impute blame. None of
the protagonists in this story sat down after Vietnam and consciously plotted to propagate perverse attitudes toward military power any more than Andrew
Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller plotted to despoil the nineteenth-century American landscape. The clamor after Vietnam to rebuild the American arsenal and
to restore American self-confidence, the celebration of soldierly values, the search for ways to make force more usable: all of these came about because
groups of Americans thought that they glimpsed in the realm of military affairs the solution to vexing problems. The soldiers who sought to rehabilitate their
profession, the intellectuals who feared that America might share the fate of Weimar, the strategists wrestling with the implications of nuclear weapons, the
conservative Christians appalled by the apparent collapse of traditional morality: none of these acted out of motives that were inherently dishonorable. To
the extent that we may find fault with the results of their efforts, that fault is more appropriately attributable to human fallibility than to malicious intent.
And yet in the end it is not motive that matters but outcome . Several decades after Vietnam, in the aftermath of a
century filled to overflowing with evidence pointing to the limited utility of armed force and the dangers inherent in relying excessively on military power,
the American people have persuaded themselves that their best prospect for safety
and salvation lies with the sword. Told that despite all of their past martial exertions, treasure expended, and lives sacrificed, the
world they inhabit is today more dangerous than ever and that they must redouble those exertions, they dutifully assent. Much as dumping raw sewage into
today “global power projection”—a phrase whose sharp edges
American lakes and streams was once deemed unremarkable, so

has become standard

we have worn down through casual use, but which implies military activism without apparent limit—

practice, a normal condition, one to which no plausible alternatives seem to exist. All of this Americans
 Such a definition of normalcy cries out for a close
have come to take for granted: it’s who we are and what we do.

and critical reexamination. Surely, the surprises, disappointments, painful losses, and woeful, even shameful failures of the Iraq War
make clear the need to rethink the fundamentals of U.S. military policy. Yet a meaningful reexamination will require first a change of consciousness, seeing
war and America’s relationship to war in a fundamentally different way.

The affirmative utilizes a strategy of “immanent critique” – a nuanced

examination of securitization and its particular effects in the context of
U.S. naval deployments in Northeast Asia. Reorienting critical studies
away from universalizing assumptions toward recognizing
securitization’s differing effects in differing contexts is key to ensure its
continued utility
- “Immanent critique” = location of possibilities for progressive change in existing
political orders through nuanced and context-specific analyses of the politics of
security
- Different security discourses have different effects in different settings/contexts
Christopher S. Browning 11, Reader of Politics and International Studies @ the University
of Warwick, and Matt McDonald, Associate Professor @ the University of Queensland, “The
future of critical security studies: Ethics and the politics of security,” European Journal of
International Relations, Sage
Conclusion: Where to from here? The future of critical security studies

If the critical security studies project is deficient in providing us with a sophisticated

and convincing understanding of either the politics or ethics of security — two core animating themes of its research agenda — where
does this leave such a project? Does the contribution of critical security studies extend no further than a compelling critique of traditional approaches to security on a range of
analytical and normative grounds?

We would argue that there is a future in critical security studies. This future will
ultimately be determined by the extent to which scholars recognize the limits and
tensions of existing approaches (especially ‘Schools’) and take up the challenge of moving
beyond first principles or universalized assumptions about security to engage in
nuanced, reflexive and context-specific analyses of the politics and ethics of security.
Indeed, we make such a case using the critical theoretical tool of immanent critique,

defined here as a method of critique concerned with locating possibilities for

progressive change in existing social and political orders.6 In this context, we note in
particular the possibility for building upon the tensions and limits in existing critical
security studies scholarship to move this research project forward. We identify two
key imperatives for this project by way of conclusion.
The first of these imperatives concerns the need to develop understandings of the politics
of security that are context-specific; that recognize and interrogate the role of
different security discourses and their effects in different settings; and that come to
terms with sedimented meanings and logics without endorsing these as timeless and
inevitable. In terms of context-specificity, the Western-centric nature of (critical) security studies has ultimately encouraged a focus on how security ‘works’ in liberal
democratic settings. This is particularly applicable to the Copenhagen School framework, whose dichotomy between ‘panic politics’ and ‘normal politics’ ultimately suggests a
conception of politics parasitic on a liberal democratic political context (see McDonald, 2008; Williams, 2003). While some have attempted to explore securitization dynamics outside
these settings (e.g. Wilkinson, 2007), the framework itself continues to work with a security–politics dichotomy that may be wholly unfamiliar to those outside liberal democratic
 In
states. In a fundamentally illiberal state regime such as Burma or North Korea, for example, what does the language of security do and what does ‘normal politics’ mean?

what ways do different cultural, social and historical contexts determine different
security logics, and how do these dynamics look in terms of communities above and
below the state? And can we accept the claim that there is no difference in the logic
or effects of securitization if security is understood as referring to the welfare of the
most vulnerable in global society, for example, rather than the territorial
preservation of the nation-state? Here, the failure to differentiate between logics of security on the basis of what understanding of security
inheres in a particular discourse potentially blinds [obscures] Copenhagen School and poststructural theorists of security to (the possibility of) difference in security dynamics and
logics in different places, for different actors and at different times. In the case of the Copenhagen School, such parsimony might be in part a response to the desire to provide analytical
boundaries around the study of security rather than ‘descend’ into contextual analysis (see Williams, 2010: 213–216), but it nonetheless results in a partial and (we would argue)
Western-centric image of the politics of security.

Ultimately, these points suggest the need for far more nuance than is currently evident in
critical security studies scholarship. As noted earlier, the critical security studies project
appears bifurcated between opposing logics of security that position the logic of
security as inherently pernicious (Copenhagen School, post-structuralism) or inherently progressive (Welsh
School). In a sense, these ‘Schools’ correct the limits and tendencies of each other in important

ways, suggesting (immanent) possibilities for a more nuanced understanding of the

politics of security in the critical security studies project as a whole. Copenhagen
School and post-structural theorists explore the logic of security that follows from the dominant discourse of security in contemporary world
politics, rightly cautioning against any assumed linkage between security and progress

and pointing to the ways in which the promise of security can be used to justify
illiberal practices. The Welsh School framework, meanwhile, recognizes that this
dominant discourse of security does not necessarily capture the essence of security
across time and space, in the process pointing to possibilities for progressive change in
security dynamics and practices. In a sense, these different approaches to the logic of security broadly reflect structural and agential tendencies
in International Relations more generally. We would argue that they suggest the need to take seriously the political limitations associated with dominant security discourses while
recognizing and exploring the possibility for security to mean and do something different.

A brief analysis of the different constitutive security logics underlying various

security communities around the world provides ample evidence of the problems of
universalizing claims about the politics of security. As Rumelili (2008) has noted, an instructive
comparison can be drawn between the EU and ASEAN, in particular in terms of how
these organizations’ conception of self-identity results in them relating themselves
to otherness very differently. Propounding an inherently inclusive (i.e. democratic) identity and normative agenda, the EU is liable
to locate otherness in an inferior position to itself, as something to transform and
render acceptable/normal. Otherness is therefore something to be eradicated and to
the extent to which it rejects transformation, it becomes destabilizing and
potentially threatening. Such processes are, for example, clearly evident in the
European Neighbourhood Policy (Browning and Pertti, 2008). In contrast, ASEAN operates with a
largely exclusivist (i.e. civilizational, geographic, ethnic) identity where norms of sovereignty and non-
interference dominate. This, Rumelili suggests, facilitates more equitable relationships with
otherness since the goal in such relationships is not one of conversion to the cause. In
terms of the politics of security, what becomes evident here is how concepts of security and subjectivity are intimately connected to conceptions of identity and the limits of political
community in different contexts.

The second imperative for the future of the critical security studies project concerns the ethics of security. We advanced the claim that a shared concern with expanding the realm of
dialogue underpins much of the critical security studies project, albeit to different degrees and in different ways. But to the extent that an ethics of security — a conception of the good
or progress regarding security — orients around a concern with such a position, this commitment needs to be acknowledged and defended. A range of pressing questions suggest
themselves here, including the bases for prioritizing open dialogue; the relationship between spheres of deliberation and material conditions of existence; the possibilities for and
limitations to the establishment of open dialogue; and the broader relationship between dialogue and outcomes. Elaborating on these commitments would also entail engaging with
the argument that movements towards greater dialogue could potentially encourage the desire to exclude power, identity, emotion and other central features of global politics (see
Price, 2008).

Where difficult questions emerge about this and other dimensions of an ‘ethical’ engagement with security — such as the role of violence in the Welsh School framework, for example
(Peoples, 2011) — these need to be confronted. If there is a consistency across critical security studies scholarship in this sense, it is that ethical commitments are evident (in
commitments to resistance, desecuritization or emancipation, for example) but are insufficiently developed to provide a genuine account of what constitutes ethical action regarding
security. Indeed, immanent possibilities for the development of the critical security studies project arise from these (often implied) commitments that need drawing out and
examining in the context of difficult dilemmas in world politics. This process of drawing out ethical commitments should be viewed as a reflexive movement towards recognizing the
assumptions and potential implications of one’s own theorizing, a position central to both broader definitions of Critical Theory (see Cox, 1981) and to the compelling critique of
traditional security studies as insufficiently engaged with the ethics and effects of its own theorizing about world politics. And it needs also to be matched up with the preceding
understanding of the politics of security. Is the expansion of deliberation and movement away from violence, for example, always progressive, and does it require the rejection of
security as a political category or its reform?

The example of Australian debates around the arrival by boat of asylum-seekers in 2010 illustrates tensions and ambiguities at work regarding the ethics of security, particularly as
understood in key critical approaches to the study of security. In that context, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s call for ‘a frank, open, honest national conversation’ about asylum
and border security particularly encouraged the articulation of negative and exclusionary views of asylum-seekers, paradoxically rendering the (re)securitization of asylum in the
Australian context more likely (see McDonald, 2011). Particularly striking here was the Prime Minister’s suggestion that this national conversation should take place outside the limits
imposed by political correctness that would otherwise discourage the articulation of right-wing or racist sentiments towards asylum-seekers. In this example, the apparent opening of
dialogic space encouraged by the Prime Minister was intimately related to the movement towards exclusionary security logics and practices orienting around the imperatives of
‘border security’.

The point of this example is not to illustrate the limits of open dialogue per se, but rather to illustrate two broader claims regarding the relationship between security and ethics in the
critical security studies project that we make here. First, while normative preferences are evident, these are often insufficiently developed or robust to enable the ethical adjudication
between different practices or outcomes. The normative preference for deliberation evident in the commitment to desecuritization, for example, is not sufficiently robust to enable us
to engage with difficult questions concerning the forms of deliberation that should be encouraged or even the circumstances in which ‘hate speech’, for example, might be curtailed (on
this, see Gelber, 2010). Second, and to return to the central argument of the article, the Australian example reminds us of the need to explore the implications of security conceptions
and practices in particular contexts, rather than assume that a particular security logic will inhere — or outcomes will follow — from the use of the term ‘security’ or a stated political
commitment to ‘dialogue’.

The core challenge for the critical security studies project is ultimately moving
beyond critique and agenda-setting and towards a contextual analysis of security dynamics and
practices in global politics. There is no question that a focus on the politics of
security and the ethics of security are crucial intellectual endeavours too readily
elided or ignored in traditional approaches to the study of security. For this reason
alone we need a ‘critical security studies project’. However, universalizing claims
concerning the politics of security — found in the securitization framework and
much post-structural engagement with security — must ultimately give way to
nuanced analyses of the ways in which security is constructed and challenged in
particular social, historical and political contexts. A range of theorists have — in different ways — sought to engage with
precisely this question, illustrating the various ways in which security dynamics ‘play out’ in different settings in terms of constructing community (e.g. Bubandt, 2005), challenging
identity binaries (e.g. Avant, 2007) or enabling space for different forms of political response (e.g. Doty, 1998/9). Yet these insights ultimately remain marginal to key ‘Schools’ and
conceptual frameworks of security, and are too often forgotten in our search for the universal in a complex world.

Beyond the development of nuance in our understanding of the ‘politics of security’,

the critical security studies project urgently needs to move beyond normative ‘leaps
of faith’ concerning the ethics of security. This particularly applies to the Copenhagen and Welsh School preference for dialogue as a
progressive means of escaping exclusive and illiberal security logics and practices. While genuinely open dialogue regarding the construction of security and threat has much to
recommend it, crucial here is the need for advocates to reflect upon and lay bare the bases upon which these claims are made in philosophical terms, and to reflexively examine the

This too suggests

implications of alternative security conceptions and practices in analytical terms rather than assume particular dynamics to be progressive.

the need to move towards a focus on the particular social, historical and political
contexts in which security is constructed and practised in global politics.
Specifically, the affirmative recognizes that securitization is not a
universal bad. While fear can be used to justify violence, as is being done
in Northeast Asia, it can also be used to justify the opposite – a rejection
of securitized politics. The 1AC engages in a “liberalism of fear” – a fear
of security-based politics itself and the violence it can cause. This
nuanced approach is the most effective means of constraining security’s
excesses both abroad and at home.
- Fear can inhibit securitization, constrain extremity
- Violence is ineradicable
- Fear is an inescapable part of life and can be life-saving in many instances
- Coercive government is not a universal bad – it can provide many useful social
goods
- Fear of fear constrains the worst excesses of fear-based politics
- Fear of fear at the individual/group level can constrain political actors – creates high
costs to extremity
- Post-9/11 proves – despite viewing AQ as an existential threat, fear of overreaction
(e.g. torture) led to political and legal opposition
Michael C. Williams 11, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Ottawa, “Securitization and the liberalism of fear,” Security Dialogue 42(4-5), 453-463,
Sage
Introduction

Fear is not a concept (or indeed a word) often found in securitization theory. Instead, the Copenhagen School speaks of security as an existential threat, as
emergency measures or as a ‘breaking free of rules’. Security is not an objective condition, but emerges through particular social processes or ‘speech acts’
that elevate an issue above the normal political logic: ‘if we do not tackle this problem, everything else will be irrelevant because we will not be here or will
not be free to handle it in our own way’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 24). Yet, even this formulation indicates an intimate relationship between existential threat and
fear – the fear of annihilation, loss and alienation. Threats imply the loss of or damage to something (physical survival or well-being, an object, a social order,
an identity) that is valued – that is, a fear for its continued possession or existence. People can fear other individuals, other groups, other states (or their
own); they can fear economic calamity or environmental degradation. Even exceptional violence or fearless killing – an existential or heroic self-sacrifice, for
instance – is tied in complex ways to fear: fear for someone or something else that is being defended, fear of failing to achieve glory or salvation. Fear’s
negativity always has positive value.

This article seeks to extend securitization theory conceptually and, to a lesser degree, empirically by further developing the relationship between
securitization and the politics of fear. My suggestion is that by so doing it is possible to enlarge the theoretical framework of the Copenhagen School and to
At first glance, fear might seem
expand its application in understanding the politics of security in liberal societies.

straightforwardly related to securitization: an increase in fear equals an increase in

securitization, or at the very least facilitates successful securitization . However, rather than
looking at the ways in which fear can facilitate securitization, or adding to the widespread claims about the connections between the politics of fear and the
I want to explore a rather different possibility: that
extension of security logics throughout society,1

focusing on fear also allows us to see how fear can operate in ways that can actually
inhibit processes of securitization, constraining the logic of extremity, making actors
reluctant to use securitizing moves and providing resources for opposing such
moves.
To make this argument, I turn to an examination of the relationship between liberalism and fear. As Jef Huysmans (1998) pointed out in one of the earliest
and most perceptive appraisals of the Copenhagen School, liberalism provides an important backdrop to the theory, with a narrowly technocratic liberalism
and superficial pluralism serving both as a foil for the idea of securitization as radically creative and socially constructed and as a link to theories of enmity,
emergency, and the political identified with Carl Schmitt and with classical political realism more broadly. Fear within liberalism is thus
often closely associated with a politics of extremity and enmity, and is seen as having
close – and perhaps even constitutive – connections to securitization. Liberal societies, such
positions often imply, either need a politics of security and fear in order to overcome the weaknesses of their pluralist foundations or, conversely, are
This understanding of
congenitally ill-equipped to respond effectively to the challenges of a politics of extremity and securitization.

liberalism has in turn become a staple (sometimes an almost unquestioned

assumption) for some of the most vibrant controversies over the theoretical and
political entailments of securitization theory .2
There is little doubt that these analyses point to crucial issues in the relationship between liberalism and security, and in the politics of securitization in
this
liberal states. Yet, ‘Schmittian’ or classical ‘realist’ (or, for that matter, Straussian) representation and critique of liberalism is not the only version of
liberalism available, and to take it as a given model for liberal thought or practice as a whole – and as an assumed foundation for analysing how ‘security’
may in fact risk being seriously misleading. At least, this is the suspicion I want to explore
operates in liberal societies –

it is particularly revealing to turn one of the most nuanced and

here, and for help in doing so

influential expressions of an alternative vision, a vision that Judith Shklar aptly christened the
‘liberalism of fear’.3 Shklar’s conception of liberal politics, I suggest, can help provide a more rounded
appreciation of the politics of security in liberal polities, and of how a better
understanding of the liberalism of fear can extend the reach of securitization theory
both conceptually and empirically, and may – perhaps paradoxically – even provide
support for the Copenhagen School’s political project of desecuritization.
I

the liberalism of fear has a number of

In contrast to the narrowly rationalistic liberalism that is the focus of the critiques alluded to above,

is resolutely antiutopian. It is, in a philosophical sense, non-

affinities with securitization theory.4 It

foundationalist. It is sceptical, seeing a world where violence (actual or potential) is

and will remain an ineradicable part of political life. It sides with what Emerson once called the ‘party of
memory’ in contrast to the ‘party of hope’ (see Shklar, 1998: 8), insisting on facing up to the worst things that human beings have shown themselves capable
It is suspicious of and generally eschews grand moral
of doing to one another, and trying to avoid them.

visions and philosophical or theo-political schemas, which it tends to see as sources

of obscurantism and conflict rather than emancipation and progress. It has no
‘strong’ ontology, in either a rationalist or a social constructivist (self–other) sense.5 It
rejects the identification of liberalism with an abstract rationalism, a narrow utilitarianism, Kantian formalism, a programme of indisputable natural rights
In sum, it is a vision of liberalism that contrasts sharply with the thin
or a flat proceduralism.6

version often put forth by both proponents and critics of liberalism in international
relations7 – and in many debates over securitization theory.
Yet, if the liberalism of fear is sceptical, it is not cynical. Nor is it without a place to stand. In place of
essentialist visions of individuals or schemes of indisputable rights, it advocates a
focus on cruelty and fear. It is, in Stanley Hoffmann’s (1998: xxii) nice phrase, a vision based on the ‘existential experience of fear and
cruelty’, concentrating on humanity’s shared capacity to feel fear and to be victims of cruelty.8 Perhaps most importantly in this context, it turns this focus
on fear into a positive principle of liberal politics. As Shklar (1998: 10–11) argues, the liberalism of fear

does not, to be sure, offer a summum bonum toward which all political agents should strive, but it certainly does begin with a summum malum which all of
us know and would avoid if only we could. That evil is cruelty and the fear that it inspires, and the very fear of fear itself. To that extent, the liberalism of fear
makes a universal and especially a cosmopolitan claim, as it historically has always done.

In this vision, fear is central to liberal politics, but in a way very different from those visions that see fear, emergency and ‘security’ as the defining ‘outside’ of
liberal societies, as the antithesis of normal politics, or, as suggested in other analyses, as the constitutive realm or radical otherness or enmity that stabilizes
For the liberalism of fear, fear cannot and
and/or energizes otherwise decadent or depoliticized liberal orders.9

should not be always and in every way avoided. For one thing, it is an inescapable part of
life, something that often helps preserve us from danger . More complexly, fear can also be a crucial element
in preserving as well as constructing a liberal order, for one of the major things to be feared in social life is the fear of fear itself. As Shklar (1998: 11) puts it
in one of her most evocative phrasings:

To be alive is to be afraid, and much to our advantage in many cases, since alarm
often preserves us from danger. The fear we fear is of pain inflicted by others to kill
and maim us, not the natural and healthy fear that merely warns us of avoidable
pain. And, when we think politically, we are afraid not only for ourselves but for our fellow citizens as well. We fear a society of
fearful people.
This vision of liberal politics fears the politics of fear. It fears above all collective
concentrations of power that make possible ‘institutionalized cruelty’, particularly
when they are abetted or accompanied by a politics of fear. Thus, while the liberalism of fear fears all
concentrations of power, it fears most the concentration of power in that most fearsome of institutions in the modern world – the state; for while cruelty can
A
reflect sadistic urges, ‘public cruelty is not an occasional personal inclination. It is made possible by differences in public power’ (Shklar, 1998: 11).

degree of fear and coercion is doubtless a condition of the operation of all social
orders; but, as its first order of concern, the liberalism of fear focuses on restraining
fear’s excesses. As Shklar (1998: 11) puts it:
A minimal level of fear is implied in any system of law, and the liberalism of fear does
not dream of an end to public, coercive government. The fear it does want to prevent
is that which is created by arbitrary, unexpected, unnecessary, and unlicensed acts of
force and by habitual and pervasive acts of cruelty and torture performed by
military, paramilitary and police agents in any regime.
The liberalism of fear is far from rejecting the state’s role in the provision of social
goods, including security. Indeed, these may be essential in overcoming socially derived
cruelties of many kinds.10 But, it is continually alert to the state’s potential to do the
opposite.11
Here, then, is a vision of politics where fear is not confined to the realm of security; nor is fear wholly
negative. Such a vision shares with the Copenhagen School the fear that fear in politics is dangerous. But, Shklar’s
multidimensional analysis of fear allows us to see how fear can work as a counter-practice against processes

of securitization. Fear operates in normal politics, and the fear of fear – that is, the fear of the power of
the politics of security and its consequences – is a core part of liberal theory and
practice. Fear is not a one-way street to extremity, nor does it operate only in
emergency situations. Instead, the fear of fear can act as a bulwark against such
processes. In other words, the fear of fear can within ‘normal’ or even ‘securitized’ politics act to prevent or
oppose a movement toward a more intense politics of fear – countering a shift
toward ‘security’ in its more extreme manifestations.12
II

The liberalism of fear is not a comprehensive description of ‘actually existing’ liberal societies. It is at one and the same time an attempt to
elucidate a liberal philosophy – a critical political philosophy with the practical intent of fostering and supporting an understanding of agency and judgement
– and an exposition of social and political dynamics that can characterize liberal polities. It is part of a liberal tradition of thought that has had important
effects can often be seen in the security politics of
impacts on the development of liberal political orders, and its

liberal societies. Accordingly, the liberalism of fear can help us discern some of the dynamics of security within those polities, while at the
same time suggesting principles for a politics of security.
In practice, as I have suggested above, the liberalism of fear links the domains of ‘normal’ and ‘security’ politics that the Copenhagen School tends to
the fear of fear can counter or restrain securitizing
separate. Viewing the two as part of a continuum reveals how

moves in liberal societies. This practical continuity operates at the level of individual
mores, social norms, and political and legal institutions. Indeed, it is the relationship between these three –
and particularly the ways in which rules and norms operate at the individual and social levels (what the Copenhagen School would call ‘securitizing actors’
and the ‘audience’) as well as in formal institutions – that is crucial for analysing important dimensions of security politics in liberal societies. As Nomi Lazar
(2009: 51, 114–33) has argued, if we restrict our understanding of rules – and the breaking free of them – solely to the legal domain, we risk missing the
to the degree that individual
multiple social and institutional practices that may inhibit the politics of emergency. For instance,

and social groups recognize the fear of fear as a key part of their political visions and
values, they will exercise a degree of suspicion toward securitizing acts, and can even
act to restrain successful securitizations. Similarly, the structure of liberal societies and
governments, with plural centres of political and social power, provides potential
institutional and societal sites of resistance to securitization.
Consider in this light Mark Salter’s recent and revealing analysis of ‘failed securitizations’ in
US counter-terrorism policies. Examining the rejection of the Total Information
Awareness (TIA) programme that ‘sought to data-mine library records to create profiles of
potential terror suspects’, he notes that ‘this limitation on the freedom of speech and invasion of privacy was rejected by librarians,
civil libertarians, and others outside the authority of the state. The existential threat of terrorism to the US was accepted by the protestors, but the
In this case, the
colonization of this sector of private life was rejected as being outside of the security purview of the state’ (Salter, 2011: 125).13

fear of terrorism, and its successful securitization within the technified language and logic of certain specialist
institutions, was outweighed by the fear of the threat that policies like the TIA could pose

to liberal-democratic politics. Fear is here a productive and countervailing power

within normal politics, and a means of defending the latter against an intensifying and intrusive

politics of fear and securitization.

These dynamics can also function as important parts of what Lene Hansen (forthcoming: 16n10) has
insightfully called the ‘strategic self-moderation’ of security actors, referring to cases
where the language and logic of security is avoided rather than embraced. If we adopt the
insights above, we might surmise that such restraint sometimes emerges from multiple sources related to the liberalism of fear, which can arise from the
mores of individual actors or can be part of socially and institutionally embedded values and structures of appraisal that set the wider context influencing
(and even constraining) their decisions.

Consider in this light the Copenhagen School’s account of securitization. As Buzan et al. (1998: 24) put it:

If one can argue that something overflows the normal political logic of weighing issues against each other, this must be because it can upset the entire
process of weighing as such: ‘if we do not tackle this problem, everything else will be irrelevant because we will not be here or will not be free to handle it in
our own way’. Thereby, the actor has claimed a right to handle the issue through extraordinary means, to break the political rules of the game.

This is more than simply the description of a process. Viewed politically, and especially within a context (and context is clearly vital here)
influenced by the liberalism of fear, the recourse to securitizing speech acts is not
straightforward, cost-free or beyond reflection. It is a political act, the potential
consequences of which need to be weighed by any actor. Consequently, attempted
securitizations can be constrained by an actor’s own reluctance to mobilize fear in
light of the potential consequences for other values, such as those of a liberal political order. Potentially securitizing actors can
also be constrained by their knowledge that a decision to attempt to securitize an issue will be judged (both at the time and, possibly, retrospectively).
Declarations of the need for a politics of emergency are rarely taken lightly by other
actors, and making them can come with significant risks to one’s political credibility
and sense of judgement – something that is heightened when the political context is at least

partly informed by the fear of fear. In both cases, the politics of fear and the fear of
fear co-mingle, cross-cut and even compete with each other, with the result that the fear of fear as a political principle and a mode of
judgment plays an important part in the security politics of liberal societies.

These dynamics point to a second area where the liberalism of fear can play a restraining role in securitization. Since it sees the abuse of power as a
continual possibility, the liberalism of fear seeks its controlled dispersal and stresses the importance of pluralism in combating its potential excesses.
Socially, multiple centres of power provide sites from which securitizations can be
contested and resisted. Importantly, however, this is a pluralism that is conscious of the limits of the facile political rationalism that so
exercised critics of liberalism throughout the first half of the 20th century, and that has had such an important influence on the development of the discipline
of international relations as a whole and parts of securitization theory in particular.14 Both in its philosophic foundations and in its historical awareness of
past liberal failings, the pluralism of the liberalism of fear is markedly distant from that of its ‘depoliticized’ predecessors.

This alternative vision of liberalism provides an intriguingly different connection between the Copenhagen School and classical realism, for while the lion’s
share of attention in this area has been devoted to their shared concerns with the nature of ‘the political’ and the role of enmity in countering the potentially
debilitating effects of liberal pluralism, this has tended to obscure the ways in which classical realists such as Morgenthau sought to counter and restrain the
role of fear and enmity in political life rather than embracing it. And, intriguingly, one of the chief instruments that they advocated in this battle was
pluralism. In contrast to the idea (all too automatically accepted in some discussions of
securitization theory) that liberal pluralism was inescapably atomizing and socially
debilitating, and that liberal societies were inevitably forced to call upon a politics of
enmity in order to recover and secure their properly ‘political’ foundations, classical realists presented a much more
subtle and sophisticated vision of the merits of pluralism and its role in supporting
solidarity within a liberal society (Tjalve, 2007). As William Scheuerman has shown in his revealing recovery of this
‘progressive’ dimension of realism, pluralism could help offset the politics of fear and could be valued

by citizens for precisely this reason. As he puts it:

For Progressive Realists, as for some astute present-day analysts, social integration was at least as much a matter of ‘doing’ as ‘being’: concrete social
practices which generated meaningful cooperation and relations of trust could prove even more vital than shared notions of collective destiny.... Progressive
Realists underscored the pivotal role of a pluralistic social order in which one could identify a rich variety of cross-cutting social cleavages and loyalties,
Under the proper conditions, social pluralism
which they thought most likely to mitigate intense conflict.

potentially civilized conflict: social actors could learn that a rival in one social arena
might be an ally or even a friend in another (Scheuerman, 2011: 174–5).
This concern with the merits of pluralism as a mechanism for limiting fearful power, as well as for restraining the politics of fear, also finds clear expression
in liberalism’s stress on institutional pluralism. Here, the rule of law, the division of power between different institutions of government, the desire that they
the dispersal of power among a wide range of civil society actors
check and balance each other, and

also provide important bulwarks against securitization in a liberal society. Consider again in
this context Salter’s (2011: 128) treatment of the fate of TIA when, despite the endeavours of George W. Bush’s administration, as a result of initiatives
‘spearheaded by library, privacy, and libertarian groups, funding for the TIA (whether terrorist or total) was halted by the US Senate in July 2003’. Here,
social and institutional pluralism combine to render difficult, and potentially even to
reverse, emergency decisions characteristic of securitization .15 As Jef Huysmans (2004) has articulately
demonstrated, the admonition to ‘mind the gap’, to prevent any of the institutions of a liberal-democratic polity from usurping the roles of the others –
something particularly worrisome when the politics of security is involved – is a vital component of a liberal-democratic polity. The importance of the fear
that this might happen, the institutional positions, principled resources and public perceptions that actors may be able to draw on, or be constrained by, as a
consequence of this fear, and the combined role of these elements in countering the logics of extremity and emergency in liberal societies should not be
underestimated.

While the aftermath of 9/11 and the actions of George W.

The rule of law provides similar lessons.

Bush’s administration have led many to see securitized liberal societies as

embracing a ‘permanent emergency’ and adopting a generalized politics of
exception, it is not at all clear that these appraisals do not reflect a series of a priori
claims about the supposed (philosophic) necessity of enmity in (and for) liberal
polities more than they do careful and concrete analysis of the actual practices in
those polities.16 Despite the rhetoric and, in many ways, the efforts of the Bush
administration to ‘break free from rules’, it is at best questionable that it was in fact
able completely to do so – and the significant opposition to its policies from social
actors as well as in challenges in a variety of legal forums demonstrate the limits of
its securitizing acts as clearly as they do their pervasiveness. Securitization theory has
shown relatively little interest in the legal dynamics and debates surrounding
emergency powers, an engagement with them seemingly closed off either by an
acceptance that issues like Guantanamo Bay already reside in the domain of
‘security’ or by a preference for claims about the decisionistic nature of law and the
exceptionality of Schmittianinspired legal theory and visions of sovereignty.17 But, if we take fear seriously,
law – and especially the ‘laws of fear’ (Sunstein, 2005; see also Ackerman, 2006) – becomes a crucial
battleground in the politics of securitization. The actors involved in these struggles are not the security professionals
of state security institutions and their associates analysed by Didier Bigo and others, but they are professionals of security in the wider sense of the politics
Despite the seemingly general acceptance by the political institutions
of fear – and the fear of fear.

and much of the population of the USA that Al-Qaeda was indeed an existential threat, the use of all
extraordinary means was not accepted, nor did the situation resemble a ‘generalized
exception’ brought about through the claims of security. Take the use of torture as a
policy, for instance. As Salter (2011: 126) points out, and numerous political and legal
analyses have gone to great lengths to assess, in the USA ‘the courts and the populace
rejected the use of torture for interrogation – even if it was accepted by some part of
the military and bureaucratic establishment’. Salter sees this as calling for a new
category in securitization theory: the acceptance of existential threat, but the failure
to authorize extraordinary powers. I speculate that it might also be assessed in terms of a struggle within and over the politics
of fear, and the existence and operation of countervailing practices and powers. The liberalism of fear may thus help

explain how these practices function, with both the attitudes of individuals and the
institutional pluralism with which they are entwined providing restraints upon the
logic of security and significant points of resistance against the powerful (but not
allpowerful) actors who attempted to mobilize it.
III

Debates over securitization have often centred on the politics of security: on whether to securitize or desecuritize, and on analysis of the sociological,
institutional or political conditions and contexts that facilitate or inhibit acts of securitization. For the Copenhagen School, ‘security’ is a highly political act. It
is also a potentially dangerous one. As extremity, a breaking free from the rules of normal politics, security is something we are advised to be careful about.
Security is not only about identifying threats or dangers, or articulating fears; it is also a political act that we need to approach with caution for fear of the
possibility of a politics of extremity, with the unforeseeable and potentially dangerous consequences that it brings. I have tried to suggest here that in order
to comprehend more fully the politics of security in liberal societies, securitization theory must come to terms with the role of fear in politics. Too sharp a
distinction between the sphere of normal politics and the sphere of security not only risks limiting our understanding of how issues move along a continuum
the fear of fear is a part of normal politics, and part of the
between the two: it may also blind us to how

resources and strategies of resistance against securitizing acts, even within

seemingly securitized domains.
The Copenhagen School generally reserves the concept of ‘desecuritization’ for
practices that shift issues out of the logics of threat (and fear) that it identifies with security (Wæver,
1995). The innovative and often sound argument here is that it is difficult to shift a

relationship defined by threats and dangers while staying within its logics: to argue that
something is not a threat is still likely to be caught within representations defined by
threats. However, the liberalism of fear calls attention to an important alternative
dynamic: that the fear of fear can in a specific sense be seen as a desecuritizing move
– a countervailing logic against processes of intensification within ‘normal’ politics
as well as within ‘security’ politics. At the risk of becoming overly baroque, this strategy might
accurately be termed ‘the securitization of securitization’, and its impact on
desecuritization deserves greater exploration.
Fear is
In this regard, a focus on security as practice, and particularly on the relationship between securitizing acts and their reception, is crucial.18

not synonymous with security (or insecurity);19 nor is fear a quantitatively defined process of intensification operating within a
single modality – it is more than just a temperature gauge of degrees of security logics in both normal and emergency politics. Fear is part of

the practice of security, and it is thus susceptible to reversal within its own logics.
Indeed, one of the most important consequences of viewing security as part of
practices of fear concerns how, paradoxically, fear can itself be mobilized to counter
processes of securitization without merely adding to the quantum of fear in a society,
as though all of fear’s modalities and the strategies they enable could be reduced to a
single logic.
None of this is to deny the power of security, the permanent possibility of enmity in politics, its seductions and its dangers, and the worrying place and
pervasiveness of security and attempted securitizations in liberal (and almost all other) societies around the globe (Abrahamsen, 2005). What the liberalism
of fear does deny, however, is the necessity of such a situation. It is a deeply political endeavour, one that can enrich our understanding of securitization at
This is not to say that the
the same time that securitization theory might provide analytic tools supporting its endeavours.

liberalism of fear does not itself pose challenges for the politics of security that require
critical attention;20 however, putting the nature of liberalism into question within
securitization theory, instead of allowing a particular vision of it to operate as a
background assumption licensing a raft of further assertions about the supposedly
necessary nature of the relationship between liberalism, security and ‘the political’,
allows us to undertake a more subtle and hopefully revealing examination of the
politics of securitization. In the name of not being naive about liberalism and its
limits, debates over securitization may well have developed a paradoxical naivety
about liberal politics. Too easily adopting Schmittian or other critiques as a basis
risks reifying securitization theory’s insights into taken-for-granted assumptions
about the necessary relationship between liberalism and security. As I have tried to
suggest, the liberalism of fear provides a powerful and potentially fruitful counter to
this tendency.
The liberalism of fear does not advocate a wider politics of fear. A critically aware
fear of fear and its possibility for strategic manipulation in either direction does not
equal a further deepening of the politics of fear. It is instead a political stance that
constantly questions the claims and decisions that are made in the name of
countering fears, and that is constantly cautious about the possibilities created by
the politics of fear. In both cases, it seeks to force discussion concerning whether and
to what extent such policies or practices can be justified. It is pessimistic in the sense
of a hyper-active concern with the potential for cruelty in all human affairs –
including, and perhaps especially, in the domain of security. But, it is neither cynical
nor despairing. Accordingly, it may also provide a set of previously untapped
political and ethical resources that would further increase the salience of
securitization theory.
Incorporating critique into the advocacy of specific policy proposals is
key to maintain the continued relevance of IR studies. Like it or not,
those in positions of power ascribe to a pragmatic framework and will
only take a course of action based upon its likely consequences. The 1AC
gives policymakers a broader toolkit with which to assess those
consequences.
Robert L. Gallucci 12 is president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
He is a former dean of Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign
Service, “How Scholars Can Improve International Relations”, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, 11-26, http://chronicle.com/article/How-Scholars-Can-Improve/135898/
Something is seriously wrong in the relationship between universities and the policy
community in the field of international relations. The worlds of policy making and academic research should be in
constant, productive conversation, and scholars and researchers should be an invaluable resource for

policy makers, but they are not.¶ One hears perennial laments from those in academe that their valuable work is
being ignored by policy makers. And, on the other hand, policy makers complain they can get nothing useful from the academy.
They may all be right.¶ Now would be a good time for policy makers and scholars to be deeply engaged on some of the highest-priority issues for the United
States and international security. Consider, for example: ¶ The causes and implications—immediate and long term—of the Arab Spring for that region and for
its relevance to future social and political change elsewhere. ¶ The real consequences of an Iranian nuclear-weapons program for the political dynamics of
the Middle East, as well as for the durability of the global norm against nuclear-weapons proliferation.¶ The complicated internal politics of Pakistan, how
Why are scholars
they relate to that country's political and economic development, and their importance to America's policies in South Asia.¶

and policy makers not engaging in the kind of interaction we all need—and we all say we want?¶
There has been a theoretical turn across the social sciences and humanities that has
cut off academic discourse from the way ordinary people and working professionals
speak and think. The validity and elegance of the models have become the focus,
rather than whether those models can be used to understand real-world situations.
Conferences and symposia are devoted to differences in theoretical constructs;
topics are chosen for research based not on their importance but on their
accessibility to a particular methodology. Articles and books are published to be
read, if at all, only by colleagues who have the same high regard for methodology and
theory and the same disregard for practice.¶ That has created a profession that is
inward-looking and concerned with arcane debate—a result that provokes and
deserves all the insults thrown at the ivory tower from the world of policy and
practice.¶ Further, the incentive structure in universities and in disciplines has endorsed this emphasis on theory and methodology. When it comes to
promotions and awarding tenure, departments are largely allowed to set their own standards. And, of course, departments are made up of people who have
succeeded in the profession and will perpetuate its values. Thus, the university department can turn into a guild, favoring credentialing over relevance and
orthodoxy over impact.¶ My concern is for the larger effects. Tenured professors construct courses and train the next generation of scholars. The best young
minds and young researchers are encouraged to replicate what their mentors think is important, but what if those who work in the world of policy and
practice do not agree with that choice?Students are then being prepared for careers that do not exist
outside of academe and given tools that are not useful except to their academic
discipline.¶ I would care much less if we were talking about literary theory or art history, important and rewarding though they may be. I care very
much when we are talking about international relations, a discipline that is involved with

policies that could get people killed, in the real world, here and now. ¶ Policy makers,
most of whom are trying to save lives and keep the peace, need all the help they can get in order to make better

decisions. They are faced with irreducible complexity and radical uncertainty—and
they must often rely on inadequate information. Unsurprisingly, they think
practically, are prepared to do anything that looks as if it might succeed, and are
reluctant to take big bets if not forced to do so. If they fail, dire consequences are
likely, both for themselves and others.¶ So how can academic experts be more helpful?¶ Twenty years ago, Alexander George, in Bridging the Gap:
Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, made some good suggestions. First, he proposed interdisciplinary approaches—a common refrain in academe. But
they are, in fact, hardly ever done. We talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Being really interdisciplinary is hard and requires deep engagement. The rub is
that most academic experts are more interested in their theories than they are in interdisciplinary conversations or working together on problems.¶
Policy makers, by contrast, have to deal with actual problems. They would benefit from
having multiple views of the same issue—and more so from seeing these views
integrated—in order to see all the consequences and the likely interdependencies of
a line of action.¶ Second, George suggests that researchers embrace what he calls second-best theory. Rather than
concentrating on a grand theory that explains everything, scholars could help policy
makers by providing ways to assess whether their policies are working in real time. Policy makers in
the throes of a crisis do not much care whether a theory is being proved true or false,
but they badly need evidence of progress on emerging problems . In simpler terms, they need
management tools, and they need help connecting cause and effect. Scholars, who
struggle with precisely that, could be of real help. ¶ Lastly, George calls for mutual accountability. If
academics are invited into the policy environment, decision makers need to be
invited back into the academy, and their views on curriculum and research should be
taken seriously.¶ To these recommendations, I would add two more: first, a robust embrace of regional studies. Nothing can replace the value
of insights that emerge from the integration of knowledge and research on the history, economics, politics, culture, religion, and geography of a region.
Second, consideration of rigorous, policy-relevant theory and analysis should be among
the requirements for hiring, tenure, and promotion.¶ My organization, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, supports efforts in
this regard, but it is incumbent upon all who teach and study international relations to think

about the problems we face as a nation, and those humankind faces across the planet.
Think about the needs of governments, and of the vast range of organizations at
work in the world. Find practical ways to prepare people to be useful and effective.
Our universities have the country's intellectual firepower, trained expertise, and the
careers of the most promising young people in their hands. I am asking that they
please do something useful with them.
2AC
 Case
Speaking for others is necessary for collective action and political
reform – the neg commits ontological violence by retreating to false
individual locations of experience
Laura Sells 97, Instructor of Speech Communication at Louisiana State University, “On
Feminist Civility: Retrieving the Political in the Feminist Public Forum”, this paper was
presented at a Roundtable on "Public Speaking and the Feminist Public Sphere: Doing
Difference Differently," at the Western States Communication Association conference
retreat rhetoric has actually
In her recent article, "The Problems of Speaking For Others," Linda Alcoff points out the ways in which this

become an evasion of political responsibility. Alcoff's arguments are rich and their implications are many, but one
implication is relevant to a vital feminist public forum. The retreat from speaking for others politically dangerous

because it erodes public discourse. First, the retreat response presumes that we can, indeed, "retreat to a discrete location and make
singular claims that are disentangled from other's locations." Alcoff calls this a "false ontological

configuration" in which we ignore how our social locations are always already implicated
in the locations of others. The position of "not speaking for others" thus becomes an alibi
that allows individuals to avoid responsibility and accountability for their effects on others.
The retreat, then, is actually a withdrawal to an individualist realm, a move that reproduces
an individualist ideology and privatizes the politics of experience. As she points out, this move creates a
protected form of speech in which the individual is above critique because she is not making claims about others. This protection also

gives the speaker immunity from having to be "true" to the experiences and needs of
others. As a form of protected speech, then, "not speaking for others" short-circuits public debate by disallowing
critique and avoiding responsibility to the other. Second, the retreat response undercuts the possibility of political efficacy. Alcoff illustrates this point with a
list of people--Steven Biko, Edward Said, Rigoberta Menchu--who have indeed spoken for others with significant political impact. As she bluntly puts it ,
both collective action and coalition necessitate speaking for others.

Attributing causality to self-hatred is the worst 19th century evolution

nonsense
Michael Ure 12, date inferred, political and social theory prof at Monash University,
“Resentment/Ressentiment”,
http://www.academia.edu/2434176/Resentment_Ressentiment
Nietzsche conceives ressentiment as symptomatic of evolutionary degeneration,
On the other hand,

a widespread physiological disease. For the sake of the species' health, he argues, we should eliminate the physiological disorders
that underpin and explain the emergence of ressentiment If ressentiment is not eliminated, he claims, the species will continue its evolutionary
degeneration. From our vantage-point Smith's Enlightenment faith in the ultimate compatibility between humanity's natural constitution and its moral and
political progress may seem to carry too many traces of a now discredited faith in nature's purposiveness or teleology.24 Nietzsche famously identified
himself as the first European thinker to properly de-deify nature, eliminating from his account of nature all teleological assumptions or explanations as
metaphysical hangovers.He aimed to conceive humanity in strictly naturalistic terms. However, his
alternative naturalism is bound to an idiosyncratic version of nineteenth century
Social Darwinism. In the past decade there has been a renaissance of scholarly interest in Nietzsche's relationship to Darwinism and other
contemporary evolutionary theories.25 This research has successfully challenged Heidegger's attempt to

purge Nietzsche's philosophy of its "alleged biologism".26 In the recent debate most scholars agree
that Nietzsche is a naturalist of one stripe or another, and the main interest lies in identifying his particular shading of nineteenth
century naturalism.27 In this context Nietzsche's concept of the will to power has been conceived as neo Darwinian or as

anti-Darwinian.2* I share the latter view that Nietzsche explicitly targeted Darwin with his own purely

speculative, if not blatantly fanciful biology. Against Darwin Nietzsche held first that
healthy biological types seek to maximize or expand their power even at the cost of
self-preservation and that only sick biological types seek to preserve themselves; and
secondly that the weak and sick preserve themselves far more effectively than the powerful
largely because they emasculate or moralise the latter and in doing so prevent them from
threatening their existence. Through the morality of ressentiment the weak become
parasites sapping the vitality of the strong. If Nietzsche's view is true, then Darwin's notion of nature as a struggle for existence
is merely a symptom of distressed life rather than a scientific account of nature.29 The point I wish to draw attention to here is that this anti-

Darwinian conception of nature only reinforced Nietzsche's idiosyncratic and

extreme version of the social Darwinist political view we should exploit the weak,
sick and dying so that higher types have the opportunity to squander themselves or
eliminate the weak if they threaten to impinge on these higher types' capacity for
maximal self-expression. Arguably, Nietzsche's physiological theories and explanations do not
de-deify nature, but demonise it with the "born misfit[s]", "cellar-rats" and "maggot' men of ressentiment.¶
These two philosophical traditions confront us with the problem of how to distinguish between resentment and ressentiment Are they different shadings
and evaluations of the same basic "unsocial passion" or are they concepts deriving from incommensurable conceptual orders? The primary aim of this paper
is to clarify the nature of a now widely deployed distinction between resentment and ressentiment Since most defenders of resentment find Nietzsche's
physiologically-based aristocratic radicalism disturbing and/or untenable they usually attempt to short-circuit any possible association between resentment
and its Nietzschean incarnation, ressentiment? Often with the aid of moral sentiment theory they applaud resentment as a 'moral' emotion and condemn
ressentiment as morally pernicious. By the same token, however, even its defenders concede that the 'virtue' of resentment may have the potential to
become a pathological vice that undermines justice. The shadow of Nietzschean ressentiment still hovers over moral defences of resentment. "Resentment"
as Margaret Walker acknowledges "embodies a sense of iault that can be difficult to dislodge, and one gripped by resentment may be far too disposed to find
fault in others than to question whether his or her own resentment might be misplaced".31 Its defenders often reach for 'diabolical' metaphors to express
resentment's tendency to exceed the agent's volition and remain impervious to apologies and other symbolic reparations.33 Once in resentment's grip we
are sorely tempted to groundlessly blame others for our suffering and unjustly make them the objects of resentment. Resentment also carries the danger
that agents see themselves as victims and identify the good with powerlessness, weakness and incapacity. The resentful are in danger of entrapping
themselves in a victim-identity and enviously spoiling all forms of good fortune and human flourishing.34 If we can no longer rest content with Smith's
natural theology to justify our confidence that ultimately resentment is a gift of providence that naturally tends towards justice and moral order, we need to
carefully examine the social and psychological basis of these socalled 'pathological' expressions of resentment. How can we explain, for example, the
We
compelling desire to unjustly and irrationally blame others for one's suffering? Why does such ressentiment continue to haunt resentment?

require an account of reactive emotions that does not hinge on Smith's natural theological faith in the moral
sentiments or fall into Nietzsche's idiosyncratic and insupportable theory of evolutionary

degeneration. We do not want our defence of resentment to rest on a hidden or implicit

teleological assumptions or our rejection of ressentiment to be based on insupportable
physiological theories of moral judgement and action .¶ This paper addresses these issues by examining
Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment It suggests that under the rubric of ressentiment Nietzsche identifies two

distinct phenomena: a physiological disease that finds alleviation through the mechanism of

blaming others and a form of radical envy or envious hatred that deploys moral
concepts and judgments in order to spoil others' good fortune and happiness.35 Nietzsche's
physiology of ressentiment rests on untenable speculations and assumptions he
draws from his interpretation of contemporary theories of evolution . For the purposes of this
essay Nietzsche's second concept of envious hatred is more promising for understanding of how resentment can become politically toxic.
Defensive strategy key to tailored deterrence which solves better --- ASB
too escalatory
Michael Johnson 14, a Senior Defense Research Analyst at the RAND Corporation, and
Terrence K. Kelly, Tailored Deterrence: Strategic Context to Guide Joint Force 2020,
http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-74/jfq-74_22-29_Johnson-
Kelly.pdf
the United States should develop a defense strategy based on tailored
To guide strategic choices driven by reduced resources,

approaches to deter the principal threats to national security while preserving flexibility to account for their
uncertain trajectories and potential shocks. This hybrid approach would provide a strategic framework to ensure that defense planning scenarios are realistic and necessary, indicate the missions and forces required to

A defense strategy based in part on tailored

execute clear policy, and guide defense spending to provide the greatest return on investment.

deterrence would thus discipline any “irrational exuberance” for operational

concepts and capabilities intended to solve military-technical problems by ensuring
that they remain consistent with rational foreign and defense policies.
To support the development of such a defense strategy, this article considers broadly what it means to “deter and defeat aggression” in specific cases and outlines the supporting missions and forces. As a framework, it
provides direction for the development of deterrence policies and empirical analysis of supporting military plans by analyzing how deterrence is being operationalized within the force-sizing scenarios and suggesting

DOD is overinvesting in offensive Air-Sea Battle capabilities beyond what is

alternative approaches. It concludes that

necessary and prudent to deter China from attacking U.S. allies, but underinvesting in the balanced joint force
necessary to deter rogue states from conducting an expanded range of hostile acts and to secure
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in failing states .

Deterrence in the DSG

A deterrence strategy seeks to prevent or discourage a specific hostile actor from performing specific undesirable acts by introducing doubt in its ability to succeed or fear of retaliation. As the DSG states, “Credible
deterrence results from both the capabilities to deny an aggressor the prospect of achieving his objectives and from the complementary capability to impose unacceptable costs on the aggressor.”3 Linking deterrence
with capability, the DSG describes a decisive joint campaign to defeat aggression that includes the ability to “secure territory and populations and facilitate a transition to stable governance.”4 The DSG implies some
measure of continuity with the two-war construct by stating, “our forces must be capable of deterring and defeating aggression by an opportunistic adversary in one region even when our forces are committed to a large-
scale operation elsewhere.”5 While consistent with deterrence theory and joint doctrine, the DSG does not take the next steps to specify whom and what to deter, or how, which is necessary to guide development of Joint
Force 2020 given declining defense resources.

As a result, there is disagreement among defense leaders about the types of forces required to deny objectives and impose costs when it comes to force-sizing. For example, to deter a wide range of threats, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey considers that the essential task of a flexible joint force is to prevail in simultaneous contingencies wherever and whenever they occur:

Now, there’s been much made . . . about whether this strategy moves away from a force structure explicitly designed to fight and win two wars simultaneously. Fundamentally, our strategy has always been about our
ability to respond to contingencies wherever and whenever they occur. This won’t change. . . . We can and will always be able to do more than one thing at a time. More importantly, wherever we are confronted, and in
whatever sequence, we will win.6

Yet others contend that the DSG represents a significant change that would use air and naval forces in lieu of ground forces to deter and defeat aggression. For example, retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary
Roughead suggests that fighting “two land wars simultaneously is not the Obama strategy.”7 His interpretation of a significantly different force-planning construct would use air and naval power to deny objectives or
impose costs in emergent challenges:

The defense strategy set forth by Defense Secretary Panetta in January 2012—a significant departure from prior Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ focus on winning our current land wars—seeks to rebalance our force
toward facing emergent challenges, which will be predominantly air and maritime in nature. . . . The structure of a force to meet these needs would maintain the Navy and Air Force at current objectives. . . . The active
duty Army would be reduced by [an additional] 200,000 soldiers from the 490,000 planned in the FY 2013 budget.8

Military leaders have different views about the requirements to deter and defeat aggression because the DSG never moves beyond the doctrinal template for deterrence to provide specific strategic guidance. It does not
define the adversary and hostile acts the United States seeks to deter or the military missions and forces to deny the (unknown) objective or impose the (unspecified) cost. Deny and defeat are ambiguous terms that vary
with the strategic objective in different cases. For example, the joint force could be required to:

• Deny the aggressor’s ability to attain the objective (that is, successful defense). Examples include preventing Iraq from seizing oilfields in Saudi Arabia and preventing North Korea from striking the United States with a
ballistic missile.

• Deny the aggressor’s ability to retain the objective (that is, successful offensive to restore the status quo ante bellum). Examples include restoring the 38th parallel in Korea in 1950 and reversing Iraqi aggression by
liberating Kuwait in 1991. This would also include a limited offensive to deny North Korea’s ability to strike Seoul with long-range artillery.

• Defeat the aggressor to prevent future attacks (that is, a successful offensive to defeat military forces and remove the regime as punishment for crimes against humanity). Examples include defeating Germany and Japan
in World War II and the Taliban in 2001.

• Threaten to punish the aggressor with nuclear weapons (that is, in extreme cases, threaten to retaliate in kind or overcome a conventional imbalance). During the Cold War, the strategy of flexible response incorporated
direct defense by conventional forces to resist an attack and gain time for a diplomatic resolution. If defense became untenable, deliberate escalation included the limited use of nuclear weapons to blunt an attack and
signal the will to proceed to the next stage—a general nuclear response against the enemy’s homeland.

the missions and forces required to deter and defeat aggression are highly
These examples reveal that

dependent on the circumstances in specific cases. Rather than assuming that air and
naval power are sufficient to deny objectives in all second contingencies, DOD should
develop tailored approaches to deter the principal future challenges to U.S. national
security interests as the basis for deriving realistic force-planning scenarios, military
missions, and joint forces.
Deter Aggression by China

There is inherent tension within the U.S. strategy to engage China while simultaneously deterring aggression and assuring allies. The National Security Strategy states that the United States is “working to build deeper and
more effective partnerships” with countries, including China, “on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect.”9 However, the underlying defense strategy since 1991 has been to sustain U.S. military dominance to

desire to sustain American primacy in Asia is accelerating the

prevent the rise of a peer-competitor.10 This

security dilemma by increasing fear of containment in China .11 Furthermore, the high financial
cost and risk of escalation associated with defeating China’s antiaccess/ area-denial (A2/AD)
capabilities suggest that policymakers should weigh this approach against a
defensive form of flexible response that would provide more time to reach a political
resolution in future crises.12
The current approach is apparently to deter China with the Air-Sea Battle concept—at least that is how
Beijing sees it.13 China’s land-based missiles, which can strike aircraft carriers and air
bases at extended range, create a military-technical problem. The fear is that if the U.S. Navy and Air Force could be
denied access to the East and South China seas, then China could dominate Asia because the United States would be unable to deter its aggression. The proposed military-

technical solution is to develop the offensive strike and cyber capabilities to destroy
China’s sensor, command, and missile systems to “break the kill chain” by striking hundreds
of targets on the mainland.14
The advantage of sustaining military dominance (if possible) is the ability to preserve freedom of navigation by protecting aircraft carriers and tactical aircraft operating close to China. The capability to project power

attacking a great power with nuclear weapons and

despite A2/AD is necessary to defeat a rogue state such as Iran and North Korea, but

the second largest economy is another matte r. Yet the lack of clearly articulated defense
policy to deter China is resulting in a force planning process that presumes that
breaking the kill chain in China is militarily necessary and politically realistic
despite obvious questions and considerations .15
The political and strategic disadvantages of offensive Air-Sea Battle become clear when
policymakers consider likely Chinese reactions to destroying hundreds of targets on the
mainland they deem essential for self-defense. China is no more likely to accept the loss of

its A2/AD system than the United States would be willing to accept the loss of its Pacific fleet
without escalating and making nuclear threats. An offensive doctrine to destroy
China’s A2/ AD system is destabilizing because each side would have a military incentive to
strike first based on a use-it-or-lose-it calculus. This incurs high risk of immediate
vertical escalation, leaving policymakers with little or no room for developing
political solutions to defuse a crisis.
In other words, recommending the use of Air-Sea Battle to break the kill chain in China would offer the President an escalatory option in the same vein that Helmuth von Moltke the Younger offered Kaiser Wilhelm II in
1914 (execute the Schlieffen Plan), Douglas MacArthur offered Harry Truman in 1951 (bomb mainland China), and Curtis LeMay offered John F. Kennedy in 1962 (bomb Cuban missile sites). American policymakers today
should realize that their predecessors rejected similar options because there is no credible theory to “defeat” a great power with nuclear weapons at acceptable risk, especially when the Chinese threaten “unrestricted
warfare” to defend their core interests. Policymakers should therefore drive the creation of more acceptable military options to defend U.S. interests while minimizing the incentives to strike first and escalate attacks.

An alternative approach would start by recognizing that A2/AD works in both

directions. The United States could leverage the inherent cost and technical advantages of
A2/AD to deter China by providing defensive options to protect U.S. allies (that is, Australia, Japan,
South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand). The United States and its partners should invest in A2/AD to interdict Chinese ships,

aircraft, and missiles that could be used in an amphibious assault or punitive

strikes.16 In effect, the “near seas” would become contested commons in which both sides
could deny access, but neither side need strike first to protect their forces.
Submarines, bombers with longrange missiles, and land-based antiship missiles
could defeat the Chinese navy at less cost and risk ; thus, it is not necessary to use aircraft carriers and tactical aircraft to achieve this
objective.17

To provide survivable and reinforcing joint fires, the Army could develop land-based antiship missiles for its existing rocket artillery systems, consider investing in antiship cruise and ballistic missiles, and increase the

Partners would
number of Patriot batteries in a new theater A2/AD brigade. It could then train with partners to develop A2/AD capabilities and tie them into U.S. systems if mutually beneficial.

become more capable of deterring China while the close relationship would
demonstrate U.S. commitment to extended deterrence. Even if China invests billions
to project power despite our A2/AD defenses, the risk of escalation, including the use
of nuclear weapons, would be sufficient to deter aggression. 18
This part of a deterrence strategy in Asia based on flexible response is similar to the
defensive posture that deterred the Soviet Union from attacking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.19
U.S. conventional forces were never built to attack and defeat the Soviets in a decisive joint campaign;
on the contrary, the United States recognized its ground forces in Europe were vulnerable to
attack. Their strategic purpose was to prevent a rapid fait accompli and trigger the

uncertain process of escalation at a local conventional level . Thomas Schelling explains why the “manipulation of risk”
succeeded in deterring the Soviets from attacking the isolated garrison in Berlin, which was surrounded by overwhelming force in multiple crises:

It has often been said, and correctly, that a general nuclear war would not liberate Berlin. . . . But that is not all there is to say. What local military forces can do, even against very superior forces, is to initiate the uncertain
process of escalation. One does not have to be able to win a local military engagement to make the threat of it effective. Being able to lose a local war in a dangerous and provocative manner may make the risk . . .
outweigh the apparent gains.20

Asset vulnerability causes deterrence failure

Michael Swaine 15 et al., Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, former Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, PhD from Harvard, Nicholas Eberstadt, Ph.D. is a political
economist and a demographer by training and is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research; M. Taylor
Fravel, Ph.D. is an associate professor of political science and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT; Mikkal
Herberg is research director of the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Energy Security Porgram; Albert Keidel is a
nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an adjunct graduate professor in the Georgetown University Public
Policy Institute; Evans J. R. Revere is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy
Studies; Alan D. Romberg is distinguished fellow and the director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center; Eleanor
Freund, junior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Rachel Esplin Odell, Junior
fellow at Carnegie, Audrye Wong, Junior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for international peace, “Conflict and Cooperation
in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Strategic Net Assessment,” April 2015

from a purely military perspective, even if implemented as designed, this strategy

Finally,

could prove to be an ineffective deterrent and might aggravate instability in a crisis.

Under an ASB concept, for example, it is by no means clear that the United States could identify and
target the large number of critical PLA assets (many mobile) that would need to be struck in
the early stages of a conflict. Even a barrage of cyberattacks, counter-space attacks, and inland
bombing could still leave some critical C4ISR networks intact , along with many mobile
missile launchers. At the same time, the United States would remain, to some extent, reliant on immobile
aircraft shelters and runways at a few forward bases, in Japan or Guam or elsewhere in the Western Pacific; static or
passive defenses would not be able to guarantee the safety of these fragile assets against the sort
of powerful, accurate, and sophisticated ballistic missiles China possesses . Likewise, even
under a high-capacity U.S. trajectory, American aircraft carriers might remain highly
vulnerable to Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles and PLAN submarines, thereby significantly reducing their utility as part
of the ASB concept.¶ Also, though proponents argue that a robust ASB concept could
create more options in a crisis, in fact, the likely need to carry out deep strikes early
in a conflict could make escalation control far more problematic. The stress on early
preemptive strikes against the 210 Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific
Region PLA would likely compress the time available to decisionmakers in a crisis. In
addition, early, conventional deep strikes against Chinese C4ISR assets in a conflict
could easily be misconstrued in Beijing as an attempt at destroying preemptively
China’s retaliatory nuclear options. Under intense pressure, it would be hard to limit
a dramatic escalation of such a conflict—including, in the worst case, up to and
beyond the nuclear threshold.7

Bases in Japan and South Korea solve

David W. Kearn 14, is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Politics
at St. John’s University, “Air-Sea Battle, the Challenge of Access, and U.S. National Security
Strategy,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 36:34-43
Given the presence of U.S. forward bases and deployed assets, which are, indeed, at
great risk, it is simply unclear whether U.S. allies in East Asia need a further signal of
commitment than the likely loss of U.S. personnel and matériel in the defense of their
cause. At the same time, it is also not clear that existing U.S. platforms and munitions
and those under development are incapable of clearly presenting Beijing with the
strong likelihood of paying prohibitively high costs in the event of a conflict.48 These
two realities confront Beijing with a fairly robust deterrent that ASB would seem to
improve only marginally. However, the downsides of adopting a plan like ASB in the
context of a crisis with China could be significant. The next section will explain four potential ways ASB could
undermine U.S. national security interests and make a damaging conflict with China more likely.

ASB deterrence fails – China thinks it can win

T. X. Hammes 13, research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies @ National
Defense University, “Sorry, AirSea Battle Is No Strategy,” August 7, 2013,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/sorry-airsea-battle-no-strategy-8846
AirSea Battle fails to deter, assure, or guide¶ Deterrence is based on the other side believing
you can deny its goals as well as punish it for trying. While we have no unclassified statement of the
AirSea Battle concept, it does seem to rely heavily on a “networked, integrated force” that
can strike deep. This implies heavy use of digital networks as well as comprehensive
surveillance of major portions of the Chinese mainland. China has clearly been
working to defeat these capabilities. On January 11, 2007, China destroyed a satellite in Low Earth Orbit. From
2006 to the present, they have repeatedly used lasers to dazzle U.S. satellites in Low Earth Orbit. From
TITAN RAIN to BYZANTINE ANCHOR, China has also demonstrated the ability to penetrate U.S.
cyber systems—even classified systems. If China believes it can defeat ASB through action
against U.S. space and cyber systems, then ASB loses much of its deterrent effect.¶ In
fact, the very existence of a serious AirSea Battle capability is escalatory. In a recent article in Foreign
Policy, David Gompert and Terrence Kelly note that ASB pushes China to a first strike. ¶ Given that, to be most effective, AirSea Battle
would need to take down Chinese targeting and strike capabilities before they could cause significant damage to U.S. forces and bases. It
follows, and the Chinese fear, that such U.S. capabilities are best used early and first—if not
preemptively, then in preparation for further U.S. offensive action . After all, such U.S. strikes have
been used to initiate conflict twice in Iraq. This perception will, in turn, increase the incentive for the
PLA to attack preemptively, before AirSea Battle has degraded its ability to neutralize
the U.S. strike threat. It could give the Chinese cause to launch large-scale preemptive
cyber- and anti-satellite attacks on our AirSea Battle assets. Indeed, they might feel a need, out of
self-defense, to launch such attacks even if they had not planned to start a war. It is a
dangerous situation when both sides put a premium on early action.
In contrast, Offshore Control moves into place deliberately—and since it can be executed without full space or cyber capabilities, the
incentive for first strike is reduced. Equally important, we don’t have to attack their warning systems, and differentiate between their
tactical networks and their strategic warning systems. Inadvertently
blinding the assets used to direct
their strategic-response systems could be the trigger to a first use. We do not have much
historical evidence for evaluating conflict between nuclear-armed powers. In the US-USSR Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR-Chinese
Zhenbao Island Incident, and the India-Pakistan Kargil Crisis, the leaders on each side sought to slow and contain the crisis. Do
we
really want to select a military strategy that puts the President in the position of
conceding great advantage if he fails to strike preemptively? Given that Truman and Johnson
refused to strike China when hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops were in combat, are we sure a future President will authorize an
extensive strike campaign into China? Even worse, do
we want to select an approach that convinces
Chinese leaders they must strike first to protect their homeland?

ASB useless --- strikes fail and leave key assets vulnerable
T.X. Hammes 14, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at
the National Defense University, and R.D. Hooker, Director of the Institute for National
Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, “America's Ultimate Strategy in a Clash
with China,” June 10, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-ultimate-strategy-
clash-china-10633?page=3
*Modified for ableist language
We believe the CSBA concept is both provocative and ineffective. While “blinding” Chinese space-based and
ground surveillance systems may make sense in the event the People’s Republic of China initiates hostilities, it is dangerous to assume such a campaign will
a weighted air and naval campaign that
be successful in a time of aerostats, cheap drones and cube satellites. Further,

attacks China’s integrated air-defense and land-based missile systems is flawed from
multiple perspectives. First, it is dangerously provocative. China’s Second Rocket
Artillery Corps, which controls its conventional land-based missiles, also controls its
land-based nuclear arsenal. A direct attack on the organization that controls China’s
strategic nuclear forces in a scenario where U.S. territory and nuclear forces have
not been attacked could escalate the conflict uncontrollably. In this regard, though touted as an
“operational concept,” AirSea Battle, as expressed in the CSBA concept paper, intrudes forcefully and directly into

the political domain.

ASB is also ineffective because it sends a limited number of extremely expensive U.S.
assets directly against China’s strength—its dense and capable air-defense network.
The CSBA paper counts on the ability of U.S. forces to successfully find and destroy
Chinese mobile missile systems. This is a daunting task, particularly since the United
States utterly failed to do so in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. According to the Gulf War Air Power
Survey, the coalition air forces saw forty-two Iraqi Scud launches, but could only get into position to drop ordnance eight times. The authors offered in
mitigation that commercial vehicles on highways provided significant background clutter that made the Scuds hard to target. However, the British Special
the Iraqis were launching
Air Services reported that ground observers could see actual launches from thirty miles away. In short,

large rockets from relatively open desert terrain. In addition, allied forces had
absolute air supremacy as well as hundreds of aircraft that could range freely over
the entire country. Despite all these advantages, the Survey concluded, “There is no
indisputable proof that Scud mobile launchers—as opposed to high-fidelity decoys,
trucks or other objects with Scud-like signature—were destroyed by fixed-wing
aircraft.” Despite a massive effort involving thousands of air sorties, ground and
national intelligence assets, the allies failed to get a single confirmed kill against a
system that took the Iraqis at least thirty minutes to erect, fuel and launch. It is
extremely unlikely that air power will fare better against the much more numerous
Chinese systems in the complex, heavily defended environment of coastal China.
These mobile systems can be hidden in garages, buildings under construction, caves
and tunnels. There are tens of thousands of places to hide. The launch vehicles can
also be camouflaged as commercial vehicles for the periods when they move
between hiding places. Finally, solid-fueled systems can launch in much less time
than the old liquid-fueled Scuds. To even have a chance of success, the United States would have to maintain enough aircraft in
the contested airspace of China to detect the missile moving into firing position and place a weapon on it in a matter of minutes.

AirSea Battle Concept has very little chance of success in any of the three
In short, the CSBA

areas it considers vital—blinding, eliminating command and control nodes or

suppressing launch systems. Yet, it accepts the high risk of attacking mainland China
and the probability such an attack will make conflict resolution even more difficult.
These deficiencies clearly call into question ASB’s value against China in a conflict.
However, ASB’s real danger is that is lacks deterrent value. Because ASB apparently depends
upon space and cyber systems, China may well feel it can degrade those systems
enough to defeat ASB’s operational approach. China has clearly demonstrated the
ability to use hard and soft attacks on space assets . It has also demonstrated the capability to at least infiltrate our
cyber systems. Thus, it may believe that offensive action in space and cyber could cripple

[undermine] ASB capabilities. Further, China may well believe the United States cannot afford ASB or at the very least, will not field
the capabilities for a decade or more. A military concept that is vulnerable to a relatively inexpensive defeat mechanism or has a window of vulnerability has
little deterrent value.

Demilitarizing the region by removing the carrier prevents nuclear

escalation
Vasilis Trigkas 14, visiting research fellow at the institute for Sino-EU relations at
Tsinghua University & a non-resident WSD Handa fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, “Aircraft
Carriers in the Taiwan Strait,” Dec 29, http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/aircraft-carriers-
in-the-taiwan-strait/
In the 1996 crisis, the U.S. “carrier monopoly” neutralized the Chinese tactical advantage
over Taiwan by highlighting the U.S. strategic dominance. China’s leadership saw the
potential destruction that an attack against U.S. carriers would unleash. However, in
a renewed Taiwanese crisis today, China could pass the ball to the U.S. side. Its single carrier
has delivered strategic risk parity in the straits. As the Chinese carrier would face-off against the U.S.

carriers, a war of nerves would begin. The longer the confrontation and the
maneuvering, the greater the possibility for a mistake that would lead to a strike on
a carrier with perhaps irreversible consequences for the relationship between the two superpowers and for
world stability. As China would enjoy the advantage of playing on its own doorstep with Chinese public opinion
fiercely opposing any retreat, and is it would be willing to dance with the U.S. closer to
the edge, the U.S. would have to deescalate and take the conflict to the UN or risk a nuclear
confrontation. Thus the “predictable unpredictability” of escalation and Mutually Assured Destruction ensures, according to
experts, that a U.S.-China aircraft carrier face-off would not be a prolonged confrontation and, most importantly, that it would end
peacefully as both sides’ rational strategy would follow the norms of nuclear deterrence.¶
However, as Donald Kagan – one of Yale’s most distinguished professors – once put it,
miscalculations and irrational decisions have been the norm in history, as old hatreds and
wounded honor inspire dangerous and irrational actions. Even though experts and war simulation models
confirm that a potential aircraft carrier face-off would end peacefully, Kagan’s observation stands as a clear

reminder that preempting a clash by dialogue and demilitarizing a conflict zone is the
safest and perhaps the sole path for sustained peace. After all, even a U.S. strategic retreat in case of a cross-strait
crisis would leave an irreversible mark on the China-U.S. relationship, increase U.S. embitterment against China, encouraging militarization and an ever
accelerating arms race.¶ In their post-1991 engagement, China and the United States have shown that their commitment to a peaceful resolution of disputes
remains at the forefront of their strategic relationship. From the 1996 strait crisis to the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 to
the U.S. and China have been optimistic about each other’s
the 2001 U.S. spy plane collision,

intentions and mutually de-escalated dangerous confrontations. A DPP government

in Taiwan, with an assertive political agenda promoting a distinct Taiwanese identity
and de jure independence, would unquestionably test Sino-U.S. relations. Beijing and
Washington should preempt any possible cross-strait military buildup and engage in a sincere
dialogue about Taiwan’s democratic future. A clash of carriers would be a risk that the world cannot

afford to take.¶ As Stephen Hadley, a former U.S. national security advisor, once noted, in the most pivotal relationship for peace in our time – the
US-China Relationship – seeing the glass half full instead of half empty is an important forma mentis in crisis management. The U.S. and

China have shown in their communiqués that the glass over the question of Taiwan is
half full and thus the solution should be political and not military. Managing renewed cross-strait
tensions peacefully will be another significant brick in constructing a “new major powers” relationship and promoting long-term global prosperity.

China is not inherently revisionist but U.S. maritime predominance will

cause spiraling conflict – this also proves Schmitt is literally an ADV for
the aff
Michael Swaine 15 et al., Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, former Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, PhD from
Harvard, Nicholas Eberstadt, Ph.D. is a political economist and a demographer by training
and is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research; M. Taylor Fravel,
Ph.D. is an associate professor of political science and member of the Security Studies
Program at MIT; Mikkal Herberg is research director of the National Bureau of Asian
Research’s Energy Security Porgram; Albert Keidel is a nonresident senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council and an adjunct graduate professor in the Georgetown University Public
Policy Institute; Evans J. R. Revere is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies; Alan D. Romberg is distinguished fellow
and the director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center; Eleanor Freund, junior
fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Rachel
Esplin Odell, Junior fellow at Carnegie, Audrye Wong, Junior fellow at Carnegie Endowment
for international peace, “Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Strategic Net
Assessment,” April 2015
Powers are unlikely to adopt expansionist or aggressive grand strategies and military
doctrines. No countries in the Asia-Pacific currently hold national objectives or military doctrines based on

the seizure of foreign territories undisputedly controlled by others, a notion of inherent superiority over
other peoples, or other basic beliefs that could generate aggressive or militaristic conduct toward outsiders. Although plagued by some

historical animosities, contests over relatively small, disputed territories, and differences in development levels and

political systems, nations (other than North and South Korea) are not locked into mutually hostile, zero-sum

sets of national objectives or military doctrines. Most nations would prefer to further
peaceful contacts with the outside world and peacefully manage difference s over resource
and sovereignty claims. Moreover, although the military doctrines of some important states (notably China and the United States) involve notions of
offensive and (sometimes) preemptive power projection, such operational concepts do not imply that national security policies also exhibit a preference for
However contentious individual disputes may be, all
aggressive military actions, especially against major powers.

major Asian states recognize the presence of regional and global trends in favor of
cooperation and the peaceful resolution of issues. Unfortunately, the aforementioned positive
trends coexist with several negative—at best neutral—factors influencing national objectives,
military doctrines, and approaches to the use of force.
The most significant
Differences in Chinese and American approaches to preserving regional stability in Asia will continue to increase.

negative trend derives from conflicting views held by the United States and China regarding
the best means of preserving national and regional stability and prosperity over the long term. Washington continues to

believe that only American maritime military predominance can provide the regional
security required to achieve stability and prosperity. Beijing increasingly believes that it must acquire the
means to limit or possibly even eliminate American maritime predominance in the Western Pacific
in order to preserve its own security and attain its national objectives. This difference is playing out
primarily along China’s maritime periphery, where China’s acquisition of socalled counterintervention or A2/AD-type
capabilities challenges the freedom of action of the U.S. military. Such capabilities also have significant implications for

China’s handling of a variety of sensitive regional security issues (for example, maritime territorial disputes,
the Taiwan issue, and the activities of foreign militaries operating in Beijing’s EEZ and air defense identification zone).

Washington and Beijing apparently believe that attaining such security objectives in the Asia-
Both

Pacific region requires an array of power projection-oriented capabilities and a military doctrine
that places a premium on taking the initiative, showing resolve, and acting decisively in a crisis. In past crises
 both Washington and Beijing displayed a tendency to use the military to
(particularly in the 1950s and 1960s),

demonstrate their resolve and ability to control crisis escalation. For China, the need to show resolve and act decisively often seemed to
derive from the perceived need to deter further escalation by the adversary; strengthen support for the leadership domestically; and, in some cases,
U.S. decisionmakers were often
compensate for relative material weakness when confronting a more powerful adversary. Similarly,

motivated by a need to deter further escalation and strengthen support for the political
leadership domestically. However, such actions also frequently reflected a long-standing belief
that the United States, owing to its superior military power, enjoys escalation dominance in any
confrontation.
This volatile mix of conflicting military approaches to regional order, combined with a common
offensive orientation toward crises, the use of force, and growing military
capabilities, could eventually result in significant adverse changes in China’s stance
toward foreign military activities in Asia (for example, surveillance along the Chinese coast), especially activities conducted by the
United States. Equally worrisome is that a sense of declining relative military capabilities,

coupled with a continued desire to maintain U.S. military supremacy, reassure allies, and
deter adversaries could induce Washington to adopt a more assertive, even aggressive,
approach in managing a crisis. However unlikely it may seem at this point, if strategic rivalry became
sufficiently intense, U.S. efforts to sustain maritime predominance and overall strategic leverage in Asia
could result in fundamental changes in specific national policies and objectives. This
could include efforts to prevent movement toward the peaceful reunification of mainland China with Taiwan; include Taiwan in a larger, alliance-centered
security structure designed to contain China; or overtly support rival claimants to China in maritime sovereignty disputes.60

The CSG over-concentrates power which increases vulnerability and

mission failure
Robert C. Rubel 15, retired Chairman of Wargaming Department and Dean of the Center
for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, 10/1/15, “THE EMPEROR’S NEW
CLOTHES: THE SELF-DELUSIONS OF AMERICAN NAVAL POWER,”
http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/the-emperors-new-clothes-the-self-delusions-of-
american-naval-power/
Another element of denial involves the increased capability of modern naval forces. Some critics assert that the Navy is dow n to the
smallest number of ships since before World War I and this compromises its capability to uphold U.S. strategic interests. President
Obama and others respond that this argument is invalid because modern ships have more capability than earlier classes. This constitutes
fawning over imaginary clothes on two counts. First, there is the old problem of geography, speed, and transit. Modern ships might fire
farther, but do not move faster than their WWI forebears. Secondly, regardless
of the sophistication of modern
ship defenses, we cannot expect to engage in naval combat with no losses. The more
combat power is packed into a single vessel, the greater the percentage of overall
force combat power is lost if it is put out of action. Even when we design a ship to
accommodate more and bigger weapons systems, its defensive power does not
increase in proportion to its offensive power . And there is a knee in the curve above
which it becomes a “high value unit” that other ships must defend . Thus the overhead
cost for “excess” offensive power in a single unit starts to mushroom. This is the aircraft
carrier. It is indeed uniquely capable, but it cannot tolerate much risk except under the direst
strategic stakes. So besides not being able to be in two places at once, a smaller, high value unit-centric navy is
not as risk-tolerant as a more numerous, distributed-lethality navy.
Stitching Up Some Actual New Clothes

Getting beyond the little child’s observation that the emperor had no clothes, we should make some other candid statements. First, the
Navy will not return to the days when it had 15 aircraft carriers on its rolls. In fact, it will be lucky to maintain 11. The number 15 w as
underpinned by the
assumption that the aircraft carrier is the centerpiece of U.S. naval force
projection at sea, over the littorals, and ashore. This assumption is increasingly invalid. There are now large areas of
the Eurasian littoral that are simply too dangerous for carriers to operate in the mode of “gunboat diplomacy” or engaging in
conventional warfare. Moreover, even setting aside the vulnerability of the aircraft carrier itself, modern
anti-aircraft
systems are making the skies more threatening for the air wings that comprise the
carriers’ power (stealth or no stealth). Since Desert Storm, Tomahawk cruise missiles have taken over much of the deep strike
mission from carrier-based aircraft, and new technologies such as the rail gun may encroach even further into their mission portfolio.
Thus, the question becomes: how many carriers are really needed forward in order to support U.S. strategic interests? Sequestration
forces the Navy to make a hard choice because the increasing cost of carriers and their aircraft represents an increasingly s evere tradeoff
with other kinds of forces. So, just when
the strategic utility of carriers is starting to fray at the
edges, they require increasing commitment in terms of budget share .
Second, there is no magic shortcut to ship maintenance. The sea is a harsh environment for machinery, and while strides have been made
in design and materials to improve maintainability, maintenance must still be done and it takes time to do properly. Quality crew training
takes time as well. Some efficiencies might be found on the margins, but especially for the complex operations of a carrier battle group,
time is needed for progressive and iterative training drills to generate a battle group that is “on the step.” Thus maintenan ce and training
ought to be considered constants in the deployment equation, not variables. This leaves as the only variables the number of carriers
forward, duration of cruises, and number of carriers ready for surge. There are no magical clothes that can cover over this bare fact.

So, how might the mantle of naval power actually be measured and sewn? First, we ought to acknowledge that extending cruises beyond
six or seven months or increasing the number of cruises per tour risks having sailors walk out the door after their first or second
enlistments. The same goes for aircrew, especially as the airlines replace the corps of Baby Boomer pilots. This forces cruise length and
frequency to be set constant as a matter of policy. The number of available surge carriers can vary, but a world that contain s rising, well-
armed competitors in multiple regions as well as a highly unstable Middle East suggests that the United States might have to fight in two
places at once, and possibly more, while still being able to deter adversaries elsewhere. This increases the strategic value of surge-ready
carriers in port. In the end, this leaves only the number of carriers forward as the relevant variable.

the U.S. Navy ought to

If forward carriers are the only adjustable variable, there is only one operational conclusion:
conduct more of its day-to-day forward presence operations with forces other than
carrier strike groups. Less obvious are the carriers’ replacements, but one part of the answer has been
already established: a greater number of smaller ships with distributed lethality and survivability.
This would make life harder for countries like China that want to stiff-arm a U.S.
presence in the littoral by acquiring “carrier killer” ballistic missiles. Conversely, by side-
stepping some of the emergent anti-access/area denial[A2-AD] threats, the U.S. Navy would
become more risk tolerant and be of more utility to the President during a crisis.

Carrier presence causes naval arms racing

Robert C. Rubel 14, Dean of Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, “Navies and
Economic Prosperity: The New Logic of Sea Power,” in “Writing to Think: The Intellectual
Journey of a Naval Career,” p.60-68
The challenge becomes how to use command of the sea to manage or influence the
emergence of other navies such that true naval arms races do not occur. The right way to do this is not
completely clear but there appear to be several sure-fire losing strategies. The first is for the United

States to start the arms race itself by reflexively viewing the emergence of the Chinese
Navy or others as a threat. Policies and patterns of building and deployment based on alarm and fear
will generate reciprocal responses in China and elsewhere. This is why CS21 does not mention China or any other nation by
name, something often criticized by those with an alarmist bent. Among the ways the U.S. Navy can stimulate Chinese alarm is to openly consider interdiction of their seaborne commerce in exercises, war games or

Another good way to

articles. Not only would this strengthen the hand of Chinese alarmists, but commerce interdiction would probably be infeasible on a number of counts anyway.

invoke this kind of reciprocal security dilemma is to link sea control and power
projection. After the Cold War, the U.S. Navy focused so narrowly on power projection that it and some of its allied navies forgot how to talk about sea control.12 While progress has been made in this
area, there is still a sense in the doctrine that U.S. forces will use land strikes to

neutralize shore based antiaccess systems with sea control being an exercise in access
generation that is prerequisite to projecting power ashore.13 One can imagine the effect such talk has on a nation
like China that has suffered humiliation and exploitation from the sea at the hands of
western nations. Already, the Chinese are reacting to the most recent U.S. concept of this ilk, Air-Sea Battle: “If the
U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop
anti-Air-Sea Battle.”14¶ A second way to increase the odds that navy building will lead
to war is for the leading navies to allow vulnerabilities to emerge. The U.S. Navy did this in two ways during the
1930s and up to 1941. First, it was slow to recognize and accept that the bomb-carrying aircraft had replaced the major calibre gun as the dominant naval weapon. Although war games at the Naval War College and
demonstrations by Billy Mitchell provided clear indicators, it took the December 1941 disasters of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales to force the new reality on the admirals.

Today, the new reality is that the anti-ship missile is the arbiter of what floats and
what does not. This is a condition that has existed since the early 1970s but has not been compellingly revealed due to the lack of an all-out naval battle, just as there was no all-out naval battle
between 1922 and 1941 to reveal the bomb’s superiority. Vulnerability can also be generated by concentration. In 1941 the bulk of the U.S. fleet was concentrated at Pearl Harbor, leading Admiral Yamamoto to think that

a single knock-out blow was possible. Although today the U.S. Navy is strategically dispersed around the
world, its principal combat power is concentrated into eleven aircraft carriers. Taking
several of these out would seriously compromise the strategic capabilities of the U.S.
Navy, not to mention the potential adverse effects of derailing U.S. policy as happened via the loss of
eighteen Special Forces soldiers in Somalia, or conversely stimulating escalation, possibly to the nuclear level.

Moreover, a hit on a nuclear carrier that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. sailors in a single blow might easily generate national

outrage and serve to escalate the conflict far above initial intentions. In naval warfare, history has shown that
the tactical offense has most often trumped the tactical defence, and thinking that aircraft carriers can be defended against the

array of existing and potential anti-ship missiles is not much different than the outlook of
battleship admirals in the fall of 1941.15¶
 K
‘Wars for humanity’ are an ahistorical myth
Benno Gerhard Teschke 11, IR prof at the University of Sussex, “Fatal attraction: a critique
of Carl Schmitt's international political and legal theory”, International Theory (2011), 3 :
pp 179-227
For at the centre of the heterodox – partly post-structuralist, partly realist – neo-Schmittian analysis stands the conclusion of The Nomos: the thesis of a
structural and continuous relation between liberalism and violence (Mouffe 2005, 2007; Odysseos 2007). It suggests that, in sharp contrast to the liberal-
cosmopolitan programme of ‘perpetual peace’, the geographical expansion of liberal modernity was accompanied by the intensification and de-formalization
of war in the international construction of liberal-constitutional states of law and the production of liberal subjectivities as rights-bearing individuals.
Liberal world-ordering proceeds via the conduit of wars for humanity, leading to Schmitt's ‘spaceless
universalism’. In this perspective, a straight line is drawn from WWI to the War on Terror to verify

Schmitt's long-term prognostic of the 20th century as the age of ‘neutralizations and de-
politicizations’ (Schmitt 1993). But this attempt to read the history of 20th century international
relations in terms of a succession of confrontations between the carrier-nations of liberal
modernity and the criminalized foes at its outer margins seems unable to comprehend
the complexities and specificities of ‘liberal’ world-ordering, then and now. For in the
cases of Wilhelmine, Weimar and fascist Germany, the assumption that their conflicts with the Anglo-American liberal-
capitalist heartland were grounded in an antagonism between liberal modernity and a recalcitrant Germany outside its geographical and conceptual

lines runs counter to the historical evidence. For this reading presupposes that late-Wilhelmine Germany was not already
substantially penetrated by capitalism and fully incorporated into the capitalist world economy, posing the question of whether the causes of WWI lay in the
capitalist dynamics of inter-imperial rivalry (Blackbourn and Eley 1984), or in processes of belated and incomplete liberal-capitalist development, due to the
survival of ‘re-feudalized’ elites in the German state classes and the marriage between ‘rye and iron’ (Wehler 1997). It also assumes that the late-Weimar and
early Nazi turn towards the construction of an autarchic German regionalism – Mitteleuropa or Großraum – was not deeply influenced by the international
ramifications of the 1929 Great Depression, but premised on a purely political–existentialist assertion of German national identity. Against a reading of the
early 20th century conflicts between ‘the liberal West’ and Germany as ‘wars for humanity’ between an expanding liberal modernity and its political exterior,
there is more evidence to suggest that theseconfrontations were interstate conflicts within the crisis-ridden
and nationally uneven capitalist project of modernity. Similar objections and caveats to the binary opposition between
the Western discourse of liberal humanity against non-liberal foes apply to the more recent period. For how can this optic explain

that the ‘liberal West’ coexisted (and keeps coexisting) with a large number of pliant
authoritarian client-regimes (Mubarak's Egypt, Suharto's Indonesia, Pahlavi's Iran, Fahd's Saudi-Arabia, even
Gaddafi's pre-intervention Libya, to name but a few), which were and are actively managed and supported by

the West as anti-liberal Schmittian states of emergency, with concerns for liberal
subjectivities and Human Rights secondary to the strategic interests of political and
geopolitical stability and economic access? Even in the more obvious cases of Afghanistan, Iraq, and, now, Libya, the idea
that Western intervention has to be conceived as an encounter between the liberal project
and a series of foes outside its sphere seems to rely on a denial of their antecedent histories
as geopolitically and socially contested state-building projects in pro-Western fashion, deeply co-determined by
long histories of Western anti-liberal colonial and post-colonial legacies. If these states (or social forces within them) turn against their imperial masters, the
And as the Schmittian analytical vocabulary does not include a
conventional policy expression is ‘blowback’.

conception of human agency and social forces – only friend/enemy groupings and
collective political entities governed by executive decision – it also lacks the categories of
analysis to comprehend the social dynamics that drive the struggles around sovereign
power and the eventual overcoming, for example, of Tunisian and Egyptian states of
emergency without US-led wars for humanity. Similarly, it seems unlikely that the generic
idea of liberal world-ordering and the production of liberal subjectivities can actually
explain why Western intervention seems improbable in some cases (e.g. Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen or Syria)
and more likely in others (e.g. Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya). Liberal world-ordering consists of differential strategies
of building, coordinating, and drawing liberal and anti-liberal states into the Western orbit, and overtly or covertly intervening and refashioning them once
These are conflicts within a world, which seem to push the term
they step out of line.

liberalism beyond its original meaning. The generic Schmittian idea of a liberal
‘spaceless universalism’ sits uncomfortably with the realities of maintaining an America-
supervised ‘informal empire’, which has to manage a persisting interstate system in diverse
and case-specific ways. But it is this persistence of a worldwide system of states, which encase national particularities, which renders
challenges to American supremacy possible in the first place.

They over-generalize particular beliefs to suggest that all discussion of

difference leads to violence---their impacts stem from particular violent
ideologies that can be challenged without throwing out advocacies like
the aff---overfocus on form is politically ineffective
Andy Robinson 4, Zizek hater, Baudrillard, Zizek and Laclau on "common sense" - a
critique, http://andyrobinsontheoryblog.blogspot.com/2004/11/baudrillard-zizek-and-
laclau-on-common.html
Similarly, at times, Baudrillard admits both the unsatisfactory nature of the society of the spectacle for many of its participants,
and the existence of spheres of belief and discourse beyond its borders. For instance, people don't fully believe the hyperre ality which
substitutes for reality (SSM 99); some groups, so-called "savages" such as the Arab masses, are not submerged in simulation and can still
become passionately involved in, for instance, war (GW 32); the real still exists underground (GW 63). Indeed, although his a nalysis of
the Gulf War suggests that the WEST is trapped in simulacra, his account of the rest of the world suggests it follows a diffe rent logic (eg
GW 65). Wars or non-wars today are waged by the west against symbolic logics which break with the dominant system, such as Islam
(GW 85-6), to absorb everything which is singular and irreducible (GW 86). Also, though
he thinks the risk of it is
low, he admits that an accident, an irruption of Otherness, or an event which breaks
the control exerted by information can disrupt the "celibate machine" of media
control (GW 36, 48). If this is the case, however, there is no basis for assuming its totality,
and it is still meaningful to try to win people over to alternatives. In SSM Baudrillard retreats
from this analysis, suggesting the reduction of society to a rat race is a result of the masses' resistance to 'objective' economic
management (SSM 45) - the system benefits as a result but that is not the main issue. This contrasts with Baudrillard's earlier analyses
and also those of others such as Illich, who see the destructive social effects of such competition. However, Baudrillard does attack "the
social", which he identifies with control through information, simulation, security and deterrence (SSM 50-1) - though how it can be
resisted since he thinks it "produces" us is never explained. ¶ Baudrillard
tends to conflate existing
dominant beliefs with thought and meaning per se. As a result, he leaves it
impossible to critique dominant ideas in a meaningful way. For instance, he poses political
problems in terms of "resistance to the social", with the social in general being
conflated with the EXISTING social system (SSM 41); ditto on the existing sign system,
which Baudrillard identifies with meaning per se. In such cases, Baudrillard misses
the whole question of countercultural practices and the creation of alternative
hegemonies.¶ Baudrillard's conflation of meaning per se with dominant beliefs leads
to a refusal to countenance the possibility of transforming mass beliefs. Raising the cultural
level of the masses, Baudrillard claims, is "Nonsense" because the masses, who want spectacle rather
than meaning, are resistant to "rational communication " (SSM 10). An "autonomous
change in consciousness" by the masses, Baudrillard tells us, is a "glaring
impossibility" (SSM 30) - though he never tells us how he deduces this. Furthermore, he also
claims that people who try to raise consciousness , liberate the unconscious or promote subjectivity "are
acting in accordance with the system " (SSM 109). This anathematisation is a result of Baudrillard's strange claim
that the system's logic is based on total inclusion and speech! It is on this basis that Baudrillard rejects argument based o n empirical
claims and locates truth outside such claims (SSM 121-2).
1AR
 AT: CPGS
No CPGS---multiple barriers
Corentin Brustlein 15, head of the Deterrence and Proliferation research program at the
French Institute of International Relations, Conventionalizing Deterrence?, U.S. Prompt
Strike Programs and Their Limits, Proliferation Papers 52, Security Studies Center
CPGS programs remained modest (116 million dollars per year on average since 2008), but the projects
Not only has the budget allocated for

receiving funding have frequently changed, moving within a few years from CTM to HTV-2 to AHW. This
instability, which can be explained both by political motives (nuclear ambiguity of the
CTM) and by the disappointing results of HTV-2 tests44, has reduced the ability of the project teams to
consolidate know-how and overcome technical obstacles they face.

In addition, the constraints weighing on the U.S. defense budget since 2011 have constituted a severe test for a nascent program relying on immature
technologies. The absolute necessity for the administration to reduce federal spending on a long-term
basis meant that budgetary priorities had to be established in the defense sector. Although it has not been publicly
acknowledged, the choices were detrimental to CPGS programs. Due to the modest investments and sunk costs to

date, the local economic impact of these programs was practically zero. In fact, conventional strategic strike programs

seem not to have enjoyed sufficient support from either Congress, the armed forces
or the OSD. At the very least, these capabilities have not been considered important enough
to be exempted from budgetary cuts. The administration, which had planned in spring 2011 to allocate almost 1.8 billion
dollars to CPGS programs over the next five years, found itself forced to drastically scale back its ambitions: in early 2014, the projected credit envelope for
CPGS programs through 2018 was divided by almost three, to 673 million dollars (see Figures 2 and 3), which approximately equ als the actual spending
levels from FY2010 to FY2014. Figure 2 shows the extent to which credits projected on an annual basis dropped sharply after the Budget Control Act was
voted in summer 2011, forcing the administration to find more than 1,000 billion dollars in savings over a decade, heavily impacting the Pentagon’s
budget45 .

Thus the Pentagon’s ambitions in terms of conventional strategic strike fell hostage to a
dynamic that combined budgetary uncertainties, technical difficulties and lack of
sufficient support from any constituency (see Figure 3). The interaction between these three types of
constraints, already unfavorable to the development of new capabilities when budgets were not yet under heavy pressure, became a key handicap
once the Pentagon entered a period of budget austerity, and appears to have sealed the fate of the most ambitious goals

for U.S. strategic strike programs.

 AT: SEA Shift
Yokosuka is the only place we can dock the carrier
WCT 9/10, Want China Times, “The USS Ronald Reagan and US power projection in the
Western Pacific,” http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-
cnt.aspx?id=20150910000162&cid=1101
Yokosuka's importance to the US comes from three things: first of all that it is able to maintain a large aircraft carrier. When
the US started returning some of the base's berths to Japan, it reserved the usage rights of berth No. 6, where the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano was built and where repairs were

This is the only dock capable of maintaining an aircraft

made to Yamato-class battleships during World War II.

carrier in the area west of Hawaii stretching all the way to the coast of East Africa.
Second, the Yokosuka base is in a key location with regard to projection power in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. It takes a US aircraft carrier seven days to sail from Hawaii
to Japan, whereas it takes 14 days to sail from the west coast of the continental United States to Japan. Whether carriers are being deployed to East Asia or the Persian Gulf, they can
reach there from Yokosuka much quicker than from the US. Third, military ports are expensive, so having a base established already is preferable to building one from scratch.

There’s no political willpower to base carriers in SEA

Bruce Klinger 12, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia, and Dean Cheng is Research
Fellow in Chinese Political and Security Affairs, in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage
Foundation, U.S. Asian Policy: America's Security Commitment to Asia Needs More Forces,
Aug 7, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/americas-security-
commitment-to-asia-needs-more-forces
This report will hardly be seen as a genuine improvement in American capability. Rather than putting forth paper tigers, the United
States needs to project real, credible power. To this end, the Administration should work with Canberra, Tokyo, and Seoul to homeport
additional U.S. forces in Asian ports, much as the George Washington carrier
battle group is currently
homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.¶ Ideally, these new homeportings would comprise a
carrier strike group or a Marine Expeditionary Unit (typically, three amphibious assault ships plus a number of escorts),
perhaps in Southeast Asia, to complement the forces currently stationed in northeast Asia. Although political
realities make it unlikely that such high visibility forces would be allowed to
permanently base in any nation in the region (including Australia), it might be possible to base
one or more U.S. submarines in Asian ports, especially as these vessels are, by their very nature, stealthy. Having several additional attack
submarines permanently based in Asia would significantly reduce transit time, allowing these subs to spend much more of their time on
patrol in Asian waters, rather than shuttling to and from Pearl Harbor.
Round 3
1AC
 1AC
The United States should significantly reduce counter-anti-access/area-
denial strike presence in Northeast Asia, including removal of carrier
strike groups.
Current military policy is defined by fear of Chinese naval
modernization; this has facilitated both discursive and material
securitization against China’s rise through adoption of the Air-Sea Battle
concept and stationing of naval presence in Northeast Asia
- No single root cause of Chinese modernization, and it’s not just a response to the
U.S.
- Securitization  huge increases in military spending
Fredrik Nillson 12, graduate student, Department of Political Science @ Lund University,
“Securitizing China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’: An Empirical Study of the U.S. Approach to Chinese
Trade Practices, Military Modernization and Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea,”
http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2740544&fileOId=27
43569, paraphrased for ableist language
4.3 Securitizing China’s maritime capabilities
During the 2011 visit by China’s president Hu to Washington, leaders of both countries emphasized the importance of increased cooperation not least in the military sector (Chase

The U.S. has repeatedly stated that it supports a more powerful and prosperous
2011; 133).

China (ibid), and China has since 2002 repeatedly stated its intentions of a ‘peaceful rise’ (Guo 2006;
39). The need for cooperation is often deemed critical. Australian strategist Hugh White has argued that if China continues on
its current trajectory, a new order in the region will need to be established; one that takes into account the new power relativities, and that “if this doesn’t happen, there is no reason to

China has since continued on the same trajectory, but no

expect that the peace can be kept” (White 2008; 91).

further significant military cooperation or regional order has yet been on any
significant agenda. The peace has so far been kept, and the urgency of cooperation has been repeatedly
emphasized, but no major change has taken place. Rather, the relationship has during the past four
years rather gone in the opposite direction and become increasingly antagonistic. Some Chinese scholars argue that the bilateral

relations are good on the surface but that the U.S. is increasingly working towards a
containment policy (Chase 2011; 135)
The Obama administration has chosen to take a tougher approach to China’s military
modernization as the cooperation has proven to be difficult (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 53). For example, military cooperation and mutual visits were
suspended by Beijing in a reaction to a U.S.-Taiwan arms deal in 2010 (Pomfret 2010). Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated at the 2010 Shangri-La Dialogue, that the
increasing Chinese capabilities directed at Taiwan requires the U.S. to supply Taiwan with arms and that disruptions in military-tomilitary relations with China will not change U.S.

policy toward Taiwan (Gates 2010).Many people in China view Washington’s approach as increasingly
worrying and the idea that the U.S. is trying to restrain Chinese power ambitions is
getting stronger (Chase 2011; 133-134). Richard Weitz argued that the good relations established by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates were largely due to
Gates’ personal commitment and that his retirement might retard [slow] the progress (Weitz 2011). Weitz assertion seems accurate because since Gates retired military-

to-military cooperation is conspicuously absent and the Obama administration has

increasingly started to securitize China’s growing capabilities.
China’s annual military budget has over the past ten years grown faster than the overall economy, measured in GDP (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 51). There are many
different speculations as to why China is developing its military at such a rapid rate, now having the world’s second largest military budget only after the United States (The SIPRI
Military Expenditure Database). A lack of military transparency is fueling suspicion about China’s intentions in regional states and the resulting uncertainty is a source of reoccurring

recently has Beijing started to reveal some of the

diplomatic tensions (Kiselycznyk and Saunders 2010; 4-5). Only

developments that they seek to achieve. Amongst other things, China has admitted
their intention to deploy an aircraft carrier group in the near future (Wong 2010). They also
have increased submarine capabilities and they operate an underground submarine
base that enables Chinese submarines to reach deep waters rapidly and deploy
submarines to vital sea lanes with great stealth (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2010; 2)
Sea power is pursued for two main purposes. The first one is to protect SLOCs (Sea-Lanes of Communication) and seaborne commerce in peacetime, and to ensure protection of these
through sea-denial or sea-control in times of war. The second purpose is for offensive military power and aggression (Howarth 2006; 4). Howarth writes mainly about the intentions
behind Chinese submarine development and states that:

Although originally conceived to play primarily a defensive role in naval operations, the submarine has more often been the instrument of choice for offensive operations by inferior

possession of advanced, offensive weapons has often provided weaker states with
navies. And

the confidence to launch asymmetric wars against stronger opponents (Howarth 2006; 9-10)
This observation is true not only for China in this region, but also for surrounding countries like Vietnam, who, in order to hedge its
bets against China, is developing significant submarine capabilities to defend its interests in the South China Sea.

The supposed reasons behind China’s rapid and extensively developed maritime capabilities are grounded in its issues with Taiwan. Some argue that
China’s naval modernization started with the 1996 incident in which the U.S. carriers
blocked the Taiwan Strait and denied China any possibility of attack (see for example Office of the
Secretary of Defense 2011; 57). In the case of Taiwan trying to declare independence, China would use force to enforce its claims to the territory (Ross 2000; 87). The United

States has a long-standing alignment with Taiwan, something that was illustrated when the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers into the
Taiwan Strait in 1996 to counter Chinese coercive diplomacy against Taiwan (Ross 2000; 88). Even though Taiwan might be the highest priority, it is not the

only reason for China’s modernization efforts. Other goals include protecting
Chinese interest in the South China Sea; preventing piracy; protecting vital energy supply
lines; displacing U.S. power and influence in the Asia Pacific (O’Rourke 2012; 5).
the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the $5.8 billion arms package to Taiwan. This was not
In September 2011,

well received in Beijing, and the Chinese Ambassador in Washington said there would be consequences (Minnick 2011). China believes it has legitimate
reasons for being outraged about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan because of the 1982 communiqué that outlines the long-term U.S. policy towards Taiwan with a gradual decrease in arms

U.S. officials believe

sales with the goal of a future resolution (Junbo 2011). In line with the commitment of China not to let Taiwan secede from Mainland China,

that China has planned its military development in a way that will enable
enforcements of its claims of Taiwan without outside interference. This suspicion is
visible in several official documents, for example in the following statement in a
Department of Defense report to Congress:
Beijing is
The PLA seeks the capability to deter Taiwan independence and influence Taiwan to settle the dispute on Beijing’s terms. In pursuit of this objective,

developing capabilities intended to deter, delay, or deny possible U.S. support for the island
in the event of conflict. The balance of cross-Strait military forces and capabilities continues to shift in the mainland’s favor (Office of the Secretary of
Defense 2011; I).

Despite arguments that the PLAN is of little direct threat to the United States, the Obama
administration has chosen to securitize the rise of the Chinese naval capabilities. In the
strategic guidance for the Department of Defense in 2012, Obama writes in a letter that:
we will
As we end today’s wars and reshape our Armed Forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies. In particular,

continue to invest in the capabilities critical to future success, including intelligence, surveillance,
 reconnaissance; counterterrorism; countering weapons of mass destruction; operating in antiaccess
and

environments; and prevailing in all domains, including cyber (Obama’s note in Department of Defense 2012).
it officially raises the issue of operating in anti-access
The statement covers a lot of ground but, most significantly,

environment on the military security agenda. The report also makes clear the redirected focus of U.S. military strategy, saying:
“while the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-

Pacific region” (Department of Defense 2012; 2). The necessity lies in maintaining competitiveness and regional sea control. In the context of China’s lacking
transparency in military modernization, the report raises the importance of increased U.S.-Sino cooperation but also immediately addresses the inherent difficulties in doing so:

The United States will continue to make the necessary investments to ensure that we
“

maintain regional access and the ability to operate freely in keeping with out treaty
obligations and with international law ” (Department of Defense 2012; 2) and that:
China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power
States such as

projection capabilities… Accordingly, the U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its
ability to operate effectively in antiaccess and area denial (A2/AD) environments. This will
include implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept, sustaining our undersea capabilities, developing a new stealth bomber, improving missile defenses, and continuing efforts
to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based capabilities (Department of Defense 2012; 4-5).

the best way

The measures that the Department of Defense is taking to deal with China might prove difficult to justify to a wider audience. In times of budget restraints,

to justify developing increasingly advanced and costly capabilities might be through

securitization of China’s naval rise. This is what the U nited States is currently doing.
There is clear suspicion from the United States in Chinese intentions largely due to its lacking transparency and the ambiguous nature of government communications. For example,
regarding China’s policy of ‘no first strike’ a 2011 report to congress states that:

If China loosely defines a ‘strike’ to encompass some political action, this significantly alters the purportedly ‘defensive’ nature of this strategic construct. This implies that PLA forces
might be employed preemptively in the name of defense (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2011; 25).

the U.S. has chosen to securitize China’s anti-ship ballistic

With U.S. alliances and primacy in the Western Pacific,

missiles (ASBMs) because they pose the greatest threat to U.S. ships in the event of a
Chinese anti-access operation (Wishik II 2011; 39). The A2/AD concept is not used by China, but their ASCEL (Active Strategic Counterattacks on
Exterior Lines) has many similar features, although Wishik (2011) argues that ASCEL might be seen as more extensive than A2/AD.

According to a New York Times article, the new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed Washington’s worries about
China:
We’re concerned about China… The most important thing we can do is to project our
force into the Pacific – to have our carriers there, to have our fleet there, to be able to make very
clear to China that we are going to protect international rights to be able to move across the oceans freely (Panetta quoted in Bumiller 2011).

This statement bluntly points out China as the perpetrator in the Pacific. With this serious security concern, it
also, without hedging, identifies a strong military presence as the most important thing we can

do and that U.S. interests will be protected using this military presence. The
statement lift the issue to another level of urgency, possibly so as to justify further spending
on new capabilities.
there is an inherent dichotomy in U.S.
It can be observed, by looking at U.S. discourse surrounding China’s military modernization, that

posture towards China. Chinese scholars have called this the ‘two-handed’ China policy, which features
characteristics of both engagement and containment (Chase 2011; 134). Chase argues that the Chinese
misconceptions of U.S. intentions might create a situation that proves difficult to
manage because of the attempt to employ both a firm approach of balancing power
and simultaneously accommodating China’s rise (Chase 2011; 135). The confusion is generated
by ambiguous messages in statements such as the following made by Barack Obama :
And we’ll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation. We will
do this, even as we continue to speak candidly to Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms (Obama 2011a).

Washington’s attempt to both shape and

The issues outlined are inseparable in the wider relationship, and

accommodate China is antagonistic. The securitization of China’s military

modernization might be seen as a natural development. However, it is a conscious political choice that is
effectively transforming China’s increased military security into U.S. insecurity in a
prime example of a security dilemma. The, at times, two-handed policy can be seen as a U.S. attempt to desecuritize certain threats for the
purpose of cooperation. However, in the current climate, this has been deemed increasingly complicated.

4.4 Extraordinary measures

Arguably, the easiest way to determine whether a securitization speech act has been successful or not is by looking at how a perceived threat discourse has shaped policy, and how
extraordinary measures have been adopted to deal with a specific threat (Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde 1998; 26). In the two sections dealing with the political and the military sectors,
the extraordinary measures have come in the form of a concerted development in a wider political and strategic development. There are arguably three overarching, cross-sectorial,

extraordinary measures that can be identified as being employed in direct response to

the securitizations discussed above.
Firstly, to deal with the issues of territorial sovereignty and China’s claims to disputed territory, and to protect international rules and norms, the U.S. has increased its military
cooperation with the Philippines. In early 2012, the U.S. and Philippines performed major joint naval exercises as a way to increase Philippine capabilities and to enable the U.S. to
charter the volatile waters of the South China Sea (Odgaard 2003; 16). The U.S. also worked to improve its relationship with Vietnam. Secondly, as a wider measure to increase
presence and flexibility in the region, president Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the stationing of the U.S. Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) in
Australia’s Northern Territory with the goal of having 2500 marines stationed there for six months per year by 2016 (White House 2011). This officially aims to improve relations with
Australia and to enable fast-reaction operations in response to natural disasters. But the context of the announcement, and the current developments in the region has prompted

deployment is a piece in a much larger puzzle to circle China. Thirdly, and perhaps the
suspicion that the

most extensive measure employed, is the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) developed by the United
States. The central purpose of the JOAC (2012) is stated as follows:
As a global power with global interests, the United States must maintain the credible capability to project military force into any region of the world in support of those interests. This

the ability to project force both into the global commons to ensure their use and
includes

into foreign territory as required. Moreover, the credible ability to do so can serve as a
reassurance to U.S. partners and a powerful deterrent to those contemplating
actions that threaten U.S. interests (JOAC 2012; 2)
the new Air-Sea Battle concept, which aims to bring together the Navy and
The JOAC includes

the Air Force in developing integration between the different forces to deal with a
wider range of threats from cyber to A2/AD threats (JOAC 2012; 4). This concept is central to
U.S. securitizations in the Asia Pacific region and constitutes a wide range of
emergency measures to deal with the growing threat of Chinese military
modernization towards which it is most clearly directed. These developments are but the most significant. They are all arguably
integrated into what might resemble a ‘grand strategy’.

These force deployments lead to everyday structural violence through

land seizures and environmental damage
- Nuclear carrier puts Tokyo at risk, land seizures on Jeju Islands, harassment by
soldiers, environmental damage, decrease in social spending
Joseph Gerson 12, directs the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American
Friends Service Committee’s Northeast region, member of the Working Group for Peace
and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific, 9/13/12, “Reinforcing Washington’s Asia-Pacific Hegemony,”
http://www.ips-dc.org/reinforcing_washingtons_asia-pacific_hegemony/

Military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand, which serve as “the fulcrum for our str ategic turn to
Having adopted an air-sea battle doctrine, the Pentagon has
the Asia-Pacific,” are being revitalized.
committed to deploying 60 percent of its nuclear-armed and high-tech navy to the
Asia-Pacific. According to the New York Times, this includes “six aircraft carriers and a majority of the Navy’s
cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines , [and] an accelerated pace of naval
exercises and port calls in the Pacific.”

Recognizing that relying on military power alone is not a winning strategy, especially given the near-equal influence of economic power,
the Obama administration has also pressed a diplomatic campaign to negotiate a “Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The goal is to create the
world’s largest and most demanding free-trade area in ways that deepen the economic integration of the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific allies
while simultaneously reducing their economic dependence on China.

The expansion has come at a price for the region’s people.

In Japan it means reaffirming the nuclear alliance, despite President Obama’s ostensible commitment to creating a nuclear-weapons-free
world. It also means amplified efforts to pacify Okinawan resistance to decades of U.S.
military colonization, the continued and dangerous basing of the nuclear-capable USS George
Washington aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay, the deployment of accident-prone Osprey aircraft in the urban Futenma base in
Okinawa, accelerated missile defense deployments, and expanded joint intelligence operations targeting China and North Korea.

In South Korea, where the U.S. military continues to have authority over all South Korean military operations in wartime, joint military
exercises have been expanded — including in the Yellow Sea, where in defiance of Chinese warnings, the United States recently deployed
the George Washington. To take the naval challenge closer to the Chinese coast, a massive
Korean naval base is being built at a World Heritage site in Jeju Island’s Gangjeon village, which according to
Yonhap News will “accommodate submarines and up to 20 warships, including U.S. Aegis-equipped destroyers and their missile defense
systems.” This has sparked intense and disciplined nonviolent resistance in Korea.
In Southeast Asia, the Obama administration upped the military ante by responding to China’s increasingly militarized claims to nearly
all of the mineral-rich South China Sea—through which 40 percent of the world’s commerce passes—by declaring (U.S.-policed) free
navigation of the seas a U.S. strategic priority. Reinforcing Philippine claims to the “West Philippine Sea,” the Pentago n has also increased
weapons sales to the Philippines, accelerated joint military exercises, and explored the return of military bases. The pivot also entails
strengthening the U.S. military’s relationships with Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam, with the latter engaging in joint
military exercises and under its “friends with all nations” policies, providing access for U.S. and allied navies at Cam Rahn Bay.
Washington’s renewed ties and military-to-military contacts with Burma, which could restrict China’s access to the Indian Ocean, have
also raised serious concerns in Beijing.

To complete China’s encirclement, the Obama administration has established a new Indian Ocean base in Darwin, Australia, purs ued a
tacit alliance with India, and is expanding its “partnerships” with New Zealand and Mongolia. In April, the United States even won an
agreement to keep a yet-to-be-determined number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan through 2024. Closer to home, Hawaii is to host nearly
3,000 more Marines, Osprey warplanes, and further base expansions.

Meanwhile the Chamorro people of Guam, whose tiny island nation’s strategic location makes it an ideal fallback site for the day when
U.S. troops are finally ejected from Japan, are bearing the brunt of the pivot. Even though U.S. bases already occupy 28 percent of the 500-
square-mile island, 3,000 more U.S. Marines and their families are scheduled to be redeployed to Guam from Okinawa, and there are
plans for massive expansions of existing bases.

In an August 2012 speech in Japan, Cara Flores-Mays of Guam explained what the pivot will mean for her Chamorro grandfather: “He has
not known freedom,” she said, “and it’s likely that he never will.” The same applies to the peoples of many other Asia-Pacific nations, who
have largely been shunted aside in the great-power calculus governing U.S. policy in the region.

The Peace Movement’s Pivot

The United States and China, joined by other Asian and Pacific nations, are now engaged in a dangerous,
expensive arms race reminiscent of the Cold War.
When great powers compete, the peoples and interests of smaller nations are often
sacrificed. Caught between China’s rising influence and the U.S. pivot, the people of “host” nations and
communities are paying the greatest price. Over two centuries ago, the authors of the U.S. Declaration of
Independence identified the peacetime presence of British troops in their communities as the source of “abuses and usurpation s”
necessitating rebellion. Now it is the
peoples of the Pacific and Asia who are suffering and
increasingly resisting the impacts of the pivot, be they land seizures, harassment by
U.S. soldiers, terrorizing low-altitude flight exercises, assaults on the environment,
distorted national budgets, or the increased dangers of catastrophic warfare.
If catastrophic wars are to be prevented and limited national resources devoted to
ensuring genuine economic and environmental security, the U.S. peace movement
must begin challenging the pivot and its consequences . Already, there are indications that the
movement’s own “pivot” has begun.

It also makes war and nuclear escalation likely – offensive naval

presence means both sides will have use-or-lose pressures in a crisis
David W. Kearn 14, is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Politics
at St. John’s University, “Air-Sea Battle, the Challenge of Access, and U.S. National Security
Strategy,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 36:34-43
The explicit objectives of ASB of defeating the adversary may only
• Regional Stability:

exacerbate existing mistrust between Washington and Beijing and reinforce Beijing’s
fears about U.S. intentions in the region. 51 In turn, this could make China more
assertive and difficult to negotiate with in the future and increase the probability of a
crisis or conflict over Taiwan or other disputed territories in the region. More specifically, if a
political crisis arose, the U.S. commitment to a highly offensive ASB concept could
lead Beijing to view a first strike as preferable to allowing the United States to seize
the initiative. Finally, this approach and subsequent envisioned developments may
only exacerbate what may be a nascent arms race in the region, decreasing overall
stability and security and potentially making a conflict more likely.52
a second major concern about
• Escalation: At the same time, while China is not a clear peer competitor (as was the Soviet Union),

the adoption of ASB as a U.S. response to a future conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere
in East Asia is China’s possession of nuclear weapons. The potential escalation
dangers inherent in ASB as it is presented are alarming.53 Considering that the key
objective of ASB seems to be precisely the “blinding” or “dazzling” of the enemy to
attain the ability to launch effective in-depth offensive operations, the United States
would face the danger of possibly targeting the specific capacity to keep a conflict
limited and avoid loss of control of strategic weapons by Beijing. By most estimates, China’s strategic
deterrent remains relatively small, although the opaque nature of China’s military programs has led some analysts to argue that this deterrent may be much
larger. Nonetheless, Beijing’s policy seems focused on maintaining a “guaranteed retaliation” capability, meaning that even if it were to suffer a major attack,
assuming that Beijing could maintain
it would still have the capacity to respond and inflict prohibitive damage. However,

control of its weapons under an ASB attack, any perceived threat to its strategic
deterrent capability could unleash a “use it or lose it” dynamic that could result in
the use of nuclear weapons. Finally, if the regime perceived that U.S. objectives were not
limited and were focused on regime change or if a devastating loss (of Taiwan
perhaps) would make likely the regime’s demise, the pressure to use nuclear
weapons could be significant.

This impact is supported by large dataset statistical testing and robust

case studies
Michael Ryan Kraig 13, assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command
and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base; and Leon J. Perkowski, PhD candidate in the
history of US foreign relations senior instructor in the Department of International Security
and Military Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, Summer 2013, “Shaping Air and
Sea Power for the “Asia Pivot”: Military Planning to Support Limited Geopolitical
Objectives,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, p. 114-136
One might argue that the capability to win such a large war decisively would inherently
deter an opponent from escalating to that point. However, in the security studies literature, the
concept and empirical reality of diplomatically destabilizing weapons capabilities has been
thoroughly analyzed and described under the rubric of “offensive dominance,” as opposed to “defense” or “deterrence
dominance.” Large dataset statistical testing, together with in-depth case studies covering the
great-power periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have together shown
across different methodologies that when major powers harbor weapons at an
operational level that can easily preempt the other side’s forces quickly, this
exacerbates the grand strategy–level condition known as “international anarchy.” The decision
calculus can quickly veer toward preventive war or preemptive strikes because decision
makers are tempted through both opportunity and genuine fear to “strike first” to
keep a rival from gaining a decisive operational, and hence, strategic edge.39
Thus, a
US approach to force procurement and employment that is overly focused on offensive
strategic interdiction in order to secure victory—even of a nonnuclear variety—could easily have a
deleterious strategic political effect during both periods of “general deterrence” in
peacetime and during a diplomatic-military crisis. In essence, Bernard Brodie’s 1959 assessment of
nuclear deterrence strategies is generally applicable here: “[A] plan and policy which offers a good promise of deterring war is . . . better
in every way than one which depreciates the objectives of deterrence in order to improve somewhat the chances of winning” (emphasis
added).40

Carrier presence uniquely increases escalation risks – removal from

Northeast Asia resolves the use-or-lose dilemma
Robert Haddick 13, Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal, independent contractor to U.S.
Special Operations Command, he has advised the State Department, the National
Intelligence Council, and U.S. Central Command, “CRISIS MANAGEMENT NEEDS A
MAKEOVER,” Nov. 18, http://warontherocks.com/2013/11/crisis-management-needs-a-
makeover/
the old U.S. crisis management playbook may in the future accelerate
Indeed, long-familiar moves in

rather than de-escalate some crises. For example, moving U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups
closer to the crisis, previously a strong signal of U.S. resolve, could paradoxically
induce an attack on the carriers and other U.S. forward bases by Chinese missile
forces. In a crisis, Chinese military commanders will have an incentive to strike the
aircraft carriers before the carriers’ aircraft come in range of Chinese targets. Having made
that decision, Chinese commanders may reason that they should attack U.S. forward air

bases in the region too.

The very high weighting of short-
This exposes an increasingly perilous flaw in the current structure of U.S. military power in the region.

range tactical air power in the U.S. portfolio, based at vulnerable forward bases and
on aircraft carriers, creates a potentially dangerous “use it, or lose it” urgency during
future crises. If more of U.S. striking power had a longer range and was based at more secure sites
farther from crisis flashpoints, U.S. decision-makers and commanders would find
themselves under much less pressure during crises. Similarly, adversaries would not
find an advantage in striking first, nor would they be compelled to assume that U.S.
policy-makers were under that same pressure.

Withdrawing strike presence significantly reduces the propensity for

US/China war – addressing the particular variables that have increased
the risk conflict is most productive
- Propensity for war is more heavily influenced by situational variables than root
causes
G. John Ikenberry 14, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton
University, with Adam P. Liff, Assistant Professor of East Asian International Relations at
Indiana University's School of Global and International Studies, “Racing toward Tragedy?:
China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma,” Fall,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ISEC_a_00176#.Ve5kZhFViko
While the sources of security dilemma military competition may have deep
structural roots, in the Asia Pacific today, its intensity is heavily contingent on
situational variables—uncertainty, misperceptions, strategic mistrust, and the
failure to establish credible assurances of restraint. Indeed, if the involved states recognize that current tensions are to
some degree driven by a security dilemma, opportunities to ameliorate frictions exist . Specific to China's rise and its consequences,
five types of steps may be particularly effective. Given space constraints, we focus our recommendations specifically on the United States and China.¶ First, Beijing and Washington

Self-understood defensively oriented policies

must both recognize that they are at least partially caught in a security dilemma.

are generating insecurity and military responses on the other side that make both
countries less secure and trigger new rounds of competition. The United States must
avoid being unnecessarily provocative in its strategic moves and rhetoric, more proactively
explaining the comprehensive (not military-specific) nature of its growing focus on the Asia Pacific and linking it explicitly to a stable regional status quo that serves the interests of all.
China's leaders need to appreciate the security dilemma as a concept—and as a security problem that threatens China's own interests—and adopt measures to significantly reduce
widespread uncertainty about Beijing's military capabilities and intentions. China must recognize that its rise is not occurring in a strategic vacuum; while it has the right to develop
military power commensurate with its coveted status, regardless of its true intentions, under anarchy doing so will have consequences as other states adopt measures to enhance their
own security. Yet anarchy is by no means determinative of outcomes; without major changes to its policies and rhetoric, Beijing's military buildup may trigger even more severe, and
unwelcome, defensive responses from the United States and others. Even well-intentioned states whose leaders do not harbor what Beijing often uncritically dismisses as “ulterior
motives” to “contain China's peaceful rise” are likely to respond to its growing capabilities and uncertainty over its future intentions in ways that will leave China less secure. For
leaders on both sides to acknowledge a security dilemma at work is to open up a bargaining space for reciprocal steps to manage and moderate the otherwise potentially dangerous
spirals of competition.¶ Second, each side should do more to candidly share information about its interpretations of the other's policies and rhetoric. To do so effectively necessitates
more active diplomacy—dialogues, exchanges, and ongoing intergovernmental working groups—and this must be a two-way street. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue held
annually among policymakers in Washington and Beijing is a good first step. The goal of these dialogues is to provide more systematic and credible information about the intentions of
the other side. This is particularly important in the area of intermilitary dialogues, where both sides must candidly explain their strategic intentions, operational goals, and doctrines.
Intermilitary dialogues have increased, but remain infrequent, under-institutionalized, and superficial. They must not be conditional on the vicissitudes of political relations.¶ Third,
both sides should increase transparency of their military capabilities, strategic objectives, and military policy decisionmaking. Greater transparency can reduce uncertainty, thereby
decreasing the risks of miscalculations that lead to war. Washington must more effectively explain why exactly China's low transparency harms strategic trust, making clear how the
paucity of reliable information creates strong incentives for defensively oriented worst-case scenario planning. Beijing should understand that if its motives are in fact status quo-
oriented, it does both itself and its neighbors a severe disservice by not being more transparent about the drivers and content of its military policies. Regardless of per capita income
or other developmental metrics, China has the world's second-largest economy and military budget, with both growing rapidly. Under these conditions, and regardless of the Chinese
Communist Party's and PLA's extremely conservative political culture and traditions, for policymaking to remain a closed and opaque system is unnecessarily destabilizing and invites
miscalculation and military competition.¶ Fourth, both sides should establish and strengthen diplomatic mechanisms for bargaining. When the presence of a security dilemma is
recognized by both sides, mechanisms need to be available for leaders to offer reciprocal, and verifiable, gestures of restraint. These sorts of bargains will ultimately need to be
negotiated at the highest levels. Beijing and Washington also have strong incentives to significantly expand routine communications and strengthen personal relationships at all levels,
which help to build confidence generally and, in the event of an unintended clash, can also significantly enhance crisis management.¶ Finally, China, the United States, and other
countries in the region need to continue to shape and improve the wider political and strategic context in which military competition is unfolding. One check on security dilemma–
driven military competition is the diffuse benefits in other domains (e.g., political, economic) put at risk by worsening spirals and strategic rivalry. Even in the military domain,
cooperation in other areas—such as nontraditional security—can facilitate confidence building and expand the aperture beyond an exclusive focus of leaders on areas of friction and
potential threat. The involvement of the PLA Navy in the 2014 RIMPAC multilateral exercises and, since 2008, the multinational antipiracy operation in the Gulf of Aden have
demonstrated mutually beneficial gains from cooperation. With regard to maritime and territorial sovereignty disputes, until peaceful resolutions are achieved, the likelihood of an
unintended clash can be reduced significantly through concrete and enforceable codes of conduct, shared exploitation of resources in the disputed areas, side payments, enhanced
crisis management mechanisms, and regular investments in active diplomacy.¶ Not all military competition in the Asia Pacific in driven by the security dilemma logic, nor can all
security dilemmas be solved through diplomatic bargains and policies of reassurance. There are no guarantees that any of the above steps will dramatically reverse the worsening

While its
strategic environment in the Asia Pacific, much less end strategic rivalry and military competition. China's rise is ongoing, and its true intentions are unknowable.

provocative policies vis-à-vis maritime and territorial sovereignty claims present

serious grounds for concern, especially regarding whether its leaders grasp how its policies are perceived outside China, a clash is by
no means predetermined.¶ While history teaches us to be wary of security dilemma–
induced military competition and war, it also demonstrates that not all cases of
rising powers end tragically. No outcome is inevitable. How current frictions play out
will be contingent on the choices of leaders. Given the catastrophic regional and global consequences of a war in the Asia Pacific
today—recognized by leaders on both sides—even modest steps to reduce uncertainty and engender

restraint are worthwhile. If Washington is to make the first move, it should make the steps delineated above one condition for possible future conferral
upon China of Beijing's coveted recognition as a “great power.” The “new-type great power relations” concept proposed by President Xi remains, at best, vague in specifics, and
Washington's acceptance of it today is ill advised.126 The concept, however, appears to be predicated at least partially on an encouraging, and shared, understanding of one obvious
truth: avoiding a tragic race to military conflict is in the best interests of all states in the Asia Pacific, especially China.

Militarism results from the confluence of a diffuse set of causal factors –

as such, searching for pragmatic solutions to particular instances is the
most effective way to challenge it
- Militarism is not caused by a specific group of elites, not an inevitable outcome
- Analogous to pollution – caused by confluence of many decisions made without
careful cost-benefit analysis
- Policies to resist militarism must be politically feasible, not too sweeping
- Similar to pollution, militarism must be undone by incremental improvements
Andrew Bacevich 13, Professor of History and International Relations at Boston University
and Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, The New American
Militarism, p. 205-210
There is, wrote H. L. Mencken, “always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”1 Mencken’s aphorism applies in spades
To imagine that there exists a simple antidote to the “military
to the subject of this account.

metaphysic” to which the people and government of the United States have fallen
prey is to misconstrue the problem. As the foregoing chapters make plain, the origins of America’s
present-day infatuation with military power are anything but simple. American
militarism is not the invention of a cabal nursing fantasies of global empire and
manipulating an unsuspecting people frightened by the events of 9/11. Further, it is
counterproductive to think in these terms— to assign culpability to a particular president or administration and to
imagine that throwing the bums out will put things right. Yet neither does the present-day status of the United

States as sole superpower reveal an essential truth, whether positive or negative,

about the American project. Enthusiasts (mostly on the right) who interpret America’s possession of unrivaled
 are deluded. But so too are those
and unprecedented armed might as proof that the United States enjoys the mandate of heaven

(mostly on the left) who see in the far-flung doings of today’s U.S. military
establishment substantiation of Major General Smedley Butler’s old chestnut that “war is just a racket” and the
American soldier “a gangster for capitalism” sent abroad to do the bidding of Big Business
or Big Oil.2 Neither the will of God nor the venality of Wall Street suffices to explain how
the United States managed to become stuck in World War IV. Rather, the new American militarism is a little like

pollution—the perhaps unintended, but foreseeable by-product of prior choices and

decisions made without taking fully into account the full range of costs likely to be
incurred. In making the industrial revolution, the captains of American enterprise did not consciously set out to foul the environment, but as they
harnessed the waters, crisscrossed the nation with rails, and built their mills and refineries, negative consequences ensued. Lakes and rivers became choked
with refuse, the soil contaminated, and the air in American cities filthy. By the time that the industrial age approached its zenith in the middle of the
twentieth century, most Americans had come to take this for granted; a degraded environment seemed the price you had to pay in exchange for material
abundance and by extension for freedom and opportunity. Americans might not like pollution, but there seemed to be no choice except to put up with it. To
appreciate that this was, in fact, not the case, Americans needed a different consciousness. This is where the environmental movement, beginning more or
less in the 1960s, made its essential contribution. Environmentalists enabled Americans to see the natural world and their relationship to that world in a
.
different light. They argued that the obvious deterioration in the environment was unacceptable and not at all inevitable. Alternatives did exist

Different policies and practices could stanch and even reverse the damage. Purists in
that movement insisted upon the primacy of environmental needs, everywhere and in all cases. Theirs was (and is) a principled position

deserving to be heard. To act on their recommendations, however, would likely mean

shutting down the economy, an impractical and politically infeasible course of action. Pragmatists

advanced a different argument. They suggested that it was possible to negotiate a

compromise between economic needs and environmental imperatives. This compromise might
oblige Americans to curtail certain bad habits, but it did not require changing the fundamentals of how they lived their lives. Americans could keep their cars
and continue their love affair with consumption; but at the same time they could also have cleaner air and cleaner water. Implementing this compromise has
produced an outcome that environmental radicals (and on the other side, believers in laissez-faire capitalism) today find unsatisfactory. In practice, it turns
out, once begun negotiations never end. Bargaining is continuous, contentious, and deeply politicized. Participants in the process seldom come away with
everything they want. Settling for half a loaf when you covet the whole is inevitably frustrating.
But the results are self-evident. Environmental conditions in the United States today are palpably
better than they were a half century ago. Pollution has not been vanquished, but it has become
more manageable. Furthermore, the nation has achieved those improvements without imposing on citizens undue burdens and without
preventing its entrepreneurs from innovating, creating, and turning a profit. Restoring a semblance of balance and good sense to the

way that Americans think about military power will require a similarly pragmatic
approach. Undoing all of the negative effects that result from having been seduced by war may lie
beyond reach, but Americans can at least make them more manageable and thereby salvage
their democracy. In explaining the origins of the new American militarism, this account has not sought to assign or to impute blame. None of
the protagonists in this story sat down after Vietnam and consciously plotted to propagate perverse attitudes toward military power any more than Andrew
Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller plotted to despoil the nineteenth-century American landscape. The clamor after Vietnam to rebuild the American arsenal and
to restore American self-confidence, the celebration of soldierly values, the search for ways to make force more usable: all of these came about because
groups of Americans thought that they glimpsed in the realm of military affairs the solution to vexing problems. The soldiers who sought to rehabilitate their
profession, the intellectuals who feared that America might share the fate of Weimar, the strategists wrestling with the implications of nuclear weapons, the
conservative Christians appalled by the apparent collapse of traditional morality: none of these acted out of motives that were inherently dishonorable. To
the extent that we may find fault with the results of their efforts, that fault is more appropriately attributable to human fallibility than to malicious intent.
And yet in the end it is not motive that matters but outcome . Several decades after Vietnam, in the aftermath of a
century filled to overflowing with evidence pointing to the limited utility of armed force and the dangers inherent in relying excessively on military power,
the American people have persuaded themselves that their best prospect for safety
and salvation lies with the sword. Told that despite all of their past martial exertions, treasure expended, and lives sacrificed, the
world they inhabit is today more dangerous than ever and that they must redouble those exertions, they dutifully assent. Much as dumping raw sewage into
today “global power projection”—a phrase whose sharp edges
American lakes and streams was once deemed unremarkable, so

has become standard

we have worn down through casual use, but which implies military activism without apparent limit—

practice, a normal condition, one to which no plausible alternatives seem to exist. All of this Americans
 Such a definition of normalcy cries out for a close
have come to take for granted: it’s who we are and what we do.

and critical reexamination. Surely, the surprises, disappointments, painful losses, and woeful, even shameful failures of the Iraq War
make clear the need to rethink the fundamentals of U.S. military policy. Yet a meaningful reexamination will require first a change of consciousness, seeing
war and America’s relationship to war in a fundamentally different way.

The affirmative utilizes a strategy of “immanent critique” – a nuanced

examination of securitization and its particular effects in the context of
U.S. naval deployments in Northeast Asia. Reorienting critical studies
away from universalizing assumptions toward recognizing
securitization’s differing effects in differing contexts is key to ensure its
continued utility
- “Immanent critique” = location of possibilities for progressive change in existing
political orders through nuanced and context-specific analyses of the politics of
security
- Different security discourses have different effects in different settings/contexts
Christopher S. Browning 11, Reader of Politics and International Studies @ the University
of Warwick, and Matt McDonald, Associate Professor @ the University of Queensland, “The
future of critical security studies: Ethics and the politics of security,” European Journal of
International Relations, Sage
Conclusion: Where to from here? The future of critical security studies

If the critical security studies project is deficient in providing us with a sophisticated

and convincing understanding of either the politics or ethics of security — two core animating themes of its research agenda — where
does this leave such a project? Does the contribution of critical security studies extend no further than a compelling critique of traditional approaches to security on a range of
analytical and normative grounds?

We would argue that there is a future in critical security studies. This future will
ultimately be determined by the extent to which scholars recognize the limits and
tensions of existing approaches (especially ‘Schools’) and take up the challenge of moving
beyond first principles or universalized assumptions about security to engage in
nuanced, reflexive and context-specific analyses of the politics and ethics of security.
Indeed, we make such a case using the critical theoretical tool of immanent critique,

defined here as a method of critique concerned with locating possibilities for

progressive change in existing social and political orders.6 In this context, we note in
particular the possibility for building upon the tensions and limits in existing critical
security studies scholarship to move this research project forward. We identify two
key imperatives for this project by way of conclusion.
The first of these imperatives concerns the need to develop understandings of the politics
of security that are context-specific; that recognize and interrogate the role of
different security discourses and their effects in different settings; and that come to
terms with sedimented meanings and logics without endorsing these as timeless and
inevitable. In terms of context-specificity, the Western-centric nature of (critical) security studies has ultimately encouraged a focus on how security ‘works’ in liberal
democratic settings. This is particularly applicable to the Copenhagen School framework, whose dichotomy between ‘panic politics’ and ‘normal politics’ ultimately suggests a
conception of politics parasitic on a liberal democratic political context (see McDonald, 2008; Williams, 2003). While some have attempted to explore securitization dynamics outside
these settings (e.g. Wilkinson, 2007), the framework itself continues to work with a security–politics dichotomy that may be wholly unfamiliar to those outside liberal democratic
 In
states. In a fundamentally illiberal state regime such as Burma or North Korea, for example, what does the language of security do and what does ‘normal politics’ mean?

what ways do different cultural, social and historical contexts determine different
security logics, and how do these dynamics look in terms of communities above and
below the state? And can we accept the claim that there is no difference in the logic
or effects of securitization if security is understood as referring to the welfare of the
most vulnerable in global society, for example, rather than the territorial
preservation of the nation-state? Here, the failure to differentiate between logics of security on the basis of what understanding of security
inheres in a particular discourse potentially blinds [obscures] Copenhagen School and poststructural theorists of security to (the possibility of) difference in security dynamics and
logics in different places, for different actors and at different times. In the case of the Copenhagen School, such parsimony might be in part a response to the desire to provide analytical
boundaries around the study of security rather than ‘descend’ into contextual analysis (see Williams, 2010: 213–216), but it nonetheless results in a partial and (we would argue)
Western-centric image of the politics of security.

Ultimately, these points suggest the need for far more nuance than is currently evident in
critical security studies scholarship. As noted earlier, the critical security studies project
appears bifurcated between opposing logics of security that position the logic of
security as inherently pernicious (Copenhagen School, post-structuralism) or inherently progressive (Welsh
School). In a sense, these ‘Schools’ correct the limits and tendencies of each other in important

ways, suggesting (immanent) possibilities for a more nuanced understanding of the

politics of security in the critical security studies project as a whole. Copenhagen
School and post-structural theorists explore the logic of security that follows from the dominant discourse of security in contemporary world
politics, rightly cautioning against any assumed linkage between security and progress

and pointing to the ways in which the promise of security can be used to justify
illiberal practices. The Welsh School framework, meanwhile, recognizes that this
dominant discourse of security does not necessarily capture the essence of security
across time and space, in the process pointing to possibilities for progressive change in
security dynamics and practices. In a sense, these different approaches to the logic of security broadly reflect structural and agential tendencies
in International Relations more generally. We would argue that they suggest the need to take seriously the political limitations associated with dominant security discourses while
recognizing and exploring the possibility for security to mean and do something different.

A brief analysis of the different constitutive security logics underlying various

security communities around the world provides ample evidence of the problems of
universalizing claims about the politics of security. As Rumelili (2008) has noted, an instructive
comparison can be drawn between the EU and ASEAN, in particular in terms of how
these organizations’ conception of self-identity results in them relating themselves
to otherness very differently. Propounding an inherently inclusive (i.e. democratic) identity and normative agenda, the EU is liable
to locate otherness in an inferior position to itself, as something to transform and
render acceptable/normal. Otherness is therefore something to be eradicated and to
the extent to which it rejects transformation, it becomes destabilizing and
potentially threatening. Such processes are, for example, clearly evident in the
European Neighbourhood Policy (Browning and Pertti, 2008). In contrast, ASEAN operates with a
largely exclusivist (i.e. civilizational, geographic, ethnic) identity where norms of sovereignty and non-
interference dominate. This, Rumelili suggests, facilitates more equitable relationships with
otherness since the goal in such relationships is not one of conversion to the cause. In
terms of the politics of security, what becomes evident here is how concepts of security and subjectivity are intimately connected to conceptions of identity and the limits of political
community in different contexts.

The second imperative for the future of the critical security studies project concerns the ethics of security. We advanced the claim that a shared concern with expanding the realm of
dialogue underpins much of the critical security studies project, albeit to different degrees and in different ways. But to the extent that an ethics of security — a conception of the good
or progress regarding security — orients around a concern with such a position, this commitment needs to be acknowledged and defended. A range of pressing questions suggest
themselves here, including the bases for prioritizing open dialogue; the relationship between spheres of deliberation and material conditions of existence; the possibilities for and
limitations to the establishment of open dialogue; and the broader relationship between dialogue and outcomes. Elaborating on these commitments would also entail engaging with
the argument that movements towards greater dialogue could potentially encourage the desire to exclude power, identity, emotion and other central features of global politics (see
Price, 2008).

Where difficult questions emerge about this and other dimensions of an ‘ethical’ engagement with security — such as the role of violence in the Welsh School framework, for example
(Peoples, 2011) — these need to be confronted. If there is a consistency across critical security studies scholarship in this sense, it is that ethical commitments are evident (in
commitments to resistance, desecuritization or emancipation, for example) but are insufficiently developed to provide a genuine account of what constitutes ethical action regarding
security. Indeed, immanent possibilities for the development of the critical security studies project arise from these (often implied) commitments that need drawing out and
examining in the context of difficult dilemmas in world politics. This process of drawing out ethical commitments should be viewed as a reflexive movement towards recognizing the
assumptions and potential implications of one’s own theorizing, a position central to both broader definitions of Critical Theory (see Cox, 1981) and to the compelling critique of
traditional security studies as insufficiently engaged with the ethics and effects of its own theorizing about world politics. And it needs also to be matched up with the preceding
understanding of the politics of security. Is the expansion of deliberation and movement away from violence, for example, always progressive, and does it require the rejection of
security as a political category or its reform?

The example of Australian debates around the arrival by boat of asylum-seekers in 2010 illustrates tensions and ambiguities at work regarding the ethics of security, particularly as
understood in key critical approaches to the study of security. In that context, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s call for ‘a frank, open, honest national conversation’ about asylum
and border security particularly encouraged the articulation of negative and exclusionary views of asylum-seekers, paradoxically rendering the (re)securitization of asylum in the
Australian context more likely (see McDonald, 2011). Particularly striking here was the Prime Minister’s suggestion that this national conversation should take place outside the limits
imposed by political correctness that would otherwise discourage the articulation of right-wing or racist sentiments towards asylum-seekers. In this example, the apparent opening of
dialogic space encouraged by the Prime Minister was intimately related to the movement towards exclusionary security logics and practices orienting around the imperatives of
‘border security’.

The point of this example is not to illustrate the limits of open dialogue per se, but rather to illustrate two broader claims regarding the relationship between security and ethics in the
critical security studies project that we make here. First, while normative preferences are evident, these are often insufficiently developed or robust to enable the ethical adjudication
between different practices or outcomes. The normative preference for deliberation evident in the commitment to desecuritization, for example, is not sufficiently robust to enable us
to engage with difficult questions concerning the forms of deliberation that should be encouraged or even the circumstances in which ‘hate speech’, for example, might be curtailed (on
this, see Gelber, 2010). Second, and to return to the central argument of the article, the Australian example reminds us of the need to explore the implications of security conceptions
and practices in particular contexts, rather than assume that a particular security logic will inhere — or outcomes will follow — from the use of the term ‘security’ or a stated political
commitment to ‘dialogue’.

The core challenge for the critical security studies project is ultimately moving
beyond critique and agenda-setting and towards a contextual analysis of security dynamics and
practices in global politics. There is no question that a focus on the politics of
security and the ethics of security are crucial intellectual endeavours too readily
elided or ignored in traditional approaches to the study of security. For this reason
alone we need a ‘critical security studies project’. However, universalizing claims
concerning the politics of security — found in the securitization framework and
much post-structural engagement with security — must ultimately give way to
nuanced analyses of the ways in which security is constructed and challenged in
particular social, historical and political contexts. A range of theorists have — in different ways — sought to engage with
precisely this question, illustrating the various ways in which security dynamics ‘play out’ in different settings in terms of constructing community (e.g. Bubandt, 2005), challenging
identity binaries (e.g. Avant, 2007) or enabling space for different forms of political response (e.g. Doty, 1998/9). Yet these insights ultimately remain marginal to key ‘Schools’ and
conceptual frameworks of security, and are too often forgotten in our search for the universal in a complex world.

Beyond the development of nuance in our understanding of the ‘politics of security’,

the critical security studies project urgently needs to move beyond normative ‘leaps
of faith’ concerning the ethics of security. This particularly applies to the Copenhagen and Welsh School preference for dialogue as a
progressive means of escaping exclusive and illiberal security logics and practices. While genuinely open dialogue regarding the construction of security and threat has much to
recommend it, crucial here is the need for advocates to reflect upon and lay bare the bases upon which these claims are made in philosophical terms, and to reflexively examine the

This too suggests

implications of alternative security conceptions and practices in analytical terms rather than assume particular dynamics to be progressive.

the need to move towards a focus on the particular social, historical and political
contexts in which security is constructed and practised in global politics.
Specifically, the affirmative recognizes that securitization is not a
universal bad. While fear can be used to justify violence, as is being done
in Northeast Asia, it can also be used to justify the opposite – a rejection
of securitized politics. The 1AC engages in a “liberalism of fear” – a fear
of security-based politics itself and the violence it can cause. This
nuanced approach is the most effective means of constraining security’s
excesses both abroad and at home.
- Fear can inhibit securitization, constrain extremity
- Violence is ineradicable
- Fear is an inescapable part of life and can be life-saving in many instances
- Coercive government is not a universal bad – it can provide many useful social
goods
- Fear of fear constrains the worst excesses of fear-based politics
- Fear of fear at the individual/group level can constrain political actors – creates high
costs to extremity
- Post-9/11 proves – despite viewing AQ as an existential threat, fear of overreaction
(e.g. torture) led to political and legal opposition
Michael C. Williams 11, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Ottawa, “Securitization and the liberalism of fear,” Security Dialogue 42(4-5), 453-463,
Sage
Introduction

Fear is not a concept (or indeed a word) often found in securitization theory. Instead, the Copenhagen School speaks of security as an existential threat, as
emergency measures or as a ‘breaking free of rules’. Security is not an objective condition, but emerges through particular social processes or ‘speech acts’
that elevate an issue above the normal political logic: ‘if we do not tackle this problem, everything else will be irrelevant because we will not be here or will
not be free to handle it in our own way’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 24). Yet, even this formulation indicates an intimate relationship between existential threat and
fear – the fear of annihilation, loss and alienation. Threats imply the loss of or damage to something (physical survival or well-being, an object, a social order,
an identity) that is valued – that is, a fear for its continued possession or existence. People can fear other individuals, other groups, other states (or their
own); they can fear economic calamity or environmental degradation. Even exceptional violence or fearless killing – an existential or heroic self-sacrifice, for
instance – is tied in complex ways to fear: fear for someone or something else that is being defended, fear of failing to achieve glory or salvation. Fear’s
negativity always has positive value.

This article seeks to extend securitization theory conceptually and, to a lesser degree, empirically by further developing the relationship between
securitization and the politics of fear. My suggestion is that by so doing it is possible to enlarge the theoretical framework of the Copenhagen School and to
At first glance, fear might seem
expand its application in understanding the politics of security in liberal societies.

straightforwardly related to securitization: an increase in fear equals an increase in

securitization, or at the very least facilitates successful securitization . However, rather than
looking at the ways in which fear can facilitate securitization, or adding to the widespread claims about the connections between the politics of fear and the
I want to explore a rather different possibility: that
extension of security logics throughout society,1

focusing on fear also allows us to see how fear can operate in ways that can actually
inhibit processes of securitization, constraining the logic of extremity, making actors
reluctant to use securitizing moves and providing resources for opposing such
moves.
To make this argument, I turn to an examination of the relationship between liberalism and fear. As Jef Huysmans (1998) pointed out in one of the earliest
and most perceptive appraisals of the Copenhagen School, liberalism provides an important backdrop to the theory, with a narrowly technocratic liberalism
and superficial pluralism serving both as a foil for the idea of securitization as radically creative and socially constructed and as a link to theories of enmity,
emergency, and the political identified with Carl Schmitt and with classical political realism more broadly. Fear within liberalism is thus
often closely associated with a politics of extremity and enmity, and is seen as having
close – and perhaps even constitutive – connections to securitization. Liberal societies, such
positions often imply, either need a politics of security and fear in order to overcome the weaknesses of their pluralist foundations or, conversely, are
This understanding of
congenitally ill-equipped to respond effectively to the challenges of a politics of extremity and securitization.

liberalism has in turn become a staple (sometimes an almost unquestioned

assumption) for some of the most vibrant controversies over the theoretical and
political entailments of securitization theory .2
There is little doubt that these analyses point to crucial issues in the relationship between liberalism and security, and in the politics of securitization in
this
liberal states. Yet, ‘Schmittian’ or classical ‘realist’ (or, for that matter, Straussian) representation and critique of liberalism is not the only version of
liberalism available, and to take it as a given model for liberal thought or practice as a whole – and as an assumed foundation for analysing how ‘security’
may in fact risk being seriously misleading. At least, this is the suspicion I want to explore
operates in liberal societies –

it is particularly revealing to turn one of the most nuanced and

here, and for help in doing so

influential expressions of an alternative vision, a vision that Judith Shklar aptly christened the
‘liberalism of fear’.3 Shklar’s conception of liberal politics, I suggest, can help provide a more rounded
appreciation of the politics of security in liberal polities, and of how a better
understanding of the liberalism of fear can extend the reach of securitization theory
both conceptually and empirically, and may – perhaps paradoxically – even provide
support for the Copenhagen School’s political project of desecuritization.
I

the liberalism of fear has a number of

In contrast to the narrowly rationalistic liberalism that is the focus of the critiques alluded to above,

is resolutely antiutopian. It is, in a philosophical sense, non-

affinities with securitization theory.4 It

foundationalist. It is sceptical, seeing a world where violence (actual or potential) is

and will remain an ineradicable part of political life. It sides with what Emerson once called the ‘party of
memory’ in contrast to the ‘party of hope’ (see Shklar, 1998: 8), insisting on facing up to the worst things that human beings have shown themselves capable
It is suspicious of and generally eschews grand moral
of doing to one another, and trying to avoid them.

visions and philosophical or theo-political schemas, which it tends to see as sources

of obscurantism and conflict rather than emancipation and progress. It has no
‘strong’ ontology, in either a rationalist or a social constructivist (self–other) sense.5 It
rejects the identification of liberalism with an abstract rationalism, a narrow utilitarianism, Kantian formalism, a programme of indisputable natural rights
In sum, it is a vision of liberalism that contrasts sharply with the thin
or a flat proceduralism.6

version often put forth by both proponents and critics of liberalism in international
relations7 – and in many debates over securitization theory.
Yet, if the liberalism of fear is sceptical, it is not cynical. Nor is it without a place to stand. In place of
essentialist visions of individuals or schemes of indisputable rights, it advocates a
focus on cruelty and fear. It is, in Stanley Hoffmann’s (1998: xxii) nice phrase, a vision based on the ‘existential experience of fear and
cruelty’, concentrating on humanity’s shared capacity to feel fear and to be victims of cruelty.8 Perhaps most importantly in this context, it turns this focus
on fear into a positive principle of liberal politics. As Shklar (1998: 10–11) argues, the liberalism of fear

does not, to be sure, offer a summum bonum toward which all political agents should strive, but it certainly does begin with a summum malum which all of
us know and would avoid if only we could. That evil is cruelty and the fear that it inspires, and the very fear of fear itself. To that extent, the liberalism of fear
makes a universal and especially a cosmopolitan claim, as it historically has always done.

In this vision, fear is central to liberal politics, but in a way very different from those visions that see fear, emergency and ‘security’ as the defining ‘outside’ of
liberal societies, as the antithesis of normal politics, or, as suggested in other analyses, as the constitutive realm or radical otherness or enmity that stabilizes
For the liberalism of fear, fear cannot and
and/or energizes otherwise decadent or depoliticized liberal orders.9

should not be always and in every way avoided. For one thing, it is an inescapable part of
life, something that often helps preserve us from danger . More complexly, fear can also be a crucial element
in preserving as well as constructing a liberal order, for one of the major things to be feared in social life is the fear of fear itself. As Shklar (1998: 11) puts it
in one of her most evocative phrasings:

To be alive is to be afraid, and much to our advantage in many cases, since alarm
often preserves us from danger. The fear we fear is of pain inflicted by others to kill
and maim us, not the natural and healthy fear that merely warns us of avoidable
pain. And, when we think politically, we are afraid not only for ourselves but for our fellow citizens as well. We fear a society of
fearful people.
This vision of liberal politics fears the politics of fear. It fears above all collective
concentrations of power that make possible ‘institutionalized cruelty’, particularly
when they are abetted or accompanied by a politics of fear. Thus, while the liberalism of fear fears all
concentrations of power, it fears most the concentration of power in that most fearsome of institutions in the modern world – the state; for while cruelty can
A
reflect sadistic urges, ‘public cruelty is not an occasional personal inclination. It is made possible by differences in public power’ (Shklar, 1998: 11).

degree of fear and coercion is doubtless a condition of the operation of all social
orders; but, as its first order of concern, the liberalism of fear focuses on restraining
fear’s excesses. As Shklar (1998: 11) puts it:
A minimal level of fear is implied in any system of law, and the liberalism of fear does
not dream of an end to public, coercive government. The fear it does want to prevent
is that which is created by arbitrary, unexpected, unnecessary, and unlicensed acts of
force and by habitual and pervasive acts of cruelty and torture performed by
military, paramilitary and police agents in any regime.
The liberalism of fear is far from rejecting the state’s role in the provision of social
goods, including security. Indeed, these may be essential in overcoming socially derived
cruelties of many kinds.10 But, it is continually alert to the state’s potential to do the
opposite.11
Here, then, is a vision of politics where fear is not confined to the realm of security; nor is fear wholly
negative. Such a vision shares with the Copenhagen School the fear that fear in politics is dangerous. But, Shklar’s
multidimensional analysis of fear allows us to see how fear can work as a counter-practice against processes

of securitization. Fear operates in normal politics, and the fear of fear – that is, the fear of the power of
the politics of security and its consequences – is a core part of liberal theory and
practice. Fear is not a one-way street to extremity, nor does it operate only in
emergency situations. Instead, the fear of fear can act as a bulwark against such
processes. In other words, the fear of fear can within ‘normal’ or even ‘securitized’ politics act to prevent or
oppose a movement toward a more intense politics of fear – countering a shift
toward ‘security’ in its more extreme manifestations.12
II

The liberalism of fear is not a comprehensive description of ‘actually existing’ liberal societies. It is at one and the same time an attempt to
elucidate a liberal philosophy – a critical political philosophy with the practical intent of fostering and supporting an understanding of agency and judgement
– and an exposition of social and political dynamics that can characterize liberal polities. It is part of a liberal tradition of thought that has had important
effects can often be seen in the security politics of
impacts on the development of liberal political orders, and its

liberal societies. Accordingly, the liberalism of fear can help us discern some of the dynamics of security within those polities, while at the
same time suggesting principles for a politics of security.
In practice, as I have suggested above, the liberalism of fear links the domains of ‘normal’ and ‘security’ politics that the Copenhagen School tends to
the fear of fear can counter or restrain securitizing
separate. Viewing the two as part of a continuum reveals how

moves in liberal societies. This practical continuity operates at the level of individual
mores, social norms, and political and legal institutions. Indeed, it is the relationship between these three –
and particularly the ways in which rules and norms operate at the individual and social levels (what the Copenhagen School would call ‘securitizing actors’
and the ‘audience’) as well as in formal institutions – that is crucial for analysing important dimensions of security politics in liberal societies. As Nomi Lazar
(2009: 51, 114–33) has argued, if we restrict our understanding of rules – and the breaking free of them – solely to the legal domain, we risk missing the
to the degree that individual
multiple social and institutional practices that may inhibit the politics of emergency. For instance,

and social groups recognize the fear of fear as a key part of their political visions and
values, they will exercise a degree of suspicion toward securitizing acts, and can even
act to restrain successful securitizations. Similarly, the structure of liberal societies and
governments, with plural centres of political and social power, provides potential
institutional and societal sites of resistance to securitization.
Consider in this light Mark Salter’s recent and revealing analysis of ‘failed securitizations’ in
US counter-terrorism policies. Examining the rejection of the Total Information
Awareness (TIA) programme that ‘sought to data-mine library records to create profiles of
potential terror suspects’, he notes that ‘this limitation on the freedom of speech and invasion of privacy was rejected by librarians,
civil libertarians, and others outside the authority of the state. The existential threat of terrorism to the US was accepted by the protestors, but the
In this case, the
colonization of this sector of private life was rejected as being outside of the security purview of the state’ (Salter, 2011: 125).13

fear of terrorism, and its successful securitization within the technified language and logic of certain specialist
institutions, was outweighed by the fear of the threat that policies like the TIA could pose

to liberal-democratic politics. Fear is here a productive and countervailing power

within normal politics, and a means of defending the latter against an intensifying and intrusive

politics of fear and securitization.

These dynamics can also function as important parts of what Lene Hansen (forthcoming: 16n10) has
insightfully called the ‘strategic self-moderation’ of security actors, referring to cases
where the language and logic of security is avoided rather than embraced. If we adopt the
insights above, we might surmise that such restraint sometimes emerges from multiple sources related to the liberalism of fear, which can arise from the
mores of individual actors or can be part of socially and institutionally embedded values and structures of appraisal that set the wider context influencing
(and even constraining) their decisions.

Consider in this light the Copenhagen School’s account of securitization. As Buzan et al. (1998: 24) put it:

If one can argue that something overflows the normal political logic of weighing issues against each other, this must be because it can upset the entire
process of weighing as such: ‘if we do not tackle this problem, everything else will be irrelevant because we will not be here or will not be free to handle it in
our own way’. Thereby, the actor has claimed a right to handle the issue through extraordinary means, to break the political rules of the game.

This is more than simply the description of a process. Viewed politically, and especially within a context (and context is clearly vital here)
influenced by the liberalism of fear, the recourse to securitizing speech acts is not
straightforward, cost-free or beyond reflection. It is a political act, the potential
consequences of which need to be weighed by any actor. Consequently, attempted
securitizations can be constrained by an actor’s own reluctance to mobilize fear in
light of the potential consequences for other values, such as those of a liberal political order. Potentially securitizing actors can
also be constrained by their knowledge that a decision to attempt to securitize an issue will be judged (both at the time and, possibly, retrospectively).
Declarations of the need for a politics of emergency are rarely taken lightly by other
actors, and making them can come with significant risks to one’s political credibility
and sense of judgement – something that is heightened when the political context is at least

partly informed by the fear of fear. In both cases, the politics of fear and the fear of
fear co-mingle, cross-cut and even compete with each other, with the result that the fear of fear as a political principle and a mode of
judgment plays an important part in the security politics of liberal societies.

These dynamics point to a second area where the liberalism of fear can play a restraining role in securitization. Since it sees the abuse of power as a
continual possibility, the liberalism of fear seeks its controlled dispersal and stresses the importance of pluralism in combating its potential excesses.
Socially, multiple centres of power provide sites from which securitizations can be
contested and resisted. Importantly, however, this is a pluralism that is conscious of the limits of the facile political rationalism that so
exercised critics of liberalism throughout the first half of the 20th century, and that has had such an important influence on the development of the discipline
of international relations as a whole and parts of securitization theory in particular.14 Both in its philosophic foundations and in its historical awareness of
past liberal failings, the pluralism of the liberalism of fear is markedly distant from that of its ‘depoliticized’ predecessors.

This alternative vision of liberalism provides an intriguingly different connection between the Copenhagen School and classical realism, for while the lion’s
share of attention in this area has been devoted to their shared concerns with the nature of ‘the political’ and the role of enmity in countering the potentially
debilitating effects of liberal pluralism, this has tended to obscure the ways in which classical realists such as Morgenthau sought to counter and restrain the
role of fear and enmity in political life rather than embracing it. And, intriguingly, one of the chief instruments that they advocated in this battle was
pluralism. In contrast to the idea (all too automatically accepted in some discussions of
securitization theory) that liberal pluralism was inescapably atomizing and socially
debilitating, and that liberal societies were inevitably forced to call upon a politics of
enmity in order to recover and secure their properly ‘political’ foundations, classical realists presented a much more
subtle and sophisticated vision of the merits of pluralism and its role in supporting
solidarity within a liberal society (Tjalve, 2007). As William Scheuerman has shown in his revealing recovery of this
‘progressive’ dimension of realism, pluralism could help offset the politics of fear and could be valued

by citizens for precisely this reason. As he puts it:

For Progressive Realists, as for some astute present-day analysts, social integration was at least as much a matter of ‘doing’ as ‘being’: concrete social
practices which generated meaningful cooperation and relations of trust could prove even more vital than shared notions of collective destiny.... Progressive
Realists underscored the pivotal role of a pluralistic social order in which one could identify a rich variety of cross-cutting social cleavages and loyalties,
Under the proper conditions, social pluralism
which they thought most likely to mitigate intense conflict.

potentially civilized conflict: social actors could learn that a rival in one social arena
might be an ally or even a friend in another (Scheuerman, 2011: 174–5).
This concern with the merits of pluralism as a mechanism for limiting fearful power, as well as for restraining the politics of fear, also finds clear expression
in liberalism’s stress on institutional pluralism. Here, the rule of law, the division of power between different institutions of government, the desire that they
the dispersal of power among a wide range of civil society actors
check and balance each other, and

also provide important bulwarks against securitization in a liberal society. Consider again in
this context Salter’s (2011: 128) treatment of the fate of TIA when, despite the endeavours of George W. Bush’s administration, as a result of initiatives
‘spearheaded by library, privacy, and libertarian groups, funding for the TIA (whether terrorist or total) was halted by the US Senate in July 2003’. Here,
social and institutional pluralism combine to render difficult, and potentially even to
reverse, emergency decisions characteristic of securitization .15 As Jef Huysmans (2004) has articulately
demonstrated, the admonition to ‘mind the gap’, to prevent any of the institutions of a liberal-democratic polity from usurping the roles of the others –
something particularly worrisome when the politics of security is involved – is a vital component of a liberal-democratic polity. The importance of the fear
that this might happen, the institutional positions, principled resources and public perceptions that actors may be able to draw on, or be constrained by, as a
consequence of this fear, and the combined role of these elements in countering the logics of extremity and emergency in liberal societies should not be
underestimated.

While the aftermath of 9/11 and the actions of George W.

The rule of law provides similar lessons.

Bush’s administration have led many to see securitized liberal societies as

embracing a ‘permanent emergency’ and adopting a generalized politics of
exception, it is not at all clear that these appraisals do not reflect a series of a priori
claims about the supposed (philosophic) necessity of enmity in (and for) liberal
polities more than they do careful and concrete analysis of the actual practices in
those polities.16 Despite the rhetoric and, in many ways, the efforts of the Bush
administration to ‘break free from rules’, it is at best questionable that it was in fact
able completely to do so – and the significant opposition to its policies from social
actors as well as in challenges in a variety of legal forums demonstrate the limits of
its securitizing acts as clearly as they do their pervasiveness. Securitization theory has
shown relatively little interest in the legal dynamics and debates surrounding
emergency powers, an engagement with them seemingly closed off either by an
acceptance that issues like Guantanamo Bay already reside in the domain of
‘security’ or by a preference for claims about the decisionistic nature of law and the
exceptionality of Schmittianinspired legal theory and visions of sovereignty.17 But, if we take fear seriously,
law – and especially the ‘laws of fear’ (Sunstein, 2005; see also Ackerman, 2006) – becomes a crucial
battleground in the politics of securitization. The actors involved in these struggles are not the security professionals
of state security institutions and their associates analysed by Didier Bigo and others, but they are professionals of security in the wider sense of the politics
Despite the seemingly general acceptance by the political institutions
of fear – and the fear of fear.

and much of the population of the USA that Al-Qaeda was indeed an existential threat, the use of all
extraordinary means was not accepted, nor did the situation resemble a ‘generalized
exception’ brought about through the claims of security. Take the use of torture as a
policy, for instance. As Salter (2011: 126) points out, and numerous political and legal
analyses have gone to great lengths to assess, in the USA ‘the courts and the populace
rejected the use of torture for interrogation – even if it was accepted by some part of
the military and bureaucratic establishment’. Salter sees this as calling for a new
category in securitization theory: the acceptance of existential threat, but the failure
to authorize extraordinary powers. I speculate that it might also be assessed in terms of a struggle within and over the politics
of fear, and the existence and operation of countervailing practices and powers. The liberalism of fear may thus help

explain how these practices function, with both the attitudes of individuals and the
institutional pluralism with which they are entwined providing restraints upon the
logic of security and significant points of resistance against the powerful (but not
allpowerful) actors who attempted to mobilize it.
III

Debates over securitization have often centred on the politics of security: on whether to securitize or desecuritize, and on analysis of the sociological,
institutional or political conditions and contexts that facilitate or inhibit acts of securitization. For the Copenhagen School, ‘security’ is a highly political act. It
is also a potentially dangerous one. As extremity, a breaking free from the rules of normal politics, security is something we are advised to be careful about.
Security is not only about identifying threats or dangers, or articulating fears; it is also a political act that we need to approach with caution for fear of the
possibility of a politics of extremity, with the unforeseeable and potentially dangerous consequences that it brings. I have tried to suggest here that in order
to comprehend more fully the politics of security in liberal societies, securitization theory must come to terms with the role of fear in politics. Too sharp a
distinction between the sphere of normal politics and the sphere of security not only risks limiting our understanding of how issues move along a continuum
the fear of fear is a part of normal politics, and part of the
between the two: it may also blind us to how

resources and strategies of resistance against securitizing acts, even within

seemingly securitized domains.
The Copenhagen School generally reserves the concept of ‘desecuritization’ for
practices that shift issues out of the logics of threat (and fear) that it identifies with security (Wæver,
1995). The innovative and often sound argument here is that it is difficult to shift a

relationship defined by threats and dangers while staying within its logics: to argue that
something is not a threat is still likely to be caught within representations defined by
threats. However, the liberalism of fear calls attention to an important alternative
dynamic: that the fear of fear can in a specific sense be seen as a desecuritizing move
– a countervailing logic against processes of intensification within ‘normal’ politics
as well as within ‘security’ politics. At the risk of becoming overly baroque, this strategy might
accurately be termed ‘the securitization of securitization’, and its impact on
desecuritization deserves greater exploration.
Fear is
In this regard, a focus on security as practice, and particularly on the relationship between securitizing acts and their reception, is crucial.18

not synonymous with security (or insecurity);19 nor is fear a quantitatively defined process of intensification operating within a
single modality – it is more than just a temperature gauge of degrees of security logics in both normal and emergency politics. Fear is part of

the practice of security, and it is thus susceptible to reversal within its own logics.
Indeed, one of the most important consequences of viewing security as part of
practices of fear concerns how, paradoxically, fear can itself be mobilized to counter
processes of securitization without merely adding to the quantum of fear in a society,
as though all of fear’s modalities and the strategies they enable could be reduced to a
single logic.
None of this is to deny the power of security, the permanent possibility of enmity in politics, its seductions and its dangers, and the worrying place and
pervasiveness of security and attempted securitizations in liberal (and almost all other) societies around the globe (Abrahamsen, 2005). What the liberalism
of fear does deny, however, is the necessity of such a situation. It is a deeply political endeavour, one that can enrich our understanding of securitization at
This is not to say that the
the same time that securitization theory might provide analytic tools supporting its endeavours.

liberalism of fear does not itself pose challenges for the politics of security that require
critical attention;20 however, putting the nature of liberalism into question within
securitization theory, instead of allowing a particular vision of it to operate as a
background assumption licensing a raft of further assertions about the supposedly
necessary nature of the relationship between liberalism, security and ‘the political’,
allows us to undertake a more subtle and hopefully revealing examination of the
politics of securitization. In the name of not being naive about liberalism and its
limits, debates over securitization may well have developed a paradoxical naivety
about liberal politics. Too easily adopting Schmittian or other critiques as a basis
risks reifying securitization theory’s insights into taken-for-granted assumptions
about the necessary relationship between liberalism and security. As I have tried to
suggest, the liberalism of fear provides a powerful and potentially fruitful counter to
this tendency.
The liberalism of fear does not advocate a wider politics of fear. A critically aware
fear of fear and its possibility for strategic manipulation in either direction does not
equal a further deepening of the politics of fear. It is instead a political stance that
constantly questions the claims and decisions that are made in the name of
countering fears, and that is constantly cautious about the possibilities created by
the politics of fear. In both cases, it seeks to force discussion concerning whether and
to what extent such policies or practices can be justified. It is pessimistic in the sense
of a hyper-active concern with the potential for cruelty in all human affairs –
including, and perhaps especially, in the domain of security. But, it is neither cynical
nor despairing. Accordingly, it may also provide a set of previously untapped
political and ethical resources that would further increase the salience of
securitization theory.
Incorporating critique into the advocacy of specific policy proposals is
key to maintain the continued relevance of IR studies. Like it or not,
those in positions of power ascribe to a pragmatic framework and will
only take a course of action based upon its likely consequences. The 1AC
gives policymakers a broader toolkit with which to assess those
consequences.
Robert L. Gallucci 12 is president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
He is a former dean of Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign
Service, “How Scholars Can Improve International Relations”, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, 11-26, http://chronicle.com/article/How-Scholars-Can-Improve/135898/
Something is seriously wrong in the relationship between universities and the policy
community in the field of international relations. The worlds of policy making and academic research should be in
constant, productive conversation, and scholars and researchers should be an invaluable resource for

policy makers, but they are not.¶ One hears perennial laments from those in academe that their valuable work is
being ignored by policy makers. And, on the other hand, policy makers complain they can get nothing useful from the academy.
They may all be right.¶ Now would be a good time for policy makers and scholars to be deeply engaged on some of the highest-priority issues for the United
States and international security. Consider, for example: ¶ The causes and implications—immediate and long term—of the Arab Spring for that region and for
its relevance to future social and political change elsewhere. ¶ The real consequences of an Iranian nuclear-weapons program for the political dynamics of
the Middle East, as well as for the durability of the global norm against nuclear-weapons proliferation.¶ The complicated internal politics of Pakistan, how
Why are scholars
they relate to that country's political and economic development, and their importance to America's policies in South Asia.¶

and policy makers not engaging in the kind of interaction we all need—and we all say we want?¶
There has been a theoretical turn across the social sciences and humanities that has
cut off academic discourse from the way ordinary people and working professionals
speak and think. The validity and elegance of the models have become the focus,
rather than whether those models can be used to understand real-world situations.
Conferences and symposia are devoted to differences in theoretical constructs;
topics are chosen for research based not on their importance but on their
accessibility to a particular methodology. Articles and books are published to be
read, if at all, only by colleagues who have the same high regard for methodology and
theory and the same disregard for practice.¶ That has created a profession that is
inward-looking and concerned with arcane debate—a result that provokes and
deserves all the insults thrown at the ivory tower from the world of policy and
practice.¶ Further, the incentive structure in universities and in disciplines has endorsed this emphasis on theory and methodology. When it comes to
promotions and awarding tenure, departments are largely allowed to set their own standards. And, of course, departments are made up of people who have
succeeded in the profession and will perpetuate its values. Thus, the university department can turn into a guild, favoring credentialing over relevance and
orthodoxy over impact.¶ My concern is for the larger effects. Tenured professors construct courses and train the next generation of scholars. The best young
minds and young researchers are encouraged to replicate what their mentors think is important, but what if those who work in the world of policy and
practice do not agree with that choice?Students are then being prepared for careers that do not exist
outside of academe and given tools that are not useful except to their academic
discipline.¶ I would care much less if we were talking about literary theory or art history, important and rewarding though they may be. I care very
much when we are talking about international relations, a discipline that is involved with

policies that could get people killed, in the real world, here and now. ¶ Policy makers,
most of whom are trying to save lives and keep the peace, need all the help they can get in order to make better

decisions. They are faced with irreducible complexity and radical uncertainty—and
they must often rely on inadequate information. Unsurprisingly, they think
practically, are prepared to do anything that looks as if it might succeed, and are
reluctant to take big bets if not forced to do so. If they fail, dire consequences are
likely, both for themselves and others.¶ So how can academic experts be more helpful?¶ Twenty years ago, Alexander George, in Bridging the Gap:
Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy, made some good suggestions. First, he proposed interdisciplinary approaches—a common refrain in academe. But
they are, in fact, hardly ever done. We talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Being really interdisciplinary is hard and requires deep engagement. The rub is
that most academic experts are more interested in their theories than they are in interdisciplinary conversations or working together on problems.¶
Policy makers, by contrast, have to deal with actual problems. They would benefit from
having multiple views of the same issue—and more so from seeing these views
integrated—in order to see all the consequences and the likely interdependencies of
a line of action.¶ Second, George suggests that researchers embrace what he calls second-best theory. Rather than
concentrating on a grand theory that explains everything, scholars could help policy
makers by providing ways to assess whether their policies are working in real time. Policy makers in
the throes of a crisis do not much care whether a theory is being proved true or false,
but they badly need evidence of progress on emerging problems . In simpler terms, they need
management tools, and they need help connecting cause and effect. Scholars, who
struggle with precisely that, could be of real help. ¶ Lastly, George calls for mutual accountability. If
academics are invited into the policy environment, decision makers need to be
invited back into the academy, and their views on curriculum and research should be
taken seriously.¶ To these recommendations, I would add two more: first, a robust embrace of regional studies. Nothing can replace the value
of insights that emerge from the integration of knowledge and research on the history, economics, politics, culture, religion, and geography of a region.
Second, consideration of rigorous, policy-relevant theory and analysis should be among
the requirements for hiring, tenure, and promotion.¶ My organization, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, supports efforts in
this regard, but it is incumbent upon all who teach and study international relations to think

about the problems we face as a nation, and those humankind faces across the planet.
Think about the needs of governments, and of the vast range of organizations at
work in the world. Find practical ways to prepare people to be useful and effective.
Our universities have the country's intellectual firepower, trained expertise, and the
careers of the most promising young people in their hands. I am asking that they
please do something useful with them.

Now is the key time for public intellectuals to investigate the nitty-gritty
consequences of ASB – ambiguous discussion fails to reign in the
Pentagon
Amitai Etzioni 13, University Professor and Professor of International Affairs at The
George Washington University, Summer 2013, “Who Authorized Preparations for War with
China?,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, http://icps.gwu.edu/files/2013/06/Who-
Authorized-Preparations-for-War-With-China.pdf
To judge by several published reports which will be discussed in greater detail below, including those by government “insider s,” there is
no indication—not a passing hint— that the White House has ever considered earnestly preparing the nation for a war with China. Nor is
there any evidence that the White House has compared such a strategy to alternatives, and—having concluded that the hegemonic
intervention implied by ASB is the course the United States should follow—then instructed the Pentagon to prepare for such a military
showdown. Indeed, as far as one can determine at this stage ,
the White House and State Department have
engaged in largely ad hoc debates over particular tactical maneuvers, never giving
much attention to the development of a clear underlying China strategy. True, some
individuals in the State Department and White House pursued engagement and
cooperation, and others advocated ‘tougher’ moves that seem to reflect a vague
preference for containment. However, neither approach was embraced as an
overarching strategy. The November 2011 presidential announcement that the United States was beginning a “pivot”
from the Near to the Far East may at first seem to suggest that a coherent stance on China had
coalesced within the administration. We will see shortly that this is not the case.¶ One major
source of information regarding the development of China policy in the Obama White House is an insider’s report fully dedicated to the
subject at hand, Obama and China’s Rise by Jeffrey A. Bader. Having served as senior director for East Asian affairs on the N ational
Security Council from January 2009 to April 2011, Bader reports in great detail on how the Obama administration approached China
policy. When Obama was still a Senator campaigning in the 2008 election—the same time the Pentagon was launching the ASB mission—
his philosophy was to engage the nations of the world rather than confront them; to rely on diplomacy rather than on aggressive, let
alone coercive, measures; and to draw on multilateralism rather than on unilateral moves. Following his election, the Preside nt’s key
staffers report that, with regard to China, containment was “not an option,” nor was the realpolitik of power balancing embraced. Instead,
the administration pursued a vague three-pronged policy based on: “(1) a welcoming approach to China’s emergence, influence, and
legitimate expanded role; (2) a resolve that a coherent stance on China eventually coalesced to see that its rise is consistent with
international norms and law; and (3) an endeavor to shape the Asia-Pacific environment to ensure that China’s rise is stabilizing rather
than disruptive.” 32¶ Once in office, the administration’s main China-related policy questions involved economic concerns (especially the
trade imbalance, currency manipulation, and the dependence on China for the financing of U.S. debt), North Korea’s developmen t of
nuclear arms and missiles, sanctions on Iran, Tibet and human rights, and counterterrorism. The fact that China was somewhat
modernizing its very-backward military is barely mentioned in the book-length report. There is no reference to ASB or to the strategy it
implies as being considered, questioned, embraced, or rejected—let alone how it fits into an overarching China strategy, which the
Obama administration did not formulate in the first term. ¶ Moreover, Bader’s account leaves little doubt that
neither the
Obama White House nor State Department ever developed a coherent China strategy.
In effect, key staff members scoffed at the very idea that such overarching conceptions
were of merit or possible (as opposed to reactive responses to ongoing
developments). The Obama team, Bader notes, “finetun[ed] an approach” that avoided the extremes of, on the one hand, relying
“solely on military muscle, economic blandishments, and pressure and sanctions of human rights,” and on the other, pursuing “a policy of
indulgence and accommodation of assertive Chinese conduct.” 33 Not
too hot, not too cold makes for good
porridge, but is not a clear guideline for foreign policy. In May 2013, The Economist summarized the
administration’s China policy, or lack thereof, reporting, “First dubbed a ‘Pacific pivot,’ the strategy was later rebranded as a
‘rebalancing.’ Vague references in speeches by Mr. Obama’s administration have not been
fleshed out by any document (indeed [ . . . ] the Pentagon has more detail on China’s
strategy than its own).Ӧ A closer reading of these lines, as well as similar statements issued by the
administration that were often fashioned as strategic positions, reveals them to be vague and open to rather
different interpretations. They seem more like public rationales than guidelines
capable of coordinating policies across the various government agencies, let alone
reigning in the Pentagon . The overarching ambiguity is captured by Bader, who first reports that, “[f]or China to directly
challenge America’s security interest, it would have to acquire ambitions and habits that it does not at present display. The Unites States
should not behave in a way that encourages the Chinese to move in that direction.” Then, just pages later, he concludes that “the United
States needs to maintain its forward deployment, superior military forces and technological edge, its economic strength and engagement
with the region, its alliances, and its enhanced relationships with other emerging powers. Chinese analysts are likely to con sider all these
traits to be hostile to China.” 34¶ Another book describing the same period, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Refine
American Power, by James Mann, reveals that although President Obama sought to engage China, his administration was increasin gly
‘irked’ by various Chinese moves, from its assertive declarations about the South China Sea to the cyber-attacks assumed to originate
from within its borders. In response, the Obama Administration is reported to have ‘stiffened’ both its rhetoric and diplomat ic stance
towards China. For example, in response to Beijing’s pronouncement that the South China Sea represented one of China’s ‘core interests,’
Secretary of State Clinton told an audience at the 2010 ASEAN meeting that freedom of navigation in the seas wa s a ‘national interest’ of
the United States. She also delivered a speech criticizing China’s abuse of Internet freedom and argued that such nations “sh ould face
consequences and international condemnation.” It is reported that State Department officials, who generally sought to avoid conflict with
China, “absolutely hated” the speech.35 If such a speech caused tensions to flare up in the department, it is not hard to ima gine the outcry
that would have followed had the administration approved ASB—that is, if it was considered in the first place. Yet in Mann’s account of
the period under
study there is no reference to either ASB or the strategy it implies—or
to what a former Pentagon official called a White House “buy in.” 36 ¶ A third book covering the
same era, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, confirms with much nuance what the other two books report. It discusses the
White House ‘toughening,’ its reaction to what were viewed by many as assertive moves by the Chinese, such as its aggressive action in
the South China Sea in 2010, and President Hu Jintao’s refusal to condemn North Korea’s torpedo attack on a South Korean wars hip.37
Here again, it is reported that the White House and State Department reacted by changing the tone of the speeches. Fo r instance, in a
thinly veiled criticism of China, Obama stated in 2011 that “prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.” 38 The
administration also intensified the United States’ participation in ASEAN and the East Asia Summit (EAS) and e ncouraged—but only
indirectly and cautiously—countries in the region to deal with China on a multilateral rather than bilateral basis in resolving territorial
disputes. The Obama administration also ramped up U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, a free trade
agreement that at least initially would exclude China, and is thought by many to be a counterbalance to China’s extensive bil ateral trade
relationships in the region. Furthermore, the president paid official visits to both Burma and Cambodia—two nations that have distanced
themselves from China in recent years. All these are typical diplomatic moves, some of which have economic implications, but not part of
a preparation of the kinds of confrontational relationship ASB presumes.¶ In his book Confront and Conceal, David E. Sanger confirms
what these three accounts suggest: the Obama administration never formulated a coherent, consistent, proactive China strategy and its
policies were primarily reactive.39 And, this well-placed source also lacks any mention of a review of AirSea Battle and the military
strategy it implies.¶ Congress held a considerable number of hearings about China in 2008 and in the years that followed. However, the
main focus of these hearings was on economic issues such as trade, job losses due to companies moving them overseas, the U.S.
dependency on China for financing the debt, Chinese currency controls, and Chinese violations of intellectual property and hu man rights.
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2012, Admiral Robert F. Willard spoke of the potential
challenges posed by China’s A2/AD capabilities, but made no sional China Caucus, wrote to Secretary of Defense Panetta in November
2011 that “[d]espite reports throughout 2011 AirSea Battle had been completed in an
executive summary form, to my knowledge Members of Congress have yet to be
briefed on its conclusions or in any way made a part of the process .” 40 In the same month, Sen.
Lieberman (I–CT) co-sponsored an amendment to the Fiscal 2012 Defense
Authorization Bill that required a report on the implementation of and costs
associated with the AirSea Battle Concept. It passed unanimously , but as of April 2013, such a
report has yet to be released.41¶ In the public sphere there was no debate—led by either think
tanks or public intellectuals—like that which is ongoing over whether or not to use
the military option against Iran’s nuclear program, or the debate surrounding the
2009 surge of troops in Afghanistan. ASB did receive a modicum of critical
examination from a small number of military analysts. However, most observers
who can spell the ins-and-outs of using drones

or bombing Iran—have no position on ASB or its implications for U.S.-China

relations and the world order, simply because they do not know about it. A December 11,
2012 search of Google brings up 15,800,000 hits for “U.S. drone strikes”; a search for “AirSea Battle”: less than 200,000. In Googlish, this
amounts to being unknown, nd suggests this significant military shift is simply not on the wider
public’s radar.
2AC
 Case

Advocating specific reforms is good even if reformism as a broad concept

isn’t --- sets the stage for larger revolutionary action
D’Amato 6 – Managing Editor of the International Socialist Review
Paul D’Amato 6, managing editor of the International Socialist Review and author of The
Meaning of Marxism, The Meaning of Marxism – p. 103

It is important to remember, however, that rejecting reformism is not the same

as rejecting reforms, and in particular, the fight for reforms, it is precisely
through struggles for immediate demands—over wages, working conditions, and for political and
social improvements—that workers are able to develop consciousness of their own
power, as well as the confidence born of collective action, to move toward
revolutionary action. Struggle changes consciousness. That is why the fight for
reforms has the potential to go further; because once in struggle, the horizons of
workers expand beyond their immediate conditions. The possibility of another world looms more closely on
the horizon.

Arguing on the terrain of hegemonic ideology is not conservative, it’s a

necessary component of actualizing radical politics---refusal to explore
the frictions involved translating their metaphysics to politics ensures
failure
Joseph Schwartz 8, Professor of Political Science at Temple University, The Future of
Democratic Equality, 72
Yet as Wendy Brown admits at the opening of States of Injury, radical democrats must offer a vision of a political order that enhances the ability of
The social theorist must justify those
individuals to deliberate equally and collectively about their common destiny.79

political and socio-economic arrangements that would best institutionalize democratic principles.
But such arguments will be political and not metaphysical. The retreat of much of contemporary political
theory into epistemological concerns serves as a haven in a heartless conservative 72 political world, where democratic agency seems next-to-impossible.
so long as self-described emancipatory political theory avoids arguing on the
But

policy and political terrain of hegemonic conservative ideology—and remains

obsessed with the metaphysical rather than the political—it will likely make little
contribution to public political discourse.
Post-structuralism has never offered—nor can it promise—a coherent social theory
of how society develops and how it can be transformed by human action, as it only deals with the
psychological and linguistic norming of (“incoherent”) individuals. In a manner strikingly akin to Rawlsian “foundational” liberal theory’s taking as
“representative” of humanity one “rational chooser,” allegedly anti-representational post-structuralism takes as paradigmatic of the human condition one
“fragmented, incoherent self.” Yet, in the real world, individuals and groups that resist dominant norms draw their alternative “practices” from the shared
norms and understandings of their “counter-hegemonic” communities. Whether it be the “performative” resistance of dressing in “drag” or “slacking off” at
work or rendering “Black as beautiful” as an alternative aesthetic of beauty, individuals construct practices of “resistance” in collaboration with others (who
Social movements develop strategies of resistance and try to discern how
view themselves as having a self that can choose).

institutions (and persons) of authority will react to their resistance. As Susan Bickford notes, much of
poststructuralist theory fails to comprehend the collective, inter-subjective nature of
political contestation and communicative performance.80 “Performance” not only necessitates a social audience, it also necessitates the
sociability of learning how to “resist.” We don’t “deploy” such strategies solely through our (incoherent) inner sanctum of discursive practices. The weakness
of a hard poststructuralist epistemological and political perspective is not only its failure to speak to ordinary people’s conception of themselves as having
(constrained) choice. It also fails to offer a theory of inter-subjectivity that provides insight into how human beings work to transform the institutions that
constrain them. If discourse is everything, then we need to ask: where are the people struggling to be free?

Engagement with institutions, although imperfect, is necessary---their

fatalism is the right wing’s plan working
Adolph Reed 8, prof of pol sci at U Penn, Race and the New Deal Coalitionk
www.thenation.com/article/race-and-new-deal-coalition#axzz2ZcPH3kri
But the fact is, most New Deal programs were anything but race-neutral--or, for that matter, gender-
neutral--in their impact. Some, like the initial Social Security old-age pension program, were established on a racially invidious,
albeit officially race-neutral, basis by excluding from coverage agricultural and domestic workers, the categories that included nearly 90
percent of black workers at the time. Others, like the CCC, operated on Jim Crow principles. Roosevelt's housing policy put the weight of
federal support behind creating and reproducing an overtly racially exclusive residential housing industry.¶ That so much of recent
liberal and left discussion of the New Deal has been charged by the imperatives of current political
debates has given it
an unfortunate either/or quality. In reality, the New Deal was both racially
discriminatory and a boon to many black Americans. Blacks benefited relatively less
than whites from many social policy initiatives. Worse, postwar urban renewal--one of the main conduits of
federal resources to the local level--actively intensified racial disadvantage as blacks and Puerto Ricans were displaced for federally
But benefiting
supported redevelopment at a rate more than 500 percent greater than their share of the national population.
relatively less does not mean not benefiting. The Social Security exclusions were overturned, and black people
did participate in the WPA, Federal Writers' Project, CCC and other classic New Deal initiatives, as well as federal income r elief.
Moreover, the National Labor Relations Act facilitated the Congress of Industrial Organizations' efforts, from which blacks also benefited
substantially. Black
Americans' emergence as a significant constituency in the Democratic
electoral coalition helped to alter the party's center of gravity and was one of the
factors--as was black presence in the union movement--contributing to the success of
the postwar civil rights insurgency.¶ One lesson to take from reflecting on the New
Deal is that political institutions and the politics rooted in them can have significant
and far-reaching consequences. The right understands this well. When Newt Gingrich
and his protofascist comrades took over Congress in 1994, they sneeringly boasted
that they intended to take the federal government back to the 1920s. This was not
only because they were bent on eliminating redistributive social programs. They
also wanted to extirpate from the culture the idea that government can be an active
force for making most people's lives better. By crippling public institutions, they Commented [EM1]:
leave us without any rudder or focus for an effective politics.¶ We need to remember that in the
lived experience of younger Americans today, public power and government
capacity have been only dismissed and disparaged. Both Democratic presidential
candidates qualify their embrace of federal activism and temporize with fealty to market
forces and calls to personal responsibility. Therefore, the nostalgic identification that those of us who are older
or who grew up in left, union or Democratic activist households feel for the New Deal era will not transfer well to others. I've seen this
with my own students. To those young people who encounter the era, unions may have been necessary then; federal intervention and
regulation may have been appropriate then. We
can use the New Deal as part of a discussion about
what government can do and how its actions can change the playing field in
progressive ways. What we need most of all, though, is to articulate a politics steeped
in a vision like that of the industrial democracy that fed the social movements that
pushed the New Deal to be as much as it was.

Subject formation is not inherently violent and doesn’t dictate broader

politics
Nancy Fraser 95, “False Antitheses: A Response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler,” Ch 3
in Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, p 68, google books
This brings me to the second set of claims implicit in Butler'spost- structuralist account of subjectivity —normative, as
opposed to onto- logical , claims. Such claims arise, first, in relation to the social practices through which subjects are constituted. Here Butler follows
insists that subjects are
Foucault in claiming that practices of subiectivation are also practices of subjection. Like him, she

constituted through exclusion; some people are authorized to speak authorita- tively because others are silenced. Thus, in Butler's
view, the consti- tution of a class of authorized subiects entails "the creation of a

domain of deauthorized subjects, pre-subjects, figures of abjection, populations erased

from view." ¶ But is it really the case that no one can become the subject of speech
without others' being silenced? Are there no counterexamples? Where such
exclusions do exist, are they all bad? Are they all equally bad? Can we distinguish
legitimate from illegitimate exclusions, better from worse practices Of
subiectivation? Is subject-authorization inherently a zero-sum game? Or does it only
become one in oppressive societies? Can we overcome or at least ameliorate the
asymmetries in current practices Of subjectivation? Can we construct practices, institutions,
and forms of life in which the empowerment Of some does not entail the
disempowerment Of others? If not, what is the point Of feminist struggle? ¶ Butler offers no help in thinking about
these issues. Nor can she, I submit, so long as she fails to integrate critical-theoretical considera- tions into her poststructuralist Foucauldian framework.
That frame- work, I have argued elsewhere, is structurally incapable of providing satlsfactory answers to the normative questions it unfailingly solicits.13 It
needs modification and supplementation, therefore, in order to be fully adequate to the feminist project. In addition to her claims about the social practices
of subiectiva- tion, Butler also makes normative claims about the relative merits of different theories of subjectivity. She claims that some such theories are
"politically insidious," whereas others are progressive or emanci- patory. On the insidious side is the view of subjectivity as possessing an ontologically intact
reflexivity that is not an effect of cultural processes of subjectivation. This view, according to Butler, is a "ruse of power" and an "instrument Of cultural
Is it really? There is no denying that foundationalist theories of subjectivity
imperialism." ¶

have often functioned as instruments of cultural imperial- ism. But is that due to
conceptual necessity or historical contingency? In fact, there are cases where such
theories have had emancipatory effects—witness the French Revolution and the
appropriation Of its foundationalist view of subjectivity by the Haitian "Black Jacobin,
Toussaint de I 'Ouverture.14 These examples show that it is not possible to deduce a
single, univocal political valence from a theory of subjectivity. Such theories, too, are bits of cultural
discourse whose meanings are subject to "resignification. ¶ How, then, should we resolve the Benhabib-Butler dispute over "the death of man"? I conclude
that Butler is right in maintaining that a culturally constructed subject can also be a critical subject, but that the terms in which she formulates the point give
rise to difficul- ties. Specifically, "resignification" is not an adequate substitute for "critique, since it surrenders the normative moment. Likewise, the view
the
that subiectivation necessarily entails subjection precludes nor- mative distinctions between better and worse subjectivating practices. ¶ Finally,

view that foundationalist theories of subjectivity are inherently oppressive is

historically disconfirmed, and it is conceptually incompatible with a contextualist theory of meaning. The upshot, then, is that feminists
need to develop an alternative conceptualiza- tion of the subject, one that integrates Butler's poststructuralist emphasis on construction with Benhabib's
critical-theoretical stress on critique.
Protests against militarism grounded in policy proposals “spill up” to
politicians – politicians respond to demands of academia
Yuko Kawato 15, Research Fellow at the Asia Center, a think tank in Paris, Protests Against
U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia: persuasion and its limits, ebook, p. 9-10
Opposition to military bases and related policies has generated protests in host countries. NGOs lead
protest mobilization in most cases. Some organizations work exclusively on issues regarding
military bases, while others work more broadly on issues related to military bases,
such as human rights and the environment. These organizations often build a
coalition to coordinate their demands and actions. Organizations publicize their
plans for demonstrations through their networks and the press in order to
encourage other citizens to join them . Protest mobilization has often occurred in response to “trigger” events,
such as accidents and crimes that U.S. military personnel commit against local victims. Protesters also react to states’ announcement of a
new base policy. Some protests occur preemptively to influence impending bilateral negotiations on base policy. ¶ There
are
national and local politicians in host states who agree with these citizens, either that the U.S.
military bases should be closed or that the U.S. and host governments must improve base policy while maintaining the U.S. military
presence. These politicians lend support to protest movements by bringing their
arguments “from the streets” into official sites of policy discussion such as national and local
assemblies. Politicians can also let protest organizations know about ongoing policy
debates in government, legislatures, and bureaucracies, and provide other types of information
that is not easily available to citizens. Protest organizations can shape demands and
plan actions based on the information and suggestions they receive from politicians .
Some politicians maintain close ties with protest organizations through exchange of information, participation in protest activities, and
acceptance of electoral support.
Through these politicians, their political parties can adopt
protest movements’ policy positions on military bases. These politicians are often
members of progressive parties in opposition to government, but there are also
politicians from conservative parties who take protesters’ concerns about base
policy seriously.¶ In addition, local leaders such as governors and mayors as well as local bureaucrats participate in base
politics. They help implement host governments’ base policy by carrying out delegated administrative tasks like process ing l and
expropriation for U.S. military use. At times they refuse to perform this role in order to protect local interests or resist doing so unless
some conditions are met. In addition, as representatives of local communities that host U.S. military bases, they can propose changes in
base policy to national leaders. Although this book focuses on protests’ influence on national policy- makers who ultimately decide on
policy, it is important to note that protesters often try to influence local leaders’ thinking as well, so that local leaders would present their
position to national leaders as the official local position on base policy.¶ Experts
on issues related to base policy
are an important set of actors as well. They include university professors in various
disciplines (e.g., political science, history, sociology, natural science, law), policy analysts, journalists, and
lawyers. They can help protest organizations evaluate existing base policy, shape
demands for change, communicate policy preferences to the public and policy-
makers with authority, and evaluate state response to protests. Experts also offer
information and expertise to policy-makers, at times with significant influence on
policy.
Bush could have escalated the Iraq war further absent significant anti-war activism –
it also proves other useful skills beyond influencing policy
Heaney 12, Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies and Political Science @ Umich
(Michael, “The Policy, Political, and Social Effects of the Antiwar Movement after 9/11,”
https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-policy-political-and-social-
effects-of-the-antiwar-movement-after-911/)
Of course,it is impossible to establish definitely the nonimpact of the antiwar movement
on policy. Doing so requires the evaluation of counterfactual scenarios that cannot be
tested empirically. For example, if there had been no antiwar movement at all – if nobody had
protested the war policies of the Bush Administration – it is plausible to believe that the administration would

have been emboldened to take more aggressive military actions, possibly invading
Syria or Iran. Or, perhaps the Bush Administration would have had the confidence to pursue more ambitious conservative domestic policies.
Personally, I am inclined to believe that the movement did have these types of restraining effects but, as a social scientist, it is impossible to demonstrate
To claim that the policy and political effects of the antiwar movement
them convincingly.

were limited is not to say that the movement was unimportant. Indeed, the social effects
of the movement may have been its most lasting contribution. The antiwar
movement exposed millions of people to their first experiences with activism, which
will likely shape the way that many of them think of, and participate in, politics for
the remainder of their lives.[7] Commented [EM2]:

The movement provided critical opportunities for activists to learn about new tactics
and to implement them on unfamiliar terrain .[8] Alliances and conflicts within coalitions shaped the structure of the
social networks of movement participants.[9] The movement provided activists with opportunities to

explore their identities[10] and to create new organizations by hybridizing elements

of intersecting social movements.[11] In many ways, we have only begun to see the long-term
consequences of a generation shaped by the antiwar movement.

Arguments based purely on social location devolve into solipsism---

dialogue requires openness to external criticism
David Bridges 1, Centre for Applied Research in Education, University of East Anglia, 2001,
The Ethics of Outsider Research, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 35, No. 3
it is argued that only those who have shared in, and have been part of, a particular experience
First,

can understand or can properly understand (and perhaps `properly' is particularly heavily loaded here) what it is like. You need to be a woman to
understand what it is like to live as a woman; to be disabled to understand what it is like to live as a disabled person etc. Thus Charlton writes of `the innate inability of able-bodied
people, regardless of fancy credentials and awards, to understand the disability experience' (Charlton, 1998, p. 128).

Charlton's choice of language here is indicative of the rhetorical character which these arguments tend to assume. This arises perhaps from the strength of feeling from which they
issue, but it warns of a need for caution in their treatment and acceptance. Even if able-bodied people have this `inability' it is difficult to see in what sense it is `innate'. Are all
credentials `fancy' or might some (e.g. those reflecting a sustained, humble and patient attempt to grapple with the issues) be pertinent to that ability? And does Charlton really wish to
maintain that there is a single experience which is the experience of disability, whatever solidarity disabled people might feel for each other?

The understanding that any of us have of our own conditions or experience is unique and special, though recent work on personal narratives also shows that it
is itself multi-layered and inconstant, i.e. that we have and can provide many different understandings even of our own lives (see, for example, Tierney, 1993). Nevertheless, our own
understanding has a special status: it provides among other things a data source for others' interpretations of our actions; it stands in a unique relationship to our own experiencing;
and no one else can have quite the same understanding. It is also plausible that people who share certain kinds of experience in common stand in a special position in terms of

understanding those shared aspects of experience. However, once this argument is applied to such broad
categories as `women' or `blacks', it has to deal with some very heterogeneous groups;
the different social, personal and situational characteristics that constitute their individuality may
well outweigh the shared characteristics; and there may indeed be greater barriers to
mutual understanding than there are gateways .
These arguments, however, all risk a descent into solipsism: if our individual
understanding is so particular, how can we have communication with or any
understanding of anyone else? But, granted Wittgenstein's persuasive argument against a private language (Wittgenstein, 1963, perhaps more
straightforwardly presented in Rhees, 1970), we cannot in these circumstances even describe or have any

real understanding of our own condition in such an isolated world. Rather it is in

talking to each other, in participating in a shared language, that we construct the
conceptual apparatus that allows us to understand our own situation in relation to
others, and this is a construction which involves understanding differences as well as similarities.
we have good reason to treat with some scepticism accounts provided by
Besides,

individuals of their own experience and by extension accounts provided by members of a particular category or community of people. We
know that such accounts can be riddled with special pleading , selective memory, careless error, self-

centredness, myopia, prejudice and a good deal more. A lesbian scholar illustrates some of the
pressures that can bear, for example, on an insider researcher in her own community:
As an insider, the lesbian has an important sensitivity to offer, yet she is also more vulnerable than
the non-lesbian researcher, both to the pressure from the heterosexual world--that her studies conform to previous works and describe lesbian reality in terms of its relationship with

to pressure from the inside, from within the lesbian community itself--that
the outside-and

her studies mirror not the reality of that community but its self-protective ideology. (Kreiger, 1982, p. 108)
while individuals from within a community have access to a particular kind of
In other words,

understanding of their experience, this does not automatically attach special

authority (though it might attach special interest) to their own representations of that experience. Moreover,
while we might acknowledge the limitations o f the understanding which someone from outside a
community (or someone other than the individual who is the focus of the research) can develop, this does not entail that they
cannot develop and present an understanding or that such understanding is
worthless. Individuals can indeed find benefit in the understandings that others offer
of their experience in, for example, a counselling relationship, or when a researcher adopts a supportive role with teachers engaged in reflection on or research into their own practice.
Many have echoed the plea of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns (in `To a louse'):

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!3

-- even if they might have been horrified with what such power revealed to them . Russell
argued that it was the function of philosophy (and why not research too?) `to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom . . .It
keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect' (Russell, 1912, p. 91). `Making the familiar strange', as Stenhouse called it, often requires the
assistance of someone unfamiliar with our own world who can look at our taken-for-granted experience through, precisely, the eye of a stranger. Sparkes (1994) writes very much in

is
these terms in describing his own research, as a white, heterosexual middleaged male, into the life history of a lesbian PE teacher. He describes his own struggle with the question `

it possible for heterosexual people to undertake research into homosexual

populations?' but he concludes that being a `phenomenological stranger' who asks `dumb
questions' may be a useful and illuminating experience for the research subject in that they may have to return to first
principles in reviewing their story. This could, of course be an elaborate piece of self-justification, but it is interesting that someone like Max Biddulph, who writes from a gay/bisexual
standpoint, can quote this conclusion with apparent approval (Biddulph, 1996).

People from outside a community clearly can have an understanding of the

experience of those who are inside that community. It is almost certainly a different
understanding from that of the insiders. Whether it is of any value will depend among other things on the extent to which they have immersed themselves in the
world of the other and portrayed it in its richness and complexity; on the empathy and imagination that they have brought to their enquiry and writing; on whether their stories are
honest, responsible and critical (Barone, 1992). Nevertheless, this value will also depend on qualities derived from the researchers' externality: their capacity to relate one set of
experiences to others (perhaps from their own community); their outsider perspective on the structures which surround and help to define the experience of the community; on the
reactions and responses to that community of individuals and groups external to it.4

Finally, it must surely follow that if we hold that a researcher, who (to take the favourable case) seeks honestly, sensitively and with humility to understand and to represent the
experience of a community to which he or she does not belong, is incapable of such understanding and representation, then how can he or she understand either that same experience

as mediated through the research of someone from that community? The argument which excludes the outsider from
understanding a community through the effort of their own research, a fortiori excludes the outsider from that understanding through the secondary
source in the form of the effort of an insider researcher or indeed any other means. Again, the point can only be maintained by

insisting that a particular (and itself ill-defined) understanding is the only kind of
understanding which is worth having.
The epistemological argument (that outsiders cannot understand the experience of a community to which they do not belong) becomes
an ethical argument when this is taken to entail the further proposition that they ought not therefore attempt to research that community. I hope to have shown
that this argument is based on a false premise. Even if the premise were sound, however, it

would not necessarily follow that researchers should be prevented or excluded from
attempting to understand this experience, unless it could be shown that in so doing they would cause some harm. This is indeed part of
the argument emerging from disempowered communities and it is to this that I shall now turn.

III OUTSIDERS IMPORT DAMAGING FRAMEWORKS OF UNDERSTANDING

Frequent in the literature about research into disability, women's experience, race and homosexuality is the claim that
people from outside these particular communities will import into their research, for example, homophobic, sexist or
racist frameworks of understanding, which damage the interests of those being researched.
In the case of research into disability it has been argued that outsider researchers carry with them assumptions that the problem of
disability lies with the disabled rather than with the society which frames and defines disability. `The essential problem of recent anthropological work on culture and disability is that
it perpetuates outmoded beliefs and continues to distance research from lived oppression' (Charlton, 1998, p. 27). By contrast: `a growing number of people with disabilities have
developed a consciousness that transforms the notion and concept of disability from a medical condition to a political and social condition' (Charlton, 1998, p.17). Charlton goes on to
criticise, for example, a publication by Ingstad and Reynolds Whyte (1995), Disability and Culture. He claims that, although it does add to our understanding of how the
conceptualisation and symbolisation of disability takes place, `its language is and perspective are still lodged in the past. In the first forty pages alone we find the words suffering,
lameness, interest group, incapacitated, handicapped, deformities. Notions of oppression, dominant culture, justice, human rights, political movement, and selfdetermination are
conspicuously absent' (Charlton, 1998 p. 27).

Discussing the neo-colonialism of outsider research into Maori experience, Smith extends this
type of claim to embrace the wider methodological and metaphysical framing of outsider research: `From an
indigenous perspective Western research is more than just research that is located in a positivist tradition. It is research which brings to bear, on any study of indigenous peoples, a
cultural orientation, a set of values, a different conceptualization of such things as time, space and subjectivity, different and competing theories of knowledge, highly specialized forms
of language, and structures of power' (Smith, 1999, p. 42).5

This position requires, I think, some qualification. First, researchers are clearly not immune from some of the damaging and prejudicial
attitudes on matters of race, sexuality, disability and gender which are found among the rest of the population, though I might hope that their training and experience might give them
above-average awareness of these issues and above-average alertness to their expression in their own work. Even where such attitudes remain in researchers' consciousness, this
intelligent self-awareness and social sensitivity mean on the whole that they are able to deploy sufficient self-censorship not to expose it in a damaging way. Researchers may thus
remain morally culpable for their thoughts, but, at least, communities can be spared the harm of their expression. It is also a matter of some significance that researchers are more
exposed than most to public criticism, not least from critics from within these disempowered communities, when such prejudices do enter and are revealed in their work. If they
employ the rhetoric of, for example, anti-racist or anti-sexist conviction, they are at least in their public pronouncements exposed to the humiliation of being hoisted by their own
petard. It is difficult to see the fairness in excluding all outsider researchers on the a priori supposition of universal prejudice. It is better, surely, to expose it where it is revealed and, if
absolutely necessary, to debar individuals who ignore such criticism and persist in using the privilege of their research position to peddle what can then only be regarded as damaging

it is plainly not the case that Western research is located

and prejudicial propaganda. Secondly,

exclusively (as is implied) in a positivist tradition, even if this tradition has been a dominant
one. Phenomenology, ethnography, life history, even, more recently, the use of narrative fiction and poetry as
forms of research representation, are all established ingredients of the educational research worlds in the UK, USA or
Australasia. Contemporary research literature abounds with critiques of positivism as well as examples of its continuing expression.

I have placed much weight in these considerations on the importance of any research being
exposed to criticism--most importantly, perhaps, but by no means exclusively by the people
whose experience it claims to represent . This principle is not simply an ethical
principle associated with the obligations that a researcher might accept towards participants in the
research, but it is a fundamental feature of the processes of research and its claims to

command our attention. It is precisely exposure to, modification through and

survival of a process of vigorous public scrutiny that provides research with whatever authority it
can claim. In contemporary ethnographic research, case-study and life-history research, for example, this expectancy of exposure
to correction and criticism is one which runs right through the research process . The
methodological requirement is for participants to have several opportunities to
challenge any prejudices which researchers may bring with them: at the point where the terms of the research are first negotiated and they agree to
participate (or not); during any conversations or interviews that take place in the course of the research; in responding to any record which is produced of the data gathering; in

engagement with a researcher provides any group with what is potentially a richly
response to any draft or final publication. Indeed,

educative opportunity: an opportunity to open their eyes and to see things

differently. It is, moreover, an opportunity which any researcher worth his or her salt will
welcome.
Not all researchers or research processes will be as open as are described here to that educative opportunity,
and not all participants (least of all those who are self-defining as `disempowered') will feel the confidence to take them even if they are there. This may be seen

as a reason to set up barriers to the outsider researcher, but they can and should more
often be seen as problems for researchers and participants to address together in the interests of their

mutual understanding and benefit.

Notwithstanding these considerations, one of the chief complaints coming out of disempowered communities is that this kind of mutual interest and benefit is precisely what is lacking in their experience of research. It is to this consideration that I shall now turn. IV OUTSIDERS EXPLOIT INSIDER PARTICIPANTS IN THE COMMUNITIES THEY RESEARCH Ellen describes how fieldwork has becom e `a rite of passage by which the novice is transformed into the rounded anthropologist and initiated into the ranks of the p rofession'Ða ritual by which `the
student of anthropology dies and a professional anthropologist is born' 􏰈Ellen, 1984, p. 23). This is a reminder that research can carry benefits to the researcher which go beyond those associated w ith the `pure' pursuit of understanding. As participants in research become more aware of this, their attitudes towards resea rch and researchers can, understandably, change. The following observation was made by a woman from a community that had experience d several waves of enthusiastic researchers: The kind of behaviour researchers have
towards locals tells us that they just want to exploit them and take from them their ideas and information. It also tells us that they don't really care at all. They want t he information to use in front of a group of people at home, so that they can be seen as clever academics. Then in the end th ey publish books, reviews, articles etc in order to spread their popularities. So what is this, and what is research really about? Not all researchers are exploiters, but most are, and I think it is time up now for this, and that these researchers should a lso be exploited
by local people. 􏰈Florence Shumba, quoted in Wilson, 1992, p. 199) Researchers who are sensitive to this issue typically look for ways to count er the imbalance of benefit. They will sometimes discuss with participants ways in which the research could be designed to benefit all parties, by, for example, ensuring that it addresses issues on which the participants need i nformation as well as the researchers or by providing data that the research participants can use independently and for their own purposes. In the absence of any other perceived
benefit, some schools in the UK have responded to researchers' requests for access and time for interviews by proposing to ch arge by the hour for teachers' time. Of course sometimes participants will be persu aded to participate on the grounds that some other people whose interests they care aboutÐ pupils in schools, for example, or children currently excluded from educationÐwill secure the benefit of the research, but there has to be the link between some thing which they perceive to be a benefit 􏰈albeit altruistically) and the commitment
which they are asked to make. These illustrations of the terms of engagement between researchers and their participants prese nt a picture of a trade in benefit, the negotiatio n of a utilitarian equation of mutual happiness and, perhaps, pain, though one in which higher satisfactions 􏰈e.g. new insights and the improvements to the future education of children) have a place alongside lower ones 􏰈a bit of self-publicity or cash in the school fund). Questions of exploitation, in Kantian terms of treating people as means rather than ends 􏰈see Kant,
1964)6 come in if, as is sometimes alleged, researchers use their positions of authority or their sophistication to establish relationships in which the benefits are very one-sided in their favour. This distinction between the utilitarian principle and the Kantian one is crucial here. The utilitaria n principle might require us to measure in the scales a much wider community of benefit. If , for example, the researcher could show that, even though the Maori community he or she was researching experienced the inco nvenience of the research without the
benefit, thousands of other people would benefit from it, then the utilitarian equation might provide justification for the research. But this is precisely one of the weaknesses of the utilitarian principle of the great est happiness of the greatest numberÐat least when it is applied with this sort of simplicity. It requires either a broader t ake on the utilitarian principle 􏰈which might observe that a programme of action which allocates all the benefits to one group and all the `pain' to another wi ll not be conducive to the greatest aggregation of happiness)
or the invoking of something closer to the Kantian principle, which would demand that we do not exploit one group of people to the exclusive benefit of another. Res earchers seeking collaboration with participants in disempowered communities have essentially two forms of appealÐto their se lf-interest or to their generosity. Either they need to see some benefit to themselves which is at least roughly commensurate to th e effort that is required of them 􏰈or in some cases the value of what they have to offer); or they need knowingly to contribute
out of their own benevolence towards the researcher or others whom they believe the research will benefit. In this second case, the researcher is placed in something of the position of the receiver of a gift and he or she needs to recognise consequently the quite elaborate ethical apparatus that surrounds such receipt. There is a particular `spirit' in which we might be expected t o receive a gift: a spirit of gratitude, of humility, of mutuality in the relationship. There may also be a network of social expectations, which flow from such givingÐof being in
thrall to the giver, of being in his or her debtÐbut on the whole anyone contributing to an educational research project woul d be naõ È ve to assume that such `debts' might be repaid. Most of the time, resea rchers are in fact inviting the generosity of their participants, and perhaps there is something more ethically elevated in r esponding to such generosity with a true spirit of gratitude and a recognition of the mutuality of relationship which binds g iver and receiver, than in seeking to establish a trade in dubious benefits. Smith 􏰈1999) provides a
wonderful picture of the combination of spirit and benefits that might be involved in establishing this relationship 􏰈as well as a whole new angle on the notion of `empowerment'!) when she outlines the range of issues on which a researcher approaching a Maori community might need to satisfy them: `Is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us? C an they fix up our generator? Can they actually do anything?' 􏰈Smith, 1999, p.10). Perhaps all educational researchers should be required
to satisfy participants on these questions. I conclude that the possibility that outsider educational research may be condu cted in an exploitative manner is not an argument for obstructing it comprehensively, but it is an argument for requiring tha t it be conducted under an appropriate set of principles and obligations and in a proper spirit. `Qualitative researchers', a rgued Stake, `are guests in the private spaces of the world. Their manners should be good and their code of ethics strict' 􏰈Stake, 1998, p.103). Any community may legitimately reject a
researcher 􏰈insider or outsider) who fails to establish and conduct relatio nships under these requirements. In this field, ethics is never far removed from politics. This essay has focused on the rela tionship between educational researchers and communities that are self -defined as `disempowered' but has not really addressed the i ssue of power. At the heart of the objections to outsider research is a view that such research, far from challenging and rem oving such disempowerment, operates to reinforce it. It is this argument which I shall now
address. V OUTSIDERS' RESEARCH DISEMPOWERS INSIDERS At least one of the arguments against outsider research into self -defined `disempowered' sections of the population is made independently of the measure of sensitivity and care, which the out sider researchers demonstrate in its conduct. `If we have learned one thing from the civil rights movement in the US', wrote Ed Roberts, a leading figure in the Disability Rights Movement 􏰈DRM), `it's that when others speak for you, you lose' 􏰈quoted in Driedger, 1989, p. 28). Roberts' case is in
part that for so long as such groups depend on outsiders to represent them on the wider stage, they will be reinforcing both the fact a nd the perception of their subordination and dependency as well as exposing themselves to potential misrepresentation. They h ave to break the vicious circle of dependencyÐand that means taking control for themselves of the ways in which their experience i s represented more widely: The DRM's demand for control is the essential theme that runs through all its work, regardless of political-economic or cultural
di􏰈erences. Control has universal appeal for DRM activists because their needs are everywhere conditioned by a dependency born o f powerlessness, poverty, degradation, and institutionalisation. This dependency, saturated with pater nalism, begins with the onset of disability and continues until death. 􏰈Charlton, 1998, p. 3) Outsider researchers sometimes persuade themselves that they are acting in an emancipatory way by `givi ng voice to' neglected or disenfranchised sections of the community. Their research may indeed push the evident
voice of the researcher far into the background as he or she `simply presents', perhaps as large chunks of direct transcripti on and without commentary, what participants have to say. But, as Reinharz ha s warned, this is by no means as simple as it might appear: To listen to people is to empower them. But if you want to hear i t, you have to go hear it, in their space, or in a safe space. Before you can expect to hear anything worth hearing, you have to examine the power dynamics of the space and the social actors . . . Second, you have to be the person
someone else can talk to, and you have to be able to create a context where the person can speak and you can listen. That mea ns we have to study who we are and who we are in relation to those we study . . . Third, you have to be willing to hear what someone is saying, even when it violates your expectations or threatens your interests. In other words, if you want someone to tell it like it is, you have t o hear it like it is. 􏰈Reinharz, 1988, pp. 15±16) Even with this level of self knowledge, sensitivity and discipline, there is a significant temptat ion in
such situations to what is sometimes called ventriloquy: the using of the voice of the participant to giv e expression to the things which the researcher wants to say or to have said. This is a process which is present in the selec tion of participants, in the framing of the questions which they are encouraged to answer, in the verbal and visual cues whic h they are given of the researcher's pleasure or excitement with their responses, and, later, in the researcher's selection of mater ial for publication. Such ventriloquy, argues Fine, disguises `the usually
unacknowledged stances of researchers who navigate and camouflage theory through the richness of ``native voices''' 􏰈Fine, 1994, p.22).

The argument that insiders within `disempowered' communities (or any other communities for that matter)
should be researching and, where appropriate, giving public expression to their own experience is surely
uncontroversial. In a context in which insider research has been negligible and hugely subordinated to waves of outsider research, there is a good
case for taking practical steps to correct that balance and spare a community what can
understandably be experienced as an increasingly oppressive relationship with research.

There are, however, at last three reasons in principle for keeping the possibility of outsider
research open: (i) that such enquiry might enhance the understanding of the researcher; (ii) that it
might enhance the understanding of the community itself ; and (iii) that it might enhance the
understanding of a wider public. There is no doubt a place for researching our own experience and that of our own communities, but
surely we cannot be condemned lifelong to such social solipsism ? Notwithstanding some postmodernist
misgivings, `There is still a world out there, much to learn, much to discover; and the

exploration of ourselves, however laudable in that at least it risks no new

imperialistic gesture, is not, in the end, capable of sustaining lasting interest' (Patai, 1994, p.
67). The issue is not, however, merely one of satisfying curiosity. There is a real danger that if we become persuaded

that we cannot understand the experience of others and that `we have no right to
speak for anyone but ourselves', then we will all too easily find ourselves
epistemologically and morally isolated, furnished with a comfortable legitimation
for ignoring the condition of anyone but ourselves. This is not, any more than the paternalism of the powerful, the route to a
more just society.
How, then can we reconcile the importance of (1) wider social understanding of the world of `disempowered' communities and of the structures which contribute to that
disempowerment, (2) the openness of those communities and structures to the outsider researcher, and (3) the determination that the researcher should not wittingly or unwittingly
reinforce that disempowerment? The literature (from which a few selected examples are quoted below) provides some clues as to the character of relations between researcher and
researched which `emancipatory', `participatory' or `educative' research might take.

To begin with, we need to re-examine the application of the notion of `property' to the
ownership of knowledge. In economic terms, knowledge is not a competitive good. It has the distinctive virtue that (at least in terms of its
educative function) it can be infinitely distributed without loss to any of those who are sharing in

it. Similarly the researcher can acquire it from people without denying it to them and can
return it enriched. However, it is easy to neglect the processes of reporting back to people and sharing in knowledge and the importance which can be attached to
this process by those concerned. For Smith, a Maori woman working with research students from the indigenous people of New Zealand, `Reporting back to the people is never a one-
off exercise or a task that can be signed off on completion of the written report'. She describes how one of her students took her work back to the people she interviewed. `The family
was waiting for her; they cooked food and made us welcome. We left knowing that her work will be passed around the family to be read and eventually will have a place in the living
room along with other valued family books and family photographs' (Smith, 1999, pp. 15±16).

For some, what is required is a moving away from regarding research as a property
and towards seeing it as a dialogic enquiry designed to assist the understanding of
all concerned:
Educative research attempts to restructure the traditional relationship between researcher and `subject'. Instead of a one-way process where researchers extract data from `subjects',

Research encourages a dialogic process where participants negotiate meanings at the

Educational

It . . . encourages participants to work together on an equal

level of question posing, data collection and analysis . . .

basis to reach a mutual understanding. Neither participant should stand apart in an aloof or
judgmental manner; neither should be silenced in the process. (Gitlin and Russell, 1994, p. 185)

Mono-causal theories shut down communication by making our self-

defense automatically biased—this reifies racism and leads to endless
squabbling about authenticity
Jack Niemonen 10, American Sociologist, 41(1), 48-81, “Public Sociology or Partisan Sociology? The Curious Case of Whiteness
Studies”, Online

Despite recognition that racial classification systems are not constant, proponents of
whiteness studies treat whites as if they were an immutable, bounded, and cohesive
category (Bonnett 2003; Eichstedt 2001; Gabriel 2000; Giroux 1997; Hartigan 1997; Keating 1995; Kincheloe 1999; Kolchin 2002; Levine-Rasky
2000; McCarthy 2003; Pugliese 2002; Sidorkin 1999; Yans 2006 ). They posit a generic white subject, both

privileged and unaware of the extent of that privilege. However, even if whites coalesce at certain historical
junctures, we cannot conclude that the category “white” is an entity that will continue

indefinitely in the absence of antiracist initiatives (McDermott and Sampson 2005; Yans 2006; cf. Niemonen
2007). Reification has the unintended consequence of neglecting how the construction of racial identities is a negotiated, indeed manipulative, process
proponents of whiteness studies understate the
(Bonnett 1998; Rockquemore 2002). In doing so,

contradictions, inconsistencies, and ambivalences within white and nonwhite

identities. They assume before the fact that whites regard whiteness rather than nationality, ethnicity, religion, or class as the main factor that
separates the civilized from the uncivilized. And, they oversimplify the challenges that nonwhites face by implying that their problems are largely race-
related and hence attributable to racism (Croteau et al. 2002; Hartigan 2002; Kolchin 2002; Mansfield and Kehoe 1994; Warren and Twine 1997).
Emphasizing the unifying interest in, and reproduction of, dominance minimizes how the boundaries of racial categories are negotiated, reinforced, or
challenged in daily life (Alcoff 1998; Bash 2006; Perera 1999). Largely ignored are the complicated interactions between race, class, and sex, and the
struggles of many whites to acquire privileges in a class-stratified society, especially economic security and some degree of self-autonomy (Bonnett 1997;
Reifying the concept of race fails
Eichstedt 2001; Hartigan 1997, 2000b; Hubbard 2005; Kolchin 2002; Lee 1999; Winders 2003).

to capture the processes through which it acquires meaning, confers status, or exerts
a “structuring effect” (Bash 2006; Lewis 2004). By suppressing intra-group divisions and contradictions, whiteness studies ignore how
multiple statuses work together in people’s lives (cf. Brekhus 1998; Merton 1972) and perpetuate an “us-them” view of difference—the binary perspective
that is at the core of racist discourses. The reification of racial categories endows them with causal potential and predictive ability, implying that all persons
classified as white will exhibit the undesirable traits associated with whiteness, since being white is a condition with distinct, identifiable, but largely
 In a
negative attributes that are in need of corrective attention (Alcoff 1998; Bash 2006; Hartigan 2000b; Keating 1995; Santas 2000; Scott 2000).

reversal of the historical equation, “white” has become reprehensible whereas

“nonwhite” has become virtuous (Gillborn 1996; Keating 1995). Whiteness studies posit racism as a
mono-causal explanation for almost everything. All other forces, including the class
struggle, are relegated to the margins. William Julius Wilson’s work is dismissed out-
of-hand as a defense of the culture of poverty thesis (e.g., Harrison 1998; Ladson-Billings 1996; Welcome 2004).
Racism is the problem. Therefore, whites either actively resist its reproduction or
they perpetuate existing inequalities (Hartigan 2000b; Kolchin 2002; Moon and Flores 2000; Troyna 1994). This premise
allows for the subsequent argument that whiteness is the source of oppression. If it is eradicated, then social justice will emerge (Moon and Flores 2000;
Once whiteness is demonized, whites have no choice but to view their
Trainor 2002).

selves—ironically—in the context of a deficit model that identifies their failings,

after which they may redeem themselves by becoming race traitors. Whites are
required to renounce their whiteness but at the same time celebrate the
alternatives. Such arguments inevitably result in anger and bafflement (Gillborn 1996; Kolchin
2002). The concept of racism suffers from conceptual inflation; it is used to mark any racially suspect attitude, behavior, policy, or practice (Blum 2002). It is
defined as a property of whites who act against nonwhites (Gabriel 2000; Mansfield and Kehoe 1994; Pearce 2003). Whiteness studies proponents dodge the
questions of whether or not whites can be victims of racism, and whether or not nonwhites’ atrocities against other nonwhites should be regarded as racist.
They generally conclude that nonwhites cannot be racist, for the latter are not beneficiaries of a white-privileged world. Nonwhites lack the power to
institutionalize the means that would disadvantage whites and advantage themselves (Eichstedt 2001; Gillborn 1996; Johnson et al. 2000; Ladson-Billings
1996; Tehranian 2000). Being cast as nonwhite means that one cannot escape thinking about race; it means being wounded, hurt, and hampered (Johnson et
al. 2000; Leonardo 2004). Thus, in serving as a term of moral reproach, racism has joined vices such as dishonesty, cruelty, cowardice, and hypocrisy (Blum
2002). As opposed to recognizing that rationality, objectivity, and truth are themselves contested concepts that have been the subject of centuries of
philosophical debate, whiteness studies conflate this history into a reductive, indeed monolithic, Eurocentrism. Painting Eurocentrism as the enemy creates
the impression that it is static over time. It is caricatured as the claim thatWestern epistemology is omnipresent and wielded as a weapon of indoctrination
against nonwhites. The struggle against Eurocentrism is transformed into an epistemological
project in which the necessary, if not sufficient, condition for overcoming privilege is
to disclose the truth about it (Kruks 2005). However, standpoint epistemologies may not
constitute a satisfactory alternative (Aya 2004; Hammersley 1993). For example, on what grounds can the
claim be made that one or more groups have privileged insight into reality? It cannot
be declared before the fact; otherwise, all groups may make the same claim with no
possibility of adjudication (Hammersley 1993). Although distinctive insights are possible—for example, as demonstrated in the work
of Patricia Hill Collins—the claim that nonwhites have privileged access to the world whereas

whites do not is Am Soc (2010) 41:48–81 65 implausible at best (Hammersley 1993; Srivastava 1996). Such an
argument begs the question of how a correct perception of the world is achieved. In other
words, the argument that personal experience occupies the same epistemological ground as social science is rife with logical and empirical problems. By

grounding their framework on the epistemology of provenance (that only the oppressed can claim
epistemic authority by virtue of their experiences), proponents of whiteness studies have blurred the

distinction between scientific justification and folk beliefs. Personal experiences

may be atypical or distorted by self-interest. Yet, to suggest so devolves into debates
about the speaker’s authenticity and his or her right to speak. If an objective Commented [EM3]:
understanding of the world is impossible, then sociological concepts such as
“concentration effects” may be more sophisticated, but no more valid, than the
accounts offered by anybody else. If so-called higher values are little more than the
hegemonic tactics of whites, and if the epistemology of provenance decides truth and
falsehood, or right and wrong, then knowledge is local convention, and any outsider
who disputes that claim is a racist (Aya 2004). Sociological research may not escape from normative concerns. However, this
body of work is much more sophisticated than the proponents of witnesses studies claim (cf. Alba 1999; Bash 1979; Lee 1999; Lubienski 2003; Mckee 1993;
Niemonen 2002). Even if the worth of this work should be evaluated by its public relevance, the claim on the part of whiteness studies proponents that its
 Proponents of whiteness studies imply that true
validity should be evaluated in the same way is questionable.

understanding is impossible across bounded groups because the latter construct

discourses that—by virtue of the postulates of standpoint epistemology—cannot be
communicated across boundaries without violating their authenticity (Sidorkin 1999). This
premise creates a dilemma: How is it possible to appeal to social justice, while at the
same time disavowing the possibility of authentic communication (Sidorkin 1999)? In fact, the
boundaries between discourses are drawn too rigidly as a result of a conception of
the social that is fixed, static, and homogenous (Merton 1972). In this context, whiteness is
an arbitrary designation that underpins a political project that could not succeed in
the absence of reification.

The aff was always an advocacy rooted in our privileged position within
the traditional knowledge of IR---the availability of security claims and
conventional IR terminology to white folks is why a strategy of
immanent critique that turns those against themselves rather than
trying to transcend them magically is the best way for us to challenge
violence
Hardt 2 – Prof. of Literature @ Duke & The European Graduate School
New Left Review, New Left Review 14, March-April 2002,
http://newleftreview.org/II/14/michael-hardt-porto-alegre-today-s-bandung
Anti-capitalism and national sovereignty The Porto Alegre Forum was in this sense perhaps to happy, to celebratory and not conflic tual
enough. The most important political difference cutting across the entire Forum concerned the role of national sovereignty. There are
indeed two primary positons in the response to today’s dominant forces of globalization: either one can work to reinforce the
one can strive
sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital, or
towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization that is
equally global. The first poses neoliberalism as the primary analytical category, viewing the enemy as unrestricted global
capitalist activity with weak state controls; the second is more clearly posed against capital itself, whether
state-regulated or not. The first might rightly be called an antiglobalization posit on, in so far as national sovereignties, even
if linked by international solidarity, serve to limit and regulate the forces of capitalist globalization. National liberatio n thus remains for
this posit on the ultimate goal, as it was for the old anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles. The second, in contrast, opposes any
national solutions and seeks instead a democratic globalization. The first position occupied the most visible and dominant spaces of the
Porto Alegre Forum; it was represented in the large plenary sessions, repeated by the official spokespeople, and reported in the press. A
key proponent of this position was the leadership of the Brazilian PT (Workers' Party)—in effect the host of the Forum, since it runs the
city and regional government. It was obvious and inevitable that the PT would occupy a central space in the Forum and use the
international prestige of the event as part of its campaign strategy for the upcoming elections. The second dominant voice of national
sovereignty was the French leadership of ATTAC, which laid the groundwork for the Forum in the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique. The
leadership of ATTAC is, in this regard, very close to many of the French politicians— most notably Jean-Pierre Chevenement—who
advocate strengthening national sovereignty as a solution to the ills of contemporary globalization. These, in any case, are the figures
who dominated the representation of the Forum both internally and in the press. The non-sovereign, alternative globalization position, in
contrast, was minoritarian at the Forum—not in quantitative terms but in terms of representation; in fact, the majority of the
participants in the Forum may well have occupied this minoritarian position. First, the various movements that have conducted the
protests from Seattle to Genoa are generally oriented towards non-national solutions. Indeed, the centralized structure of state
sovereignty itself runs counter to the horizontal network-form that the movements have developed. Second, the Argentinian movements
that have sprung up in response to the present financial crisis, organized in neighbourhood and city-wide delegate assemblies, are
similarly antagonistic to proposals of national sovereignty. Their slogans call for getting rid, not just of one politician, but all of them—
que se vayan todos: the entire political class. And finally, at the base of the various parties and organizations present at the Forum the
sentiment is much more hostile to proposals of national sovereignty than at the top. This may be particularly true of ATTAC, a hybrid
organization whose head, especially in France, mingles with traditional politicians, whereas its feet are firmly grounded in the
movements. The
division between the sovereignty, anti-globalization position and the
non-sovereign, alternative globalization position is therefore not best understood in
geographical terms. It does not map the divisions between North and South or First
World and Third. The conflict corresponds rather to two different forms of political
organization. The traditional parties and centralized campaigns generally occupy the national
sovereignty pole, whereas the new movements organized in horizontal networks tend to cluster
at the non-sovereign pole. And furthermore, within traditional, centralized organizations, the top tends toward sovereignty and the base
away. It is no surprise, perhaps, that those in positions of power would be most interested in state sovereignty and those ex cluded least.
This may help to explain, in any case, how the national sovereignty, antiglobalization position could dominate the representations of the
Forum even though the majority of the participants tend rather toward the perspective of a non-national alternative globalization. As a
concrete illustration of this political and ideological difference, one can imagine the responses to the current economic crisis in Argentina
that logically follow from each of these positions. Indeed that crisis loomed over the entire Forum, like a threatening premo nition of a
chain of economic disasters to come. The first position would point to the fact that the Argentinian debacle was caused by the forces of
global capital and the policies of the IMF, along with the other supranational institutions that undermine national sovereign ty. The logical
oppositional response should thus be to reinforce the national sovereignty of Argentina (and other nation-states) against these
destabilizing external forces. The second position would identify the same causes of the crisis, but insist that a national s olution is neither
possible nor desirable. The alternative to the rule of global capital and its institutions will only be found at an equally g lobal level, by a
global democratic movement. The practical experiments in democracy taking place today at neighbourhood and city levels in Argentina,
for example, pose a necessary continuity between the democratization of Argentina and the democratization of the global syste m. Of
course, neither of these perspectives provides an adequate recipe for an immediate
solution to the crisis that would circumvent IMF prescriptions—and I am not convinced that such a solution exists. They
rather present different political strategies for action today which seek, in the course of
time, to develop real alternatives to the current form of global rule. Parties vs networks In a
previous period we could have staged an old-style ideological confrontation between the two
positions. The first could accuse the second of playing into the hands of neoliberalism, undermining state sovereignty and paving
the way for further globalization. Politics, the one could continue, can only be effectively
conducted on the national terrain and within the nation-state. And the second could reply
that national regimes and other forms of sovereignty, corrupt and oppressive as they are, are merely obstacles to the
global democracy that we seek. This kind of confrontation, however, could not take place at Porto Alegre—in part because of the
dispersive nature of the event, which tended to displace conflicts, and in part because the sovereignty position so successfu lly occupied
the central representations that no contest was possible. But the more important reason for a lack of confrontation may have had to do
with the organizational forms that correspond to the two positions. The traditional parties and centralized organizations hav e
spokespeople who represent them and conduct their battles, but
no one speaks for a network. How do you
argue with a network? The movements organized within them do exert their power, but
they do not proceed through oppositions. One of the basic characteristics of the
network form is that no two nodes face each other in contradiction; rather, they are always
triangulated by a third, and then a fourth, and then by an indefinite number of others in the
web. This is one of the characteristics of the Seattle events that we have had the most
trouble understanding: groups which we thought in objective contradiction to one
another—environmentalists and trade unions, church groups and anarchists—were suddenly able to work
together, in the context of the network of the multitude. The movements, to take a slightly different
perspective, function something like a public sphere, in the sense that they can allow full
expression of differences within the common context of open exchange. But that does
not mean that networks are passive. They displace contradictions and operate
instead a kind of alchemy, or rather a sea change, the flow of the movements transforming the
traditional fixed positions; networks imposing their force through a kind of
irresistible undertow. Like the Forum itself, the multitude in the movements is always overflowing, excessive and Commented [EM4]:
unknowable. It is certainly important then, on the one hand, to recognize the differences that divide the activists and polit icians gathered
at Porto Alegre. It
would be a mistake, on the other hand, to try to read the division according to the
traditional model of ideological
conflict between opposing sides. Political struggle in the age
of network movements no longer works that way. Despite the apparent strength of those who occupied
centre stage and dominated the representations of the Forum, they may ultimately prove to have lost the struggle. Perhaps the
representatives of the traditional parties and centralized organizations at Porto Alegre are too much like the old national l eaders
gathered at Bandung—imagine Lula of the PT in the position of Ahmed Sukarno as host, and Bernard Cassen of ATTAC France as
Jawaharlal Nehru, the most honoured guest. The leaders can certainly craft resolutions affirming national sovereignty around a
conference table, but they can never grasp the democratic power of the movements. Eventually they too will
be swept up
in the multitude, which is capable of transforming all fixed and centralized elements
into so many more nodes in its indefinitely expansive network.
 FW
The term “United States” refers to the federal government of the United
States
NHIB 97, New Hampshire International Banking Act, TITLE XXXV: BANKS AND BANKING;
LOAN ASSOCIATIONS; CREDIT UNIONS, CHAPTER 384-F, Section 384-F:2 – Definitions,
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XXXV/384-F/384-F-2.htm
XXII. "United States,'' when used in a geographical sense, means the several states,
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the American Virgin
Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and any other territory of the
United States; and, when used in a political sense, means the federal government of
the United States.

Military presence requires physical stationing of armed forces

Degang Sun 13, Ph.D. in International Affairs from Shanghai International Studies
University, senior visiting researcher at Middle East Centre of St. Antony's College,
University of Oxford and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, associate professor of Political
Science and a senior researcher at the Middle East Studies Institute, Shanghai International
Studies University, “The Strategic Evolution of US Military Presence in Iraq,”
http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/184516/ichaptersection_singledocument
/203d394c-0bcc-4350-8b67-c39f73e87668/en/7.pdf
military presence refers to an area on land or on sea beyond a sovereign state’s
In this chapter, foreign

where a certain number of armed forces are stationed and which has military activities,
jurisdiction,

organized institutions, and military facilities.7 It is by nature the geographical and functional extension of a country’s
domestic military deployment.

Conversations between the university and military promote productive

friction that improve the perspectives of both and discourages
militarism – doesn’t require capitulating to the military
Donald Downs 12, Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism at UW-Madison,
director and co-founder of the University’s Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal
Democracy, with Ilia Murtazashvili, Arms and the University: Military Presence and the Civic
Education of Non-military Students, p. 31-4
a normative and theoretical framework ¶ As noted, one
of our tasks is to provide a normative and
theoretical framework that helps us conceptualize the relationship between the
military and universities as institutions . To accomplish our task, we offer a theoretical framework that
emphasizes the following: (1) the military is one of several clusters in society with a
distinctive perspective; (2) integration of these clusters improves the ability to
formulate public policies through a process we describe as “productive friction”; and
(3) the university is a microcosm of civil–military relations that can improve
citizenship and public reason by encouraging productive friction between the
military and non-military spheres of American society. In turn, this friction can
strengthen civic culture by lessening the civil–military gap. We briefly introduce each of these
dimensions, which we consider more fully in the following chapter. ¶ First, our theoretical framework presupposes that there are distinct
clusters in American life. The “clusterization” of society can present problems for the balance
between the military and civilian institutions, especially when groups become
polarized on creedal issues.69 But at the same time, our argument for integration of diverse perspectives, specifically a
distinctly military perspective, requires (or at least accepts the fact) that there are clusters in society . If there were no gap
in knowledge and perspectives between those in the military and others in society,
then nothing would be lost by excluding a military perspective . 70 In our framework, the
problem for society is not the existence of clusters but rather the degree of
integration and communication among clusters, each of which brings its own
perspective to the table.¶ We are most interested in the military cluster. For our purposes, it is not essential to define all
the features of the military perspective in developing our theoretical framework. We simply posit the military as a distinct cluster –
although our empirical studies and those of others show that military students and military historians, in particula r traditional military
historians, do present different perspectives. Unlike most studies of the military gap, our concern is not with ideological d ifferences
among clusters but rather in different expertise in the cluster. The military cluster may have an ideology similar to that of the general
public, yet our concern is less with their politics than with their expertise. In particular we are less concerned with the d efining features
of clusters than in discussion of the degree to which these clusters are integrated, for as we shall argue, it
is not the
existence of different perspectives but rather their integration that is a key to civic
and liberal education.¶ The second component of our theory is that diverse perspectives can help
people and societies solve complex problems, particularly issues involving war and
national security. We draw especially on the insights of diversity theorists who have
shown that inclusion of individuals from diverse perspectives can improve the
ability of a group to solve problems. This is the general point of Scott E. Page’s book The Difference: How the Power
of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Page emphasizes that diverse groups are usually better at solving
problems in all walks of life.71 We apply Page’s perspective on learning in arguing that integration
of a military
perspective improves public policy – in particular, policies involving war or national security –
because the military offers one of the most distinctive and diverse perspectives that students can encounter in their academi c life.¶ The
third component of our framework is emphasis on the university as a microcosm of civil–military relations.
Much of the
literature on the civil–military gap emphasizes civilian control of the military, a
concern that has much to do with the rise of fascism and militarism in the twentieth century. As
Michael Desch has argued, this negative result is more likely if civilian and military leaders do
not forge sufficient common ground on policy. Fascism is not a realistic threat in America, but problems
associated with an unhealthy relationship between these two sides should be taken seriously. Two reasons the Russian military became
less amenable to civilian control during the 1990s, for example, were (1) that the end of the Cold War led to the unraveling of military
and civilian consensus regarding military policy and (2) that new civilian leadership had less experience and education in military
matters.72 The seminal statement of the necessity of civilian control of an increasingly professionalized and institutionaliz ed military is
Huntington’s The Soldier and the State. The
university is a microcosm of these relations, but one in which the
practitioners of security policy and the voters and politicians that govern policy have
opportunities to see the other. These interactions promise to reduce the threat of a
widening civil– military gap, so it is critical to encourage balance and understanding
between these different institutions.
¶Our framework thus integrates the concepts of military clusters and productive friction,
applying them in order to better understand the nature of interactions within the
university. The university is one of the key institutions in society that can either
encourage or discourage productive friction. We posit that the university does best
for students by encouraging productive friction. In the pages that follow, we evaluate
how well the university does in encouraging this process.¶ To be clear, we are not
advocating a military perspective. We offer a less controversial claim: The best state
of affairs, as far as pedagogy is concerned, is to integrate the military perspective,
not to promote it; the process itself is the key, not the particular answers that arise
from it. In this respect, our approach to knowledge is decentralized in that it
prescribes a struggle among competing views. It is the lack of the facilitation of
interaction of diverse perspectives with which we disagree.

Ignoring focus on military presence because it doesn’t personally affect

you is ethically bankrupt
Fred Clark 13, ethicist, journalist, former managing editor of Prism Magazine, 3/21/13,
“For Sen. Portman, Sen. Kirk and the rest of us: The next big step is the important one,”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/03/21/for-sen-portman-sen-kirk-and-
the-rest-of-us-the-next-big-step-is-the-important-one/
Earlier this year, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., returned to Washington after a long, arduous recovery from the
stroke he suffered in early 2012. In an interview with Natasha Korecki of the Chicago Sun-Times, Kirk said he:
[Plans]to take a closer look at funding of the Illinois Medicaid program for those with have no
income who suffer a stroke, he said. In general, a person on Medicaid in Illinois would be allowed
11 rehab visits, he said.
“ Had I been limited to that , I would have had no chance to recover like I did,” Kirk said. “So
unlike before suffering the stroke, I’m much more focused on Medicaid and what my fellow
citizens face.”
Kirk has the same federal health-care coverage available to other federal employees. He has incurred major out-of-pocket expenses,
which have affected his savings and retirement, sources familiar with Kirk’s situation said.

Harold Pollack commended Kirk for those “wise words, sadly earned,” writing: “Such a profound physical ordeal – and one’s
accompanying sense of profound privilege in securing more help than so many other people routinely receive — this changes a person.”

Steve Benen was also impressed with Kirk’s hard-won change of heart, but noted:

I do wish, however, that we might see similarly changed perspectives without the need for
direct personal relevance . Many policymakers are skeptical about federal disaster
relief until it’s their community that sees devastation. They have no interest in gay rights
until they learn someone close to them is gay. And they’re unsure of the value of Medicaid until they see its
worth up close.

Which brings us to this week, and the news that conservative Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio now supports
marriage equality for same-sex couples. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s headline for Sabrina Eaton’s report tells the story, “Sen.
Rob Portman comes out in favor of gay marriage after son comes out as gay“:

Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman on Thursday announced he has reversed his longtime opposition to same-sex marriage after
reconsidering the issue because his 21-year-old son, Will, is gay.
Portman said his son, a junior at Yale University, told him and his wife, Jane, that he’s gay and “it was not a choice, it wa s who he is and
that he had been that way since he could remember.”

“It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that’s of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same
opportunities that his brother and sister would have — to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years,” Portman told
reporters in an interview at his office.

The conversation the Portmans had with their son two years ago led to him to evolve on the issue after he consulted clergy members,
friends — including former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is gay — and the Bible.

This is a big deal. Portman is the first Republican senator to endorse marriage equality . And he
wasn’t previously someone who seemed on the fence — he was adamantly, religiously opposed before.

So the first thing I want to say is congratulations, kudos, and thank you to Portman. I heartily second the commendations and praise he’s
receiving from groups like the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry Ohio, and PFLAG.

For Portman, as for Kirk, an unbidden circumstance expanded his perspective of the
world. That new, larger appreciation in turn expanded his understanding of what justice requires — of what justice requires for
people who aren’t necessarily just like him.

This is one way we all learn — one way we all become bigger, better people. It is, for almost all of us, a necessary first step toward a more
expansive empathy and a more inclusive understanding of justice. Even if it is only a first step, it is an unavoidable one, a nd we should
celebrate the epiphany that challenging circumstance has allowed these senators.

What Steve Benen said about Kirk is still true for Portman. It
is good to see his perspective change due to
“direct personal relevance,” but it would be better if he could learn to expand his
perspective even without it . That’s the next necessary step , the next epiphany awaiting these
senators.

Kirk’s long recovery provided his “Aha!” moment when it comes to other people who are also recovering from a stroke. And Portman’s
coming to grips with his son’s identity provided him with an “Aha!” moment when it comes to other LGBT people and their families. But
it’s not yet clear that either senator has yet taken the next logical step — the next “Aha!” moment. The
next step is the big one.
It’s the
realization that because I didn’t understand others’ situation or others’ perspective
until I myself faced the same thing, I should then strive to listen and to learn and to
see the world through others’ eyes so that I can better understand the world without having to
experience every situation , every injustice , every ordeal personally .

This next step is necessary for justice , which can only come “ When those who are not
injured feel as indignant as those who are .”
That next step may seem obvious, but epiphanies always seem obvious in retrospect.

Until that next step occurs , though, the slightly expanded empathy of people like Kirk and
Portman seems self-serving , like the “cowardice and hypocrisy” of the privileged, as Morf Morford describes it. They
still seem to cling to a cramped, self-centered understanding of justice — one that can
only grow when their own, personal interests require it to do so. It still lacks the ability to
be “indignant” except when one is personally among the “injured .” Commented [EM5]:

“Moral and political positions aren’t supposed to be something you only take when they’ll benefit you,” Mark Evanier wrote. Empathy
becomes suspect when it coincides so closely with personal benefit. It begins to look like what Mark Schmitt calls “Miss America
compassion“:

Their compassion seems so narrowly and literally focused on the specific misfortune that their family encountered. Having a child w ho
suffers from mental illness would indeed make one particularly passionate about funding for mental health, sure. But shouldn’ t it also
lead to a deeper understanding that there are a lot of families, in all kinds of situations beyond their control, who need he lp from
government? Shouldn’t having a son whose illness leads to suicide open your eyes to something more than a belief that we need more
money for suicide help-lines? Shouldn’t it call into question the entire winners-win/losers-lose ideology of the current Republican Party?

If we take the first step without ever taking the next step — changing our perspective only when
“direct personal relevance” demands it and not otherwise — we can fall into what Matthew Yglesias describes as “ The

Politics of Narcissism “:
Remember when Sarah Palin was running for vice president on a platform of tax cuts and reduced spending? But there was one form of
domestic social spending she liked to champion? Spending on disabled children? Because she had a disabled child personally? Yet
somehow her personal experience with disability didn’t lead her to any conclusions about the millions of mothers simply struggling to
raise children in conditions of general poorness. Rob
Portman doesn’t have a son with a pre-existing
medical condition who’s locked out of the health insurance market . Rob Portman
doesn’t have a son engaged in peasant agriculture whose livelihood is likely to be
wiped out by climate change. Rob Portman doesn’t have a son who’ll be malnourished if SNAP benefits are cut. So
Rob Portman doesn’t care .
… But if Portman can turn around on one issue once he realizes how it touches his
family personally, shouldn’t he take some time to think about how he might feel about other
issues that don’t happen to touch him personally? Obviously the answers to
complicated public policy questions don’t just directly fall out of the emotion of
compassion. But what Portman is telling us here is that on this one issue, his previous
position was driven by a lack of compassion and empathy. Once he looked at the issue through his son’s eyes,
he realized he was wrong. Shouldn’t that lead to some broader soul-searching? Is it just a coincidence
that his son is gay, and also gay rights is the one issue on which a lack of empathy was leading him astray? That, it seems to me, would be
a pretty remarkable coincidence. The
great challenge for a senator isn’t to go to Washington and represent
the problems of his own family. It’s to try to obtain the intellectual and moral
perspective necessary to represent the problems of the people who don’t have direct
access to the corridors of power.
Senators basically never have poor kids. That’s something members of Congress should think about.

Will Femia notes that this widely shared observation prompted an insightful — and darkly funny — meme about “hypothetical
Republican empathy.”

“If empathy only extends to your flesh and blood, we gotta start shoving people into those families,” Rachel Maddow said.

“Now all we need is 59 more gay Republican kids,” Dave Lartigue wrote.

“Perhaps if we could get the Republican caucus to adopt gay, black Hispanic illegal-immigrant children, who will grow up to be denied
insurance due to pre-existing conditions, we’d make some more social progress,” mistermix wrote.

“Eventually one of these Republican congressmen is going to find out his daughter is a woman, and then we’re all set,” Anil Dash tweeted.

And Andy Borowitz chimed in with “Portman Inspires Other Republicans to Stop Speaking to Their Children.”

Endless variations of that joke circulated this week because that joke offers limitless possibilities — as limitless as the stunted
“hypothetical empathy” of “Miss America compassion” is limited.

That joke and Yglesias’ argument are correct. An empathy that never moves beyond that first step and that
first epiphany is morally indistinct from selfishness . To take that first step without the next one is only to move
from “me first” to “me and mine first.” (David Badash and Jonathan Chait also have insightful posts making this argument.)

But no one can take that next big step until they take the first one. So I’m less interested in criticizing Portman or Kirk or anyone else in
their position than I am in figuring out how we can urge and encourage them to take that next big step. How can we facilitate the next
epiphany?
That’s the bigger issue, the more important challenge. Ari Kohen tackles this challenge in a bookish post building on Richard Rorty’s
thoughts. Kohen is interested most of all in how “to accomplish this progress of sentiments, this expanding of our sense of solidarity”:

The best way to convince the powerful that their way of thinking about others needs to evolve is to show them the ways in which
individuals they consider to be “Other” are, in fact, much more closely akin to them than they ever realized. It is, in short , to create a
greater solidarity between the powerful and the weak based on personal identification.

Rob Portman’s change of heart is a good example of the way in which we ultimately achieve a progress of sentiments that leads to the
equal treatment of more and more people. Viewed in this way, it’s really not something people on the Left ought to be criticizing; it’s
something we should be working to encourage for those without the sort of immediate personal connection that Portman fortunately
had.

(Note that we are, yet again, confronted with the idea of ethics as a trajectory.)

The vital question, then, is how? How can we encourage “a progress of sentiments” along a trajectory “that leads to the equal treatment of
more and more people”?

Part of the answer, I think, is to remember how we ourselves were encouraged along — how we ourselves each came to take that next
step, how we ourselves came to have that second epiphany.

That’s the approach that Grace at Are Women Human? takes in a firm-but-generous post titled “Changes of heart and our better selves.”
Grace highlights Portman’s case as an example of “the tensions between celebrating progress and recognizing that there’s stil l work to be
done.” She draws on her own story and history for humility and perspective, and as a guide to helping others see and take the next steps
in their journey:

How easy it is to say Portman … should have done better and forget that I wasn’t so different, not so long ago.

The honest truth: it was getting to know and love queer people that, more than anything else, led me away from the bigotry I’d been
taught as faith. … It’s important for me not to forget this, or that it took the thought that my not-yet-born child might be transgender for
me to realize that I needed to educate myself about gender identity. It would be dangerous to indulge the fiction that I’ve always held the
moral “high ground.” …

That history — her own and that of others who have come to a more inclusive, expansive understanding of justice — informs the advice,
and the warning, that follows:

Portman isn’t an exception in having, and indulging, the luxury of ignoring the consequences of
politics that don’t affect him personally .
This is a feature, not a bug, of our culture and political system. Power is concentrated in
the hands of people who routinely make policy on matters they have little experience or
real stakes in. You don’t need any conscious malice in this setup to produce policy that has
devastating effects on the communities these issues touch most directly (though there’s
plenty of malice, too). All you need is a system run by people who can afford not to care that
much about policies that mostly impact other people’s lives.
Which, I suppose, is why civil rights activism often depends on cultivating these very moments of identification with the “other,” on
spontaneous and planned appeals to emotion and basic decency. Systemic lack of incentive to care has to be confronted with stories that
get politicians or the public to care.

Emmitt Till’s open casket. Rosa Parks’ carefully planned protest of bus segregation – as a more “respectable” face of black resistance than
Claudette Colvin. Hydeia Broadbent and Ryan White as the faces of children with HIV. DREAMers taking over public spaces, stor ies about
families torn apart by racist, classist, unjust immigration policies.

… Rob Portman is not an exception. He’s the rule . I don’t say this to suggest that we cut him slack for finally
arriving at a basic (and still incomplete) recognition of the humanity of queer people. Nor am I arguing that we shouldn’t critique the
circumstances around his change of heart.

What I hope is that we don’t forget ourselves in these calls to do better . That we don’t fall into the
deceptive confidence that because we know or do better, we’ve arrived…or forget how many of us had to change and grow to get to
where we are now. We’re all capable of fooling ourselves into thinking our standpoints are
clearly “rational” or “moral” whenit comes to issues that don’t affect us.
1AR
 AT: Spiritual Healing
Focus on spiritual healing leaves institutional causes of oppression
untouched and never moves beyond academia
Pyle 99—Boston College Law School, J.D., magna cum laude (Jefferey, Race, Equality and
the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory's Attack on the Promises of Liberalism, 40 B.C.L. Rev.
787)
How effective, then, is CRT as advocacy for racial minorities within the liberal system? The answer depends, of course, on one's
criteria. As a therapeutic screed against the frustrations of incremental liberalism , critical

race theory probably "works" well." It may also push liberals into constructive action, much as black radicals pushed whites
into the arms of Martin Luther King, jr.""' If advocacy is judged by its ability to persuade others,

however, CRT must be judged a failure. Despite its ten years as a "movement,"12 its
voluminous publications and ubiquitous presence in law schools,"" critical race theory has
had almost no influence outside the walls of academia?' This poor showing can be attributed to the inherent
inadequacies of the theory. <cont> Third, race-crits are politically ineffective because they deliberately choose racialist rhetoric that

alienates whites."'" Unlike Dr. King, who extended his hand to whites and expressed his faith that they
could redeem the promises of their ancestors,"21 race-crits give up on whites as slaves
to bigotry.325 Consider Bell's "Space Traders" story: in the year 2000, Bell posits, seventy percent of Americans would vote to send blacks away in
spaceships if presented with the right benelit."2' Jewish Americans would oppose the trade, he says, but not from principle."27 They would fear that "in the
absence of blacks, Jews could become the scapegoats."1 t28 Sonie rich whites would protest the deal,' but only because they know that blacks deflect
potential class-based unrest by poor whites, who are pacified in the knowledge that they "at least, remained ahead of blacks."329 In sum, Bell clearly implies,
It is hard to imagine how
all whites are racist—those who appear to stand up for minorities are only looking out for number one.'"

this story could inspire anything but frustration, dismay and resentment among
white readers. There is much to be done on behalf of minorities—the criminal justice
system, for example, screams for reform."' But like it or not, nothing can be accomplished in this country
without widespread support from white Americans. Name-calling and blame games like those of the
race-crits can only make reforms less likely to occur.
 AT: Redeploy
Yokosuka is the only place we can dock the carrier
WCT 9/10, Want China Times, “The USS Ronald Reagan and US power projection in the
Western Pacific,” http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-
cnt.aspx?id=20150910000162&cid=1101
Yokosuka's importance to the US comes from three things: first of all that it is able to maintain a large aircraft carrier. When
the US started returning some of the base's berths to Japan, it reserved the usage rights of berth No. 6, where the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano was built and where repairs were

This is the only dock capable of maintaining an aircraft

made to Yamato-class battleships during World War II.

carrier in the area west of Hawaii stretching all the way to the coast of East Africa.
Second, the Yokosuka base is in a key location with regard to projection power in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. It takes a US aircraft carrier seven days to sail from Hawaii
to Japan, whereas it takes 14 days to sail from the west coast of the continental United States to Japan. Whether carriers are being deployed to East Asia or the Persian Gulf, they can
reach there from Yokosuka much quicker than from the US. Third, military ports are expensive, so having a base established already is preferable to building one from scratch.
Round 6
 1AC
Same as all previous 1AC’s at Coast #2
2AC
Anthro
 AT: Subject Formation
Subject formation is not inherently violent and doesn’t dictate broader
politics
Nancy Fraser 95, “False Antitheses: A Response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler,” Ch 3
in Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, p 68, google books
This brings me to the second set of claims implicit in Butler'spost- structuralist account of subjectivity —normative, as
opposed to onto- logical , claims. Such claims arise, first, in relation to the social practices through which subjects are constituted. Here Butler follows
insists that subjects are
Foucault in claiming that practices of subiectivation are also practices of subjection. Like him, she

constituted through exclusion; some people are authorized to speak authorita- tively because others are silenced. Thus, in Butler's
view, the consti- tution of a class of authorized subiects entails "the creation of a

domain of deauthorized subjects, pre-subjects, figures of abjection, populations erased

from view." ¶ But is it really the case that no one can become the subject of speech
without others' being silenced? Are there no counterexamples? Where such
exclusions do exist, are they all bad? Are they all equally bad? Can we distinguish
legitimate from illegitimate exclusions, better from worse practices Of
subiectivation? Is subject-authorization inherently a zero-sum game? Or does it only
become one in oppressive societies? Can we overcome or at least ameliorate the
asymmetries in current practices Of subjectivation? Can we construct practices, institutions,
and forms of life in which the empowerment Of some does not entail the
disempowerment Of others? If not, what is the point Of feminist struggle? ¶ Butler offers no help in thinking about
these issues. Nor can she, I submit, so long as she fails to integrate critical-theoretical considera- tions into her poststructuralist Foucauldian framework.
That frame- work, I have argued elsewhere, is structurally incapable of providing satlsfactory answers to the normative questions it unfailingly solicits.13 It
needs modification and supplementation, therefore, in order to be fully adequate to the feminist project. In addition to her claims about the social practices
of subiectiva- tion, Butler also makes normative claims about the relative merits of different theories of subjectivity. She claims that some such theories are
"politically insidious," whereas others are progressive or emanci- patory. On the insidious side is the view of subjectivity as possessing an ontologically intact
reflexivity that is not an effect of cultural processes of subjectivation. This view, according to Butler, is a "ruse of power" and an "instrument Of cultural
Is it really? There is no denying that foundationalist theories of subjectivity
imperialism." ¶

have often functioned as instruments of cultural imperial- ism. But is that due to
conceptual necessity or historical contingency? In fact, there are cases where such
theories have had emancipatory effects—witness the French Revolution and the
appropriation Of its foundationalist view of subjectivity by the Haitian "Black Jacobin,
Toussaint de I 'Ouverture.14 These examples show that it is not possible to deduce a
single, univocal political valence from a theory of subjectivity . Such theories, too, are bits of cultural
discourse whose meanings are subject to "resignification. ¶ How, then, should we resolve the Benhabib-Butler dispute over "the death of man"? I conclude
that Butler is right in maintaining that a culturally constructed subject can also be a critical subject, but that the terms in which she formulates the point give
rise to difficul- ties. Specifically, "resignification" is not an adequate substitute for "critique, since it surrenders the normative moment. Likewise, the view
the
that subiectivation necessarily entails subjection precludes nor- mative distinctions between better and worse subjectivating practices. ¶ Finally,

view that foundationalist theories of subjectivity are inherently oppressive is

historically disconfirmed, and it is conceptually incompatible with a contextualist theory of meaning. The upshot, then, is that feminists
need to develop an alternative conceptualiza- tion of the subject, one that integrates Butler's poststructuralist emphasis on construction with Benhabib's
critical-theoretical stress on critique.
 Alt
Alt’s absolutism is internally contradictory and provides no means of
decision-making—the perm’s weak anthropocentrism solves best
Wendy Lynne Lee 8, Department of Philosophy – Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania,
“Environmental Pragmatism Revisited: Human-Centeredness, Language, and the Future of
Aesthetic Experience,” Environmental Philosophy 5:1
In 1984 pragmatist Bryan Norton published a landmark essay in environmental theory entitled "Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism." In it he
argues that the long-standing debate between anthropocentrists (those for whom all assignments of value accrue to human-
centered instrumental interests) and nonanthropocentrists (those for whom nonhuman animals and ecosystems have a value intrinsic
to and independent of human use, including some of Kirkman's speculative environmentalists) "is far less important than is

usually assumed" (Norton 2003, 163). Norton argues that the debate itself is mired in confusion over
the concept "anthropocentrism," and that clarifying its meaning will show, first, that
nonanthropocentrism is at least implausible if not incoherent, and second, that anthropocentrism
properly understood need not yield the human chauvinism attributed to it. For the nonanthropocentrist

there are at least some living (and possibly nonliving) things whose value inheres in them in such fashion that we
must regard this value (and hence the entity) as independent of any use we might otherwise make of them. It is, then, immoral to treat

merely instrumental^ anything that can be shown to have such a value. However morally attractive a notion, intrinsic

value's conceptual difficulties are many, not the least of which, as Norton suggests, is whether it can be shown that there
exists any such entity or quality in the universe (Norton 2003, 164-5). As anthropocentrists are quick to point out, the concept of intrinsic value is

inherently vague: To what does it apply? Only individuals? Species? Ecosystems?

According to what criteria? How do we know? It is hard to imagine satisfactory answers to these

questions, especially since we may be likely to apply the concept to Giant Pandas but deny it to

the Avian Bird Flu. What counts, moreover, as an individual, a species, or an ecosystem is itself less a
truth about nature than an artifact of human-made nomenclature. Lastly, even if we
could determine a method for recognizing intrinsic value, it is not clear it matters
much. After all, the power to enslave and exploit is still on our side. Tuming then to
anthropocentrism, what a proper understanding of the concept requires, argues Norton, is a distinction between
what he calls "felt preferences," namely, "any desire or need of a human individual that can at least

temporarily be sated by some specifiable experience of that individual," and "considered preferences," that is,
"any desire or need that a human individual would express after careful deliberation , including

judgment that the desire or need is consistent with a rationally adopted world view" (Norton 2003, 164). A felt preference, then, might

be to satiate thirst, while a considered preference might direct itself to a particular

lager or porter. That is, felt preferences are represented by survival interests and basic desires while
considered preferences are constructed from these interests and informed by tbe contexts within which they are
satisfied. Given this distinction, Norton goes on to identify two forms of anthropocentrism: A value theory is strongly anthropocentric if all value
countenanced by it is explained by reference to satisfaction of felt preferences of human individuals. A value theory is weakly anthropocentric if all value
countenanced by it is explained by reference to satisfaction of some felt preference of a human individual or by reference to its bearing upon the ideals
which exist as elements in a world view essential to determinations of considered preferences. (Norton 2003, 165) It is important to note that while strong
anthropocentrism differs a good deal fi'om weak with respect to the role played by felt preferences in detenTiining and justifying human action, it does share
in common with the nonanthropocentrist a concept of human-centeredness defined in terms of human entitlement. What the strong anthropocentrist
endorses, the nonanthropocentrist excoriates. If, for example, "humans have a strongly consumptive human value system, then their 'interests,'" notes
Norton, "dictate that nature will be used in an exploitive manner" (Norton 2003, 165). Strong anthropocentrists endorse this view, arguing that
environmental conservation need take into account only those species and systems whose usefulness to human welfare, present or future, can be calculated
in terms of costs and benefits to human beings. Nonanthropocentrists insist, however, that it is precisely this fundamentally chauvinistic aftitude that is
The nonanthropocentrist is right to claim that
producing the environmental crises we now face.

environmental deterioration owes a good deal to unrestrained human excess; few deny the
connection between global warming and the production of greenhouse gases, or the link between the loss of habitat and the escalation of species extinction.
Nonetheless, deterioration need not follow from human-centeredness, argues the strong
anthropocentrist, since preserving resources also falls within the ambit of human interest.

Weak anthropocentrism aims to carve a middle route between strong anthropocentrism's potential for
excess and nonanthropocentrism's conceptual inchoateness insofar as it recognizes (1) that not all felt
preferences are necessarily rational or consonant with a rational world view; (2) that considered preferences are not always consistent with felt
the sense that something has value does not necessarily imply that
preferences; and, lastly, (3) that

such value is unassigned. If I, for example, have a felt preference for having nonhuman animals available to my affection that 1 think can
only be fulfilled by going to the zoo every day, but also a considered preference that going to the zoo everyday will likely thwart my pursuit of other worthy
goals, then I am faced with a conflict between a less than wholly rational felt preference and a rationally considered one. Moreover, although I may believe
that my going every day is justified as a response to each animal's intrinsic value, my feeling that the zoo animals have such a value is not evidence that they
do.Weak anthropocentrism, argues Norton, offers neither autonomie sanction to the excesses of the strong
anthropocentrist nor concession to a notion of value that has no conceptual moorings. By
distinguishing between felt and considered preferences, it invites us to reflect case
by case upon whether our felt preferences ought always to be satisfied, or at least at
the expense of other human and/or nonhuman beings. In classic Deweyan tradition, weak
anthropocentrism seeks no ultimate truth about our responsibilities to the environment, but
rather "provides a basis for criticism of value systems which are purely exploitative of
nature" (Norton 2003, 165). The provision of such a basis, argues Norton, follows from the possibility of articulating a

worldview—a coherent set of evolving, contextually sensitive, considered preferences—that recognizes the
interdependence of human beings and nature, and thus provides a foundation for the
critique of practices inconsonant with this worldview. The concept "interdependence" does not, however, necessarily
imply any additional inferences such as the claim that the Earth itself is an organism that can be harmed. Instead, weak
anthropocentrism invites us to consider whether our preferences are something we
merely have or something over which we exercise some control. Moreover, it provides a
basis, argues Norton, for the review of value formation itself in that, by distinguishing between felt and considered
preferences, we can query whether what may appear to be a felt preference is actually a considered one whose duration or tradition makes it seem natural
(2003, 165), but whose practice may no longer be justified. Perhaps most importantly, however, for a practicable environmental ethic, is the role played in
Norton's argument by the deeply Deweyan concept of experience: Because weak anthropocentrism places value not only on felt
makes
preferences, but also on the process of value formation embodied in the criticism and replacement of felt preferences with more rational ones, it

possible appeals to the value of experience of natural objects and undisturbed places in human value
fonnation. To the extent that environmentalists can show that values are formed and infomied by contact with nature, nature takes on

value as a teacher of human values. Nature need no longer be seen as a satisfier of

fixed and often consumptive values—it also becomes an important source of
inspiration in value formation . (2003, 165) The experience of nature can, on Norton's view,
encourage deeper self-reflection about whether the satisfaction of particular felt preferences is rational given a
world view composed of felt and considered preferences within which the environment is accorded value.

Alt fails --- it’s utopian to expect every human to suddenly embrace
animal equality
Light 2 [Light, Andrew, Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy and Director,
Environmental Conservation Education Program, 2002 (Environmental Ethics: What Really
Matters What Really Works David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, p. 556-57)]
In recent years a critique of this predominant trend in environmental ethics has emerged from within the pragmatist tradition in American philosophy.' The
force of this critique is driven by the intuition that environmental philosophy cannot afford to be quiescent
about the public reception of ethical arguments over the value of nature. The original motivations
of environmental philosophers for turning their philosophical insights to the environment support such a position. Environmental
,

philosophy evolved out of a concern about the state of the growing environmental crisis,
and a conviction that a philosophical contribution could be made to the resolution of this crisis. But if environmental philosophers

spend all of their time debating non-human centered forms of value theory they will ar-
guably never get very far in making such a contribution. For example, to continue to ignore human motivations
for the act of valuing nature causes many in the field to overlook the fact that most people find it very difficult to extend moral consideration to plants and
animals on the grounds that these entities possess some form of intrinsic, inherent, or otherwise conceived nonanthropocentric value. It is even more
Claims about the value of nature as such do not
difficult for people to recognize that nonhumans could have rights.

appear to resonate with the ordinary moral intuitions of most people who, after all, spend
most of their lives thinking of value, moral obligations, and rights in exclusively human terms. Indeed, while
most environmental philosophers begin their work with the assumption that most people think of value in human-centered terms (a problem that has been
decried since the very early days of the field), few have considered the problem of how a non-human-centered approach to valuing nature can ever appeal to
we need to
such human intuitions. The particular version of the pragmatist critique of environmental ethics that I have endorsed recognizes that

rethink the utility of anthropocentric arguments in environmental moral and political

theory, not necessarily because the traditional nonanthropocentric arguments in the field are false,
but because they hamper attempts to contribute to the public discussion of
environmental problems, in terms familiar to the public.
 Anthro -- AT Politics Link
The public sphere is the best way to solve their offense -- minimal
guidelines guarantee a forum for criticism and a method for evaluation –
this reduces coercion and domination within politics
Lincoln Dahlberg 5, The University of Queensland, Center for Critical and Cultural Studies,
Visiting Fellow, The Habermasian public sphere: Taking difference seriously?, Theory and
Society (2005) 34:111-126
I believe this critique of power, transparency, and the subject is largely based upon a poor
characterization of Habermas’ position. There are three main misunderstandings that need to be cleared up here,
to do with power as negative, as able to be easily removed, and as able to be clearly identified. First, Habermas does not
define power as simply negative and as therefore needing to be summarily removed from
the public sphere. The public sphere norm calls for “coercion-free communication” and not
power-free communication. Habermas emphasizes the positive power of
communicative interaction within the public sphere through which participants use words to
do things and make things happen.60 Communicative rationality draws on the “force of better
argument” to produce more democratic citizens, culture, and societies. Subjects are
indeed molded through this constituting power, but their transformation is towards
freedom and autonomy rather than towards subjugation and normalization. As Jeffrey Alexander
points out, to act according to a norm is not the same as to be normalized .61 The public
sphere norm provides a structure through which critical reflection on constraining or
dominating social relations and possibilities for freedom can take place. As Chambers
argues, rational discourse here is about “the endless questioning of codes,” the reasoned questioning of
normalization.62 This is the very type of questioning critics like Lyotard , Mouffe, and Villa are
engaged in despite claiming the normalizing and repressive power of communicative
rationality. These critics have yet to explain adequately how they escape this
performative contradiction, although they may not be too concerned to escape it.63¶ The form of power
that is to be excluded from discourse in the public sphere is that which limits and disables
democratic participation and leads to communicative inequalities. Coercion and
domination are (ideally) excluded from the public sphere, which includes forms of
domination resulting from the maldistribution of material and authoritative resources
that lead to discursive inequalities. This emphasis on the ideal exclusion of coercion introduces the second point of
clari- fication, that the domination free public sphere is an idealization for the purposes of critique. Habermas is more than aware of the
fact that, as Nancy Fraser, Mouffe, and Young remind us, coercive forms of power, including those that result from social
inequality, can never be completely separated from the public sphere.64 Claims that such power has
been removed from any really-existing deliberative arena can only be made by ignoring or hiding the operation of power. However,
this does not mean that a reduction in coercion and domination cannot be achieved. Indeed,
this is precisely what a democratic politics must do . To aid this project, the public
sphere conception sets a critical standard for evaluation of everyday
communication. Chambers puts this nicely:¶ Criticism requires a normative backdrop against
which we criticize. Crit-icizing the ways power and domination play themselves out in discourse presupposes a conception of
discourse in which there is no [coercive] power and domination. In other words, to defend the position that there is a mean - ingful
difference between talking and fighting, persuasion and coercion, and by extension, reason and power involves beginning with
idealizations. That is, it involves drawing a picture of undominated discourse.65 ¶ However, this discussion of the idealizing status of the
norm does notanswer claims that it invokes a transparency theory of knowledge. Iwould argue that such claims not only fall prey to
another performa-tive contradiction – of presupposing that the use of rational discourse can establish the impossibility of rational
discourse revealing truth and power – but are also based on a poor reading of Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality. This is the
third point of clarification. In
contrast to the metaphysics of presence, the differentiation of
persusion from coercion in the public sphere does not posit a naive theory of the
transparency of power, and meaning more generally. The public sphere conception as
based upon communicative rationality does not assume a Cartesian (autonomous,
disembodied, decontextualized) subject who can clearly distinguish between persuasion
and coercion, good and bad reasons, true and untrue claims, and then wholly re-move
themselves and their communications from such influence. For Habermas, subjects are always
situated within culture. The public sphere is posited upon intersubjective rather
than subject-centered rationality. It is through the process of communicative
rationality, and not via a Cartesian subject, that manipulation, deception, poor
reasoning, and so on, are identified and removed, and by which meanings can be
understood and communicated. In other words, it is through rational-critical
communication that discourse moves away from coercion or non-public reason towards greater
rational communication and a stronger public sphere. The circularity here is not a problem, as it may seem, but is in
fact the very essence of democratization: throughthe practice of democracy, democratic practice is advanced.
 *Anthro – AT Sovereignty Link
Sovereignty still provides the best framework for political organization -
-- all alternatives exacerbate unaccountable power and are too idealistic
Christopher J. Bickerton 7, D.Phil. candidate at St John’s College, University of Oxford,
Philip Cunliffe, PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London
and Alexander Gourevitch, PhD student at Columbia University, “Politics without
Sovereignty: A critique of contemporary international relations”, p. 1-2
In this book, we argue that the current movement against state sovereignty participates in the
degradation of political agency at both the domestic and international levels. The case against sovereignty is
generally cast as a way of opening up our political imagination to new understandings of power

and new possibilities for organizing the world. But its substance is to limit our sense of political possibility,

and to sever the relationship between the exercise of power and political
responsibility. As a consequence, there is little that is progressive about the current
retreat from state sovereignty. The result is that we endure all the negative aspects
of sovereignty, and enjoy few of its potential benefits. The sovereign state, however
imperfect, still provides the best framework for the organization of collective
political life. That, at least, is what we aim to show in this book.¶ No discussion of international affairs can avoid
discussing sovereignty, and everyone has something to say about it. The intellectual productivity around the concept has been enormous. Political scientists
Stephen Krasner and David Lake have published a number of books and articles examining the logical coherence and empirical relevance of the concept. Liberal theorists Fernando
Tesón and Robert Keohane have looked at the concept in relation to human rights and humanitarian intervention. Postmodern theorists, such as Richard Ashley and Jens Bartelson,
have traced the genealogy of sovereignty, while international lawyers, such as Martin Loughlin and Gerry Simpson, have outlined the basic tenets and historical movements of the
concept.1 What is more, sovereignty is a concept that escapes the dry arguments of academics and international lawyers into the wider realm of public debate. Major states and
international organizations have published standard-setting treatises on the topic, such as The Responsibility to Protect, the Report of the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty (2001), whose suggestions were incorporated in the United Nations’ reform report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (2004). Prominent public
figures feel obliged to take a stand on sovereignty. US President George W. Bush has repeatedly defended the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that he ‘restored sovereignty to the Iraqi
people’. 2 Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan tried to develop ‘two concepts of sovereignty’. 3 But in all these theories and political discussions, the understanding of
sovereignty is one sided. As we shall see, state sovereignty is in retreat on all fronts, and even its proponents are not what they seem (on the latter, see Christopher Bickerton’s,
Alexander Gourevitch’s and John Pender’s chapters). All of which has led us to ask, what is politics without sovereignty?¶ In this introductory chapter, we seek first to demonstrate the
breadth and depth of what we call the unholy alliance against sovereignty. We suggest that this unholy alliance explains the striking expansion of international theory in recent years.
Insofar as this new international theory builds over the ruins of state sovereignty, it plays a key role in helping us to understand the political possibilities beyond the sovereign state.
But how successful is it in this task? That is a question for the book as a whole. The second section of this introduction develops the conceptual relation between modern politics and

Instead of providing an idealized conception of sovereignty to hold up against

sovereignty.

its critics, we pursue a different tack. We show that our central concern is the
possibility for politics. This emphasis gives us good reason to appreciate the
constraints of sovereignty, but also good grounds to judge theoretical and practical
alternatives to the sovereign state. That is to say, alternatives must be assessed by the extent to which
they expand our political and moral horizons in international affairs. Thus the second section of the introduction provides a
theoretical frame for the rest of the book, which subsequent chapters will develop by investigating various alternatives to the sovereign state in different domains of international life.

The cohering message of this book is that today’s politics without sovereignty is a
constrained and evasive politics, marred by a limited sense of political possibility,
and organized around the increasingly unaccountable exercise of power.
 Anthro—Perm
Voting for our impact is an act of care for the world---it’s not
anthropocentric and doesn’t deny the intrinsic value of non-human life
and non-living matter---but, the fate of humanity in particular is an
important consideration can incorporate the perspective of the alt---
means the perm solves and there’s no tradeoff between advancing
human-centered and non-human centered justifications for action
Ella Myers 13, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at the University
of Utah, Worldly Ethics: Democratic Politics and Care for the World, p. 126-130
If caring for the world means caring for the world as humans’ collective home and caring for the world as a mediating force b etween
human beings, is this ethos susceptible to the charge of anthropocentrism? Does it imply that the world is for humans and humans alone?
If so, does this ethics too readily tolerate or even promote harm to nonhuman elements of the world?

Although “anthropocentrism” carries multiple meanings, most relevant here is the term’s reference to a myopic outlook
focused on human interests at the expense of all other possible interests .60 The worry lies
with a sort of “human chauvinism,” “speciesism,” or egocentrism that shows insufficient concern for nonhumans.61 In particular,
critics of anthropocentrism object to the tendency to ascribe only instrumental, not
intrinsic, value to nonhumans, which in turn supports a dominating stance toward
nonhuman life.
Is the ethos of care for the world—refined to mean care for the world as home and as in- between—guilty of
promoting such anthropocentrism? Since both normative ends discussed above direct attention to human beings’
relation to the world, this is surely a legitimate question. Yet the ethos developed here does not reflect an

anthropocentric outlook , if by that is meant a view that licenses exploitation of

nonhuman elements of the world on the grounds that human interests, whatever they may
be, trump all others.62 At the same time, however, the ethos of care for the world does not , as the
notions of home and in- between attest, disavow concern for the fates of human beings in particular .
What is at stake, then, is the possibility of enlightened anthropocentrism, of transformed selfinterest that heeds the insights of
coexistentialism.

Coexistentialism refers to an ecological perspective that takes the interconnectedness of all worldly
entities, humans and nonhumans, organic and inorganic matter , as its starting point
(see chapter 3). Latour’s and Bennett’s work helped reveal the interdependent webs of relation that characterize what I call world but
that are obscured by traditional dichotomies between human agents, who are exalted, and inert matter, which is denigrate d.
Coexistentialism locates human beings within this worldly “mesh” rather than above it.63 Such
an ecological awareness challenges fantasies of mastery by reminding people of the extent to which they are affected by the doings of
nonhumans.

Our understandings of human well- being and self- interest are susceptible to
transformation by the coexistentialist perspective. The choice is not between the
domineering, shortsighted pursuit of human interests , on the one hand, and the rejection of
self- interest altogether , on the other. Indeed, the recognition of deep
interconnectedness can shape and nurture “new self- interest,” as Bennett suggests.64 Although
Vibrant Matter aims to question conventional human/nonhuman hierarchies, the book, Bennett explains, is motivated by a self-
interested “concern for human survival and happiness.”65 In place of “fantasies of conquest and consumption” Bennett encourages a
chastened form of self- interest. It is in people’s own interest, she argues, to understand the ways in which nonhumans and humans are
bound to one another, generating effects in parliament rather than in isolation from one another. The purpose of the coexiste ntialist view
is not to reject self- interest as hopelessly chauvinistic or destructive but to foster “new self- interest” that is guided by an ecological
sensibility.

Bennett’s reimagined self- interest resonates with notions of enlightened, weak, or broad anthropocentrism in the field of environmental
ethics, which emerged originally as a challenge to anthropocentrism and the tendency to assign only instrumental value to nonhuman
entities. Indeed, the enterprise of environmental ethics was initially defined as an attempt to develop a thoroughly nonanthr opocentric
worldview that renders nonhumans morally considerable. A
strand of recent environmental thought, however,
is concerned not with forgoing anthropocentrism altogether , a project it questions
on both metaphysical and practical grounds, but with transforming the understanding
of human interest so that it is enlightened .66
This broad form of anthropocentrism does not accept dominant economistic notions of human
well- being but instead redefines well- being to include a fuller range of values , for
example, aesthetic and spiritual, that reflect and further an ecological sensibility . Andrew Light and Bryan
Norton advocate this approach from a pragmatist- pluralist perspective. Light argues that if contemporary

environmental ethicists wish to take on environmental problems in policy contexts ,

this is best accomplished not by attempting to “overcome” human interests but by
“redirecting them toward environmental concerns .”67 He contends that if we are concerned
with the “moral motivation of humans to respond to environmental issues ,” focusing
on reconstructing the sense of what is in our own interest is more likely to succeed than an
attempt to reject anthropocentrism wholesale .68 Light’s pragmatic approach counsels that in many
situations anthropocentric values are best suited to motivate nonenvironmentalists .
For example, studies show that concern for future human generations is a highly significant value that encourages efforts to protect
nonhuman entities.69 In other situations, “nonanthropocentric claims will be more appealing.” Light writes that “what app eals best is an
empirical question,” and he links this pragmatic outlook to a
“pluralist ethic” that accepts a range of
arguments, anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric and involving instrumental
and intrinsic values claims, against doing harm to ecosystems .70 Philosophical purity matters less Commented [EM6]:
than ethico- political resonance.

Where does this leave the democratic ethos I advance here? Care for the world is a way of caring for human
beings; it is neither neutral nor disinterested. It is an ethos meant to generate benefits for people. But these benefits are
linked to self- interest properly understood, that is, they are born of the coexistentialist insight . Caring for
the world involves not owning, ruling, or enjoying dominion over but collaboratively
tending to the world, an entity that is bigger, richer, and more varied and lively than human life alone. Such care should be
guided by awareness of the webs of relation that link human beings across borders and time not only to one another, but also to other
“vibrant matter” as well. Such
awareness does not, however, require that one attempt (in
vain?) to thoroughly equalize one’s concern for humans with concern for
nonhumans . Genuinely ecologically minded self- interest is enough to aspire to.
 Anthro—Squo Improving
Status quo is getting better – vote to prevent extinction
Matheny 9 (Jason Gaverick, research associate with the Future of Humanity Institute at
Oxford University, where his work focuses on technology forecasting and risk assessment -
particularly of global catastrophic risks and existential risks, Sommer Scholar and PhD
candidate in Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, March 14, “Ought we worry
about human extinction? [1]”, http://jgmatheny.org/extinctionethics.htm)
Even without any change in public morals, it seems unlikely we will continue to use
animals for very long – at least, nowhere near 50 billion per year. Our most brutal use of
animals results not from sadism but from old appetites now satisfied with inefficient
technologies that have not fundamentally changed in 10,000 years. Ours is the first
century where newer technologies -- plant or in vitro meats, or meat from brainless
animals -- could satisfy human appetites for meat more efficiently and safely
(Edelman et al, 2005). As these technologies mature and become cheaper, they will
likely replace conventional meat. If the use of sentient animals survives much beyond
this century, we should be very surprised.
This thought is a cure for misanthropy. As long as most humans in the future don't use
sentient animals, the vast number of good lives we can create would outweigh any
sins humanity has committed or is likely to commit. Even if it takes a century for
animal farming to be replaced by vegetarianism (or in vitro meats or brainless farm
animals), the century of factory farming would represent around 10^12 miserable
life-years. That is one-billionth of the 10^21 animal life-years humanity could save
by protecting Earth from asteroids for a billion years.
The century of industrialized animal use would thus be the equivalent of a terrible
pain that lasts one second in an otherwise happy 100-year life. To accept human
extinction now would be like committing suicide to end an unpleasant itch. If human
life is extinguished, all known animal life will be extinguished when the Sun enters
its Red Giant phase, if not earlier. Despite its current mistreatment of other animals,
humanity is the animal kingdom’s best long-term hope for survival.
NukeSpeak K
 No Link
Doesn’t assume ASB – not enough debate there now

Now is the key time for public intellectuals to investigate the nitty-gritty
consequences of ASB – ambiguous discussion fails to reign in the
Pentagon
Amitai Etzioni 13, University Professor and Professor of International Affairs at The
George Washington University, Summer 2013, “Who Authorized Preparations for War with
China?,” Yale Journal of International Affairs,
http://icps.gwu.edu/files/2013/06/Who-Authorized-Preparations-for-War-With-
China.pdf

FINISHING

than guidelines capable of coordinating policies across the various government

agencies, let alone reigning in the Pentagon . The overarching ambiguity is captured by Bader, who first reports
that, “[f]or China to directly challenge America’s security interest, it would have to acquire ambitions and habits that it d oes not at
present display. The Unites States should not behave in a way that encourages the Chinese to move in that direction.” Then, just pages
later, he concludes that “the United States needs to maintain its forward deployment, superior military forces and technologi cal edge, its
economic strength and engagement with the region, its alliances, and its enhanced relationships with other emerging powers. Chinese
analysts are likely to consider all these traits to be hostile to China.” 34 ¶ Another book describing the same period, The Obamians: The
Struggle Inside the White House to Refine American Power, by James Mann, reveals that although President Obama sought to enga ge
China, his administration was increasingly ‘irked’ by various Chinese moves, from its assertive declarations about the South China Sea to
the cyber-attacks assumed to originate from within its borders. In response, the Obama Administration is reported to have ‘stiffened’
both its rhetoric and diplomatic stance towards China. For example, in response to Beijing’s pronouncement that the South China Sea
represented one of China’s ‘core interests,’ Secretary of State Clinton told an audience at the 2010 ASEAN meeting that freed om of
navigation in the seas was a ‘national interest’ of the United States. She also delivered a speech criticizing China’s abuse of Internet
freedom and argued that such nations “should face consequences and international condemnation.” It is reported that State Department
officials, who generally sought to avoid conflict with China, “absolutely hated” the speech.35 If such a speech caused tensions to flare up
in the department, it is not hard to imagine the outcry that would have followed had the administration approved ASB —that is, if it was
considered in the first place. Yet in Mann’s account of the period under
study there is no reference to either
ASB or the strategy it implies—or to what a former Pentagon official called a White
House “buy in.” 36¶ A third book covering the same era, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, confirms with much
nuance what the other two books report. It discusses the White House ‘toughening,’ its reaction to what were viewed by many as
assertive moves by the Chinese, such as its aggressive action in the South China Sea in 2010, and President Hu Jintao’s refusal to
condemn North Korea’s torpedo attack on a South Korean warship.37 Here again, it is reported that the White House and State
Department reacted by changing the tone of the speeches. For instance, in a thinly veiled criticism of China, Obama stated in 2011 that
“prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.” 38 The administration also intensified the United States’ participation in
ASEAN and the East Asia Summit (EAS) and encouraged—but only indirectly and cautiously—countries in the region to deal with China
on a multilateral rather than bilateral basis in resolving territorial disputes. The Obama administration also ramped up U.S. participation
in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, a free trade agreement that at least initially would exclude China, and is thought by many to
be a counterbalance to China’s extensive bilateral trade relationships in the region. Furthermore, the president paid officia l visits to both
Burma and Cambodia—two nations that have distanced themselves from China in recent years. All these are typical diplomatic moves,
some of which have economic implications, but not part of a preparation of the kinds of confrontational relationship ASB pres umes.¶ In
his book Confront and Conceal, David E. Sanger confirms what these three accounts suggest: the Obama administration never formulated
a coherent, consistent, proactive China strategy and its policies were primarily reactive.39 And, this well -placed source also lacks any
mention of a review of AirSea Battle and the military strategy it implies. ¶ Congress held a considerable number of hearings about China
in 2008 and in the years that followed. However, the main focus of these hearings was on economic issues such as trade , job losses due to
companies moving them overseas, the U.S. dependency on China for financing the debt, Chinese currency controls, and Chinese v iolations
of intellectual property and human rights. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committe e in February 2012, Admiral
Robert F. Willard spoke of the potential challenges posed by China’s A2/AD capabilities, but made no sional China Caucus, wro te to
Secretary of Defense Panetta in November 2011 that “[d]espite reports throughout 2011 AirSea Battle
had been completed in an executive summary form, to my knowledge Members of
Congress have yet to be briefed on its conclusions or in any way made a part of the
process.” 40 In the same month, Sen. Lieberman (I–CT) co-sponsored an amendment to the
Fiscal 2012 Defense Authorization Bill that required a report on the implementation
of and costs associated with the AirSea Battle Concept. It passed unanimously , but as of
April 2013, such a report has yet to be released.41 ¶ In the public sphere there was no debate—led by
either think tanks or public intellectuals—like that which is ongoing over whether or
not to use the military option against Iran’s nuclear program, or the debate
surrounding the 2009 surge of troops in Afghanistan. ASB did receive a modicum of
critical examination from a small number of military analysts. However, most
observers who can spell the ins-and-outs of using drones or bombing Iran—have no
position on ASB or its implications for U.S.-China relations and the world order,
simply because they do not know about it. A December 11, 2012 search of Google brings up 15,800,000 hits for
“U.S. drone strikes”; a search for “AirSea Battle”: less than 200,000. In Googlish, this amounts to being unknown, nd suggests this
significant military shift is simply not on the wider public’s radar.
 AT Apocalypse Link

We reclaim the contested terrain of apocalyptic representation –it is

possible to acknowledge that we are concerned with the wrong disasters
without rejecting disaster response wholesale and critiquing current
policy responses solves their impacts
Recuber 11 Timothy Recuber is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Graduate Center of
the City. University of New York. He has taught at Hunter College in Manhattan "CONSUMING
CATASTROPHE: AUTHENTICITY AND EMOTION IN MASS-MEDIATED DISASTER"
gradworks.umi.com/3477831.pdf
Conclusion: Contemporary Disaster Consumption and the Aura ¶ Recently the
trend among scholars and cultural
critics has been to argue that media culture has grown increasingly focused on the tragic and
disastrous, often elevating minor events to disproportionately high levels of public concern through
incessant multi-media hype. Herbert Gans (1979) found that journalists were worried about inducing panic and disorder,
and tried to steer clear of reporting that they thought would encourage such behavior, but the “moral panic” literature in sociology and
criminology, beginning with Cohen’s (1972) seminal study of the misguided British panic over violent youth gangs, suggests otherwise.
By 1999, Glassner had argued credibly that the media was inducing a “culture of fear” by drumming
up anxieties over a host of largely invented crises and threats. Similar arguments have also been made by Furedi (1997) and
Stearns (2006), to name just a couple, though these arguments are not very different from turn-of-the-century concerns over journalistic
sensationalism. They all take the position that new technologies enable greater manipulation of
public emotions, in ways which prevent reasoned or rational consideration of facts, or of more
important but less exciting news stories. ¶ Although consumer culture does certainly rely on increasingly
high levels of spectacle (see 63 Ritzer, 1999), consumers may also grow accustomed to, and thus less affected by, media
technologies and consumption styles over time. Radio broadcasts and color photographs were once accused of the same deleterio us,
panic-inducing effects as twenty-four-hour cable news channels and Hollywood disaster movies, though the former are now seen as
antiquated or unremarkable. This gradual inducement to complacency is the reverse side of contemporary
media criticism; instead of frenzy and panic, some critics cite the media’s erosion of affect, its
generation of “compassion fatigue” (Moeller, 1999), or “empty empathy” (Kaplan, 2005). The question then
becomes how to reconcile these two perspectives; are we too concerned with disasters, or
not concerned enough? Is our concern empty or genuine? ¶ In reality, these perspectives are
not mutually exclusive. The contemporary state of disaster consumption hints at new
conceptions of authenticity and genuineness that encompass, or perhaps circumvent, both
views. Understandings of authenticity often begin with the notion that authentic experiences are unmediated, un-reproducible, locked
in a particular time and space. In the face of such a position, the only response to the spread of mass
media and consumer culture has been to suggest that nothing is authentic any longer, that
the world is increasingly artificial or simulated (see Debord, 2006; Baudrillard, 1994). But this is precisely
what makes disasters and tragedies such an important part of contemporary consumer
culture. They provide the hint of a longed-for connection to reality; they resonate by
frightening, mystifying, or titillating, but always with the prospect of real loss, real death. As
new media technologies and consumer culture have cast doubt on the authenticity of human experience and emotion, the baseline
authenticity of disasters has become that much more valuable. As Slavoj Zizek put it, “the Real itself, in
order to be sustained, has to be perceived as a nightmarish unreal spectre” (Zizek, 2006, p. 93). Contemporary popular culture has set in
motion a dialectical frenzy where the phenomenon of authenticity that producers, marketers, and politicians hope to capture is the same
the
phenomenon they end up nearly destroying through endless reproduction. But rather than a destruction of the real or the aura,
consumption of catastrophe today reveals an ongoing struggle over the undeniable kernel of
reality that stubbornly persists in disasters, often despite their continued reproduction and
mediation. In such a context, consumers of catastrophe are neither naïve nor prurient; they are simply drawn to the traces of
authenticity that make catastrophes stand out from the rest of a hyper-mediated, seemingly inauthentic culture. ¶ The kernel of
authenticity at the heart of a disaster transcends the conditions of its reproduction in media culture, at least for the most powerful
disasters. Benjamin found this transcendent aura in early photographs, where “the beholder feels an irresistible urge to sear ch such a
picture for the tiny spark of contingency, of the here and now, with which reality has (so to speak) seared the subject” (Benjamin, 1999,
p. 510). One sees the same traces of the here and now, the same seared markers of reality, in the Zapruder film, or the foota ge of the
Challenger explosion, and in iconic photographs from Vietnam such as “Accidental Napalm,” in which a young Vietnamese girl runs naked
and screaming due to the burns on her back and arms. That same trace of reality, that aura of disaster is also apparent in th e incredible
array of images from September 11, as well as certain footage of flooded New Orleans streets and stranded rooftop survivors during
Hurricane Katrina. In these cases, the disaster as a multi-media event in and of itself may be the seat of the aura: it is not so much one
image but the sum total of these shots, their blending or composite in individual recollections and collective memory. But the
determining factor here is not the technology with which images of disaster are produced, but the context in which they are
apprehended. As Duttlinger (2008) and Hansen (2007) have argued, aura may refer to an imaginary encounter between viewer and
image, a haunting and destabilizing interaction with even mechanically reproduced imagery; by this definition, the aura obtai ns even in
contemporary multi-mediated disasters. ¶ As such, the central problem of contemporary disaster
consumption is not the inauthenticity of disaster consumption, or of those engaged in it, but
the ability of political elites to frame a narrow range of emotional or political responses as
the only appropriate ones. The consumption of catastrophe is most threatened, or perhaps most threatening, when dominant
interests are able to channel the wide range of emotions surrounding disasters into a few politically useful contexts. The aura of
disaster is not only a source of deep emotion for audiences and victims, it is a contested terrain, a site of struggle for control
over the fleeting essence of reality itself, but as this dissertation will show, over the past decadee that contest has tended to
heavily favor elite interpretations and definitions.

Particularly true in context of our nuclear imapcts

Robert Jervis 9, the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia
University, “Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying”, The National Interest,
November/December, 10.27.2009,
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22356
Unlike Mueller,many attribute this long peace to wise policies and adept statesmen. War was
prevented by the well-crafted strategy of nuclear deterrence that made it clear to even
risk-prone leaders that aggressive actions could lead to the destruction of their
countries. Those policies made sure that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would
have meaningful incentives to launch a nuclear first strike even—or especially—in times of high tension. The Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) inhibited, if not prevented, proliferation. The agreement, adopted over strong opposition in many countries, not least of
which the United States, was supplemented by both national efforts to keep other countries out of the nuclear business, and a general stance that put nuclear weapons into a

The reason bad things have not occurred, then, is that wise
uniquely dangerous and indeed immoral category.

men and women foresaw that unless strenuous efforts were taken, disaster was
inevitable. Thus, nuclear fears became a self-denying prophecy. The aversion to war that Mueller
has discussed may owe more than a little to the nuclear arsenals that have led people to equate

large-scale violence with the destruction of everything we value. It is then the

nuclear obsession, and the policies that follow from it, that are responsible for our
living in a safer world.
 AT: Powerlessness K
Examining nuclear policies and making informed policy choices creates
effective citizens --- solves powerlessness
Hogan 94 J. Michael, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State
University, The Nuclear Freeze Campaign: Rhetoric and Foreign Policy in the Telepolitical
Age, pg.83
According to nuclear educators, a sense of powerlessness among children
compounded the problem. Lacking sufficient understanding of both nuclear issues and the
political system, students did not realize that they would be called upon someday to
help decide America’s nuclear policies. Thus a second rationale for nuclear education
emerged: education for citizenship. Paul Fleisher, a Richmond, Virginia teacher who participated in the testing of Choices,
acknowledged that the subject of nuclear war could sometimes be “uncomfortable and

frightening.” But, Fleisher concluded: “Our republic works best when an informed public
considers the important issues of the day from all perspectives…Citizens must examine
our nation’s policies on these issues and make informed choices. As educators, our
task is to give students the skills and knowledge that they need to become effective
citizens.”
 XT – Fear Good
Especially true in the context of nuclear weapons---key to change
Krieger 12 David, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, "Fear of Nuclear
Weapons", June 19, www.wagingpeace.org/articles/db_article.php?article_id=371
I was recently asked during an interview whether people fear nuclear weapons too much, causing them
unnecessary anxiety. The implication was that it is not necessary to live in fear of nuclear weapons.¶ My response was that fear is a healthy mechanism
when one is confronted by something fearful. It gives rise to a fight or flight response, both
of which are means of surviving real danger.¶ In the case of nuclear weapons, these are
devices to be feared since they are capable of causing terrifying harm to all humanity, including one’s family,
city and country. If one is fearful of nuclear weapons, there will be an impetus to do something

about the dangers these weapons pose to humanity.¶ But, one might ask, what can be done? In reality, there is a
limited amount that can be done by a single individual, but when individuals band together
in groups, their power to bring about change increases. Individual power is magnified even more

when groups join together in coalitions and networks to bring about change.¶ Large numbers of individuals banded together to bring
about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of apartheid in South Africa. The basic building block of all these important

changes was the individual willing to stand up, speak out and join with others to achieve a better
world. The forces of change have been set loose again by the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement across the globe.¶ When dangers are viewed rationally,
there may be good cause for fear, and fear may trigger a response to bring about change. On the
other hand, complacency can never lead to change. Thus, while fear may be a motivator of change, complacency is an

inhibitor of change. In a dangerous world, widespread complacency should be of great

concern. ¶ If a person is complacent about the dangers of nuclear weapons, there is little possibility
that he will engage in trying to alleviate the danger. Complacency is the result of a failure of
hope to bring about change. It is a submission to despair.¶ After so many years of being
confronted by nuclear dangers, there is a tendency to believe that nothing can be done to change
the situation. This may be viewed as “concern fatigue.” We should remember, though, that any goal worth achieving is worth striving for with hope in our hearts. A good policy for facing

real-world dangers is to never give up hope and never stop trying.

 1AR
Mitchell votes aff---you should embrace the tension b/w our approaches
and hold In tension w/each other to create a new ethical way of
approaching the world
Mitchell 14 (Audra Mitchell, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of
York. Audra is a Fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation (2014-15) and has
held or will hold visiting fellowships at the Universities of Queensland, Edinburgh and
Melbourne. “Only human? A worldly approach to security,” Security Dialogue 2014, Vol.
45(1) 5–21. | prs)
The above slogan succinctly captures one of the most powerful beliefs in contemporary international relations: that ‘the human’ is the ultimate subject of security, and that its

security threats do not affect humans in isolation . Rather, they

protection should trump all other concerns. But

irrupt within the heterogeneous collectives that humans co-constitute with diverse
nonhuman beings. War, for instance, destroys human lives and habitations, but also animal and plant
life, landscapes and cultures, as well as the complex linkages between these
phenomena. Similarly, ecological collapse or nuclear warfare could eliminate not only unique ecosystems, but also the very basis of biological life. The enormity of these
threats lies in the fact that they threaten not only certain beings, but rather whole worlds – that is, irreducible,

heterogeneous forms of collective being. If the norms, practices and processes of international
security are to offer an adequate response to these kinds of threats, then they need to be based on a conception of harm
that reflects the conditions of worldliness. However, existing approaches to security are radically
anthropocentric – that is, they frame the human subject and the institutions that produce it as the

only possible ‘subjects of security’ (see Walker, 1997). Moreover, worlds are unique and their co-
constituents cannot be predetermined in the abstract. This makes it very difficult to conceptualize harm in terms of the
ontological and ethical categories required to coordinate large-scale responses to acute events. Is it possible to formulate a ‘worldly’ conception of harm in which these issues are

This article explores three possible pathways to achieving this aim. First, it considers whether rejecting anthropocentrism can offer the basis for a worldly
resolved?

It concludes that the best option is in fact weak anthropocentrism, which

account of security.

harnesses human agency and values as an important basis for ethical

responsiveness. Second, it asks whether a worldly concept of harm can be derived simply by expanding existing
ontological and ethical categories to include nonhumans . However, it argues that this approach
retrenches the ontological divide between beings and simply aggregates harms to
various subsets of beings; it does not reflect harms distributed across worlds. Third, it
assesses ‘new materialist’ proposals for transforming the ontological and ethical sensibilities of international relations that better reflect the conditions of worldliness. However, the
indeterminacy of such proposals makes them difficult to reconcile with the need to respond to acute harms in a coordinated manner, which requires a degree of abstraction and ethical

the key features

prescription. Each of these alternatives offers something indispensable to a worldly approach to security, but none is sufficient in itself. Moreover,

of each pathway seems to preclude the others: ‘expanding ethics’ and ‘new materialist’ approaches reject anthropocentrism, and
the indeterminacy of ‘new materialism’ seems to undercut the abstraction of the ‘expanding ethics’ approach. I argue, however, that it is

possible to resolve or embrace these tensions in a way that makes a worldly

conception of harm possible. This involves retaining an element of abstraction, but
rendering ethical categories open (at least potentially) to all beings ; pluralizing the grounds for
protective action to include non-rational bases for value; and activating human agency as a component of lively ‘assemblages’ of beings. By fusing

these elements, we can imagine an alternative concept of harm designed to reflect the
destruction of worlds and the conditions of worldliness: mundicide. Rather than a legal category,
mundicide is a phenomenological concept intended to help humans to grasp the
depth, complexity and distributed nature of harm. It can help to make the harms faced by international security thinkable
while reflecting their worldliness. To demonstrate the value of this concept, I apply it to an empirical case – the ‘rainforest Chernobyl’ (Aguinda v. Chevron-Texaco, 2011). In so doing, I

only a worldly approach to security can adequately capture the enormity of

argue that

international security threats and enable humans to respond to them. Can worlds and worldliness be
the subjects of security? In the early 1990s, medical anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom (1997) carried out an ethnographic study of the harms caused by Mozambique’s brutal civil
war. Her respondents shared harrowing experiences of the physical suffering, mutilation, torture and killing of humans. However, these were ‘not the focal point’ of their narratives,
nor did they capture the full extent or depth of the harm that took place. Indeed, these respondents also mourned the loss of their collective social structures and gathering places; of
everyday patterns of work, cultivation, harvesting and eating; of their deceased ancestors, whose spirits they believed to be embedded in the landscape; of mythical spaces and
timescales accessed through ritual and ceremony; of fields, nonhuman animals and treasured belongings. The harm they decried did not only accrue to human bodies; rather, it was
distributed across, and instantiated in, a collective that could not be reduced to ‘component parts’. It was this unique, heterogeneous world that was lost in the war. Downloaded from
sdi.sagepub.com at University of Texas Libraries on September 6, 2014 Mitchell: Only human? Towards worldly security 7 It is commonplace in anthropological or phenomenological
studies of harm to speak of ‘worlds’ as the phenomena that are lost, destroyed or unmade by violence (see e.g. Das, 2007 and Scarry, 1985). But what, exactly, is meant by the concept

worldliness’? For Jean-Luc Nancy, the term ‘world’ refers to the conditions of ‘being-together’ – that is, to
of ‘worlds’ or ‘

the ‘rapport, relation, address, sending, donation, presentation … of entities and

existents to each other’ (Nancy, 1997: 8). From this perspective, world is not a predetermined place, but
rather a set of conditions in which all beings co-constitute one another. Each form of being exists only
in relation to others, and no particular form of being has ontological primacy; as Nancy (2000: 18) puts it, ‘we would not be “humans” if there were not “dogs” and “stones”’ (and vice
versa). Although all beings are singular, they are also irreducibly plural because they are co-constituted by other beings. Furthermore, because each world is instantiated in a unique
way, by singular-plural beings, the ‘content’ of worlds cannot be predetermined in the abstract. So, from this perspective, worldliness consists in a specific set of conditions: the co-

If we approach ontology in this way, it is

constitution of heterogeneous beings and the irreducibility of the collectives they form.

impossible to think of harm accruing to one being or set of beings in isolation . For this reason,
Nancy argues that genocide cannot be understood adequately as an attack on peoples, but

rather as the destruction of the ‘singular plural’ – that is, ‘the putting to death of the
world’ (Nancy, 1997: 145). If worlds and worldliness are the bearers of harm, then it seems necessary to give them consideration within discourses and practices of security.
However, existing accounts of security – both statist and critical – cannot account for

world(s) because they frame the human subject as the only conceivable locus of
harm. According to R.B.J. Walker (1997), in traditional, state-centred accounts of security, the subject of security (that is,
the phenomena to which security attends) has been elided with the subject (a being possessing human subjectivity) and the

institutions that produce it. In this model of security, states seek to protect themselves as the
collective embodiments and guarantors of human subjects. As Walker argues, states have
invested considerable effort into ensuring that they are the only kind of political
community that can be conceptualized in this way. Critical approaches have challenged this notion of security by placing
alternative political communities at its heart: for example, societies of states and networks of individuals linked by global politicaleconomic structures or cosmopolitan norms. Yet,

human subjects remain the dominant (if not exclusive)

although they are bound together in different ways,

constituents of these communities. For instance, Andrew Linklater’s (2011) recent work expands the concept of security to encompass a
plethora of harms, from the ‘concrete’, strategic violence used in warfare to the ‘abstract’, nonviolent, structural harm caused by unjust economic relations and processes. However,

the ‘widening of moral sympathies’ to include all humans (and, he implies,

although he advocates

some animals), he grounds his conception of harm in human suffering. The ability to suffer, let alone to articulate this suffering as part of an ethical discourse,
requires the form of subjectivity possessed only by humans and a handful of other
species. Harms to non-sentient nonhumans are considered only if they cause
suffering to humans (e.g. in the case of ‘environmental’ degradation that reduces human
well-being). As I shall argue later, the norm of ‘human security’ takes this line of reasoning to a
greater extreme. Its proponents seek to produce autonomous, individual human
subjects (see Chandler and Hynek, 2011) by instrumentalizing nonhumans as ‘resources’ for human
well-being. In other words, they attempt to secure human subjects by dominating nonhumans
in the same way that states secure their subjects by colonizing territory. So, both statist
and critical conceptions of security are incompatible with the conditions of
worldliness because they frame the human subject as the only thinkable subject of
security. Nonetheless, the emancipatory impulse that drives Linklater’s work offers a starting point for developing a ‘worldly’ account of security. It hones our attention on
multifaceted harms, underscores the plasticity and plurality of moral-political communities, encourages an ethos of Downloaded from sdi.sagepub.com at University of Texas Libraries
on September 6, 2014 8 Security Dialogue 45(1) interconnection, and calls for responsiveness to radically different (human) others. This impulse can be redirected so that, instead of
restricting its scope to humans or amplifying the dominance of the human subject, it embraces the diverse beings that co-constitute worlds. I begin with this basic image of security as
the complex of logics, practices, processes and norms that humans have developed to respond to harm on multiple scales. But I aim to open it up even more radically, so that harms to
world(s) and the conditions of worldliness are its central concern. I shall now explore three possible pathways to achieving this goal. Rejecting anthropocentrism Many authors
suggest that anthropocentrism is the main obstacle to recognizing the constitutive role and ethical status of nonhumans in international relations (see e.g. Coward, 2009; Cudworth

and Hobden, 2013; Eckersley, 2007). Indeed, the logics of security discussed above are premised on a radically
anthropocentric belief: that only human subjects can be the subjects of security . Would it,
then, be possible and desirable to reject anthropocentrism as a feature of international security? To answer this question, it is crucial to distinguish

between different kinds of ‘anthropocentrism’. This term usually brings to mind what I shall call ‘anthro-
instrumentalism’: an ethical orientation that reduces the value of nonhumans to
their instrumental usefulness to humans. Within anthro-instrumental logic, politics is defined by a ‘Great Divide’ (Latour, 1993), in
which human beings are placed on one side and all ‘nonhumans’ on the other. On the upper side of this divide, human beings are prioritized, to

the extent that their non-essential needs (e.g. for luxury or entertainment) are elevated above the
survival or non-suffering of nonhumans (see Derrida, 2004; Nussbaum, 2006). Moreover, the relation between
the needs of humans and those of nonhumans is assumed to be zero-sum. That is, any consideration
given to nonhumans is thought to detract from the attention or effort devoted to human needs (see Bennett, 2010). Anthro-instrumentalism lies at

the foundations of the subject-based notions of security described above. It has

reached its zenith in discourses and practices of ‘human security’, which frame the
individual human subject as the ‘ultimate end’ of international politics (Tadjbaksh and Chenoy, 2007:
13), seeking to ensure its physical integrity and health, environmental conditions,

economic and political participation, rights and dignity (see Commission on Human Security, 2003; United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), 1994). Sustaining a ‘secured’ human requires the instrumentalization of

many nonhumans: the material beings produced and traded to ensure economic
security; the plants and nonhuman animals cultivated and killed to provide food
security; the production of chemical compounds and the destruction of bacteria to
ensure health security. Although nonhumans lend their names to various dimensions of human security, they are only indirect referent objects; that is, they
are secured only insofar as they contribute to the well-being of humans, who are the real referent objects (see Buzan et al., 1999). ‘Environmental

security’, for instance, is not concerned with securing the environment in and for itself. Rather, it aims to ensure natural resources
for humans – that is, ‘environmental security for people’ (Barnett, 2001: 122; emphasis added). Anthro-instrumental logics of this kind reduce the relations between
humans and nonhumans to the mere satisfaction of the needs of the former, and so are utterly incompatible with the conditions of worldliness described above. However, Eugene Hargrove (1992) argues that ‘anthropocentrism’ is not a synonym for ‘instrumentality’. It
simply refers to values rooted in the human experience, which can take many forms. So, a ‘weak anthropocentrist’ might value nonhumans because they meet instrumental human needs, or because doing so fits within a wider worldview – for instance, the belief that
human connection with ‘nature’ is spiritually fulfilling (see Norton, 1984). Humans can also attribute ‘intrinsic’ value to nonhumans – that is, value independent of their usefulness to humans (see also O’Neill, 2003). Indeed, Hargrove identifies four kinds of value that humans
might recognize in nonhumans: (a) anthropocentric instrumental value (as described above); (b) non-anthropocentric instrumental value (the instrumental value that nonhumans – animals and plants, say – have for each other); (c) non-anthropocentric intrinsic value (the
value that nonhumans have, independent of human judgement); and (d) anthropocentric intrinsic value (value attributed by humans to nonhumans, regardless of the latter’s usefulness to the former). Hargrove argues that the first form of value is too narrow, and that
humans cannot truly appreciate the second and third forms because we can only, at best, imagine what it is like to be another form of being. So, from this perspective, our best bet is to embrace the fourth form of value and harness the power of human reflection and agency –
and indeed, imagination – to act ethically towards other kinds of beings. This argument seems to fit with a worldly approach to understanding harm and security. Accepting that humans cannot entirely transcend their own perspective, it mobilizes their capacities for
reflection and agency as a means of protecting nonhumans. It acknowledges that humans are co-constituents of worlds, but does not privilege them in ontological terms or afford them an exclusive ethical status. It also offers a range of reasons for humans to protect the
worlds of which they are part, and to activate their own capacities to this end. If we accept this argument, then the question is not whether a worldly approach to security can be anthropocentric, but rather whether it can fit with existing ontological and ethical categories. I
shall now explore two alternative answers to this question. Expanding ethics The first alternative pathway retains the existing ontological and ethical categories that dominate international security and politics, but extends them to include some nonhumans. I shall briefly
explore two of the most salient strands of this approach. The ‘expanding circle’ approach1 The first approach applies to animals or other sentient beings, and advocates including some of them within the human ‘moral community’ and thus within the scope of security. It is
epitomized by the work of Paola Cavalieri (2004), who advocates the application of human rights to any animal that meets the criterion of being an agent – an ‘intentional being that has goals and wants to achieve them’ (Cavalieri, 2004: 131). In so doing, she rejects criteria
for inclusion such as autonomy, cognitive ability or linguistic/communicative capacities, which would also rule out many ‘non-paradigmatic’ humans (such as the disabled, young children, or people with low intelligence). According to this logic, ‘human’ rights as they stand
should be extended to all those beings that meet the criterion of being an agent (mammals, birds and ‘probably all vertebrates’). Alasdair Cochrane (2012) advocates extending ‘human’ rights to all sentient beings, on the basis that sentience is a necessary and sufficient
condition for possessing interests, which command basic rights. Some authors writing in this vein argue that the best way to convince humans to protect nonhumans is to translate the latter’s intrinsic value into the language of human interests. For instance, where
nonhumans can be framed as ‘enablers’ of human rights or security, it is possible to offer them protection under existing laws, norms and conventions (see Woods, 2006). In such cases, the intrinsic value of nonhumans can be reconciled with the instrumental value placed on
them by humans (see Norton, 1984). This argument may also be applied in cases where humans and certain groups of nonhumans are affected by the same harm. Robin Eckersley (2007) identifies two hypothetical cases in which this kind of argument could be used to justify
international intervention: environmental emergencies with transboundary spillover effects (e.g. a radiation leak) or ‘ecocide’ involving serious human rights violations (e.g. the destruction of an ecosystem that also involves the loss of livelihood or health for humans). In
these cases, anthro-instrumental efforts to restore human rights or ensure access to resources can be used tactically to protect nonhumans. However, this works only in cases where the protection of a set of nonhumans can be directly reconciled with the instrumental
interests of humans. There are, Eckersley (2007) argues, some situations in which this logic still holds even when no humans are subject to the harm in question. She sketches out one such scenario, suggesting that it may be possible to justify military intervention in the case
of ‘ecocide’/‘crimes against nature’ (the deliberate and irreversible destruction of an entire ecosystem or species). Indeed, she contends that the ‘responsibility to protect’ might be extended to apply to such cases, where human intervention is possible. In each of these cases,
then, the argument is that some nonhumans should be encompassed within the human moral community as it stands, and be subject to the same protections it affords to humans. The ‘extension of humanity’ approach A related approach, which I shall term the ‘extension of
humanity’ perspective, also calls for the protection of specific categories of nonhumans. However, instead of treating humanity as a discrete category of being, it suggests that the distinctive qualities of humanness are made possible and even mediated by nonhuman, material
beings. This approach embodies a narrowly co-constitutive ontology: it recognizes the intersectionality of humans and nonhumans, but restricts it to the relations between humans and the material beings that they ‘make’. From this perspective, made objects and built
environments act as mediums onto which human genius, knowledge, memory or values are projected, or as prostheses for human bodies. They provide safety, mediate relations of care between individuals separated by time and space (Scarry, 1985), and may even offer a
form of material ‘immortality’ to living beings (see Arendt, 1998; Mitchell, 2014). One of the most influential articulations of this approach is found in Hannah Arendt’s (1998) T he Human Condition. According to Arendt, material beings – and human-made objects in particular
– separate and connect human beings, making genuine plurality possible. They also provide a public ‘stage’ upon which humans can act and be witnessed by their peers. The possibility of this kind of action, she argues, is definitive of, and therefore integral to, a distinctly
human life. For Scarry (2012: 10), made objects can even embody humanity in the sense that ‘something, or someone, gave rise to their creation and remains silently present in the newborn object’. From this perspective, an attack on human-made objects is a threat to the
conditions of humanness. Within contemporary security studies, Martin Coward (2009) has adopted this approach in his work on ‘ urbicide’, applying the insights of Arendt, Heidegger and Nancy to the destruction of urban spaces. Specifically, Coward argues that deliberate
attacks on urban and public spaces during warfare should not be treated as ‘collateral’ damage or unintended consequences of attempts to kill their human inhabitants. Rather, he claims, urban spaces and built environments foster conditions of plurality and heterogeneity,
which are the real targets of violence. Applying this analysis to the Bosnian war, he suggests that attacks on major urban areas such as Sarajevo and Mostar were attempts to eradicate the conditions of multi-ethnic plurality and cohabitation that existed before the war.
Accordingly, we should not reduce these attacks to the destruction of mere ‘objects’, but rather recognize them as an ‘an assault upon humanity’ (Coward, 2009: 6). Similar arguments can be found in the work of Douglas Porteous and Sandra Smith (2001), who are concerned
with domicide, or the deliberate, global-scale destruction of ‘home’. From their perspective, ‘home’ can include buildings, public spaces and ecosystems, but it is defined primarily as the place in which humans can ‘truly be ourselves and display and nurture our being’
(Porteous and Smith, 2001: 3). In the same vein, Robert Bevan (2006) condemns ‘memoricide’, or the destruction of cultural artefacts that enable a group of people to maintain their integrity and way of life – often in contravention of international law. Indeed, the existing
international law protecting artefacts and habitations in times of war is a prime example of this approach. For instance, the 1954 Hague Convention protects ‘property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people’ (United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1954), and the UN has designated thousands of sites and objects for special protection through UNESCO’s World Heritage programmes (UNESCO, 2003). Both of these approaches seek to challenge the dominant anthro-instrumentalism of
international relations by expanding its ontological and ethical categories. They offer a number of advantages. First, they responsibilize human beings to protect some nonhumans, harnessing human agency and value judgements to this end. Second, both approaches make it
possible to alter existing ethical categories to include some nonhumans. In particular, the ‘extension of humanity’ approach argues convincingly for a (limited) co-constitutive ontology and manages to reconcile it with existing legal and normative categories. Third, this
approach lends itself to abstraction. It offers clear grounds for protecting certain nonhumans as members of the human moral community. This fits well with existing security logics, and institutions, which are designed to protect this moral community. Moreover, it specifies
conceptions of harm that can be applied generically to similar situations (e.g. ‘ecocide’, ‘urbicide’, ‘domicide’, ‘memoricide’) and that are linked to concrete ethical prescriptions. This makes it possible for security actors to use existing categories, norms, laws and institutions to
 does the ‘expanding ethics’ pathway reflect the conditions of worldliness? Not very well, it
offer protection to some nonhumans. But

seems. Crucially, it reproduces hard boundaries between humans and nonhumans,

treating them as radically different kinds of beings whose interests sometimes
overlap but often diverge. It erects the same kind of boundaries between different kinds of nonhumans (e.g. sentient versus nonsentient beings, or ‘made’
versus ‘natural’ things). It also depicts harm in aggregate terms – that is, as harms to humans plus

ecocide/urbicide/domicide/memoricide – and simply adds each category to a list of

referent objects of security. An example of this can be found in the Watson Institute’s ‘Costs of War’ project (see Watson Institute, 2011), which
aggregates the harms caused by the Iraq war to human bodies and social structures, animals and the ‘environment’. However, as argued above, worldliness

inheres in the irreducible relations between diverse beings, which cannot be derived
simply by aggregating discrete beings or their interests. Furthermore, the abstract categories
offered by the ‘expanding circle’ approach make it possible to identify generic categories of harm and to work from precedents, which makes it possible for

international actors to develop repertoires of response and principles to guide them.

However, these categories also strictly predetermine the kinds of beings offered protection. So, no matter how far one ‘expands the

circle’ of the human moral community, millions of beings are prima facie excluded
from consideration (see Weston, 2006). As I argued earlier, each world is a unique instantiation of the conditions of worldliness; it is impossible to determine in
the abstract which beings co-constitute worlds. For these reasons, simply expanding existing ontological and ethical categories cannot offer a basis for protecting worlds. Does this

the entire basis of international relations needs to be transformed in order to

mean that

reflect the diverse co-constituents of worlds? Transforming ontology A new wave of literature on the theme of ‘new materialism’2 in
philosophy – and, increasingly, in international relations – seems to suggest precisely this. This approach rejects ontologies that enforce dichotomous divisions between humans and
nonhumans on the basis of agency. Instead, it focuses (human) attention on the lively and even quasi-agential properties of matter (see Coole and Frost, 2010). Among proponents of
this approach, the work of Jane Bennett (2010) has been particularly influential. She contends that the material beings that tend to be treated as ‘dull matter’ within the rationalist
tradition actually have ‘trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own’, which ‘can aid or destroy, enrich or disable, ennoble or degrade us, [and] in any case call for our
attentiveness, or even “respect”’ (Bennett, 2010: ix). To conceptualize the sources of this quasi-agency, she draws on the work of Bruno Latour (1993), who argues that causation
results not from intentional human agency alone, but rather from the properties of networks, collectives or ‘political ecologies’. She also adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the
‘assemblage’ to explain how collective agency can emerge from the confluence of heterogeneous bodies. For instance, Bennett claims, electrical grids can bring about massive
disruptions to human life and food may alter human propensities towards warfare. The form of quasi-agency that these beings possess is not individual or linear, but rather
‘confederate’. That is, it is the emergent product of myriad interacting forces and bodies that collide, respond, react, and counteract one another. It is not intentional human agency, but
rather what Latour calls ‘actancy’: the ability of a material being to ‘make a difference’ in the world by helping to produce and shaping the dynamics of complex networks. According to

nonhumans may also have a speaking role in politics . Specifically, their bodies can
this viewpoint,

make ‘propositions’ interpretable to humans, which are frequently found in scientific

and media discourses as ‘facts’ or ‘evidence’. Indeed, Eyal Weizman (2011) demonstrates that the propositions made by a range of
‘objects’ – topographical maps, rubble, fragments of bone – are also used in legal settings to ‘testify’ about the

nature of past or planned violence. From this perspective, nonhumans are creative and lively
features of the worlds humans share with them. William Connolly’s (2011) work on the politics and ontology of ‘becoming’ has
been similarly influential in the emergence of ‘new materialism’. He argues that we cannot understand the world in terms of linear time or as a static object. Rather, he claims, it is
composed of heterogeneous ‘force fields’, or patterns of motion that unfold in multiple timescales and frequently metamorphize. When this occurs, they throw previously stable

sonances consist of forces that collide, modify and

systems into states of disequilibrium and powerful ‘resonances’ emerge. Re

often magnify each other – for instance, the fusion of globalized capitalism and
climate change. The scale and amplitude of these resonances is such that they exceed human control (and, in some cases, human comprehension). Accordingly,
we cannot assume that human agency is the only creative – or destructive – force in
the universe. In fact, Connolly suggests, human agency is not a property of individual humans; rather, it
is enabled by a range of sub-agential influences exerted by nonhuman bodies.
Octas
1AC
 Plan
The United States should significantly reduce counter-anti-access/area-
denial offensive strike presence in Northeast Asia, including carrier
strike groups, to a level consistent with a deterrence by denial force
posture.
 1AC – Naval Strategy Adv
Carrier deterrence in Northeast Asia is collapsing – improvements in
anti-ship missiles and air defense technology negate their strategic
utility
Robert C. Rubel 11, Dean of Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, “The Future of
Aircraft Carriers,” September, https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/87bcd2ff-c7b6-
4715-b2ed-05df6e416b3b/The-Future-of-Aircraft-Carriers
THE IMPACT OF FUTURE TECHNOLOGY

Armed with an understanding of their doctrinal roles, we can proceed to assess how current and future weapons and systems technologies might affect the utility of aircraft carriers.

It is a matter not simply of whether the carrier can be defended or not but of whether
it can fulfill the doctrinal role the nation requires of it.
the Chinese DF-21F intermediate-range
Antiship Ballistic Missiles. Professional journals have been full of articles analyzing the potential impact of recently developed

ballistic missile has an antiship seeker built into it. The purpose is
, fitted with a maneuvering reentry head that of this missile

not so much to sink the carrier as to achieve a “mission kill,” causing fires and
thought to be

damage to the air wing and topside structures. the missile system its If is perceived to be effective at this, then

existence would constitute a deterrent to U.S. interference

and the presence of its mobile transporter/erector/ launchers in an invasion of Taiwan

within a thousand miles of China’s coast.

or in other Chinese initiatives about this missile Assuming that a terminal, hit-to-kill defense is not feasible against it,

would seem to threaten seriously the future utility of the aircraft carrier anywhere
within its range. On the other hand, having a seeker, it could be vulnerable to decoying. If this is the case, the probabilities for missile success are reduced. This leads us to think in terms of what role the carrier might be playing as it sails
into DF-21 threat range. If the carrier is functioning as cavalry, a capital ship, or a nuclear-strike platform—that is, delivering a pulse of power and then escaping—the risk tolerance inherent in those roles might be compatible with the reduced but still significant threat posed

by the DF-21. If the carrier is being used as an airfield at sea or a geopolitical chess piece
, however, either , its

mobility sacrificed and the risk incurred likely would be incommensurate with the role.
Submarines, Antiship Cruise Missiles, and Other Access-Denial Systems. The effect of these systems is similar to that of the DF-21. Current and anticipated defensive systems for the carrier are likely to be able to handle small numbers of these weapons. However, when larger
numbers are employed against the carrier —and this will probably only happen in littoral waters—the likelihood of “leakers” increases. Once again, depending on the role the carrier is playing, the risk may be tolerable, especially if the carrier is free to maneuver. If a
combination of geography and doctrinal role constrains its mobility and maneuverability, the risk climbs quickly.

Some have advocated that smaller carriers ought to be built in larger numbers
, on these grounds,

to achieve “tactical stability,” Games at the the condition in which the defensive capabilities of the ship and its contributions to the overall offensive power of the force are in balance.

Naval War College have cast some doubt on this logic, quite apart from
considerations of the relative efficiency of large and small flight decks. It appears that doctrinal role is a governing

if mobility is compromised by doctrinal role, the net risk to the force is the
factor. In general, it seems that

same, whether the force is composed of one or two large, or four to six small,
carriers. Nothing changes, except in the inefficiencies and added cost of multiple
small carriers.
New types of surface-to-air missile
Improved Air-Defense Systems. In one important sense, the viability of tactical airpower is the essence of the future utility of aircraft carriers.

systems have made operation of nonstealthy aircraft excessively risky. new within their range Also,

generations of fighters, notably the Su-27 have eroded the , its derivatives, and even newer designs from Russia and China,

technical advantages traditionally enjoyed by American aircraft. New types of air-to-

air missiles, fighter radars, and sophisticated crew/system interfaces have similarly
lessened advantage the All of this calls into question the utility of aircraft
our superior training has conferred.

carriers as strike (cavalry) platforms or airfields at sea against a well armed

opponent. The same trend may compromise the viability of holds in the arena of war at sea, at least with respect to surface-to-air missiles, and
the aircraft carrier in the capital-ship role. To fight modern, high-tech air defenses, sea or land based, missiles may be the only viable answer, although very stealthy unmanned
aircraft operating from aircraft carriers may also be viable, especially if equipped with short-range attack missiles.

Short-Takeoff/Vertical-Landing Jets. The advent of the F-35B STOVL Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) promises to enhance significantly the overall capabilities of a ski jump–equipped carrier. The question is whether this increase in capability would both allow such smaller aviation-
capable ships to function as regular aircraft carriers and change the calculus of the various doctrinal roles. It appears that the F-35B will offer increases in range and load-carrying capability over the AV-8 Harrier, the British-developed “jump jet” that has served a number of
navies and the U.S. Marines for decades. However, these increases do not come close to bringing the F-35B into the same class as conventional-takeoff-and-landing carrier aircraft, and the range and endurance of even these are short enough to require the carrier to get in
rather close to the fight. The principal advantages of the F-35B will be its increased connectivity, sensing, and stealth—all good things, but not sufficient to change the logic inherent in the doctrinal roles. Moreover, the small number of aircraft that can be carried on the ski-
jump carriers limits their ability to perform some of the doctrinal roles. They will likely remain useful support ships for amphibious and antisubmarine operations, especially operating helicopters, and will constitute prestige platforms for small navies to show the flag.

Unmanned Aircraft (UAVs). What could potentially change the calculus of doctrinal roles is the unmanned aircraft. For a given “deck spot” (the square footage an aircraft takes up parked on a carrier’s flight or hangar deck), unmanned aircraft offer double or triple the range
and endurance of manned aircraft. Moreover, without the need to accommodate a human, their form can be considerably more stealthy, and their operations do not need to take into account crew-rest factors, at least to the extent that they do in manned aircraft. What this
may offer in terms of doctrinal roles is a return of the carrier as the eyes of the fleet, operating a wing of long-range UAVs for reconnaissance and perhaps line-of-sight communications relay. A carrier could then remain outside most threat “envelopes,” with much more scope
for maneuvering to keep from being targeted. The longer range of UAVs (including unmanned combat aerial vehicles, or UCAVs) would also allow the carrier to function as an airfield at sea with less risk. In terms of command and control, however, UAVs that require a
constant “man in the loop” would not offer as much flexibility to the carrier as those with higher degrees of autonomy.

FUTURE DOCTRINAL ROLES

The traditional rationale for aircraft carriers is that they provide tactical airpower independent of land bases and that—no small thing—they are ready to do so on arrival. While all of this is true and constitutes concrete benefits of having aircraft carriers, the real arguments
for and against them reside in their doctrinal roles. Which of the traditional roles are obsolete? Do the remaining ones justify continuing investment in aircraft carriers? Are there emerging or potential roles for carriers that would justify building more?

As has been mentioned, the development of unmanned aircraft may revitalize the primordial role of aircraft carriers as eyes of the fleet. Operating a wing of various kinds of UAVs, the carriers could conduct what is known as C4ISR (command, control, communications,
computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) or establish a grid of airborne relay nodes that would support a fleet battle network if satellites were destroyed or intense jamming occurred. Because of the vulnerability of land bases to ballistic missiles, and at
increasing distances from potential war zones, the arguments that the Navy has used in the realm of tactical airpower to justify carriers also serve for carrier-based C4ISR. As with tactical airpower, regardless of how long aircraft range is and how much in-flight refueling is
available, if land bases are distant from the area of operations, it takes far more aircraft to generate a continuous presence in the battle space and operations are far less responsive and flexible than they would be if based from a nearby carrier. A local source of UAVs, if land
bases are far away, is invaluable operationally and strategically.

The cavalry role for carriers , practiced as late as the 1986 EL DORADO CANYON strikes on Libya, has become a victim of the missile
age. In the most recent round of strikes on Libya, Tomahawk cruise missiles were used. Now possessing guided-missile submarines that can carry over a hundred Tomahawks, the Navy does not have to accept risks of running a carrier surreptitiously into hostile
waters to carry out a strike or subjecting manned tactical aircraft to robust air defenses. In a similar manner, the introduction of the ballistic-missile submarine made the carrier nuclear-strike role obsolete. Whatever the trade-offs between tactical aircraft, manned or

the lethality of modern air defenses and the difficulty of moving naval forces
unmanned, and missiles,

undetected militate strongly against using carriers in this role. It does not appear
that a carrier operating UCAVs would offer any significant advantage in the cavalry
role over a submarine carrying cruise missiles.
As for the capital-ship role, in the missile age the whole concept may be obsolete. There has

the offense now dominates— modern antiship

been a constant ebb and flow of technical and tactical superiority of the offense and defense at sea, but mostly

missiles are very fast and hard to shoot down. Certainly, they are dependent on the successful functioning of their seeker heads; these can be decoyed or blinded, and the

a successful defense of the carrier does no good if the

prospect of close-in directed-energy defenses may tilt the balance in favor of the defense.6 However,

carrier cannot in turn succeed in attacking enemy naval forces. Improvements in air-
defense technology by Russia and China and the prospects for their proliferation will
make the tactical offense progressively more difficult and risky. It should be recalled that in the great carrier battles of World War II,
the aircraft losses were brutal, on the order of 70 percent for the Japanese and 28 percent for the Americans.7 In the late 1970s, as naval aviation developed aircraft-centric antiship tactics in the aftermath of the wake-up call of the 1973 episode, it became clear that a single
strike on a single formation of Soviet ships might cost a quarter of an air wing.8 Whereas we were able to replace such losses in 1942–45, no such thing would be possible today, given the complexity and expense of modern jets.

the seas, at least certain areas of them, are becoming a no-man’s-land for
The upshot is that

surface ships. Whether or not submarines ought to be considered capital ships is

beside the point; the carrier will likely not be one. On the other hand, for scenarios
short of high-end missile combat, there is no ship more able to exercise general
control of a large ocean area than an aircraft carrier, fanning out its air wing to scout
and identify surface vessels. Carrier aircraft probably are the best counter, for example, to the small-boat swarms that some countries, like Iran, have adopted, assuming the carrier can operate out of range of the
densest littoral defenses.

Currently, the “airfield at sea” is almost the exclusive role for the large aircraft carrier, essentially fused with that of the “geopolitical chess piece.” This (combined) role will continue to be highly useful into the future, so long as the intensity of defenses stays below a certain

threshold. If either high-tech air or naval defenses proliferate , the number of areas and scenarios in which carriers can function in this role will decline. If this

happens, the value of the carrier as a geopolitical chess piece will erode proportionately. This is a key uncertainty about the future and a
central difficulty in assessing the future value of aircraft carriers. If a ground fight occurs close to the coast and a carrier could move in with impunity to provide air support, perhaps through-deck amphibious ships flying STOVL aircraft would suffice. But their capacity to
generate sorties and the number of targets they can strike are nowhere near what is possible for large carriers with catapults and arresting wires; moreover, if deep penetration is needed, as has been the case in Afghanistan, nothing less than a large carrier operating
conventional aircraft will do. Because of miniaturization, advanced electronics, and advances in missile, mine, torpedo, and submarine design, it is becoming easier to hide naval defenses. A particular case in point is the Club-K cruise missile marketed by the Russian company

The
Novator. Four missiles could be housed in an innocuous-looking shipping container, hidden in plain sight and ready to be fired from trucks, railroad cars, or commercial ships.9 Similar advances in covertness can be expected in other weapons types.

implication is that it will be difficult or impossible to “sanitize” an area where a

carrier can function as an airfield at sea.
What new doctrinal roles might emerge for the aircraft carrier? One that comes to mind is a variation on “eyes of the fleet.” If the struggle for sea control migrates to below the surface, an aircraft carrier might be highly useful as a submarinesupport vessel. The carrier would
not only provide C4ISR services for submarines but disrupt air and surface ASW efforts by the enemy, perhaps even conduct ASW itself. Especially if operating long-range UAVs, the carrier might be able to maneuver more widely and thereby perform this role at an acceptable
degree of risk—or better put, at a level of risk commensurate with the doctrinal role.

Another potential supporting role for the carrier is as a mother ship for the littoral combat ship (LCS). The LCS has limited sea-keeping capability and must have a source of logistical support relatively close by, especially if it is to operate at high speed and high combat tempo.
If a squadron of LCSs must enter a highthreat area where there are no bases and where regular logistical ships would be at excessive risk, a nuclear carrier might be the answer. Having considerable fuel and ammunition-storage capacity, high sustained speeds, and self-
defense ability (with its escorts), a carrier could range around undetected or untargeted until a covert rendezvous with one or more LCSs could be arranged. While a logistical support system that employs submarines might be the ideal, this arrangement may be the most
feasible in the short term. In conjunction with this role, the carrier, operating both manned and unmanned aircraft, could provide tactical scouting for littoral combat vessels as well as a secure and robust local battle network.
A NEW CALCULUS

This assessment of doctrinal roles is revealing. Certain roles for the carrier are
already obsolete, and others are eroding . Whereas . A few new roles are emerging, but these place the carrier in a new position in relation to the rest of the fleet

the carrier has been the central pivot of the fleet since World War II, the arbiter and
yardstick of naval supremacy and the keystone of fleet architecture, it will gradually
become a more narrowly useful role player. There will be, for the foreseeable future, situations that demand an aircraft carrier, so it can be said with confidence that the ship

the constriction in its roles and in the locations and circumstances in which
type will be needed. However,

it could be appropriately used indicates that a new calculus is needed (i.e., where doctrinal role and risk intersect)

to determine how many the U.S. Navy really needs.

This article has dealt only obliquely with the issue of small versus large carriers. The author has served on both types and is convinced that nonnuclear ships under about eighty thousand tons sacrifice too much total combat capability to be worthwhile investments as aircraft
carriers. On the other hand, aviation ships that can support operationally significant numbers of helicopters and STOVL jets will be useful in amphibious and antisubmarine operations as well as a host of others, including disaster relief, noncombatant evacuation, and various
types of humanitarian assistance.

An embedded implication in all this for amphibious operations should be noted. If things are too hot to allow a carrier to operate as an airfield at sea, they are too hot for an amphibious assault. If the number of times and places a carrier can operate as an airfield at sea
decrease, they decrease as well for amphibious operations. Any assumptions about the ability to “roll back” enemy defenses must be severely tempered by the likelihood that new technologies will produce weapons that can be hidden from preemptive strikes—like the
improvised explosive devices and car bombs that have been such intractable problems in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no question that some capacity for amphibious operations from the sea will be needed in the future, but a rigorous and objective analysis of the number of
times and places in which they would be possible is warranted, and as with carriers, a new calculus for sizing that capability is needed.

Another key consideration that would govern carrier force structure is deployment
posture. Since World War II, the United States has maintained a forward-deployed
posture for the Navy The Navy has found that for each carrier it wants to
, at times severely stressing its capacity.

keep forward, it needs two additional ones to account for crew deployment tempo , training,

In theory, then, any carrier force level ought to be divisible by three

and maintenance requirements. an . However,

additional carrier is needed to compensate for the extended yard periods required
for nuclear refueling. That adds up to ten but Congress has legislated that the Navy CVNs,

maintain eleven, the “extra” carrier being available for surge operations. There is
currently a carrier homeported forward in Japan, which provides additional
scheduling flexibility . In practice, however, the demand for carriers by the combatant commanders, coupled with the Navy’s Fleet Response Plan deployment scheme (which seeks to maximize the number of carriers available for
surge operations), makes even eleven carriers seem insufficient. But the increasing expense of tactical jets and delays in their development, as exemplified by the JSF, means that there will not be enough aircraft to populate eleven flight decks adequately, let alone a higher
number.

In the future, as the doctrinal roles of the aircraft carrier change and become more
narrowly defined, the number of carriers needed forward at any time may decline. Using

for every carrier not needed to be stationed forward, the total

the reverse of the standard Navy calculus,

inventory could, in theory, be reduced by three. The savings would be enormous, and ,

there would be no reduction in the overall war-fighting effectiveness of

if this analysis of doctrinal roles is correct,

the Navy, the money saved could be reinvested

assuming in missiles, submarines, and , at least in part,

surface ships . On one hand, a reduction of one carrier on station would take the Navy to a force of eight CVNs. On the other hand, if new doctrinal roles do materialize, a higher number of carriers may be warranted. USS Enterprise, the first nuclear
carrier, commissioned fifty years ago, is on a forward deployment as this article is written. There is no reason to think that the Nimitz-class carriers will have shorter service lives, and the newer ones may last even longer. There is at least reason to think that a number of

If the possible doctrinal

these ships will outlive the utility of any given type of embarked aircraft. This makes it difficult to assess the return on investment of additional new construction beyond Ford or its follow-on ship.

roles for the aircraft carrier become too risky or are significantly constrained in
terms of where and when they might be feasible, the value of so expensive a platform
will be called into question.
The purpose of this article has been to explore the future of the aircraft carrier using the framework of doctrinal roles. It appears that despite changing technology there will be a continuing need for the ship type, although the obsolescence of some doctrinal roles and the
anticipated constriction of its use as an airfield at sea may limit the numbers that are justified. New doctrinal roles may emerge, depending on the flexibility of mind shown by the naval aviation community. However, even if these new roles do pan out, they may not justify

the carrier’s day as the supreme arbiter of naval power and the
significantly greater numbers of ships. Moreover,

determinant of fleet architecture may be coming to a close . Its continuing utility will increasingly be in support roles. Once this shift occurs, it
may actually be easier to arrive at an objective determination of numbers required, as much of the emotional and political baggage surrounding them will have been shed.
Disentangling the carrier from offensive “sea control” is key – shores up
command of the seas by re-focusing carriers to day-to-day maintenance
of the global system – deterrence-by-denial solves
Robert C. Rubel 14, Dean of Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, “Command of
the Sea: An Old Concept Resurfaces in a New Form,” in “Writing to Think: The Intellectual
Journey of a Naval Career,” p. 49-52
Beyond a certain level of destruction, given
If a win of sorts is possible for the U.S. Navy, what cost would be acceptable?

the length of time needed to build, fit out, and work up a modern warship, the U.S.
Navy would become less than a global navy. At that point it could no longer provide
the security environment necessary for the global system to operate.17 If the current U.S.
Navy, at around 280 ships, is stretched thin and strains to meet demands from regional commanders, the amount and
kind of losses it could absorb in a fight with the Chinese and still maintain command
of the sea—in its modern instantiation—likely would be relatively low. This is especially the case
for aircraft carriers, whose capacity to project power ashore has made them such useful geopolitical chess pieces that President Barack
Obama dictated that the Navy retain eleven in commission, even in the face of huge defense-budget cuts. Almost paradoxically, the

utility of carriers on a global scale in maintaining the system’s security environment

makes them too valuable to risk in a regional sea-control fight, even though, or
perhaps precisely because, command of the sea is at stake. A posture that would
align better with the strategic architecture would be to create a naval force consisting of
submarines, smaller surface combatants, and unmanned systems that could impose
losses on the PLAN but could also absorb losses without jeopardizing command of the
sea.¶This brief thought experiment reveals an interesting inversion of naval strategic imperatives that highlights how the nature of command of the sea
has changed since Sir Walter Raleigh concocted his syllogism. As codified by both Mahan and Corbett, command of the sea was to be won by defeating or
bottling up the enemy battle fleet. This was a matter for the navy’s most powerful ships to settle. Once command of the sea was gained, the seas became safe
for smaller units, like frigates, to spread out and exercise sea control in specific and local circumstances. In other words, one fought for command of the
sea—via battle, if possible—and exercised sea control, via dispersed security operations. This general relationship held good at least through the end of
World War II. Now, however, as we see in our thought experiment , our most capable ships, the carriers, are best
used to exercise command of the sea—that is, maintain the security environment—while smaller, more
numerous forces may have to fight a decisive battle for local or regional sea control,
the outcome of which would likely have profound global strategic consequences. This inversion is new and runs counter to common

wisdom. It must be understood if we are properly to assess risk and structure fleet

architecture.¶ Assessing and Managing Risk¶ “Command of the sea” is a descriptive term. What it describes is a strategic condition. As the world
geopolitical environment evolves, so does the nature of the condition that the term describes. Great and broad strategic conditions are not easily
encapsulated by a four-word term, so it is both necessary and useful to inquire more deeply into its definition and thus into the parameters of the condition.
Naval
Such inquiry as we have outlined reveals important relationships between strategic conditions and the nature and use of naval forces.¶

forces have always been expensive and relatively scarce. Their employment,
especially of the largest and scarcest of these, must therefore be attended by clearheaded
calculations of acceptable risk.18 Bottom-up examinations of potential tactical outcomes using computer simulations have their
uses, but these must not constitute the sole basis for assessing risk. The enemy could always get lucky, and an understanding of risk from the top-down
strategic perspective allows us to understand the consequences of loss in a way that provides better ability to better assess and manage risk. ¶ The inquiry
a new relationship has emerged between command of the sea
conducted in this article reveals that

and sea control, and the kinds of ships that are appropriate to each function. Whether an
aircraft carrier is a capital ship in the sense a battleship was in 1922 is beside the point. Their unique characteristics,
coupled with today’s changed geopolitical circumstances, suggest that they should be
used in a dispersed manner to exercise command of the sea on a day-to-day basis, much
 While carriers will never be
as British frigates in 1812 exercised sea control around the periphery of the British Empire.

numerous, the implication is that we should have enough of these ships to make them readily
available in most regions. The U.S. Navy may never again have more than eleven of them, but assuming most nations have incentives to
do their part to protect the global system, their carriers, even including those of China, could be enlisted in the common effort. More total carriers being
operated by like-minded nations make the continuous and systemic exercise of command of the sea all the more effective, because they will be available in
more places more often. Aircraft carrier building is more widespread today than it has been at any time since World War II. But
given their vulnerability to missiles, torpedoes, and mines, why would nations
devote their scarce resources to such ships? Beyond national prestige, which is no small thing, it appears that there is a
tacit understanding that they contribute to the overall security environment—a corporate command of the sea by an informal condominium of nations all of
which, despite particular differences in policy, share a common incentive to keep the global system operating. ¶ The new logic of command of the sea also
suggests a kind of strategic equivalence between aircraft carrier forces and amphibious forces. Modern amphibious groups, especially when equipped with
missiles, unmanned systems, and modern vertical/ short-takeoff-and-landing jets, have a legitimate capability to conduct autonomous power-projection
operations, thus increasing the capability of the U.S. Navy and others to exercise command in more places at more times, making that command more
effective and secure. Moreover, the flexibility of some new designs, such as the San Antonio (LPD 17) class, offers the potential of significantly increasing the
There
sea control, shore-bombardment capability, and cooperative international expeditionary operations capabilities of an amphibious group. ¶

may never be a fight for sea control between the United States and China. If there is, it will
be in the American interest to fight it with forces made up of units that are relatively
hard to find and hit and whose acceptable-risk profile is more compatible with the
conditions that would obtain in the East Asian arena.19 This would allow the president to feed the fight without
placing himself on the horns of a difficult strategic dilemma. If the United States has the option of fighting—and winning—the war solely at sea (on, under,
. If such a posture is
and above it, using joint forces), the strategic risks of nuclear escalation and rupture of the system are minimized

credibly attained through force-structure investments, concept and doctrine development, and strategic
communication, deterrence will be enhanced. In the end, the issue may not be U.S. ability to

seize sea control in the South China Sea but its ability to deny it to China —a less
rigorous and presumably less costly requirement.

Command of the seas is key to global great power stability.

Independently, stationing the carrier in Northeast Asia sends signals of
aggression that undermine maritime cooperation and encourage global
naval arms races – causes nuclear war
Robert C. Rubel 14, Dean of Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, “Navies and
Economic Prosperity: The New Logic of Sea Power,” in “Writing to Think: The Intellectual
Journey of a Naval Career,” p.60-68
Systems thinking recognizes the interdependency of the various elements that contribute to a system. If we understand and accept that the world has knitted itself together into a global system of commerce (and the
necessary forms of collective security that accompany commerce), then we are prepared to recognize and acknowledge that a wide range of factors impinge upon and even govern the effectiveness and efficiency of each
subsystem. Using this logic we can easily understand not only that resource extraction, manufacturing, consumption and transportation are inextricably integrated elements of the world economy, but also that the

The system as a whole must be protected. While it is true

protection of one to the exclusion of the others is not rational.

that no single military service—or nation—has the capability to render holistic

systemic protection it is also true that the effects of each one’s operations ripple
throughout the system as a whole, either enhancing or diminishing its overall security.¶ For navies, then, it is not sufficient to think of their purpose only in terms of
protecting shipping. Certainly, shipping must be protected, but if there is nothing to put in those ships, their transits, safe or not, are meaningless. Therefore, it is as important that manufacturing nodes and resource
nodes be similarly protected and that efforts be made to protect and enhance the nations and societies that constitute these nodes, not to mention the nations and societies that consume their output. Thus we have an
endto- end systemic-view of what we might call the “mission space” of navies. The better the system works—the more secure it is—the better the world’s prospects for economic prosperity. It does not work for just one
nation. For the purposes of this discussion, the important point is that the flow of finance, goods, information, etc. must be sustained across the system. The flow can be interrupted by disrupting shipping (and air travel
and the internet), but commercial shipping, at least, is not significantly threatened in today’s world. On the other hand, war among major powers, instability in resource areas and major terrorist attacks in consumption
areas all could significantly disrupt the flow, with disastrous results for the world economy as well as international peace. Given the dependency of most pension plans on the growth in the value of securities, it is not
inaccurate to say that the well-being of much of the world’s greying population is dependent upon the effective functioning of navies. ¶ Having established the systemic context for the new syllogism, we can engage in
some reductionism to sort out some individual factors that can help us identify particular naval capabilities that are needed, their magnitude and even their mode of application (strategy). In doing so, we will focus,

war among major powers is potentially the

naturally, on threats to the system, proceeding from the most to the least dire.¶ As intimated previously,

most disruptive threat to the global system. When one considers the almost eighty-
year global system “dark age” between the outbreak of the First World War and the
end of the Cold War, the impact of major power war becomes obvious. It would be arrogant and facile to
suggest that navies themselves can prevent such wars, but it should be noted that a naval arms race between Great Britain and Germany played no small part in the chain of events leading to 1914 and the perceived

naval arms races and perceived naval vulnerability, constitute factors that
vulnerability of the U.S. fleet in Hawaii was a factor in the Japanese decision to attack in 1941. These two themes,

have continuing relevance in today’s systemic world.¶ Let us start with naval arms
races. We must admit that nations build navies for a range of reasons beyond protection of merchant shipping. These may include the desire to protect a vulnerable coast line, deter depredations by other powers
and even generate prestige. There is, perhaps, one element of Mahan’s syllogism that continues to be true: at a certain level of economic activity and wealth, nations start building navies. A capable, ocean-going navy is a
sign that a nation has “arrived” as a major power. Whether such navy building is a herald of future war or is a politically neutral phenomenon is not clear, although the historical record is cause for concern.

Today, China, Japan, India, Brazil and other nations are building navies. They each
have their reasons, but the prospects that such building programmes will lead to
suspicion, alarm, fear and ultimately war may depend very much on how the current
leading navies and their parent nations proceed.¶ An important reason the world
system has been able to stitch itself back together after the world wars is the military
superiority of the United States. A liberal democratic trading nation, it has coupled this superiority with free trade policies to stimulate economic growth. Capital, goods and people can
flow freely around the globe, generating systemic behaviour. A key element of American military superiority is command

of the seas, a term denoting the inability of any other navy to impose a strategic defeat on the U.S. Navy on the high seas. It is this command, like that
achieved by the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century, which helped create the necessary conditions
for system formation. When it is lost, as it was in 1914 and 1941, the world fragments
and falls into war.¶ The challenge becomes how to use command of the sea to manage
or influence the emergence of other navies such that true naval arms races do not
occur. The right way to do this is not completely clear but there appear to be several sure-fire losing strategies. The
first is for the United States to start the arms race itself by reflexively viewing the
emergence of the Chinese Navy or others as a threat. Policies and patterns of building and deployment
based on alarm and fear will generate reciprocal responses in China and elsewhere.
This is why CS21 does not mention China or any other nation by name, something often criticized by those with an alarmist bent. Among the ways the U.S. Navy can stimulate Chinese alarm is to openly consider
interdiction of their seaborne commerce in exercises, war games or articles. Not only would this strengthen the hand of Chinese alarmists, but commerce interdiction would probably be infeasible on a number of counts

anyway. Another good way to invoke this kind of reciprocal security dilemma is to link sea
control and power projection. After the Cold War, the U.S. Navy focused so narrowly on power projection that it and some of its allied navies forgot how to talk about sea
control.12 While progress has been made in this area, there is still a sense in the doctrine that U.S. forces will use land

strikes to neutralize shore based antiaccess systems with sea control being an exercise in
access generation that is prerequisite to projecting power ashore.13 One can imagine the effect such talk has on a
nation like China that has suffered humiliation and exploitation from the sea at the
hands of western nations. Already, the Chinese are reacting to the most recent U.S. concept of this ilk, Air-Sea
Battle: “If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to
develop anti-Air-Sea Battle.”14¶ A second way to increase the odds that navy building
will lead to war is for the leading navies to allow vulnerabilities to emerge. The U.S. Navy did this in
two ways during the 1930s and up to 1941. First, it was slow to recognize and accept that the bomb-carrying aircraft had replaced the major calibre gun as the dominant naval weapon. Although war games at the Naval
War College and demonstrations by Billy Mitchell provided clear indicators, it took the December 1941 disasters of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales to force the new reality on the

Today, the new reality is that the anti-ship missile is the arbiter of what floats
admirals.

and what does not. This is a condition that has existed since the early 1970s but has not been compellingly revealed due to the lack of an all-out naval battle, just as there was no all-out naval
battle between 1922 and 1941 to reveal the bomb’s superiority. Vulnerability can also be generated by concentration. In 1941 the bulk of the U.S. fleet was concentrated at Pearl Harbor, leading Admiral Yamamoto to

think that a single knock-out blow was possible. Although today the U.S. Navy is strategically dispersed around the
world, its principal combat power is concentrated into eleven aircraft carriers. Taking
several of these out would seriously compromise the strategic capabilities of the U.S.
Navy, not to mention the potential adverse effects of derailing U.S. policy as happened via the loss of
eighteen Special Forces soldiers in Somalia, or conversely stimulating escalation, possibly to the nuclear level.

Moreover, a hit on a nuclear carrier that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. sailors in a single blow might easily generate national

outrage and serve to escalate the conflict far above initial intentions. In naval warfare, history has shown that
the tactical offense has most often trumped the tactical defence, and thinking that aircraft carriers can be defended against the
array of existing and potential anti-ship missiles is not much different than the outlook of
battleship admirals in the fall of 1941.15¶ The combination of vulnerability issues
suggests that the U.S. Navy and any allied or cooperating navies that seek to constitute a combat credible
force in ocean zones threatened by anti-ship missiles will have to disaggregate their
power into a dispersed grid of submarines, destroyers and unmanned vehicles,
themselves armed with highly lethal anti-ship missiles. Their purpose should be
clearly articulated as defending the system by deterring aggression via the sea by
means of defeating—at sea—any attempt to do so. Even the best anti-ship missile cannot hit what cannot be found. By
disaggregating naval combat power and equipping it to exert sea control—at sea—we
thereby eliminate both forms of naval vulnerability that contribute to naval arms
races, and the deterioration of deterrence. ¶ There is one other vulnerability issue that must be considered, and that is positioning. If caught out of
position when a crisis erupts, the reactive movements of naval forces can catalyse rather than deter military action. In 1982, during the crisis leading up to the Falklands War, fears that the British were gathering up naval
forces to send south helped put the Argentine Junta in a now-or-never state of mind, which precipitated their invasion and the war.16 If catalysis is to be avoided, naval forces must maintain a persistent presence in such
areas where deterrence is necessary. This is why CS21 prescribes concentrated, credible combat forces be stationed forward in East Asia and the Persian Gulf. The Navy’s inventory of ships, aircraft and other systems

If command of the seas is

must be sufficiently large such that this presence can be maintained indefinitely without “using up” ships and sailors at an unsustainable rate.¶

achieved and maintained wisely by not provoking alarm and not allowing naval
vulnerabilities to occur, the seas can constitute a massive geopolitical shock
absorber, preventing conflicts in one area of the world from spilling over into others,
mainly by keeping hostile armies from moving by sea, and allowing one’s own to do so. Even though this
condition holds today as a function of American command of the sea, there has
emerged, since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the prospect of terrorists and their weapons being
smuggled by sea to the shores of America, Europe, China, Japan and other developed
countries. Given the disruptive potential of terrorist attacks, it is reasonable to
regard them as only a step down from major power war as a threat to the system . Although
the attacks of 9/11 were perpetrated by the radical Islamic organization al Qaeda, in the future such strikes might be staged by any number of

groups. Although neutralization of such organizations by intelligence or law

enforcement agencies is the preferred method, the lack of success to date in doing so
for narco-traffickers and other criminal enterprises leaves us to consider at-sea
interdiction as a necessary measure.¶ The seas, of course, are huge, and at any moment they are dotted with tens of thousands of ships. There is not now nor has
there ever been a navy of sufficient size to hermetically seal off the seas to smugglers. The only way to make the seas a barrier to terrorists is to have every costal nation effectively guard its own waters and establish good
teamwork between its navy, intelligence service and law enforcement agencies. Some nations do but many do not. Thus CS21 calls for building capacity in those developing nations whose navies or coast guards are
embryonic.¶ The mission of capacity building requires a very different kind of naval force than the one needed to prevent major power war. The main “weapon system” of such a force is the sailors and other personnel
that train, educate and influence those in developing countries that will become sailors. The sheer number of countries needing such assistance suggests these missions be conducted from relatively inexpensive ships that
can be procured in some numbers. In addition to actual naval forces deployed for capacity building purposes, the navies of developed nations employ their shore training and education infrastructures. The importance of
naval academies and war colleges in building not only capacity but relationships cannot be overstated.¶ Beyond capacity building, making the seas a barrier to terrorists requires information about who is at sea, what is
in the containers and holds, and where they are. Not only are new forms of surveillance needed, but also intensive information sharing so that two and two can be put together to reveal suspicious activity. To manage this,
the U.S. Navy is developing a global network of maritime operations centres that will develop regional pictures that will be shared globally. This, in turn requires an international effort to develop trust and confidence so
that information flows freely.¶ If an adequate degree of maritime security can be achieved, the seas will constitute a geopolitical shock absorber in another way. In the wake of 9/11 the United States had no equivalent of
the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Lord St Vincent, who supposedly advised a jittery parliament in 1801, “I do not say my lords that the French will not come, I say only that they will not come by sea.” Without the
assurance of the seas as a barrier to further attack, it was as if New York City was connected to Kabul and Baghdad by a land bridge. The Bush Administration was spooked by the prospect of a WMD attack and rather
stampeded itself into two simultaneous Eurasian land wars that got the United States mired down and over-extended. The comfort of insulating oceans can provide, among other things, a certain poise to the deliberations
of the National Security Council and time for cooling off and reflection before committing the nation to war. Moreover, in the wake of the pull-out from Iraq and an increasingly rapid drawdown in Afghanistan, both the
current and former U.S. Chiefs of Naval Operations have advanced the notion of an “offshore option” for anchoring forward U.S. military capabilities in the future.17 This would increase the proportionate contribution of
naval forces to the U.S. effort to maintain global stability.¶ The threat of terrorism emanates principally from an area of a world that has been variously referred to as the “arc of instability” and Barnett’s Non-Integrating
Gap. It encompasses much of Africa and the Middle East as well as parts of Southeast Asia. It is where most failed states exist but also where much of the natural resources necessary for the world economy are found.
Thus the nations that constitute the global economic system can ill afford a hands-off strategy of containment, hoping to seal off the area against the spread of terrorism until it heals itself. Therapeutic incisions have been
and will continue to be necessary at various times and places.¶ Because of the undeveloped nature of this area of the world, along with the fact that most of its inhabitants live within several hundred miles of the coast,
naval force projection capability from a sea base will be necessary. The early phases of the Afghanistan operations were of this nature and we can confidently expect that if and when the world’s developed nations reach a
consensus about going into Somalia to cure the piracy problem, it will be a sea-based expeditionary operation. Thus, protection of resource areas will require that some number of navies possess substantial sea-based
expeditionary force capability, preferably of a kind that can integrate multi-national contributions easily. Rendering disaster relief, as was done in the tsunami relief effort in 2004, the Haiti earthquake and the Japan
tsunami, is also an important form of sea-based force projection that mitigates economic damage to the system. It is likely that future sea-based expeditionary operations will be international, and so that capability must
be conceptualized and practiced.¶ The mere presence of naval forces in areas of the world that are the source of resources, notably oil, seems to have a beneficial economic effect. Both routine presence of naval forces
and their responses in crises were shown to have a substantial economic benefit in a 1997 study by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.18 It found that the initial naval response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is likely to
have increased global GDP by over $86 billion.19 Perhaps the least dire threat to the global system is piracy —albeit one that is currently seizing the headlines. Somali pirates, a manifestation of a failed state in the Non-
Integrating Gap, hijack merchants and demand ransom for the crew and ship. The actual chance of a particular merchant being hijacked is less than one in nine hundred,20 and shipping companies seem more inclined to
pay the ransom than install armed guards aboard their ships. However, the publicity has galvanized nations and their navies to take action. A previous bout of piracy in the Straits of Malacca was cured by the joint action
of local navies. The Somalia/Gulf of Aden situation is more problematic since there is no effective governmental authority ashore. However, the emerging world response to it reveals some important facets of an emerging
global naval infrastructure that supports the global system of commerce and security.¶ In Mahan’s day, the movement of major naval forces was noted by many countries, sometimes with alarm, as it might presage
invasion, or at least a round of coercive diplomacy. In fact, when the PRC announced it was dispatching a small squadron to the Gulf of Aden, there was alarm in some quarters in the United States and other countries that
this was a sign of an expansionist China. The Chinese themselves announced that their ships would operate independently in the Gulf of Aden to protect their own merchants. However, after several weeks on station two
things happened: the alarm about their movement died off and the Chinese commander suggested a cooperative zone defence in order to make most efficient use of the international naval forces on station. Moreover, not
only the Chinese are there, but the Russians, NATO, EU (different task force), the Japanese, Koreans, Singaporeans and even the “rogue” nation of Iran. Everybody is cooperating—why, how and what does it mean?¶ To
start with, we must acknowledge the uniqueness of the Gulf of Aden situation. Somalia is a failed state that possesses neither resources nor location that would incite major power rivalry over influence ashore there.
There is a universal confluence of interests centred on the protection of shipping. The unusual absence of major power competition allows naval operations to follow their natural course and provide a unique opportunity
for us to see the security side of the global system in action. ¶ The Chinese, Russians, Iranians and other naval forces have become virtually invisible in the Gulf of Aden because they have fallen in on an existing
framework and infrastructure of sea power that girdles the globe. This infrastructure (perhaps more accurately the maritime security subsystem of the global economic system) consists of both physical and intangible
elements. On the physical side, there is the U.S. Navy’s world-wide logistics system. It operates 24/7/365 and is composed of a web of bases, husbanding (victuals) contracts and replenishment ships, augmented by the
supply ships of the Royal Navy, Japan and other allies. This system can support international naval operations anywhere in the world. In addition, there are GPS and communication satellites as well as the ubiquitous
internet. Among the intangibles are the UN Law of the Sea that provides a clear framework for who can do what in whose waters, any number of other international agreements governing a range of maritime issues, and a
world conditioned to see U.S. Navy and allied ships cruising the littorals of Eurasia. Perhaps another intangible element is CS21 itself, which casts the United States and its navy in a defensive posture (defence of the global
system). This makes it easier politically for other nations to deploy their ships on a cooperative mission and make use of the U.S. Navy’s logistics system. It also appears that the navies of the world are getting comfortable
with looser coordination arrangements. Before the internet, strict communications, protocols, and structured command and control schemes were necessary. With the internet, everyone can talk more extensively and in
new ways such that restrictive command arrangements are not so necessary. This in turn obviates the need for formal agreements prior to conducting cooperative operations. With the political and technical barriers to
entry low, nations become more willing to send their navies on cooperative ventures.¶ Previously we discussed the seas as geopolitical shock absorbers, both to limit other nations’ options for aggression and to provide

our own government time for reflection and preserving the option of doing nothing. In the cooperative naval operations off Somalia, we
see another aspect of the phenomenon emerging in a very positive way. It turns out
that ships from the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean navies have taken to
operating together in the Gulf of Aden . Strange bedfellows indeed, but as both the Japanese navy’s operations
chief and a Chinese maritime scholar have said to the author on different occasions, cooperating on easier missions can build trust and confidence that will provide a basis for achieving

resolution of more difficult maritime issues between the nations. This is indeed geopolitical shock

absorbing of the most congenial kind.¶ We have now arrived at a point where we can put all of the elements of modern naval endeavour together in a new
syllogism. Navies protect their nations’ economic prospects by operating cooperatively to

defend all elements of the global system of commerce and security. Their necessary functions range from averting
naval arms races to rendering disaster relief to, yes, protecting shipping. But it is not an every navy for itself process; the more

cooperation, the better. It may even turn out that sustained and habitual international naval cooperation will someday make the concept of command of the sea irrelevant. Until then,
the U.S. Navy must exert careful stewardship over its command of the sea, keep its global logistics
system robust and develop the capacity to catalyse a global maritime security partnership on a broad front by being in a lot of places at the same time. Other navies must also look at the world in systems terms if they are
to most effectively develop utility arguments and determine how to most effectively target their limited resources.¶ If one accepts the arguments that underpin the new syllogism of how navies support economic

prosperity, then reasons for optimism become clear. Naval building programmes in China, India and elsewhere do
not have to lead to war as has happened in the past in Europe; there is a reasonable
prospect that the seas can be denied to terrorists; the seas can be used to bring the Non-Integrating Gap
into the system; and the emerging pattern of naval cooperating can not only secure
the seas but reduce the likelihood of conflict and war.¶ None of this will happen if
nations let their navies decay. The unique thing about navies is that their optimum utility is in time of peace. When sea power is
hitting on all cylinders, it is invisible. An investment in sea power is most appropriate and effective at a
point when threats are not apparent. In Mahan’s day the syllogism of sea power focused on the sovereign interests of individual nations and its application led
eventually to war.¶ Today we see the world as a system, with a sea power logic that is expressed in systems terms. Its application, that is, investment in navies structured along systemic lines,

promises a massive return in the form of an extended and improving peace and —despite the
current global economic woes—prosperity.

US offensive naval posture causes Asian naval arms racing that

undermines ASEAN coop
Stefanie Kam 14, Associate Research Fellow @ the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, citing Geoffrey Till, Dean of Academic Studies at the United Kingdom Command
and Staff College from 1997-2006, is now Emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies at King’s
College London and Chairman of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies. Since
2009, he has also been a Visiting Professor at the Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, Singapore. “The Major Limits to Naval Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region,”
March 17, http://www.e-ir.info/2014/03/17/the-major-limits-to-naval-cooperation-in-
the-asia-pacific-region/
arms racing dynamics can be discerned in the bilateral ties between US and China.
Tense

China views US seapower as a menacing presence and has deployed A2/AD

capabilities to extend its influence and back its territorial claims in the East Asian Sea. This might potentially
impact the US-led regional stability, either by blocking US access to critical areas, or by strategically undermining and displacing US naval
status quo powers in the Asia-Pacific region[36]. The most significant development under China’s A2/AD program is the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM)[37], which
threatens US naval forces through cybertechnology. China’s ASBM is said to have entered the initial operational capability stage as early as in 2001, while as part of the strategic
requirement, the PLA Navy is advancing China’s naval forces through cyber warfare, precision long-range weapons, and distant sea projection capabilities. In response to China’s

the US has its Air Sea Battle challenge. US spokespeople categorically deny this is only or even mainly
asymmetrical anti-naval capabilities,

This has served to limit cooperation on both operational, as well as

aimed at China, of course.

strategic levels[38]. Operationally, China’s “exclusive” intended missions has heightened the need for secrecy and reduced transparency, elements which hinder
exchange and cooperation between Chinese and US navies. Strategically, China’s build-up has sparked the US to reinforce its

forward presence, responding as a crisis-stabilizing force, through its Air-Sea Battle challenge. This has enlarged the
strategic atmosphere with the introduction of more advanced competitive
capabilities, and at the same time has increased the security dilemma[39].¶ India’s recent
commissioning of an aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya, can be seen to be a reaction to Chinese development of its first aircraft, the Liaoning[40]. Many have raised questions as to
why India is investing in such expensive state of the art naval capabilities, when more immediate tensions across the India-Pakistani border appear to be taking up much of its defense
resources. There is a strong argument that India has strategic maritime ambitions in the Indian Ocean, and the expansion of its naval scope to include an aircraft carrier is a response

to counter China’s increasing aspirations in the Indian ocean. Hence, strong action-reaction dynamics between India and China can be discerned ¶ . Among ASEAN
members, aggregate defence spending has increased from US$15.88 billion in 2000 to US$28.14 billion in 2011[41].
This rise in defence spending confirms an action-reaction dynamics as it coincides with a
number of countries with rising economic clout, the increase in tensions over maritime disputes that

involve China, and uncertainties towards the US security strategy in the Pacific. China’s
unilateral claims in the South China Seas, as seen in its vast claims to the SLOCs, and a 2012 establishment of a garrison on the disputed territories, have served as

geo-strategic imperatives for Southeast Asian states to enhance their naval

capabilities. Action-reaction dynamics can be discerned between China and SEA . This is
backed by a strong collective political will among SEA nations to defend their sovereignty in the interest of national security. The failure of ASEAN

members to reach a breakthrough on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea issue indicates
that divergences exists on issues of security interests among ASEAN member
countries, and between China and ASEAN. Competing cooperative security strategies
in the region has reduced prospects for multilateral cooperation among ASEAN
nations and between the ASEAN states and China.

Sustained ASEAN cooperation is key to defeat terrorism in Southeast

Asia
Melissa Sim 15, Region faces challenges as US report notes rise in attacks globally: Experts
Say, June 29,
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/cooperation-is-key-for-asean-to-fight-terror-
say-experts
AT A time when global terrorism is on the rise, cooperation among South-east Asian
countries is key in combating terrorist activities in the region, said security and
terrorism experts in response to the latest United States report on terrorism.¶ The Country
Reports on Terrorism 2014, issued by the US State Department on June 19, indicates that the number of terrorist attacks increased by 35
per cent from 2013 to last year, and the number of fatalities increased 81 per cent in that time. ¶ Although Asia "continued to weaken the
ability of terrorist groups", thereport noted that some countries such as Malaysia and
Indonesia still face a number of challenges when dealing with the threat of
terrorism.¶ In particular, the report highlighted the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines as an area
where violent extremists tend to operate, train and meet. ¶ Security and terrorism experts say the area is
notorious for the movement of personnel, drugs and militants and more
coordination between countries is necessary for the problem to be addressed.¶ Senior
political scientist Peter Chalk, from think-tank Rand Corporation, noted that the Philippines and
Indonesia lack assets and personnel needed for maritime patrols, while Malaysia is the most
equipped of the three countries.¶ "By default, cooperation is the name of the game because none of
the three nations can sufficiently monitor the area themselves," he said.¶ Regionwide, Dr
Chalk pointed out, Asean has plans to introduce a Political-Security Community to coordinate regional security policies by the end of the
year.¶ Patrols in the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas "would fall naturally under this third pillar of the Asean community", he
said,adding that "fostering and encouraging more joint action to deal with
counterterrorism on a regional basis" is something Asean could look at as a whole.¶ If
the problem of terrorist operations in the region is not dealt with, said Mr Jacob Zenn, an
analyst in Eurasian affairs at think-tank Jamestown Foundation, "the long-term prospect is not
particularly optimistic as extremist groups operating there can choose to join groups
in the Middle East, or they can carry out attacks in the region ".¶ The US report also notes that
governments in Asia became "increasingly concerned about the growing threat" of the militant
group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the past year.¶ Indonesia, in particular, "continued to face
challenges trying to stem the flow of Indonesians travelling abroad to engage in terrorism", said the report. ¶ Last July, an ISIS
recruitment video specifically called for Indonesians to join their ranks. Indonesian officials have estimated that up to 300 Indonesians
may have become foreign fighters in the Middle East over the last three years. ¶ To a lesser extent, Malaysia also faces the problem of
foreign fighters - it has identified 39 Malaysians working with militant groups in Syria and Iraq. ¶ Out of 50 suspected ISIS supporters
arrested by Malaysian authorities, only 22 were prosecuted, prompting a suggestion in the report for Malaysia to "strengthen proactive
cooperation between police and prosecutors from the outset of an investigation". ¶ Dr Chalk added that Malaysia could strengthen its
judicial process as a whole, ensuring there is "transparency and oversight", so that anti-terror laws are not used for political purposes but
specifically as security tools.¶ Professor Rohan Gunaratna,
who heads Singapore's International Centre for
Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said that while Asian governments have
already made efforts to work with neighbours and internationally on terrorist threats, more
cooperation is necessary.¶ "Governments must build common databases, exchange personnel (and)
conduct joint training and operations to make the Asia-Pacific region hostile to ISIS
and unfriendly to ISIS supporters," he said.

Terrorists will target the Strait of Malacca—collapses global trade

Louis P. Bergeron 15, SECURITY POLICY CONSULTANT for Risk International,
ALTERNATIVES TO THE STRAIT OF MALACCA: FEW, FAR BETWEEN, BUT VITALLY
IMPORTANT, STRATEGIC INSIGHTS NO. 58, JUNE 2015,
Malacca - a nexus of global trade and geopolitics
Geography provides the Strait of Malacca a unique influence on global trade and history.
Control of the strait has been a long struggle due to its central node linking east and west. The early Indian Ocean and East Asian traders
who used the strait were soon displaced by a parade of powers seeking to regulate access: the Malacca Sultanate, the Portugue se, the
Dutch, the British, the Japanese, and finally to the independent states of today. The
intricacies of the global energy
trade in the 21st century, however, make the strait more important and more strategic
than ever before. The non-stop, two-directional flow of raw materials and
manufactured goods between Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa to the
East Asian economies in South East Asia, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
make the strait a nexus of global trade. Over 70,000 vessels transit the strait annually, navigating the
narrow (2.8km/1.5nm at narrowest point), long (800km/430nm), and relatively shallow (25m/85ft) corridor.
This creates a congested and restricted manoeuvring room for vessels transiting in the strait – and an
excellent area for pirates to operate and for potential terrorists seeking to disrupt global trade.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), by late 2013 , an average of 15.2 million barrels of
oil transited the Strait of Malacca per day providing over 80% of the oil to fuel the
energy-hungry economies of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Finally, not only
does Malacca link economies by shipping trade, it also links much of the global
economy’s information and communications backbone as most of Asia’s high speed internet and
communications cables are on the seabed of the Strait of Malacca.

Nuke war
Michael J. Panzner 8, faculty at the New York Institute of Finance, 25-year veteran of the
global stock, bond, and currency markets who has worked in New York and London for
HSBC, Soros Funds, ABN Amro, Dresdner Bank, and JPMorgan Chase, 2008, Financial
Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse, Revised and Updated Edition,
p. 136-138
Continuing calls forcurbs on the flow of finance and trade will inspire the United States and other nations to spew forth protectionist legislation like the
triggered a series of tit-for-tat economic responses, which many commentators believe
notorious Smoot-Hawley bill. Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it

helped turn a serious economic downturn into a prolonged and devastating global disaster, But if history is any guide, those lessons
will have been long forgotten during the next collapse. Eventually, fed by a mood of desperation and growing public anger, restrictions on trade, finance, investment, and immigration
will almost certainly intensify. ¶ Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-border movement of Americans and outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for
a general crackdown on nonessential travel. Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting or sending funds to other countries exceedingly difficult. As desperate officials try to
limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and reckless policies, they will introduce controls on foreign exchange, foreign individuals and companies seeking to acquire
certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property and other assets on the (heap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be stymied by limits on investment by
noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms to ripple across economies and markets, disrupting global payment, settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course,
continue to undermine business confidence and consumer spending. In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across markets
through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next by tourists and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates

The rise in isolationism and protectionism will

unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly.¶

bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas,
and other key commodities as well as factors of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving
raw materials used in strategic industries or basic necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where
demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace.

tensions will give rise to full-scale military encounters, often with minimal provocation.¶ In
Around the world, such

some instances, economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from
cultural and religious differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other
countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap technology and the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying
attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level.¶ Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok.

Iran may
Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more healed sense of urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while

embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of
allies from around the world into a growing number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a
political scientist at the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an "intense confrontation" between the United States and China is "inevitable" at some point.¶ More than a
few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Long-

Terrorists employing biological or

simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal acts.

nuclear weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will
interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings of a new world war .
 1AC – SCS Adv
Offensive naval strike presence motivates China’s SCS island-building –
they’ll establish an Air Defense Identification Zone [ADIZ] unless the U.S.
withdraws threatening assets
Harry Kazianis 15, Executive Editor of the National Interest, Senior Fellow for Defense
Policy at the Center for the National Interest, as well as a Senior Fellow (nonresident) at the
China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, “China's East China Sea ADIZ
Gamble: Past, Present, and South China Sea Future?,” June 19,
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-east-china-sea-adiz-gamble-past-present-
south-china-13150
Will Beijing
This essay, divided into several sections, offers a rationale for China’s ADIZ declaration, with an eye towards an even more important question:

declare such a zone in the area of the South China Sea? This author believes China’s recent island-reclamation
projects are an effort to create the core infrastructure for the declaration and
enforcement of such a zone within the next several years. Unless serious action is undertaken to
change Beijing’s calculus for creating such zones—utilizing confidence-building measures to change the core of its geostrategic
thinking, along with strategies that will challenge such island reclamations—a Chinese ADIZ in the South China Sea is a near

certainty.¶ There are various prospective motivations behind Beijing’s 2013 ADIZ declaration that are worthy of consideration—the rise of a great power acting in its own
self-interest, a deeply rooted sense of historical wrongdoing at the hands of stronger nations in the past, combined with an attempt to shield itself from future actions, as well as

this analysis will explore an equally if not more

nationalistic motives. While all of these explanations lie well within the realm of possibilities,

plausible rationale: China’s 2013 declaration and possible moves towards an ADIZ in the South China
Sea should be seen as part of a series of actions that are rooted in an effort to push U.S.
and allied forces away from Chinese “near seas” and areas of “core interest,” while at the same time attempting to

negate operational concepts like the much-debated but often-misunderstood Air-Sea Battle (ASB) concept and associated weapons
platforms that could challenge China’s growing antiaccess/area-denial capabilities (A2/AD).¶ This analysis will then conclude with
recommendations on how a joint U.S.-Japan-Vietnam trilateral approach could impact Beijing’s decision making on a South China Sea ADIZ, utilizing a two-tier approach of incentives

and deterring strategies to negate the foundations of any future ADIZ.¶ China’s ADIZ and Air-Sea Battle: A Reaction to a Reaction?[1]¶ On November 23,
2013, China declared an ADIZ, rattling nerves across Asia and around the world. While many nations, including the United States, have declared ADIZs in the past, Beijing’s
announcement warrants special consideration. The new zone covers a large expanse of the East China Sea—a critical waterway and airspace traversed by many of the Asia-Pacific’s
most powerful nations, but also many countries from around the globe. Competing territorial claims in this area by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan complicate this matter even

Why would Beijing declare such an ADIZ, knowing that

further.¶ Beijing’s East China Sea ADIZ: Why Take Such a Step?¶

it would inflame regional tensions? One possible explanation for the move was that it was a response to Japan’s “nationalization” of the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. While this is certainly a strong possibility, there are deeper motives likely at play beyond Beijing and Tokyo’s long-standing dispute. China’s actions were

As Peter Mattis explained in the

clearly part of a long-term effort to monitor and restrict foreign military activity in what it describes as its “near seas.”

Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief,the rollout of the new zone displayed no signs of crisis language,
but instead appeared to be the result of a careful policy process—to neutralize the
United States’ and possibly others’ efforts to ensure access to the East China Sea; these efforts are themselves a reaction to previous Chinese actions in
the recent past.[2]¶ Beijing’s 2013 ADIZ belongs not only to the context of China’s territorial disputes, but also to an escalating

disagreement with the United States over operations in the near seas. It provides a legal framework for China’s
complaints about U.S. intelligence-gathering flights near China’s borders, and for radar tracking and harassment of aircraft that fail to report flight plans to Chinese authorities.¶ Enter

the ASB Operational Concept: Pushing China towards an ADIZ? ¶ Considering Chinese concerns as noted above,
Beijing feels its ADIZ effort is necessary for resisting growing threats from the U.S.
military against the integrity of Chinese borders. Chinese fears over the U.S. ASB operational concept
only reinforce these concerns; Chinese analysis highlights ASB as proof of the threat
of possible U.S. military intervention in China’s interests. ¶ ASB, now renamed by the Pentagon the Joint Concept for
Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC), is itself a reaction to Chinese efforts to develop A2/AD capabilities, suggesting that Chinese and U.S. military planners are
 Here we can see a clear reaction
already engaged in a conceptual arms race to produce frameworks for controlling access to the near seas.

cycle and/or security dilemma that is highly disturbing: China, out of a need to protect its core interests and near seas,
develops a potent A2/AD capability. The United States then develops ASB to counter this capability. Beijing, seeing the development of

ASB, then begins deploying an ADIZ in the East China Sea in another attempt to push U.S. forces back and regulate its near seas and
airspace.¶ While China’s military capabilities are growing, they pale in comparison to those of the United States in terms of command and control (C2), communications, computers,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities, deployable forces across all possible domains of conflict, overall training, sheer technological edge, and
deployability around the globe. To negate such capabilities, Beijing has developed a strategic posture that places its forces in a position to wage an asymmetric struggle. PLA forces
would utilize A2/AD tactics and strategies in an attempt to exact vicious losses using ballistic and cruise missiles, ultra-quiet conventional submarines, advanced mines, possibly UAVs,
and other weapons that are sophisticated and increasingly home-grown to keep U.S. and allied forces away from China’s near seas. Beijing sees strategic suicide in allowing a larger
power the military advantage of building up forces in and around its near seas and striking in mass. Halting or deterring such a buildup through an A2/AD strategy—with various
Chinese scholars arguing for massive preemptive strikes if conflict seemed certain—seems like the best approach, should a conflict ever occur.¶ Why the United States Developed
ASB¶ In response to growing A2/AD challenges around the world—and with a clear focus on China’s and Iran’s growing A2/AD capabilities—the United States developed the
operational concept of Air-Sea Battle. Holding a similar title to the 1980s NATO concept of AirLand Battle, ASB in very broad terms seeks to create a higher level of “jointness” between
American air and sea power to overcome the challenges of A2/AD environments.¶ Battling Misconceptions¶ Since the ASB concept was first revealed in various formats in 2009/2010,
the concept has proven controversial—mainly thanks to a detailed analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a prominent Washington think tank that in
2010 laid out a scenario in which ASB would be used in a war with China to strike targets on the mainland, an analysis that was not endorsed by the Pentagon.[3]¶ However, the
concept has been embraced by the Department of Defense (DoD) and evolved dramatically since the 2010 CSBA ASB report. ASB was reworked, differing substantially in tone, as well
as in substance from the CSBA ASB concept. This new version of ASB, in order to avoid any lingering confusion, was treated to multiple official DoD briefings and explanations. Most
Pentagon officials this author has spoken with over the last several years have explained ASB as a necessary aspect of America’s reconceptualization of how its armed forces will need
to counter antiaccess challenges in a post–“war on terror” world and not as a strategy to fight a war against China, as many in the media have portrayed the concept.¶ At a 2013 House
Armed Services Committee Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing, Rear Admiral James G. Foggo defined the concept in an effort to put growing confusion to rest:¶
“(ASB) is designed to assure access to parts of the “global commons”—those areas of the air, sea, cyberspace and space that no one “owns,” but which we all depend on—such as the
sea lines of communication. Our adversaries’ anti-access/area denial strategies employ a range of military capabilities that impede the free use of these ungoverned spaces. These
military capabilities include new generations of cruise, ballistic, air-to-air, and surface-to-air missiles with improved range, accuracy, and lethality [which] are being produced and
proliferated…Accordingly the Air-Sea Battle Concept is intended to defeat such threats to access.”[4]¶ ASB Evolves: Enter JAM-GC¶ Over the last five or so years, the ASB concept has
been tested in various wargames and integrated into Pentagon planning for usage in contested operating environments—with both China and Iran being the primary challenges.
However, at the end of 2014, rumors began to surface that important changes to the operating concept were being made, with specific consideration given to making the concept truly
joint and integrating all U.S. military branches to ensure the concept would truly be “cross-domain” and not just a U.S. Navy and Air Force project. In an article for The National
Interest, experts from the Air-Sea Battle Office at the Pentagon laid out a vision for what Air-Sea Battle will become:¶ “An updated supporting joint concept will also describe an
evolutionary approach to joint and allied operations across service, component and multinational lines in A2/AD environments. Building on existing JOAC precepts, the refined
concept will incorporate the most useful ideas from the existing “ASB Concept” to include a force that is networked, fully integrated, and capable of cross-domain attack and defense in
depth by U.S., allied and coalition forces in the global commons...¶ …Based on recent assessments, current doctrinal command-and-control methodologies will likely be inadequate to
address A2/AD environments where beyond-line-of-sight communications and other connectivity between units can be disrupted or denied by an adversary. Therefore, evolutionary
modifications to command-and-control structures and protocols are necessary in order to effectively command and control Joint Forces in a heavily disrupted electromagnetic-
spectrum environment. Additionally, cross-domain expertise within component and lower-echelon operations centers must be leveraged to create cross-domain effects in support of
the commanders’ intent and schemes of maneuver.”[5]¶ What Does Beijing Think of Changes to ASB? ¶ While there has been little to no scholarly literature articulating a Chinese
position on JAM-GC in open-source texts, there is every reason to believe China would see this as nothing more than an evolutionary upgrade to the ASB concept—with the above text

Over the last eighteen months, we have seen Beijing make

indicating as such—and an even greater threat.[6]¶

various attempts to strengthen its A2/AD platforms and defensive systems in areas
that would negate ASB. For example, recent sleuthing of Chinese open-source material has
revealed preliminary efforts to develop sonar nets in the Yellow, East and South
China Seas, something that would target the very heart of ASB: U.S. Navy attack
submarines.[7] China also still has an active interest in Russian military technology, with recently confirmed purchases of the S-400 air-defense platform, as well as
continued interest in the Su-35 fighter, Russian airplane engines, and ultra-quiet submarines and technology—all items that would greatly enhance Beijing’s A2/AD capabilities.¶

Recommendations[8]¶ Clearly the United States, Japan, and Vietnam have a shared interest in deterring
China from not only declaring a new ADIZ in the South China Sea—an area through which over $5.3 trillion in seaborne
trade passes every year—but also enforcing such a zone . Here, there is a clear opportunity for a trilateral approach to shift Beijing’s calculus in

terms of creating such a zone. Such a strategy must make halting or at least dramatically slowing the

foundations of any Chinese South China Sea ADIZ project an absolute priority—growing
island-reclamation projects. The reason for this is obvious: If China were to deploy
aircraft, coast-guard vessels, warships, radar stations, and various other platforms on multiple
islands across the South China Sea, Beijing would have the tools necessary to declare and
enforce a new ADIZ. While there are many different approaches that are certainly possible, they must be balanced with
a clear effort to ensure tensions in the area of the South China Sea are not enflamed even more. The three
below—utilizing the classic “carrot and stick approach”—should merit strong consideration. Such recommendations could be attempted as part of a complete strategy or utilized
selectively with different levels of intensity on a case by case basis as needed:¶ 1. Work to Negate the Growing A2/AD vs. ASB Security Dilemma: At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in

Chinese admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), explained
Singapore,

that “[t]he Chinese government and military never said they were going to establish an ADIZ
in the South China Sea” and that the creation of such a zone would be based on
Beijing’s view of the security situation in the area—a line that has now been repeated almost word for word by multiple
Chinese officials recently.[9] The United States, along with the support of Japan and Vietnam, should test such declarations.¶ One possible method for doing this would be to look for
ways in which Washington and Beijing can halt the deployment of weapons platforms that only engrain what is quickly becoming a high-tech security dilemma by those who wish to
retain access to areas like the East and South China Sea (the United States and its partners) and those who wish to restrict access to such near seas (China). The United States, with the
support of Japan and Vietnam, should propose that Washington and Beijing limit the deployment of selected future types of next-generation weapons platforms that could greatly
enhance their competing A2/AD and ASB strike systems—an effort to break the reactionary cycle of events. For example, considering the lethal nature and game-changing capabilities

to
of hypersonic weapons, this could be one area where both sides could work to halt such deployments to the Asia-Pacific region. Such an agreement could go a long way

“freeze” the A2/AD and ASB security dilemma where it is when other types of next-generation weapons and defensive systems seem
ripe for deployment. This could (at least in theory) show China that a new ADIZ in the South China Sea would be

unneeded, as the United States and its partners are actively making good-faith
efforts to address its security concerns and working to break this growing security
dilemma.¶ 2. Time for “Shamefare”: While Washington and its partners must reach out to Beijing in an effort to ease its security concerns, they should expose to the world
any increased efforts to enhance its island-reclamation projects in the South China Sea—the foundation of any new ADIZ in the region.¶ CNN's recent reporting in the South China
Sea—providing clear video and pictures of Chinese island-reclamation projects—and reports and satellite images provided by CSIS' Asia Maritime Project are excellent examples of
what Washington, along with Japan and Vietnam, should be doing on a regular basis. They must set out to win the media narrative and define Beijing's motives for reclamation projects
in the South China Sea—projects that would be the life blood of a new ADIZ. While it seems unlikely that Washington and its partners and allies will be able to force Beijing to scale
back its present island-reclamation projects, they can ensure the world is aware of every move Beijing makes—making China think twice about reclaiming any new islands and hence
limiting the ease with which Beijing can declare a new ADIZ. Here are some examples of how what this author calls “shamefare” could work in practice:¶ A: When China takes any new
action to expand its capabilities in the South China Sea—like constructing a new runway that could be used to patrol the area or installing sophisticated military hardware like antiship
weapons systems—photos and video should be distributed to the media immediately.¶ B: If U.S., Japanese, or Vietnamese vessels exercising freedom of navigation come under Chinese

Shaming”
harassment in the South China Sea, the incident should be captured on video and placed on YouTube and other prominent social-media channels immediately.¶ “

China repeatedly for its actions will allow America and its partners to win the battle of
competing narratives and put Beijing on the defensive . China would be left having to
constantly explain its actions time and time again. America and its partners should use these tactics to their advantage.¶ 3.
Time for Increased “Lawfare”: The United States, along with Japan and Vietnam, should work with all other claimants in the South China Sea to settle
any disputes in the region that do not involve China. While clearly not an easy task, Beijing's growing mastery of the region through growing island-reclamation projects could spur
these parties to reach an accommodation. With this achieved, all parties that have claims against China could file their own legal complaints jointly in international courts.¶ While

“lawfare” will likely not evoke a formal challenge from Beijing beyond its standard claims of “indisputable sovereignty,” as is the case with the Philippines’ lawsuit, a much larger
filing by a united front of nations would certainly constitute a stronger action.[10] Washington by design would take no official stance, but it could certainly work “unofficially” to spur

. Even a
such actions while actively offering words of encouragement and intentionally pushing Beijing to settle such disputes with its neighbors in a multilateral setting

flood of separate lawsuits by each claimant, filed simultaneously for maximum

impact, could leave Beijing scrambling—stuck in a public-relations nightmare it
wouldn’t be able to easily dismiss. Such actions could deter China from reclaiming
any more islands or reefs and also, by default, from setting up a new ADIZ.

Carrier presence in Japan uniquely inflames Chinese security concerns

in the SCS – signals overt naval dominance and leads to Chinese
preemption pressures in a crisis
Toshi Yoshihara 14, John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies at the U.S. Naval War
College, “Japanese Bases and Chinese Missiles,” Ch2 of “Rebalancing U.S. Forces: Basing and
Forward Presence in the Asia-Pacific,” edited by Andrew S. Erickson and Carnes Lord,
Naval Institute Press, Ebook
Explaining China’s Interest in Regional Bases
Beijing’s inability to respond to
Taiwan remains the animating force behind China’s strategic calculus with respect to regional bases in Asia.

the display of U.S. naval power at the height of the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis proved
highly embarrassing. There is evidence that the PLA had difficulty monitoring the movement of the two carrier
battle groups, much less in offering its civilian leaders credible military options in response to
the carrier presence. This galling experience steeled Beijing’s resolve to preclude
U.S. naval deployments near Taiwan in a future crisis. Notably, the Yokosuka-based USS
Independence (CV 62) was the first carrier to arrive at the scene in March 1996, cementing Chinese
expectations that Washington would dispatch a carrier from Japan in a contingency
over Taiwan.

Beyond Taiwan, other territorial disputes along China’s nautical periphery could
involve U.S. naval intervention. A military crisis arising from conflicting Sino-Japanese claims over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands northeast of Taiwan
could compel an American reaction. While doubts linger in some Japanese policy circles whether foreign aggression against the islands would trigger Washington’s defense
commitments as stipulated by the U.S.-Japanese security treaty, joint allied exercises and war games since 2004 suggest that the U.S. military is closely watching events in the East

Chinese territorial claims over large swathes of the South China Sea could also be sources of
China Sea. Farther south,

regional tensions. If a local tussle there escalated into a larger conflagration that threatened international shipping, the U.S. Navy might be ordered to maintain
freedom of navigation. In both scenarios, the U.S. carrier based in Japan and other strike groups operating near Asian waters

would be called upon as first responders.

Concrete territorial disputes that have roiled Asian stability are not the only reasons that American naval power would sortie from regional bases to the detriment of Chinese interests.
More abstract and esoteric dynamics may be at work. For example, Chinese leaders fret about the so-called Malacca dilemma. China’s heavy dependence on seaborne energy supplies
that transit the Malacca Strait has set off Chinese speculation that the United States might seek to blockade that maritime chokepoint to coerce Beijing.19 This insecurity stems less
from judgments about the possibility or feasibility of such a naval blockade than from the belief that a great power like China should not entrust its energy security to the fickle
goodwill of the United States. As Ye Hailin, a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, bluntly asserts, “No matter how much China desires a harmonious world
and harmonious oceans, it cannot possibly rely on other countries’ naval forces to safeguard the safety of its SLOCs [sea lines of communication]. A big country that builds its
prosperity on foreign trade cannot put the safety of its ocean fleet in the hands of other countries. Doing so would be the equivalent of placing its throat under another’s dagger and
marking its blood vessels in red ink.”20

In Ye’s view, U.S. naval power is a double-edged sword. While the U.S. fleet has been
essential to Beijing’s free access to and use of the seas , underwriting the nation’s prosperity, it could just
as easily be employed to strangle China’s economy. If the U.S. Navy were ever called upon to fulfill an undertaking of such
magnitude, forward basing in Asia would undoubtedly play a pivotal role in sustaining what could deteriorate into a protracted blockade operation.

Chinese analysts have also expressed a broader dissatisfaction with the United States’ self-
appointed role as the guardian of the seas. Sea-power advocates have vigorously pushed for a more expansive view of China’s
prerogatives along the maritime periphery of the mainland.

They bristle at the U.S. Navy’s apparent presumption of the right to command any parcel of the ocean on
earth outside coastal states’ territorial waters, including areas that China considers its own nautical preserves. Some take
issue with the 2007 U.S. maritime strategy, a policy document that baldly states, “We will be able to impose local sea control wherever necessary, ideally in concert with friends and
allies, but by ourselves if we must.”21 Lu Rude, a former professor at Dalian Naval Academy, cites this passage as evidence of U.S. “hegemonic thinking.” He concludes,

“Clearly, what is behind ‘cooperation’ is America’s interests, having ‘partners or the

participation of allies’ likewise serves America’s global interests.” 22 Some Chinese, then,
object to the very purpose of U.S. sea power in Asia, which relies on a constellation of regional bases for its effects to be felt.
Beijing’s grudging acceptance
Long-standing regional flash points and domestic expectations of a more assertive China as it goes to sea suggest that

of U.S. forward presence could be eroding even more quickly than once thought. Against
this backdrop of increasing Chinese ambivalence toward American naval power, U.S. basing arrangements in Japan have come

into sharper focus.

Chinese Views of U.S. Naval Bases in Japan

Chinese analysts have carefully studied the extent to which U.S. global strategy rests on uninterrupted access to overseas bases. Indeed, they are well acquainted with the centrality of
foreign naval bases to seagoing forces, especially those forces that must operate far from the homeland for extended periods of time. In a comprehensive survey of strategic

deployment, Senior Colonel Ou Yangwei underscores the nexus between expeditionary naval power and shore support: “Maritime power, whether it is a surface
combatant or a submarine operating at sea and undersea respectively, must still depend on shore bases and island bases. As such, the various
bases of a navy constitute the basic form and system of maritime power deployment.” This interdependence extends to carrier operations.

Colonel Ou argues, “The duration of maritime mobile deployments is a function of the endurance and survivability of the carrier strike group and the replenishment fleet.

Endurance and survivability in turn are inseparable from fixed naval bases. Shore bases will always be
the foundation upon which maritime power rests.”23

Chinese strategists recognize that rear-area support from shore bases is

indispensable to sustained combat operations of a modern carrier strike group. Senior
 A flotilla
Captain Li Jie, an analyst at the Naval Military Studies Research Institute, catalogues the enormous logistical needs of a carrier and its accompanying fleet.24

consumes massive quantities of fuel, food, ammunition, and spare parts while
placing nearly continuous demands on maintenance and repair facilities. In an in-depth analysis of
carrier operations, Senior Colonel Liu Yonghui of the Navy Arms Command College estimates that during high-intensity combat operations, naval aviation units

require resupply of munitions every seven days while the carrier and other surface
combatants need to be rearmed every five days. The replenishment fleet must shuttle between the carrier strike group and a
network of bases that store these supplies to sustain continuous cruises at sea. Structural repairs and the replacement of military components, such as aircraft engines, require the
direct support of major bases.25 The Chinese clearly appreciate the dynamic and complex interaction between frontline formations and the shore-based infrastructure that supports
their operations. It is this keen awareness that has informed Chinese thinking about U.S. naval bases in Japan.

Some Chinese strategists appraise Washington’s military posture in the Asia-Pacific region in stark geopolitical terms. Applying the “defense perimeter of the Pacific” logic elaborated
by Secretary of State Dean Acheson in the early Cold War, they see their nation enclosed by concentric, layered “island chains.” The United States and its allies, they argue, can encircle
China or blockade the Chinese mainland from island strongholds, where powerful naval expeditionary forces are based. Analysts who take such a view conceive of the island chains in
various ways.

Yu Yang and Qi Xiaodong, for example, describe U.S. basing architecture in Asia as a “three line configuration .”26 The first line stretches in a sweeping arc from Japan and South Korea
to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, forming a “zone of forward bases .” This broad notion that the U.S. presence in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean constitutes a seamless,
interlocking set of bases is widely shared in Chinese strategic circles.27 The second line connects Guam and Australia. The last line of bases runs north from Hawaii through Midway to
the Aleutians, terminating at Alaska. While these island chains may bear little resemblance to actual U.S. thinking and planning, that the Chinese pay such attention to the geographic
structure of American power in Asia is quite notable. These observers discern a cluster of mutually supporting bases, ports, and access points along these island chains. Among the
networks of bases in the western Pacific, those located on the Japanese archipelago—the northern anchor of the first island chain—stand out, for the Chinese. Modern Navy, a monthly
journal published by the Political Department of the PLA Navy, produced a seven-part series on Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces in 2004 and 2005. Notably, it devoted an entire
article on Japan’s main naval bases, including Yokosuka, Sasebo, Kure, and Maizuru.28 The depth of the coverage of these bases is rather remarkable, especially when compared to the
sparse reporting on similar topics in the United States and in Japan.

Perhaps no other place captures the Chinese imagination as much as Yokosuka, which analysts portray as the centerpiece of U.S. basing in Asia.29 One analyst depicts a “Northeast
Asian base group ” radiating outward from Yokosuka to Sasebo, Pusan, and Chinhae.30 Writers provide a wide range of details about the Yokosuka naval base, including its precise
location, the surrounding geography, the number of piers (particularly those suitable for aircraft carriers), the types and number of maintenance facilities, and the storage capacity of
munitions, fuel, and other supply depots.31 Wu Jian, for instance, finds the geographic features of Yokosuka comparable to Dalian, a major base of the Chinese navy’s North Sea
Fleet.32

Beyond physical similarities, Yokosuka evokes unpleasant memories for the Chinese. One commentator recalls the U.S.
transfer of 203-mm heavy artillery from Yokosuka to Nationalist forces on Jinmen during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis.33 Tracking more recent events, another observer notes that
the Kitty Hawk Strike Group’s deployments from Yokosuka to waters near Taiwan invariably coincided with the presidential elections on the island, in 2000, 2004, and 2008.34 As Pei

“Yokosuka has all along irritated the nerves of the Chinese people.” 35 Moreover,
Huai opines,

Chinese analysts are keenly aware of Yokosuka’s strategic position. Du Chaoping asserts:
“Yokosuka is the U.S. Navy’s main strategic point of concentration and deployment in
the Far East and is the ideal American stronghold for employing maritime forces in
the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions. A carrier deployed there is akin to the
sharpest dagger sheathed in the Western Pacific by the U.S. Navy. It can control the
East Asian mainland to the west and it can enter the Indian Ocean to the southwest to secure Malacca, Hormuz, and other important thoroughfares.”36 Ma Haiyang concurs: “The

it can
Yokosuka base controls the three straits of Soya, Tsugaru, Tsushima and the sea and air transit routes in the Indian Ocean. As the key link in the ‘island chain,’

support ground operations on the Korean Peninsula and naval operations in the Western Pacific. It can support combat in the
Middle East and Persian Gulf regions while monitoring and controlling the wide sea areas of the Indian Ocean. Its strategic position is extremely important.”37 It is notable that both
Du and Ma conceive of Yokosuka as a central hub that tightly links the Pacific and Indian oceans into an integrated theater of operations.

Intriguingly, some Chinese commentators view Yokosuka as the front line of the U.S.-Japanese defense cooperation on missile defense. They worry that Aegis-equipped destroyers
armed with ballistic-missile-defense (BMD) systems based in Yokosuka could erode China’s nuclear deterrent. Indeed, analysts see concentrations of sea-based BMD capabilities
falling roughly along the three island chains described earlier. Ren Dexin describes Yokosuka as the first line of defense against ballistic missiles, while Pearl Harbor and San Diego
provide additional layers.38 Yokosuka is evocatively portrayed as the “forward battlefield position ,” the indispensable vanguard for the sea-based BMD architecture.39 For some
Chinese, these concentric rings or picket lines of sea power appear tailored specifically to bring down ballistic missiles fired across the Pacific from locations as diverse as the Korean
Peninsula, mainland China, India, or even Iran.40 Specifically, Aegis ships in Yokosuka, Pearl Harbor, and San Diego would be positioned to shoot down missiles in their boost,
midcourse, and terminal phases, respectively.41

Chinese observers pay special attention to Aegis deployments along the first island chain. Some believe that Aegis ships operating in the Yellow, East, and South China seas would be
able to monitor the launch of any long-range ballistic missile deployed in China’s interior and perhaps to intercept the vehicle in its boost phase. Dai Yanli warns, “Clearly, if Aegis
systems are successfully deployed around China’s periphery, then there is the possibility that China’s ballistic missiles would be destroyed over their launch points.”42 Ji Yanli, of the
Beijing Aerospace Long March Scientific and Technical Information Institute, concurs: “If such [sea-based BMD] systems begin deployment in areas such as Japan or Taiwan, the
effectiveness of China’s strategic power and theater ballistic-missile capabilities would weaken tremendously, severely threatening national security.”43 Somewhat problematically,
the authors seemingly assume that Beijing would risk its strategic forces by deploying them closer to shore, and they forecast a far more capable Aegis fleet than is technically possible
in the near term.

Analysts in China
The indispensability of the ship-repair and maintenance facilities at Yokosuka emerges as another common theme in the Chinese literature.

often note that Yokosuka is the only base west of Hawaii that possesses the
wherewithal to handle major carrier repairs. Some have concluded that Yokosuka is irreplaceable as
long as alternative sites for a large repair station remain unavailable. Li Daguang, a professor at China’s National Defense University and a frequent commentator on naval affairs, casts
 Guam as a potential candidate, observing that the island lacks the basic infrastructure and economies of
doubt on

scale to service carriers.44 China’s Jianchuan Zhishi (Naval and Merchant Ships) published a translated article from a Japanese military journal, Gunji
Kenkyu (Japan Military Review), to illustrate the physical limits of Guam as a permanent home port for carriers.45

Chinese analysts also closely examine Sasebo, the second-largest naval base in Japan. Various commentators call attention to its strategic position near key sea-lanes and its proximity
to China.46 As Yu Fan notes, “This base is a large-scale naval base closest to our country. Positioned at the intersection of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Sea of Japan, it
guards the southern mouth of the Korea Strait. This has very important implications for controlling the nexus of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Sea of Japan and for
blockading the Korea Strait.”47

It is clear, then, that Chinese strategists recognize the importance of U.S. naval bases in Japan for fulfilling a range of regional and extraregional responsibilities. Indeed, some believe
that the American strategic position in Asia hinges entirely on ready military access to bases on the Japanese islands. Tian Wu argues that without bases in Japan, U.S. forces would
have to fall back to Guam or Hawaii. Tian bluntly asserts: “If the U.S. military was ever forced to withdraw from Okinawa and Japan, then it would be compelled to retreat thousands of
kilometers to set up defenses on the second island chain. Not only would it lose tremendous strategic defensive depth, but it would also lose the advantageous conditions for
conducting littoral operations along the East Asian mainland while losing an important strategic relay station to support operations in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East through
the South China Sea.”48

This emerging discourse offers several clues about Beijing’s calculus regarding U.S. naval basing arrangements in Japan. Chinese strategists see these bases as collectively representing
both a threat to Chinese interests and a critical vulnerability for the United States. Bases in Japan are the most likely locations from which the United States would sortie sea power in
response to a contingency over Taiwan. At the same time, the Chinese are acutely aware of the apparent American dependence on a few bases to project power. Should access to and
use of these bases be denied for political or military reasons, they infer, Washington’s regional strategy could quickly unravel. While the commentaries documented here are by no
means authoritative in the official sense, they are clearly designed to underscore the strategic value and the precariousness of U.S. forward presence in Japan.

U.S. Bases in Japan and Chinese Missile Strategy

Authoritative PLA documents correlate with this emerging consensus that U.S. bases
on the Japanese home islands merit close attention in strategic and operational terms. Indeed, Chinese doctrinal writings clearly
indicate that the American presence in Japan would likely be the subject of attack if the United States were to intervene in a cross-strait conflict. The unprecedented

public availability of primary sources in China in recent years has opened a window onto
Chinese strategic thought, revealing a genuinely competitive intellectual environment that has substantially advanced Chinese debates on military affairs.
This growing literature has also improved the West’s understanding of the PLA.

In an effort to maximize this new openness in China, this chapter draws upon publications closely affiliated with
the PLA, including the prestigious Academy of Military Science and the National
Defense University, that address coercive campaigns against regional bases in Asia.49 Some are widely cited among Western military analysts as authoritative
works that reflect current PLA thinking. Some likely enjoy official sanction as doctrinal guidance or educational material for senior military commanders. The authors

of the studies are high-ranking PLA officers who are either leading thinkers in
strategic affairs and military operations or boast substantial operational and
command experience. These works, then, collectively provide a sound basis for
examining how regional bases in Asia might fit into Chinese war planning.
Among this literature, The Science of Military Strategy stands out in Western strategic circles as an authoritative PLA publication. The authors, Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi,
advocate an indirect approach to fighting and prevailing against a superior adversary in “future local wars under high-technology conditions.”50 To win, the PLA must seek to avoid or
bypass the powerful fielded forces of the enemy while attacking directly the vulnerable rear echelons and command structures that support frontline units. Using the human body as
an evocative metaphor for the adversary, Peng and Yao argue, “As compared with dismembering the enemy’s body step by step, destroying his brain and central nerve system is more
meaningful for speeding up the course of the war.”51 To them, the brain and the central nervous system of a war machine are those principal directing and coordinating elements
without which the fighting forces wither or collapse.

The aim, then, is to conduct offensive operations against the primary sources of the enemy’s military power, what the authors term the “operational system.” They declare, “After
launching the war, we should try our best to fight against the enemy as far away as possible, to lead the war to enemy’s operational base, even to his source of war, and to actively
strike all the effective strength forming the enemy’s war system.”52 In their view, operational systems that manage command and control and logistics (satellites, bases, etc.), are the
primary targets; they relegate tactical platforms that deliver firepower (warships, fighters, etc.) to a secondary status. To illustrate the effects of striking the source of the enemy’s
fighting power, Peng and Yao further argue: “To shake the stability of the enemy’s war system so as to paralyze his war capabilities has already become the core of the contest between
the two sides in the modern high-tech local war. So, more attention should be paid to striking crushing blows against the enemy’s structure of the operational system . . . especially
those vulnerable points which are not easy to be replaced or revived, so as to make the enemy’s operational system seriously unbalanced and lose initiative in uncontrollable
disorder.”53 The authors are remarkably candid about what constitutes the enemy’s operational system. Particularly relevant to this study is their assertion that the supply system
emerges as a primary target: “The future operational center of gravity should not be placed on the direct confrontation with the enemy’s assault systems. We should persist in taking
the information system and support system as the targets of first choice throughout. . . . In regard to the supply system, we should try our best to strike the enemy on the ground, cut
the material flow of his efficacy sources so as to achieve the effect of taking away the firewood from the caldron.”54

Destruction of the supply system in effect asphyxiates the adversary. In order to choke off the enemy’s capacity to wage war, Peng and Yao contend, a “large part of the supply systems
must be destroyed.”55 Their prescriptions for winning local high-tech wars suggest that the horizontal escalation of a conflict to U.S. regional bases in Asia is entirely thinkable. Even
more troubling, some Chinese appear to envision the application of substantial firepower to pummel the U.S. forward presence. While The Science of Military Strategy should not be
treated as official strategic guidance to the PLA, its conceptions of future conflict with a technologically superior adversary provide a useful framework for thinking about what a
Chinese missile campaign against regional bases might entail.

There is substantial evidence in Chinese doctrinal writings that PLA defense

planners anticipate the possibility of a sizable geographic expansion of the target set,
to include U.S. forward presence in East Asia. Although the documents do not explicitly refer to naval bases in Japan, they depict
scenarios strongly suggesting that Yokosuka could be a major target. In the hypothetical contingencies

posited in these writings, U.S. intervention is a critical premise, if not a given. In an important
PLA study on joint campaigns involving “firepower strikes,” the authors foresee external intervention by a “powerful enemy”—code for the United States—that would impact Chinese

They contend: “In future joint firepower strike campaigns, the military
military operations.

intervention by the powerful enemy power is inevitable. The powerful enemy’s main military intervention actions
include: assisting the enemy’s contest against us for information dominance, air superiority, and sea control; attacking our important coastal and strategic in-depth targets; assaulting
our firepower forces, etc. The powerful enemy’s military intervention greatly influences our joint firepower strike campaigns, severely complicates and adds to the difficulty of joint
firepower strike campaigns, and increases the difficulty of joint firepower strike campaigns.”56

In particular, Chinese planners expect Washington to order the deployment of

carrier strike groups near China’s coast, a prospect that deeply vexes Beijing. It is in this
context of a highly stressful (though by no means inconceivable) scenario that U.S. military bases come into play in Chinese operational thinking.

For PLA planners, the primary aims are to deter, disrupt, or disable the employment of carriers at
the point of origin—namely, the bases from which carriers would sortie. Given the limited capability, range, and survivability of China’s air and sea power,
most studies foresee the extensive use of long-range conventional ballistic missiles to
achieve key operational objectives against U.S. forward presence. In Intimidation Warfare, Zhao Xijun proposes several novel missile tactics that could be employed to deter the use of
naval bases in times of crisis or war.57 Zhao proposes demonstration shots into sea areas near the enemy state to compel the opponent to back down. Zhao explains, “Close-in (near
border) intimidation strikes involve firing ballistic missiles near enemy vessels or enemy states (or in areas and sea areas of enemy-occupied islands). It is a method designed to
induce the enemy to feel that it would suffer an unbearable setback if it stubbornly pursues an objective, and thus abandons certain actions.”58

One tactic that Zhao calls a “pincer, close-in intimidation strike” is particularly relevant to missile options against U.S. military bases. Zhao elaborates: “Pincer close-in intimidation
strikes entail the firing of ballistic missiles into the sea areas (or land areas) near at least two important targets on enemy-occupied islands (or in enemy states). This enveloping
attack, striking the enemy’s head and tail such that the enemy’s attention is pulled in both directions, would generate tremendous psychological shock.”59 Zhao also proposes an
“island over-flight attack” as a variation of the pincer strike. He states: “For high-intensity intimidation against an entrenched enemy on an island, an island over-flight attack employs
conventional ballistic missiles with longer range and superior penetration capabilities to pass over the enemy’s important cities and other strategic targets to induce the enemy to
sense psychologically that a calamity will descend from the sky. This method could produce unexpected effects.”60

While these missile tactics are primarily aimed at coercing Taiwan, they could in theory be applied to any major island or archipelago. Reminiscent of the 1996 cross-strait crisis, the
PLA could splash single or multiple ballistic missiles into waters near Yokosuka (shot across Honshu Island, over major metropolitan cities) in the hopes that an intimidated leadership
in Tokyo would stay out of a contingency over Taiwan, deny American access to military facilities, or restrict U.S. use of naval bases in Japan.

Should deterrence through intimidation fail, the Chinese may seek to complicate U.S. naval operations originating from bases located in the Japanese home islands. The authors of The
Science of Joint Campaign Command believe that countries aligned with the United States could join actively in an anti-China coalition, significantly widening the scope of a Sino-U.S.
confrontation. They state, “Allies of the powerful enemy along China’s periphery could provide military bases; some countries that have territorial and maritime rights disputes with
us could take advantage of the opportunity to make unreasonable demands or perhaps provoke an incident, trapping us in a disadvantageous position of confronting two lines of
operations.”61 Japan certainly fits the description of a regional power that not only could furnish bases to U.S. military forces but could also escalate tension with China over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea.

The Science of Second Artillery Campaigns, the most authoritative work on the PLA’s strategic rocket forces, furnishes astonishingly vivid details on the conditions under which China
might seek to conduct conventional missile operations against outside intervention.62 Notably, the document explores “firepower harassment” as a potentially effective tactic to resist
external interference. Given its explicit references to the U.S. use of military bases on foreign soil, a passage on harassment strikes is worth quoting in its entirety:

When the powerful enemy uses allied military bases in our periphery and aircraft carriers as aircraft launch platforms to implement various forms of military intervention; and when
the powerful enemy’s allied military bases around our periphery are beyond our air arm’s firing range, and when the carrier battle groups are far away from our shores, thus making it
difficult to carry out the overall operational advantages associated with firepower coordination among the armed services and service arms, conventional missiles can be used to
implement harassment strikes against the military bases of the enemy’s allies around our periphery as well as the carrier battle groups.63

In other words, PLA planners intend to assign long-range strike missions to the ballistic-missile force if warships, bombers, and submarines prove unable to reach enemy bases. Since
U.S. bases in South Korea are well within reach of China’s short-range ballistic missiles, shore-based aircraft, surface combatants, and undersea fleet, the “allied military bases” to
which the study refers can only be those located in Japan. For the authors, harassment strikes might involve periodic missile launches into “no go” zones erected near the naval bases
in order to “block the points of entry and exit to important enemy ports,” or they might entail direct attacks against “key targets within the enemy ports, such as fueling and fuel
loading facilities, and logistical supply facilities.”64 Such operations would be intended to disrupt seriously the resupply and movement of U.S. naval forces.

Beyond selective attacks, some Chinese analysts advocate highly destructive operations against U.S. military bases. In a study on the PLA’s blockade operations against Taiwan,
Chinese defense planners entertain the possibility of significant vertical and horizontal escalation to defeat U.S. intervention. The authors call for “opportune counterattacks” to defeat

In such a scenario, the PLA

a carrier strike group engaged in combat operations against Chinese targets at sea, in the air, or on the mainland coast.

would do everything it could successively to weaken, isolate, and ultimately sink the
carrier. In addition to lethal strikes against aircraft carriers, the authors envision concerted efforts to inflict
massive damage on the military bases supporting carrier operations. According to Zhu Aihua and Sun
Longhai, “To punish the external enemy and to accommodate world opinion, it is not enough to sink the external enemy’s aircraft carrier. . . . It is necessary to destroy the springboard
of combat operations, to pulverize the operational bases, to cut off the enemy’s retreat . . . in order to render obsolete hegemonism and power politics.”65

It is clear, then, that Chinese strategists have systematically examined the strategies, doctrines, and operational concepts for dissuading, disrupting, and denying the use of U.S. military
bases along China’s periphery. These studies suggest that the PLA is prepared to calibrate the scale and magnitude of its military exertions against American forward bases across a
spectrum that includes deterrence, compellence, and high-intensity conflict. It is equally evident that an extension of missile operations to the Japanese homeland is well within the

bounds of Chinese planning. Should circumstances warrant, the PLA may not hesitate to escalate a
crisis or conflict radically with missile salvos directed at Japan in order to demonstrate political resolve,
preclude Japanese involvement, or unhinge U.S. intervention.

China pursues island building and ADIZ establishment in response to

threatening US presence – plan causes Xi to back down
Feng Zhang 15, fellow in Australian National University’s Department of International
Relations and a visiting scholar at the Guangdong Research Institute for International
Strategies, “Provoking Beijing in the South China Sea Will Only Backfire on Washington,”
MAY 21, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/21/united-states-provoke-beijing-
south-china-sea-air-defense-identification-zone/
By confronting China’s over its land reclamation projects, the Pentagon is making
clear that the United States does not recognize Chinese claims, and that it opposes Beijing’s
alleged militarization of the South China Sea. Many American strategic thinkers seem to believe
that so long as the United States applies enough military pressure, China will back down.
But China today is no longer susceptible to U.S. coercion or bullying. Under President Xi
Jinping, the more confrontational stance Washington takes, the more assertive Beijing

will become in response. That’s the new reality of Chinese foreign policy. ¶ And the
Pentagon’s plan, if it were to become policy, would have the opposite effect of its intention — as
happens often with ill-conceived strategic thinking. It would give China justification to regularly send naval

units to the surrounding waters; to speed up the construction and installation of military
facilities on the artificial islands; and to establish an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over its
territory in the South China Sea. While the Pentagon intends to prevent China from militarizing

the South China Sea, its plan would instead harden China’s determination to develop
its military presence in the region.¶ Before the Pentagon’s plan went public, China had
no intention of declaring an ADIZ over the South China Sea anytime soon, said Zhou Fangyin, a professor at the Guangdong
Research Institute for International Strategies. (An ADIZ extends a country’s airspace, allowing it more time to respond to foreign and possibly hostile
aircraft.) The East China Sea — over which China declared an ADIZ in November 2013 — is already the site of a great power competition among China,
Japan, and the United States.In April 2014, the United States committed itself to defending Japan ’s claim to the
embroiling itself in a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.
Diaoyu Islands, thus officially

But in the South China Sea, where Beijing faces several small powers, the United States is
officially neutral. China is trying to manage competing claims and prevent diplomatic disputes with countries like Vietnam and the Philippines
from degenerating into military conflicts.¶ In that sense, the involvement of the United States (and increasingly Japan) in the

South China Sea is doing the region a disservice: it is changing the South China Sea into a region

of great power competition between China and the United States and its allies. If Washington
determines to get militarily involved in the South China Sea, Chinese planners are likely to
adopt a similarly assertive logic and establish an ADIZ over territories in the region that it claims.¶ Of
course, Chinese policymakers understand that there are many negative
consequences that would come from establishing an ADIZ in the South China Sea. The scale and
speed of China’s land reclamation projects have created widespread anxiety
internationally, and many in the West already see China as a regional “bully.” Beijing does not want this
perception to persist or grow; it cares about the reputational costs of land
reclamation. As a result, Beijing has been reluctant to declare an ADIZ in the South China Sea,
which the international community will surely perceive as another provocation.¶ But the Pentagon’s current plan and posture
leaves Beijing few options. It will compel China to leave reputational considerations
aside and adopt straightforward strategic assertiveness. Beyond the ADIZ designation, which
China will almost certainly announce soon, Beijing will formally station naval units on it reclaimed artificial islands —

which will soon be fit for military purposes, particularly Fiery Cross Reef. This probably would have happened anyway; but U.S. military

involvement has considerably quickened the process — triggering a dangerous

strategic competition that could have been avoided.¶ It’s worth asking the big question: What American interests
are served by dispatching military assets to Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea? U.S. ships will sail around the 12-nautical mile line; U.S.
aircraft will fly over the islands. China will condemn such behavior without doing anything dramatic. No one seriously expects China to attack U.S. ships or
Beijing will be forced to consolidate its military presence
shoot down American aircraft; nor vice versa. But

over the South China Sea to please a nationalist domestic audience.¶ Is that really what America wants?

Scenario 1 is Accidents
SCS disputes will escalate unless the U.S. backs down – island building
has brought conflict to a tipping point – risks full-scale US/Sino war
Ryan Pickrell 10/26/15, MA in IR and Ph.D. Candidate in IR and Diplomacy @ Central
China Normal University, his research focuses primarily on Sino-American relations, “The
Tipping Point: Has the U.S.-China Relationship Passed the Point of No Return?” The
National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-tipping-point-has-the-us-china-
relationship-passed-the-14168?page=3
Conflict between a rising power and an established power is not inevitable as most realist
scholars suggest. However, in every relationship, there is a tipping point or a point of no

return, and China and the United States are rapidly approaching this point. As
traditional diplomatic outlets have done little to resolve the more challenging issues
presently affecting the Sino-American relationship, these two great powers have
been increasingly relying on their military capabilities and hard power tactics.
That’s especially true in the South China Sea, which is one of the single greatest
points of contention between China and the United States. While there is a realization on both sides of the Pacific
that a kind of strategic stability is necessary to prevent great power conflict, both China and the United States remain

unwilling to compromise and make the kind of meaningful concessions required to

move the relationship further from confrontation and conflict and closer to
cooperation and rapprochement. Instead, these two countries are drawing lines in the
sand and preparing for the worst.
Failed pursuit of strategic stability

China’s proposed solution to the Sino-American strategic stability issue is the “new model of major-country relations,” which encourages the United States and China to avoid
confrontation and conflict, respect one another’s political systems and national interests—specifically China’s core interests—and pursue win-win cooperation. China is exceptionally
enthusiastic about this proposal and brings it up at every high-level Sino-American meeting. Chinese enthusiasm for the “new model of major-country relations” can be explained in a
number of different ways. American acceptance of China’s proposal would facilitate Beijing’s rise, legitimize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a leader for national strength and
revival and reduce the likelihood of American containment. As acceptance of the “new model of major-country relations” would create an international environment conducive to
China’s rise, it would essentially allow China to become the preeminent power in Asia without great power competition or conflict. This proposal also has the potential to put China on
par with the United States, to elevate it to an equal status, one acknowledged by the United States. Not only would American recognition of China’s strength and power have effects
abroad, but it would also stoke Chinese nationalism and strengthen CCP leadership at home. Furthermore, this new model is a means of establishing a new code of conduct for the
Sino-American relationship that is more in line with Chinese national interests, opening the door for the creation of a Chinese sphere of influence in Asia and, potentially, a Sino-centric
regional order.

Prior to the recent meeting between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama, Xi announced that China’s proposed “new model of major-country-relations” would be an important discussion
point for the meeting, but, while this proposal was brought up during the meeting, no clear progress was made. Because U.S. leaders believe that the “new model of major-country
relations” is not in America’s best interests, the United States has repeatedly dismissed China’s proposal. As the hegemonic power, the United States maintains its power by dominating
global politics; to accept a geopolitical framework alternative proposed by a strategic rival requires sacrificing a certain amount of power and influence. Along those same lines,
acceptance of China’s proposal might give other states in the international system the impression that the United States is in decline and on the losing end of the classic “Thucydides
trap.” Outside of traditional power politics, the call for the United States to respect China’s “core interests”— as many Chinese and foreign scholars have noted—is a loaded statement.
While the United States is not opposed to respecting a state’s national interests, it tends to be unwilling to respect national interests which are highly contested, which is the situation
for the majority of China’s “core interests.” In addition to traditional Chinese national interests, such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, China’s “core interests” also cover most of its
territorial claims in Asia. The United States is concerned that China’s “new model of major-country relations” is a ploy designed to trick the United States into acknowledging China’s
extensive territorial claims and undercutting the interests of American allies and long-time strategic partners in the Asia-Pacific region, which would likely result in the weakening of
the American-led “hub-and-spoke” security structure, a security framework China hopes to replace with its New Asian Security Concept. There are also suspicions in the United States
that China’s proposal is a call for the creation of spheres of influence, a concept to which the Obama administration has been consistently opposed.

America’s approach to Sino-American strategic stability is to have China and the United States focus on cooperation and agree to avoid letting competition in one area affect
cooperation and collaboration in others. In many ways, this resembles China’s old “shelving disputes and pursuing joint development” strategy for Asia. As this kind of strategy is the
geopolitical equivalent of sweeping dirt under the rug, it is only effective to a point. Eventually, the dirt spills out. Sooner or later, unaddressed problems surface. At best, this approach
is only a temporary stop on the road to functional strategic stability. At worst, this approach has already outlived its usefulness. China views this strategy as an attempt by the United
States to avoid addressing China’s demands that the United States acknowledge China’s rise to great power status and redefine the relationship accordingly, which only encourages the
already strong Chinese desire to push forward the “new model of major-country relations.” China and the United States are at an impasse regarding strategic stability. While both
states have made commitments and promises to prevent great power conflict, neither China nor the United States has developed a reasonable or implementable solution for Sino-
American strategic stability. Thus, competition continues unmanaged, unchecked and confrontation is steadily evolving into conflict.

Drawing Lines in the “Sea”

The problems pushing the Sino-American relationship towards conflict are

numerous and diverse, but if you are looking for the issue most likely to cause
conflict, you need look no further than the South China Sea. China perceives the
territorial disputes in this area as issues in which aggressive foreign state actors led
by the United States are threatening China’s territorial sovereignty. For China,
because of its history, territorial sovereignty issues implicate regime survival in a
way that transcends all other quarrels and disagreements. The United States, on the other
hand, views China’s territorial claims and actions to bolster those claims as Chinese

expansionism, aggression against American allies and strategic partners, and a

threat to the guiding principles of the liberal world order—which the United States
views as crucial for the preservation of America’s global hegemonic power.
The situation in the South China Sea has been steadily escalating for several years
now. In April, 2014, American defense secretary Chuck Hagel met with Chinese defense minister Chang Wanquan. During the meeting, Hagel said, “All parties should refrain from
provocative actions and the use of intimidation, coercion, or aggression to advance their claims. Such disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law.”
Chang replied, “I’d like to reiterate that the territorial sovereignty issue is a Chinese core interest. On this issue, we will make no compromises, no concessions. Not even a tiny bit of

The inability to discuss openly or compromise on this issue has made it

violation will be allowed.”

impossible to resolve and has led to escalation and increased tension.

China began investing heavily in island construction and land
In the aftermath of this meeting,

reclamation activities in disputed waters. As these activities have stirred up a lot of dust in the region, the United States has demanded
that China abandon its present course of action, insisting that it is provocative and negatively impacting regional peace and stability. Not only has China dismissed America’s

demands, it has also increased its military presence in contested areas in order to establish

anti-access zones. While China claims that its actions are within the scope of international law, the United States asserts that Chinese actions are in violation of the
law of the sea and laws for the regulation of the international commons. China argues that the South China Sea issue is a territorial sovereignty issue, yet the United States regards this
issue as a freedom of navigation dispute, as well as a fight for the preservation of the international legal system—a cornerstone for the American-led liberal world order.

In August of this year, the United States launched its new Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy, which aims “to safeguard the freedom of the seas, deter conflict and escalation, and

The Asia-Pacific region is now at the heart of the American

promote adherence to international law and standards.”

naval security agenda. In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said that China “opposes any country’s attempt to challenge China’s
territorial sovereignty and security under the pretext of safeguarding navigation freedom.” Responding to Chinese criticisms of America’s new regional maritime security strategy,
American Defense Secretary Ashton Carter stated, “Make no mistake, we will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law permits…We will do that at times and places of our
choosing.” In 2014, the United States carried out “freedom of navigation” exercises in various parts of the world and challenged the territorial claims of 18 different countries;

the United States is

however, the United States has yet to officially challenge China’s claims in the South China Sea. But, that may soon change, as

currently considering sending American naval vessels within 12 nautical miles of

China’s artificial islands in order to force China to end its land reclamation activities.
Such plans are considered aggressive, dangerous and extremely provocative by the
Chinese. A recent Global Times editorial read, “China mustn’t tolerate rampant US violations of China’s adjacent waters and the skies over these expanding islands. The
Chinese military should be ready to launch countermeasures according to Washington’s level of provocation.” The article further stated, “If the US encroaches on China’s core interests,
the Chinese military will stand up and use force to stop it.” The article stated plainly, “If the US adopts an aggressive approach, it will breach China’s bottom line, and China will not sit
 if the bottom line for the United
idly by.” Other reports from this newspaper, a state-sponsored Chinese media outlet, have made it clear that

States is that China must end all of its land reclamation activities in the South China
Sea, then war is inevitable, which suggests that this issue may be the tipping point for the Sino-
American relationship. How the United States and China choose to move forward on this issue will permanently redefine the relationship between these two
great powers.

this issue is still decidedly zero-sum—which

Granted, this may just be saber rattling, but even if that is the case,

increases the likelihood of conflict. For China, political preservation and a potential
Chinese sphere of influence are on the line, and for the United States, the liberal
world order and American hegemony are at stake. Sooner or later, this trying issue will need to be resolved, and regardless of whether it is resolved through diplomacy
or military force, it will take a toll on the geopolitical influence of either one or both countries. Were the international institutions for collective security strong enough to handle
situations like this when they arise—and if China and the United States were willing to establish a new relationship model which addresses each country’s respective security

it might actually be possible to resolve this issue peacefully.

concerns and encourages effective collaboration—

But given current circumstances, this is little more than idealism and wishful
thinking. As there is currently no clear solution to this problem that would allow both countries to walk out of this situation with their heads held high, these two states are
pondering the unthinkable. Depending on each country’s level of commitment and resolve, this situation may have already passed the tipping point. The outcome of the geopolitical

the South China Sea. Some have suggested that the South China Sea issue
power struggle between China and the United States will almost certainly be decided in

is the most pressing Sino-American issue. One side will either

is not a Sino-American issue. On the contrary, it

choose to back down or be forced to back down. No matter how everything plays out in the South China Sea, geopolitics in the
Asia-Pacific region will never be the same again.

Goes nuclear – expert consensus says deterrence in the SCS is highly

destabilizing
Lyle J. Goldstein 10/28/15, Associate Professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute
(CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College, “The Main Problem with America’s Abundant South
China Sea Hawks,” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-main-problem-
america%E2%80%99s-abundant-south-china-sea-hawks-14186
As Washington and Beijing contemplate a new series of countermoves in the South China Sea,
a debate over U.S. policy objectives and strategy is quite timely. For that reason, I particularly welcome Alexander Vuving’s
recent critique [4] of my original article that lays out “Five Myths” about the South China Sea. Vuving’s essay is refreshing ly candid and he
illuminates several interesting arguments. I particularly applaud his focus on power and national interest, the touchstones of realist
thought in foreign policy. Therefore, we may call this a friendly debate among realists—the most worthy kind of debate.¶ Vuving’s
general perspective is most clearly revealed in the final sentence of his essay when he suggests that “the greatest myth of all
is that the U.S. cannot and should not contain China.” That is a kind of cryptic way of saying that “the U.S. should contain
China.” I emphatically disagree with that conclusion for all the most obvious reasons (e.g.
the risk of armed conflict between nuclear powers, trillions of dollars wasted on
militarized rivalry, the imperative to cooperate on climate change and nuclear nonproliferation, etc.), as do the vast
majority of America’s China specialists, Asia specialists, as well as academic and
policy experts in the wider field of international relations.¶ Never mind that Vuving is apparently so far outside the
mainstream; he still makes a number of valuable points in the essay that I would actually agree with, and these points are worth underlining at the outset as
our common ground or shared assessments. We are apparently agreed that “Washington’s support of Southeast Asian claimants will create incentives for
them to be more assertive and aggressive.” One of the most interesting discussions in Vuving’s essay is his very frank suggestion that “the term ‘freedom of
navigation’ is a bad choice of words. Its meaning varies according to the legal position of the national perspective you take.” I agree with Vuving’s point here,
but this statement may separate him from most American “hawks,” who have made “freedom of navigation” their primary rallying cry. It does have a ring to
it, admittedly.¶ But then, we are both realists, and do not wish to fight bloody wars over such ethereal and nebulous concepts as defending “the global
commons.” As to whether Beijing will close the gates to South China Sea maritime trade or otherwise attempt to restrict navigation, we are again agreed that
“China has enormous vested interest in keeping the flow of commerce through the South China Sea unimpeded.” It is also noteworthy that Vuving agrees
the outcome of a U.S.-China war is highly uncertain.” He goes on to explain his view that the
with me that “

“chance of a U.S. defeat is comparable to that of a Chinese defeat.” Given the daunting
constraints (e.g. surprise, geography, etc.) that U.S. forces could face in such a conflict, I concur with that
conclusion. It seems thus quite clear that Vuving does not subscribe to the “clean their clocks” school among America’s South China Sea hawks. That is
encouraging, and on the basis of his realistic understanding of the military balance, he does conclude near the end of his essay that “war is something that
needs to be avoided.” Once again, I strongly agree with Vuving on this point. ¶ So what is the main issue of disagreement, after all? It concerns what Vuving
and others have termed “gray-zone” operations. Vuving suggests that my analysis is flawed because I am using the “wrong lens” of war/peace binary
decisions when, according to his assessment, “disputes and contestation [are primarily] occurring in a gray zone between war and peace.” Thus, the claim is
advanced that Washington would have had a variety of options for contesting against Beijing in the so-called “Scarborough Shoal Crisis” during spring
2012—if only Americans understood that the game is weiqi rather than chess. Vuving is highly critical of the Obama Administration for being allegedly
misled by Beijing’s tricks in the so-called grey zone. Vuving actually undermines his own critique when he concedes that Manila most likely did call on
Washington for “military backup” in those circumstances.¶ The critique is further undermined by the lack of specifics regarding what exactly were
Washington’s options during that crisis—apart from calling in airstrikes. Should Washington have organized some fishing boats to contest against the
Chinese fishing boats at the atoll? Perhaps Vuving and others are calling for U.S. Coast Guard cutters to go “head-to-head” with water cannons and the like
against their Chinese counterparts? These are, of course, rhetorical questions, because no such feasible options exist for mounting counter–gray zone
operations of this kind. Nor is it feasible to retaliate by having our diplomats and prompting sympathetic journalists to use the moniker “West Philippine
Sea,” vice “South China Sea” as a smart power method to turn the tables against China. The point is that the only way to stop China’s advance in the South
China Sea in its tracks is to threaten the use of force, and, barring that threat, we are mostly reliant on Chinese good will.¶ It is quite instructive, actually,
when considering “gray-zone operations,” to think about the other classic case. Indeed, the term only really became popular [5] in strategic studies circles
after Russia’s seizure of Crimea by “little green men” in March 2014. The implication of Vuving’s argument in this critique seems to be that if the U.S. and
NATO had simply understood that this was a gray-zone operation rather than being fooled by Mr. Putin, that there could have been a proper gray-zone
response. Washington could respond against “little green men” with “little beige men” (U.S. combat troops in desert camo, but lacking U.S. insignia, of
course). The scenario is laughable, and no such options were ever under any consideration, to my estimate. The point is that the Russian “gray-zone
operation” in Crimea was successful because Moscow’s gambit also represented a clear and credible threat to resort to the use force. ¶ True, Beijing’s
shenanigans in and around Scarborough Shoal are a little less clear and credible in that respect, but the unmistakable message has been that these ships,
albeit unarmed for the most part, will be defended by Chinese armed might if necessary. Arguably, the Chinese gray-zone initiatives are more clever as they
are less easily condemned since they do not represent an overt use of force, but rather a veiled threat to employ force. Thus, the first and most obvious
counter to Vuving’s critique is that U.S. non-military options for use in such maritime gray-zone operations do not presently exist and are not likely to be
created in the next decade—no matter how many former U.S. and Japanese coast guard vessels are gifted to the Philippines. ¶ Still, the far more potent
argument beyond the relatively obvious questions regarding feasibility against countering Chinese shenanigans with American shenanigans is that
neither side knows where the other’s red lines actually lie. Thus, Vuving’s prescription to “up the
ante” with either containment measures or robust support for front-line states is all but certain to
increase tensions, such that “sleepwalking” into a U.S.-China direct armed clash becomes a near
certainty. What is ultimately so shallow, therefore, about Vuving’s line of critique and the argumentation of most hawks is they
do not admit that their prescriptions necessarily entail risks associated with the slippery slope of
escalation. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood him, but Vuving seems to me to be saying implicitly: “Trust me. Beijing is not really serious.
This is just a game of weiqi with no actual risk of military conflict. If Washington is serious, Beijing will back down.Ӧ This type of
oblivious attitude to the risk of conflict could be excusable perhaps if China was not a
nuclear power with increasingly potent conventional forces to match. In fact, this demeanor is distressingly
common among hawks of the “cakewalk” school, but we have already seen that Vuving has a relatively clear appraisal of the military balance and has recognized that outright U.S.
military superiority in the Western Pacific is a vestige of the past. Thus, there is a clear contradiction in Vuving’s thinking: he does not view the military balance as favorable to the U.S.,
and yet he recommends escalatory maneuvers.¶ This is not only foolhardy from a military-strategic point of view, but also starkly ignorant of history. Did the Russian czar think that he
would spark the largest war in history when he opted to mobilize forces in response to the Serbian crisis in 1914? Did President Roosevelt know that he was contributing to setting the
Pacific War in motion when he pushed the U.S. Pacific Fleet from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor to deter Japan from striking at Singapore in 1940? Washington clearly misunderstood
Chinese intentions in 1950 during the Korean War and underestimated Hanoi’s determination when undertaking escalation in Vietnam. The point is that one hardly has to look very
far to find examples of leaders, including American leaders, “sleepwalking” into major conflicts. Do we really believe our leaders are any wiser or better informed today than they were
back then?¶ Another point made by Vuving in his critique is more sensible, and concerns the actual strategic value of China’s newly built facilities in the South China Sea. He contends
that I misunderstand China’s strategy, because I focus on resources (oil and fish) vice strategic location. For example, he holds that the main value of Scarborough Shoal is that it is an
“ideal place from which to watch and patrol the central eastern sector of the South China Sea.” But another surveillance post in the South China Sea is quite redundant, because Beijing
already has more than enough patrol assets (military, coast guard or militia)—and that is not even considering ample and developing aerial surveillance capabilities, as well as real-
time satellite reconnaissance.¶ In fact, our assessments are not that different with respect to the new facilities in the Spratly islets. He explains, “Although China’s military assets on the
South China Sea islands will be highly vulnerable in wartime, they can be very useful for peacetime patrolling and psychological intimidation.” A main point of my initial analysis was
to draw attention to the high vulnerability of any Chinese assets based on these facilities in the age of precision guided munitions. So Vuving evidently accept my analysis for military
conflict scenarios—as does a Pentagon official who was quoted in this forum [6] as saying, “If China wants to build vulnerable airstrips on these rocks, let them—they just constitute a
bunch of easy targets that would be taken out within minutes of a real contingency.Ӧ I agree with Vuving that these facilities in the South China Sea will allow for somewhat increased
surveillance and even maybe, yes, “intimidation.” Chinese sailors and air crews may be a little less green after getting a break from their long patrols. Chinese fishing boats may indeed
grow more numerous in the area if they know they have a truly safe shelter from the common typhoons that sweep the area. But who exactly will be intimidated by the increased
Chinese presence during peacetime? Will the U.S. Navy be intimidated? Of course not. Those likely to be intimidated by an elevated Chinese patrol presence are local hydrocarbon
exploration and fishing interests. Thus, we return to the issue of resources, and I again emphatically reject the notion that Washington should take active steps in the direction of
military conflict with Beijing to support Philippine or Vietnamese oil and fishing interests.¶ Vuving’s critique repeats many times that the new Chinese facilities in the Spratlys will
indeed “allow China to upset the military balance.” Not only does he posit that China is likely to deploy thirty to forty fourth-generation aircraft to the new airstrips in the Spratlys, but
he also claims that regional states will be deterred from attacking the new airfields, because “China can declare that it makes no difference between an attack on these islands and an
attack on its mainland.Ӧ To my estimate, it is still quite early to suggest that China is able or likely to stage so many fighter aircraft out of the new facilities. One leading expert on PLA
development has stated, for example, that the only plane that will fly from these “bases” will be the small maritime patrol aircraft, the Y-7. As he explained it, that is partly due to the
weak coral base of these airstrips, which can neither support heavy aircraft nor the tough tempo that fighter operations would require. But let’s assume the worst case, putting
aviation logistics aside as well, that Chinese fighter interceptor squadrons will not only be deployed to these remote airstrips, but will deploy in operationally significant numbers. I
have posited that, in any contest with the U.S., these aircraft would likely be smoking, twisted metal wrecks within the first twenty-four hours of the beginning of a conflict. Vuving
does not contest that point, but says that the new Chinese facilities will “upset the regional balance.”¶ My response to this point is that there is actually no “regional balance” to upset.
Since the 1990s (if not before), China has had the firepower to take on and defeat any Southeast Asian opponent with relative ease. In 1988, for example, they swept aside Vietnamese
forces in a lopsided set of naval skirmishes to set up several preliminary bases in the Spratlys. I have discussed the very uneven nature of the China-Vietnam military contest in some
detail in an interview with the [7]New York Times [7] and also in this article [8] for National Interest. Thus, Vuving is correct to say that China will have vast military superiority in the
South China Sea with its new set of airstrips in the Spratlys. However, my view is that China was already vastly superior in military terms (when the U.S. is not involved), so the actual
change to the military balance is quite marginal.¶ And for the same reason that the new facilities will be highly vulnerable to U.S. firepower, so even Southeast Asian nations will have a
reasonably good chance to put the new airstrips out of commission for lengthy periods. Indeed, one does not have to turn the islets into a “sea of fire” by cratering every part of the
runway, when all that is required is to take out the fuel or munitions storage facilities. Most ideally, stealthy and relatively invulnerable submarines could barrage the new Chinese
bases with missiles from various vectors. Vietnam and Malaysia could develop those capabilities quite easily. But even laggard Philippines could likely put ordnance on these obvious
targets by, for example, quietly purchasing an array of medium and long-range surface-to-surface cruise missiles that South Korea has been developing [9] for a long time. True, that
may require some adjustment of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), but that would be wholly reasonable in the face of China’s major conventional missile buildup. Other
weapons systems could also be used to inhibit air operations, such as planting sea mines [10] around the islets to interdict their resupply.¶ This kind of deterrence will be much more
effective than attempts to massively scale up the Philippines’ coast guard to play gray-zone games against China’s massive coast guard forces. The latter approach is a genuine pipe
dream for the foreseeable future. Maybe Vietnam’s coast guard prospects are a little better, but most Americans would oppose their taxes going to fund Vietnam’s coast guard since
these gray-zone games are just about oil and fisheries interests and do not seriously impact U.S. national security.¶ The strangest and most objectionable part of Vuving’s critique
comes near the end. Here he candidly suggests that “China and the United States may share the same view when it comes to nautical freedom…” and, as I have related above, Vuving
also explains that “freedom of navigation” does not quite fit the bill as a persuasive rallying cry for confronting Beijing in the South China Sea. Therefore, he argues, the real question in
the South China Sea is about China’s alleged “grave threat to U.S. leadership in the region.” This line of reasoning seems to resemble closely that classic neo-conservative tract [11]
from 1992, authored by Paul Wolfowitz, that claimed the goal of U.S. foreign and defense policy should be primacy, plain and simple.¶ Vuving may underestimate Americans’ distaste
for the rather tautological formula of seeking to maintain leadership in all areas of the world in order to preserve primacy. In the critique’s final, tortured logic, Vuving explains: “The
concentration in this domain of Asia’s chief arteries means that, to paraphrase Harold Mackinder, he who controls the East and South China Seas, dominates Asia; and with the rise of
Asia, he who dominates this region, commands the world.” It strikes me as particularly odd and disappointing that even today leading American strategists could engage in such
bombastic nineteenth-century rhetoric by looking to British imperialist theorists [12] for guidance. Mackinder and such thinkers were obsessed with protecting India from the
imagined Russian threat, neglecting the fact that Russia’s help would be badly required in the contests that would follow for Britain. Next, these contemporary South China Sea hawks,
with Mackinder tucked under their arms, will propose erecting myriad new coaling stations around the “spice islands” and perhaps also making the U.S. presence in Afghanistan
permanent—the better to protect the Asian “heartland” from China’s encroaching Silk Road initiative. Americans thankfully have more common sense than to pursue expansion and
endless conflict on the other side of the planet indefinitely. Certainly, that is how the founders of our country distinguished themselves from statesmen in London way back when.¶ I
am on record repeatedly calling for both a stronger U.S. Navy (increased numbers of submarines, for example [13]), as well as the prudent drawing of credible red lines that would
cover the home islands of our allies. Vuving mischaracterizes my approach when he suggests that my view is the U.S. should “keep its hands out of the South China Sea.” Indeed, I am
reasonably comfortable with present U.S. force levels in the area, as well as occasional patrols by U.S. forces. Limited goals require neither massive forces nor enormous engagement.
There may come a day when the U.S. needs to commit many more resources for deterrence in the Western Pacific, or could even have to contemplate a major war to halt Chinese
aggression. But such dangers are nowhere on the horizon. The present danger is “fear itself,” related to the Thucydides Trap [14], not to mention the quite irrational or uninformed
urgings of odious parochial and nationalist interests of various “third-party” states.¶ To summarize, Vuving does make a number of valuable points and I concur with parts of his
assessment, including especially his clear-eyed view of the military balance and his rejection of high-sounding, but quite inappropriate rhetoric. As noted above, I do accept that Beijing
has made some incremental gains with its new facilities in the Spratlys both with respect to “gray-zone” operations and also in underlining its military superiority versus Southeast
Asian states, though I don’t think these marginal gains should be exaggerated, since they do not fundamentally alter previous strong advantages held by Beijing. Far and away the
biggest problem in Vuving’s critique, and among many like-minded hawks, however, is the misguided notion that there is a clear and discernible line between non-military methods of

That binary
coercion (“gray-zone” operations) and actual combat that rational leaders in Beijing, Manila, Hanoi and Washington certainly will not cross.

assessment is a gross simplification of these situations that will inevitably be

confused by the “fog” of crisis and thus gravely underestimates the potential for
escalation to war. A step in the right direction would be for such hawks, advocating for containment policies and
the like, to be more candid and recognize that their recommendations carry significant risks , not only of
heightened tensions and wasted resources, but also of direct armed conflict among nuclear
armed superpowers.

Maritime accidents have unique escalation risks

Bonnie S. Glaser 12, senior fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies and a senior
associate with the Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Armed
Clash in the South China Sea, April, http://www.cfr.org/world/armed-clash-south-china-
sea/p27883
The most likely and dangerous contingency is a clash stemming from U.S. military
operations within China's EEZ that provokes an armed Chinese response. The United States
holds that nothing in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) or state practice
negates the right of military forces of all nations to conduct military activities in EEZs
without coastal state notice or consent. China insists that reconnaissance activities undertaken without prior notification and
without permission of the coastal state violate Chinese domestic law and international law. China routinely intercepts
U.S. reconnaissance flights conducted in its EEZ and periodically does so in aggressive ways
that increase the risk of an accident similar to the April 2001 collision of a U.S. EP-3
reconnaissance plane and a Chinese F-8 fighter jet near Hainan Island. A comparable maritime
incident could be triggered by Chinese vessels harassing a U.S. Navy surveillance ship
operating in its EEZ, such as occurred in the 2009 incidents involving the USNS Impeccable and the USNS Victorious. The large
growth of Chinese submarines has also increased the danger of an incident, such as
when a Chinese submarine collided with a U.S. destroyer's towed sonar array in June
2009. Since neither U.S. reconnaissance aircraft nor ocean surveillance vessels are armed, the United States might respond
to dangerous behavior by Chinese planes or ships by dispatching armed escorts. A
miscalculation or misunderstanding could then result in a deadly exchange of fire,
leading to further military escalation and precipitating a major political crisis. Rising
U.S.-China mistrust and intensifying bilateral strategic competition would likely
make managing such a crisis more difficult.

Scenario 2 is Maritime Interpretations

Curbing Chinese island building by removing threatening forward
presence solves restrictive maritime interpretations globally –
specifically in India
Mark Redden 15, program manager in the National Security Analysis Department at the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and former naval officer and Senior
Military Fellow at the National Defense University’s Center for Strategic Research, with Dr.
Phillip C. Saunders, “The U.S.-Chinese Maritime Dynamic: Catalyst for Cooperation or
Confrontation?,” Center for Naval Warfare Studies, China Maritime Study No. 13, May 2015,
https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/667e7ff9-b1e4-46cb-b709-
555d151d5c3f/WEB_CMS13.pdf.aspx
An Antagonistic Maritime Future¶ This future is one where military/national-security
concerns weigh more heavily in the decision-making calculus and common economic
and political interests are insufficient to produce cooperation. The competitive
aspect of the military relationship becomes increasingly dominant , though there may be geographic variation due
to the limitations of the PLA’s global power-projection capabilities. While incentives may still exist for cooperative maritime endeavors in areas outside the western

Pacific, the highly competitive aspects of the military relationship in the waters closer to

China would overwhelm them. This could become a new “Cold War at sea” with a
greatly elevated probability of crisis escalation and heightened operational risk for both
countries. In a more antagonistic relationship, the military necessity for the United States to conduct operations in

China’s EEZ would likely increase, despite the heightened risks of confrontation and
escalation. To the degree that the Chinese continue harassment of U.S. military forces operating in international waters in the western Pacific, the United States might look, in conjunction with regional
allies, to pursue similar measures against PLA forces operating in the EEZs of other states.¶ A cooperative maritime future likely requires the development of a United States–China modus vivendi on the issue of EEZ
operations, but a range of solutions is imaginable. Some options might involve China converging on U.S. perspectives, as a China with expanding global interests and a more active military sees less value in restrictions on
what militaries can do in other EEZs. A PLA officer suggested in June 2013 that China might respond to U.S. reconnaissance activities by “sending ships and planes to the U.S. EEZ,” acknowledging that China has already
done so “a few times.”30 China’s recent military activities within the EEZs of other countries—including naval activity around Guam and Hawaii—suggest that Chinese naval operations are becoming more parallel to

American operations.31 It is also possible to imagine a more transparent and cooperative China, such
that the United States feels less need to conduct surveillance in China’s EEZ. The nature of
the modus vivendi is likely to have a significant impact on how other maritime
powers interpret UNCLOS with respect to EEZ military operations. Chinese
compliance with more generally agreed-on norms of maritime behavior might
compel the handful of countries (especially India and Brazil) with restrictive
interpretations to modify their stances to align more closely with the interpretations
held by the United States and most other countries. Conversely, American acceptance of
strong limitations on EEZ surveillance operations may induce a broader sense of
hyperterritoriality with respect to maritime boundaries, whereby operations in any country’s EEZ are treated in a restrictive
manner akin to the regime of the territorial sea. In this case, restrictive interpretations of UNCLOS may become more

widespread, heightening the chance of conflict between other countries.

Indian maritime restrictions risk Indo/Pak nuclear war
Iskander Rehman 15, nonresident fellow in the South Asia Program at the Atlantic Council,
former research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, former
Stanton Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, “Murky Waters: Naval Nuclear Dynamics in the Indian Ocean,” March 9,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/03/09/murky-waters-naval-nuclear-dynamics-in-
indian-ocean
India’s maritime strategy includes the following assessment of the 1999 deployment:¶ The Indian Navy short-
listed three goals, namely to ensure safety and security of our maritime interests against a
surprise attack, to deter Pakistan from escalating the conflict into a full-scale war and to win
the war convincingly at sea. The lesson that emerges for the Indian Navy is on two counts. Firstly, there will be space
and scope to conduct conventional maritime operations below the nuclear threshold. Secondly, a window of opportunity would ex ist to
influence the land battle.72¶ From the Indian Navy’s point of view, such actions provided a means of
projecting what some scholars have referred to as triadic deterrence—that is, using “threats and/or punishments against
another state to coerce it to prevent non-state actors from conducting attacks from its territory”—all while maintaining the
conflict below the nuclear threshold.73 ¶ For Pakistani naval planners, however, both
incidents were sobering reminders of their coastal nation’s glaring vulnerability to
blockade and strategies of commodity denial.74 Moeed Yusuf provides the following summary of how India’s
naval actions were perceived in Pakistan: ¶ It would seem that the Kargil episode would have signaled to the Pakistani armed forces,
army included, that if the advent of nuclear weapons had made the prospects of limited war more likely by allowing Pakistan to use the
space below India’s nuclear threshold with impunity, it also meant that India
would counter Pakistan’s
advantage at the lowest rung of the escalation ladder by exploiting its naval
superiority early on in the crisis. In essence, India was using the sea to neutralize
Pakistan’s low-end strategic space under the nuclear umbrella .75¶ Islamabad appears
particularly concerned over New Delhi’s ability to interfere with its crude oil
imports, which accounted for 31 percent of Pakistan’s total energy supply in 2012. 76 Energy shortages have
frequently led to riots in Pakistan’s major cities, and for many Pakistani security managers, any
protracted disruption of sea-borne energy would automatically result in dangerous
levels of unrest. ¶ Unable to sustain any remotely symmetrical form of naval
competition, the Pakistan Navy sees nuclearization as the most effective means of
countering Indian maritime power projection. Writing in 2004, five years before India unveiled the Arihant,
Pakistani Lieutenant Commander Raja Rab Nawaz posited that ¶ limited conventional war at sea between India and Pakistan is more[,]
not less likely in a future conflict. Overwhelming conventional superiority of the Indian Navy poses serious challenges in case of such an
eventuality. . . . Pakistan must acquire a sea-based second-strike capability to maintain strategic balance in the region.77 ¶ Security
managers in New Delhi are probably unaware of the extent to which their nation’s
growing maritime strength is perceived as a threat in Pakistan . An illustration of this perceptual
mismatch was provided in the course of a crisis simulation exercise organized by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in
2013. Held in Sri Lanka, the exercise included both Indian and Pakistani participants, ranging from retired military official s to civilian
academics. The simulation began with a mass terrorist attack in an Indian cricket stadium, which appeared to have originated in
Pakistan. The Indian team immediately responded by initiating a number of moves that they considered “limited” and
“punitive” in nature, including the implementation of a maritime exclusion zone (MEZ) along
Pakistan’s Makran coast. Whereas the Indian participants deemed this action “restrained,
justified, and short of war,” the “enforcement of the MEZ off the Makran coast were deemed by the
Pakistan team as acts of war.”78 As the exercise continued to unfold, Pakistan began to
heighten its nuclear readiness level and threatened first use.¶ This form of coercive
nuclear signaling is entirely in line with weaker states’ thinking with regard to the
strategic utility of nuclear weapons .79 By threatening either directly or indirectly to employ low-yield
nuclear weapons at sea or against an advancing Indian aircraft carrier strike force ,
Islamabad can hope to acquire escalation dominance and considerably dilute its larger neighbor’s
coercive naval power.80

No defense – misperceptions, nuclear co-location, and accidental launch

ensure escalation
Iskander Rehman 15, nonresident fellow in the South Asia Program at the Atlantic Council,
former research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, former
Stanton Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, “Murky Waters: Naval Nuclear Dynamics in the Indian Ocean,” March 9,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/03/09/murky-waters-naval-nuclear-dynamics-in-
indian-ocean
Contemporary South Asian nuclear dynamics may be unique in their specificity, yet
many interesting, and potentially instructive, parallels—as well as certain revealing differences—can still be gleaned from the past.¶

At the dawn of the atomic age, Soviet and Western naval strategists found themselves grappling with a

set of daunting and unprecedented challenges. Accustomed to the laws of conventional naval warfare, fleet commanders were suddenly
compelled to operate under a nuclear shadow. As a result, many of their core assumptions concerning the conduct of naval operations, whether in times of peace or of war, underwent a fundamental revision.

Looming in the backdrop of every naval deployment was the possibility , however remote, of
tensions escalating into conflict and of conventional maritime combat spiraling into
a potentially catastrophic naval nuclear exchange. As Paul Nitze observed in a seminal article in 1956, the situation confronting the two
superpowers had become analogous to a hair-raising game of chess, whereby¶ the atomic queens may never be brought into play; they may never actually take one of the opponent’s pieces. But the position of the atomic
queens may still have a decisive bearing on which side can safely advance a limited-war bishop or even a cold-war pawn. The advance of a cold-war pawn may even disclose a check of the opponent’s king by a well-
positioned atomic queen.93 ¶ Using a different metaphor but describing essentially the same phenomenon, French strategists, such as Andre Beaufre, wrote that “the nuclear force may be unseen, but it is always there,

The problem with the maritime domain, however, was its very lack
and it is this which sets the boundaries of the battlefield.”94 ¶

of boundaries. In contrast to the clear terrestrial delineations among North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern and Central Europe, the world’s oceans provided
a vast arena where both superpowers’ navies were in almost incessant interaction. The frequency of these contacts inevitably led to moments of friction and occasionally to incidents that severely imperiled strategic
stability. As both superpowers aggrandized and diversified their nuclear arsenals, they devoted a great deal of attention to the maritime domain—not only in terms of SSBN operations and CASD—but also as a theater of
operations potentially more susceptible to the conduct of tactical nuclear warfare. ¶ As academics such as Francis Gavin have aptly noted, the study of history can prove most useful when it is conducted “horizontally,”

Many of the challenges Indian and Pakistani security managers will

exposing connections over time and space.95

inevitably come to face in the not-too-distant future were, in fact, discussed at length
during the Cold War’s multidecadal naval nuclear competition. ¶ Conventional Naval Operations Under a Nuclear
Shadow ¶ For much of the Cold War, the balance of conventional military power on the Eurasian continent was in the Soviet Union’s favor. As a result, NATO planners relied heavily on the threat of nuclear use as a means
of projecting deterrence. ¶ In the naval domain, the situation was reversed, with Western navies enjoying a distinct superiority—both technological and numerical—over their Soviet rival. From the very beginning of the
Cold War, Western planners fretted over the possibility that the Soviets might attempt to offset their conventional naval inferiority by threatening to employ nuclear weapons at sea.¶ The vulnerability of large surface
ships to nuclear attack, in particular, became a source of much concern to nuclear strategists. For instance, Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, advised against the deployment of aircraft carriers, writing that
in his mind, an aircraft carrier looked to me like quite a good target. In fact, if I project my mind into a time, when not only we, but also a potential enemy, have plenty of atomic bombs, I would not put so many dollars and
so many people into so good a target. Come to think of it, I would not put anything on the surface of the ocean—it’s too good a target.96 ¶ U.S. naval commanders warned that, in the event of conflict, the Soviet Union’s
Strategic Missile Forces might seek to supplement the actions of a conventionally outmatched Soviet Navy by targeting Western naval task forces or convoys. Writing in the Naval War College Review in the late 1960s,
one U.S. lieutenant commander made a dire observation: ¶ If one side presented the preponderance of targets the use of nuclear forces could be advantageous to the other side. The preponderance of surface forces in the
West makes it extremely strong in a conventional war. However, as soon as the [Soviet] Bloc use of nuclear weapons is conceded, the loss of many of these vessels can be expected with a relatively small amount of effort
on the part of the Bloc Forces.97 ¶ Strategists such as Desmond Ball also noted that the destruction of large naval assets would disproportionately disadvantage the United States, both because of the enormous U.S.
investment in its carrier forces, and because of the greater U.S. dependence on sea lines of communication.98¶ This vulnerability of large, densely concentrated naval formations to nuclear weapons led to something of a
conundrum. The natural response to such a threat, argued both Soviet and Western strategists, was to engage in fleet or battle group spacing to reduce the likelihood of multiple kills resulting from a single nuclear
blast.99 The need for dispersal, however, flew in the face of centuries of naval practice. Preeminent Soviet military theorists began to question the very relevance of naval strategy, commenting that in the nuclear missile
era, the most deeply ingrained principles of Soviet naval tactics, such as “massed action” (massirovanie) and “combined action” (vzaimodeystvie raznorodnykh sil), could no longer be considered valid.100 This presented
military planners with a fundamental dilemma, as, notes one former U.S. Army attaché to Pakistan, “Survival in a nuclear environment required dispersal, while success in a conventional fight required mass and
concentration.”101 ¶ Within such a heavily nuclearized environment, the prospective operational benefits to be derived from launching a first salvo became even more apparent.102 Additionally, the escalation dynamics
of warfare in the maritime theater appeared, in the eyes of many naval analysts, to be considerably less constrained than those attending military operations on land. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, figures such as
Henry Kissinger noted that limited nuclear war between Soviet and Western forces was far more likely to flare up in secondary or peripheral theaters than along the heavily militarized Central European front.103 ¶ To
some theorists, the likelihood of one side initiating limited nuclear war hinged upon two main factors: whether the use of nuclear weapons could be confined to a specific geographical area, and whether they could be
used “surgically,” without incurring mass civilian casualties or the destruction of strategic centers.104 Out on the wide-open waters, the use of low-yield nuclear weapons against enemy vessels would result in little to no
collateral civilian casualties. As one U.S. naval officer wrote in 1967, “What targets of a tactical or strategic nature can be attacked and destroyed with less direct involvement of civilian populations than naval forces at
sea?”105 ¶ How then, wondered Western nuclear strategists, could the Soviets be deterred from employing—or from threatening to employ—nuclear weapons against NATO’s naval forces? Some posited that there was
scant likelihood that the Soviet Navy would seek to erode firebreaks between conventional and nuclear forces by genuinely subscribing to a nuclear warfighting strategy.106 The use of even a few tactical nuclear
weapons—however isolated the maritime theater in question—ran the risk of escalating to strategic exchange through the phenomenon of linkage. There was little reason, therefore, for the United States and its allies to
emphasize naval nuclear warfare.107 ¶ Others argued that the only true way to prevent the Soviets from engaging in coercive nuclear escalation at sea was to nuclearize close to the entirety of the combat fleet
architecture. The U.S. Navy agreed and adopted a strategy of escalation dominance by engaging in the wholesale nuclearization of its combat fleet while striving to disabuse the Soviet leadership of any notion that a
nuclear war at sea could be limited. ¶ This evolution in naval nuclear force posture was greatly facilitated by the wider doctrinal shift, in the mid-1950s and onward, from a deterrent policy predicated on massive
retaliation toward one of a more graduated or flexible response.108 In 1982, Richard Perle, then assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, declared that official U.S. policy was to “discourage the
Soviets from believing that they could limit a nuclear war to forces at sea.” He also stressed that¶ the Soviets retain a significant capability to attack ships at sea, and they may, as a consequence, be misled into believing
that so long as civilian casualties are not involved in such attacks, as they presumably would not be, they could in fact limit a war to attacks on forces at sea. . . . The desire on our part is not to permit the Soviets to
determine the scope of the battle to give whatever advantages would be inherent in their having the freedom to choose where the battle would be fought.109 ¶ By the 1980s, however, conventional and nuclear weapons
were commingled on U.S. surface and subsurface vessels. The fleet was equipped with a large and impressively broad inventory of tactical nuclear weapons, ranging from nuclear anti-submarine rockets to nuclear-tipped
cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles.110 For proponents of a strategy of flexible response, such a shift made eminent sense. Supporters argued that this wide dispersal of nuclear assets across the fleet had vastly
augmented the allied nuclear reserve, thus effectively dampening any lingering Soviet temptation to conduct a “coordinated, preemptive strike at sea.”111 Moreover, the ubiquitous presence of theater nuclear weapons
aboard U.S. vessels served a vital signaling function. It was both a means of communicating resolve, thus dissuading the Soviets from engaging in escalatory naval actions, and a way of demonstrating the strength of U.S.
commitment to certain fretful, and geographically distant, allies. The deployment of naval platforms with nuclear-delivery capability, wrote military analyst Richard Fieldhouse, could “critically affect the dynamics of the
crisis situation in a number of ways.” For example, perceptions of the stakes involved could be raised by the presence of U.S. tactical nuclear forces; and these forces could significantly alter the actual military capabilities
of the forces involved, thus improving escalation control by complicating the adversaries’ calculations of success and failure.112¶ Naval Friction and the Risk of Inadvertent Escalation ¶ For many analysts, the
generalized commingling of conventional and nuclear assets at sea was dangerously escalatory. In times of conflict, Soviet and Western naval commanders would have no way of determining whether enemy vessels were
armed with nuclear weapons or not, and a radioactive fog of war would float over combat operations. ¶ The most controversial dual-capable system was the sea-launched variant of the Tomahawk cruise missile. Fitted
aboard both surface and subsurface vessels, the Tomahawk’s long range (approximately 2,500 kilometers, or about 1,550 miles) and precision made it an ideal candidate for counterforce missions.113 This meant, noted
one observer, that with respect to the conventional/nuclear firebreak, the Soviet Union must consider any vessel equipped with Tomahawks to be a nuclear threat even if in fact these missiles are only carrying
conventional payloads. The obfuscation of these distinctions is likely to increase Soviet paranoia about U.S. naval deployments in the vicinity of the Soviet homeland; it inevitably reduces the degree of certainty with
which Soviet responses can be predicted; it increases the likelihood of escalation from actions that the U.S. might regard as tactical; and it increases the chances of miscalculation and misperception and hence of

inadvertent escalation.114¶ The dangers of sudden escalation arising from ill-perceived signaling or
deployments were heightened in the maritime domain, where naval interactions
frequently led to friction and where conflicts at times continued even after crises had abated on land.115 A classic example is the tense
situation that unfolded underwater during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost led to disaster. Historians now know that each of the Soviet submarines deployed off Cuba was armed
with nuclear-tipped torpedoes, a fact that was not known by the U.S. Navy at the time. In an attempt to force the Soviet submarines to surface, the U.S. fleet dropped practice depth charges. They were not intended to hit
the submarines, but rather to coerce them into revealing themselves. The Soviet submarine officers, however, viewed these actions in a different light, and one harried commander ordered his men to assemble the

nuclear torpedo to battle-readiness.116 ¶Even after both superpowers signed the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement, their naval
interactions remained prone to sporadic bursts of tension, such as during the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict.117 Episodes of
brinkmanship involving games of chicken, aggressive forward intelligence gathering, and accidental collisions were particularly prevalent

in the subsurface domain, which had been deliberately excluded from the
agreement.118 ¶ The risks of inadvertent escalation were exacerbated, argued Professor Barry Posen, when
conventional naval operations produced “patterns of damage or threat” to structural components of
a nation’s nuclear reserves, such as its SSBNs.119 During the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s maritime strategy
explicitly called for an aggressive ASW campaign by U.S. and allied naval forces against the entirety of the Soviet submarine fleet, SSBNs included.120 Conventional attrition of a substantial portion of the Soviet Union’s
second-strike capability, argued Posen, could be viewed by Moscow as a precursor to a nuclear attack, and this, in turn, might heighten Soviet temptations to engage in a preemptive nuclear strike against NATO forces.

Mearsheimer, a political science professor, also perceived anti-SSBN operations as highly

John

destabilizing, noting that ¶ some strategies also can cause forces to intermingle in a crisis in a manner
that produces a tactical or strategic first strike advantage. . . . Some strategies can raise the risk that
forces will collide with one another in a manner that activates one side’s rules of engagement,
leading it to commence firing. In each instance crisis stability is undermined, and crises are more likely to erupt into
war.121¶ Hardline defenders of the 1980s maritime strategy rejected these critiques, and they argued that, to the contrary, threatening Soviet SSBNs provided the allies with significant leverage in times of conflict,
which might then be used in favor of war termination.122 Linton Brooks, who served on the Reagan administration’s National Security Council, agreed with this assessment, noting that the maritime strategy also
provided a means of eroding the offensive capability of the Soviet SSN fleet, which would find itself compelled to focus its energy on protecting SSBNs, rather than on attacking allied sea lines of communication.123 ¶ For
this school of thinkers, the systemization of dual-use platforms at sea did not weaken but buttressed deterrence—precisely due to the fact that it injected a certain degree of ambiguity. Professor Thomas Schelling
famously referred to this as the “threat that leaves something to chance.”124 Thus, for Linton Brooks, deterrence is enhanced through the deliberate importation of both risk and uncertainty. . . . Sea-based systems, able to
attack a wide spectrum of targets from a large number of platforms, over a broad spectrum of attack azimuths, complicate Soviet defense planning immeasurably, thus strengthening deterrence.125¶ Other observers
expressed skepticism over the notion that the Soviet Navy might respond to conventional attacks on its SSBNs by employing sea-based tactical nuclear weapons, arguing that Moscow’s political control over nuclear

What lessons can be

delivery systems was too tight and that the Soviet leadership would never authorize such a response.126 ¶ Applying Cold War Lessons to Contemporary South Asia ¶

drawn from the Cold War’s wealth of deliberations over issues such as sea-based nuclear weapons, naval nuclear warfare, and escalation control? As New
Delhi and Islamabad lay out the rudiments of their respective naval nuclear
architectures, they will no doubt find themselves wrestling with a remarkably
similar array of operational predicaments and deterrence-related challenges. ¶ Both nations are
still in the process of shaping their sea-based nuclear force structures, and naval nuclear interactions are likely to remain

somewhat sporadic for the next few years. This constitutes a singularly opportune
moment, therefore, for security communities in both capitals to engage in a much more granular analysis of past naval nuclear operations and strategies. ¶ The issue of dual-use platforms, whereby
conventional and nuclear assets commingle and overlap, is of particular relevance to contemporary South Asia, as are many of the Cold War era’s discussions over the tactical quandaries inherent in naval operations

under a nuclear shadow. ¶ South Asia’s maritime environment remains, for its part, alarmingly unstructured,
and the challenges posed by naval friction and misperception will no doubt loom
large in future times of crisis. Perhaps most importantly, Cold War theorists’ concerns over the considerable risks linked to the conventional targeting of strategic or nuclear-
armed platforms will urgently need to be addressed.¶ The Commingling Issue¶ Both India and Pakistan appear to be opting for naval

nuclear force structures that incorporate dual-capable systems. In India’s case, this may only be a temporary
phenomenon. It remains unclear whether the Dhanush program is truly envisaged as forming a component of India’s nascent sea-based deterrent, or whether the decision to fit surface ships with modified versions of the
Prithvi SRBM is simply a stopgap measure while the country’s SSBN fleet gradually takes shape.127 Writing in 2001, a seasoned observer of security developments in South Asia depicted the Dhanush program as the
result of mainly bureaucratic calculations, stating that it is unlikely to result in a sea-based nuclear deterrent—at least on present plans—since it is driven primarily by the Indian Navy’s interest in acquiring a land-attack
capability vis-à-vis Pakistan in order to assert its own strategic relevance to the larger war-fighting outcomes within the Indian subcontinent.128 ¶ There are also some practical considerations that would appear to
militate against equipping Indian surface vessels with such a system. First of all, the Dhanush is a liquid-fueled SRBM, and it can prove both difficult and hazardous to handle liquid propellants at sea. Moreover, liquid-
fueled missiles take longer to launch than their solid-fueled counterparts, which raises questions over the viability of the Dhanush as a robust second-strike system. Finally, in the event of conflict, India’s surface ships
could prove highly vulnerable to enemy anti-surface-warfare operations. ¶ Unfortunately, due to the Indian political leadership’s traditional reticence to discuss details pertaining to the nation’s nuclear force structure,
public discourse on the Dhanush has been captured by the scientists of India’s DRDO. In 2011, officials from this organization were recorded as saying that the successful launches of the Prithvi from land and sea had
established that “different forms of [India’s] nuclear deterrence are in place” and that the launches allowed India’s Strategic Forces Command to launch (nuclear) attacks “both from land and sea.”129 The Defense
Research & Development Organization, however, has developed an unfortunate habit of issuing assertive statements that do not necessarily reflect the views of India’s political leadership.130 ¶ Beyond the practical
limitations associated with deploying SRBMs from surface vessels, the debate, as it did during the Cold War, appears to revolve around two very different schools of thought. On the one side are those who believe that
deterrence can be strengthened through the injection of ambiguity, and on the other are those who argue that the deliberate blurring of conventional and nuclear platforms is far more likely to heighten the risks of

opting to conflate conventional and nuclear assets at sea

vertical escalation.131 ¶ One school of thinkers argues that

could have serious ramifications in times of crisis. This problem has been singled out by a trio of U.S. Naval War College professors, who
have warned that¶ if one navy stations nuclear weapons aboard conventionally armed warships,

its antagonist could end up inadvertently destroying nuclear forces in the process of
targeting conventionally armed forces.132¶ Echoing the arguments of Linton Brooks during the Cold War, Ashley Tellis, formerly at the RAND Corporation,
has taken a different position, arguing that the very ambiguity of the SRBM’s payload could provide India with the opportunity to “secure strategic benefits,” adding that ¶ the fact that Islamabad can never be certain as to
whether these standoff capabilities—especially the ship-based ballistic missile systems—are purely conventional or nuclear-armed make such unorthodox deployment postures particularly attractive from a strategic
point of view: These sea-based systems serve to levy a potential threat on Pakistan from what is otherwise a non-traditional axis, and, by that very fact, compel Islamabad to allocate military resources to sanitize them
even though the strike systems in question may finally turn out to be no more than conventionally armed vehicles of little strategic significance.133¶ Whereas it remains unclear whether India has expressly chosen a

Pakistan’s security managers fall squarely into the “blurring is best”

path that emphasizes commingling,

school. As discussed in the first section of this report, Pakistan’s naval officers and strategists openly advocate
nuclearizing a large portion of the Pakistani fleet architecture —not only submarines, but also surface vessels and
maritime patrol aircraft. ¶ By wantonly engaging in a horizontal dispersal of its nuclear assets at sea,

Islamabad runs the risk of adding a considerable amount of instability to its naval
interactions with its larger South Asian neighbor. Pakistan’s calculation may be that such a move would
effectively neuter the Indian Navy by preventing it from prosecuting Pakistani vessels in the event of
hostilities. This assumption, however, may be deeply flawed. ¶ Conventional Operations and Strategic Instability¶ Several
observers have noted that Indian military personnel have openly alluded to the fact that Pakistan’s

nuclear assets would be targeted by Indian conventional forces in the event of war. 134 ¶
Although India’s nuclear doctrine may revolve around countervalue targeting, its conventional operational constructs appear to incorporate some potentially destabilizing counterforce elements. In many ways, this is

India’s maritime
reminiscent of Barry Posen’s discussion of the risks posed by conventional operations that cause patterns of damage or threat to nuclear-armed platforms.

strategy, for instance, places a heavy emphasis on offensive sea control, as well as on “marking and counter marking” as a
means to “clear the cobwebs” in the preliminary phases of conflict.135 ¶ Going forward, subsurface interactions are liable to

become particularly problematic. Andrew Winner, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, has noted:¶ Submarine-versus-submarine interactions occur already
without any public acknowledgment of increased tensions, but the importance of nuclear weapons may cause both sides to take greater risks both to gather intelligence and to defend a nuclear-armed platform. Similarly,

both sides may become more aggressive in patrolling and defending territorial
waters, contiguous zones, and even exclusive economic zones if they want to deny the other side from
gaining familiarity with a particular stretch of water.136¶ The history of the Cold War is littered
with examples of submarine intelligence-gathering operations gone awry, resulting in collisions, accidental
groundings, or near confrontations. ¶ A number of key questions about India-
Pakistan interactions remain very open and are seldom discussed in either New
Delhi or Islamabad. This is cause for concern . As India and Pakistan begin to deploy
nuclear-armed submarines, will both navies manage to avoid succumbing to the
escalatory pressures tied to such operations? In the event of conflict, would India and Pakistan eschew targeting nuclear-armed or dual-use platforms? If
Pakistan engaged an Indian SSBN, or if India destroyed a Pakistani surface ship
armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, could strategic stability be preserved? ¶
Greater attention will also need to be paid to naval force disposition and signaling. India is still far from acquiring the capabilities to conduct CASD and to seamlessly maintain SSBNs on deterrent patrol. As a result, it

is likely that in times of high tension, New Delhi would surge its undersea nuclear
assets from their deepwater ports in the Bay of Bengal.137 If detected, such a move might be deemed highly provocative by
Islamabad and could invite preemptive conventional action. Indian ASW forces, for their part, may feel a similar pressure to
engage in early attrition of Pakistan’s conventional attack submarines if they were detected moving close to Indian carrier groups or in the vicinity of major Indian port cities such as Mumbai.¶ Thomas Schelling famously
defined brinkmanship as the manipulation of the shared risk of war.138 By deliberately cultivating uncertainty and importing tactics of intimidation, weak actors may hope to convincingly deter a more risk-averse
opponent from effectively leveraging its conventional superiority. In terms of everyday maritime operations, this can dissuade the stronger naval actor from pressing its claims or maintaining a regular presence in certain
areas, out of fear of an isolated incident spiraling out of control.139 Pakistan has displayed a strong attachment to naval brinkmanship over the years, frequently buzzing Indian naval task forces with maritime aircraft,
and in some cases threatening to enter into direct collision with Indian naval ships. Both nations have failed to resolve long-standing maritime boundary issues, and they continue to engage in the systematic detention of
fishermen they consider to have violated their territorial waters.140 The most dramatic incident occurred in 1999, when a Pakistani Dassault-Breguet Atlantic aircraft violated Indian airspace, refused to respond to hails,

episodes are already fraught with risk under normal

and was shot down by an Indian Air Force MiG-21. ¶ Such

conditions, and they become even more hazardous in an environment where dual-
use systems have become the norm. Until now, both Indian and Pakistani naval officers have been accustomed to operating within a conventional maritime setting.
In the future, the Indian Air Force may have no way of ascertaining whether a
straying Pakistani maritime patrol aircraft is carrying nuclear ordnance or not .
Accurately fathoming an adversary’s intentions is a singularly challenging
enterprise.141 It becomes even more arduous when one player relies on a policy of tactical brinkmanship and
naval nuclear coercion to compensate for its conventional inferiority.¶ Last but not least, the scattering of nuclear assets at
sea, particularly aboard surface ships, heightens the risks of an accidental release or of a nuclear weapon’s
being intercepted by a malevolent nonstate actor . Concerns are already widespread with regard to the security of Pakistan’s land-based
nuclear inventory. One analyst noted in 2013 that although Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may be relatively well

protected in times of peace, this may be far from the case in times of crisis: ¶ Forced to
adopt a more delegative C2 [command-and-control] system during nuclear alerts and operational deployments of nuclear
weapons, Pakistan’s protection against inadvertent or unauthorized nuclear releases at

times of military crises appears rudimentary. The conclusion is bleak: although

Pakistan appears able to manage safety during nuclear operations during peacetime, the country
remains vulnerable to nuclear mishaps during military crises.142¶ A number of
nonstate-actor-related incidents have occurred in recent years. For example, in May 2011, Islamic
militants staged a successful attack on the Mehran naval air base in Karachi. More recently, members of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan attacked a naval dockyard
in Karachi. In both cases, the attacks reportedly benefited from support from within
the Pakistan Navy itself, which raises concerns over the growth of an insider threat .143
As such attacks have become more frequent, the Pakistan Navy has begun to transfer the bulk of its operational naval platforms away from the roiling, congested city of Karachi, toward the Jinnah Naval Base in

Pakistani vessels anchored in the shallow waters off Karachi or equally cluttered littorals remain acutely vulnerable, however, to
Ormara.144 ¶

suicide attacks or boarding actions by terrorists piloting fast attack craft. If nuclear weapons are
placed aboard surface ships, there is a chance they could be perceived as “soft
targets” for interception by nefarious nonstate actors or by radicalized elements within the Pakistan Navy itself.¶ Implications for Surface Warfare¶ During the Cold War, naval commanders found
themselves compelled to operate within an environment where commingling of nuclear and conventional weapons had become the new norm. For India’s military planners, however, the progressive nuclearization of the

the dysfunctional state of India’s

maritime battlespace poses an entirely novel set of operational challenges that will urgently need to be addressed. Unfortunately,

higher defense management does not provide fertile ground for the blossoming of
serious thought on issues such as limited nuclear war , conventional operations under a nuclear overhang, or the
mechanics of intra-war escalation. There is little intellectual cross-pollination between the
Strategic Forces Command and the Integrated Defense Staff, let alone between the different services. Furthermore, no higher defense

learning institution imparts any substantive form of education to military officers on

nuclear strategy and operations, and service headquarters continue to plan primarily for conventional war.145

Modeling of China’s restrictive EEZ norms triggers global instability and

undermines U.S. grand strategy --- causes a laundry list of impacts
James Kraska 11, Dr. James Kraska is a Professor in the Stockton Center for the Study of
International Law at the U.S. Naval War College, Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea::
Expeditionary Operations in World Politics, Oxford University Press, Jan. 19, Google Books
What do the issues of global politics and grand strategy have to do with oceans
policy? Oceans policy should be connected to and serve grand strategy, which should
be implemented by national strategy. The United States and its friends and allies face a common set
of strategic risks and threats in the global system, and a policy for the legal order of
the oceans should be pursued that meets the major challenges of the day. In some respects, U.S.
oceans policy has been at the forefront of reducing military risk to the United States.
The U.S.-sponsored post- 9/11 counter-terrorism initiatives introduced by the United States and other nations at the International Maritime Organization reflect this strategic
purpose. Amendments adopted in the fall of 2005 to the 1988 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation tighten rules to counter
maritime terrorism and the transport of weapons of mass destruction on a ship. Similarly, the International Shipping and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code, which amends the 1974
Safety of Life at Sea Convention, established tougher standards for seaside and vessel security, reducing the vulnerability of the maritime system to terrorist attack. At the same time,

the United States has been surprisingly lax in maintaining awareness of military risks posed
however,

by peer state rivals, and the relationship between grand strategy and oceans policy.
What are the greatest military risks in the international system?

First,the greatest military threat to a stable order comes from China, which is rising on
a wave of economic, scientific, and military power. Success in these spheres is producing political power for the first time,
creating in Beijing a heady atmosphere of arrival. China is a trendsetter in Asia, and is marketing its illiberal perspective on

oceans policy, both in the Pacific region and at the IMO. Following behind China, nations such as
Brazil and Iran are becoming dominant in their respective geographic and political spheres. Brazil is filling
a power vacuum on the continent of South America; Iran is filling a void created by the toppling of Saddam Hussein and subsequent civil war in Iraq. Second, a resurgent

autocratic Russia could further destabilize Europe. Moscow’s heavy hand has frightened
the states on its western border, and encumbered better relations with NATO and
the EU. Empowered with energy wealth to rebuild its military forces, Russia still suffers from a decayed infrastructure and an unhealthy and declining population base. But
Moscow aspires to be a naval power once again, so there may be opportunity to engage with Russia more effectively. The United
States has more in common with Russia on oceans policy than any other issue, and the two states worked closely to achieve the navigational regimes in UNCLOS. But instead of
working in tandem with Moscow at the IMO, the United States and Russia have been more inclined to butt heads. For the United States, the goal is to reassure European allies and
curry favor with the EU nations; for Russia, the objective has been to myopically define its foreign policy in terms of opposition to whatever the U.S. is promoting. Both nations share
essential interests in a liberal order of the oceans, and should work together closely to maintain and stabilize the system of rules in UNCLOS that they created.

the Middle East is under a grave threat from an aggressive and dedicated assault
Third,

by an irreconcilable wing of Islam, funded by radical Shiites and Sunnis. The extremists seek to attack the West in order to weaken its resolve
and dilute its institutions, destroy Israel, and impose a caliphate dictatorship throughout the Middle East. The states in the region — Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia — are caught in
the crosshairs, and any one of them could erupt into chaos, anarchy, or war. Whereas Egypt and Saudi Arabia care so much about stability that they stamp out all dissent, breeding a
seething anger that could explode, Syria and Iran are breeding instability by conducting secret, irregular wars through proxy forces throughout the Levant and beyond. Iran’s “split
personality” between the more professional Iranian Navy on the one hand and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy (IRGCN) on the other, keeps the Persian Gulf in a constant state of
high tension.

Fourth, there are a growing number of rogue regimes eager to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, mass murder, and mass disruption. These regimes, including North Korea, are developing chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons in order to limit the flexibility of the democratic states to challenge them, to deter neighborhood policing by the
United States and its allies, and to be able to impose their will on their neighbors. Iran is the most unpredictable nation in the Middle East, and Tehran has

exported instability into both Gaza and Lebanon.

Fifth, the Pakistan-Afghanistan problem has lit South Asia from the coast of Gwadar to the peaks of the Hindu Kush. Even
Pakistan teeters on anarchy, and it is not implausible to worry about the nation descending into a jihad
more so than Egypt and Saudi Arabia,
autocracy. The Pakistani military and intelligence service are both essential partners in the fight against terrorism, as well as collaborators that are not entirely reliable. While

Islamabad remains focused inward toward the continent, it also bristles at Delhi’s grip on the Indian Ocean. Pakistan, like its neighbor India, purports to
restrict foreign military activities in its EEZ.
there is an emerging international governance system of
Finally — particularly relevant for this study —

pseudo-legality sustained by bureaucratic international elites and anti-American and anti-Western states, which
weakens the democracies, “protects the vicious and the evil, and absorbs the energy of decent countries into endless maneuvers of utter impotence and
dishonesty.” 29 In the maritime context, the tribulations of international law are exposed in
the application of UNCLOS. The international law of the sea is pulled in so many
different, even contradictory directions, by dissimilar domestic and international constituencies that it is becoming
unmoored from its roots as a system for international peace and stability. As a global
system, the law of the sea is becoming less coherent, not more. By working at cross-purposes to obfuscate international
law of the sea in a bureaucratic web of contradictory transnational, foreign, and domestic rules, oceans law risks being an agent of

disorder rather than order. 30

These six global threats are evolving in parallel and sometimes in synergistic coordination .
American grand strategy should take into account the six threats ; democratic states should implement a
foreign policy that is designed to overmatch all of these challenges. As an adjunct of grand strategy, oceans policy should

be attached to and promote the defeat of these six threats. Freedom of the seas,
particularly in the EEZ, is a crucial element for meeting each of these challenges.

Offensive threats don’t deter – China’s low-level encroachments will

always undermine US redlines – forward presence inhibits a diplomatic
solution
Harry J. Kazianis 14, Executive Editor of The National Interest. Mr. Kazianis is also a Senior
Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest and a Senior Fellow at the
China Policy Institute, America’s Dangerous $5 Trillion Dollar Bet in the South China Sea,
July 11, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/america%E2%80%99s-dangerous-5-
trillion-dollar-bet-the-south-china-10857
While such a plan clearly shows Washington is doing what it can to demonstrate support for allies and partners in the region in an
attempt to deter Beijing,there are many pitfalls that should be considered—especially when it
comes to the wider use of surveillance assets. For one, the U.S. would obviously have to place men
and women in harm’s way in contested waters time and time again in order to enact this part of
the plan. You don’t have to be a bookie in Vegas to understand the odds of some sort of
tragic incident occurring are quite high. In this case, the goal of “doing something”
might actually be worse than doing nothing. As history tells us quite clearly, wars can
start from a small incident where tensions are running high. The consequences can
be dire.¶ The ultimate challenge for American leaders is that they have devised a plan of
action to only deal with scenarios where U.S. and Chinese forces would come into direct,
kinetic conflict—the hotly debated Air-Sea Battle operational concept, something I strongly support. However, as
Zachary Keck noted in these pages several months back “the problem with ASB (and its main competitors) is
that they are only designed for high-level conflict, and thus can only be implemented if the U.S. and China
move from a state of tense peace to a state of total war.” Keck continues, explaining that “ unless China takes a brazenly
provocative action such as invading Taiwan or parts of Japan, ASB is more or less
useless. No U.S. president is going to order the U.S. military to take the extremely
provocative actions that ASB would require because of, say, recent actions by China setting
up an oil rig in waters that it disputes with Vietnam.Ӧ So far, Washington has been
unable to deter Beijing from using a whole host of non-kinetic actions—sometimes
referred to as “small-stick diplomacy”—to fundamentally alter the status quo in the
South China Sea and make provocative moves to the north in the East China Sea. What to do in an area of the
globe where multiple nations have various disputes with China and each other over the waves that control vital sea lanes, small islands
and reefs, as well as possible riches in the form of natural resources. The Obama administration has been more focused on the bigger
picture, that if the winds of war ever came to the region, Washington would have a plan of action for negating Beijing’s grow ing anti-
access/area-denial arsenal. American can pivot, rebalance or pronounce its intentions to make the Asia-Pacific and
wider Indo-Pacific its main focus all
it wants, however, if it can’t prevent China from altering the
status-quo, its bumper sticker foreign policy pronouncements are painfully
meaningless.¶ If you want to use the shame game to alter Beijing’s strategic calculus,
there might be a better way. There only seems one solution to the various territorial
disputes in the region—specifically, what some are calling “lawfare.” All of the various
claimants that have disputes with China in the South China Sea should appeal collectively
to any and all international bodies that could possibly hear their claims. Only together can they hope to
get Beijing to halt its aggressive actions. This may just have the same or greater impact than
if the U.S. attempted to use surveillance flights to embarrass Beijing—without the
possibility of an incident spiraling into a possible conflict no one wants. While Manila has already filed
its own claims against Beijing and Hanoi seems likely to follow suit, a joint claim or multi-party suit would be much more powerful. China
should realize its neighbors have the ability to resist its claims without resorting to kinetic means. ¶ While even this might not stop
China’s moves to enforces its claims in the area around its nine or ten-dash line around the South China Sea, if
shaming Beijing
is the goal, and considering the stakes (not just who controls sea lanes worth trillions of dollars, but the very idea
of the global commons, space that no one owns), this might be just the best way to do it.
 Solvency
Deterrence-by-punishment has collapsed – deterrence-by-denial pushes
the burden of escalation onto China which immediate stabilizes and
solves allied concerns
A. Wess Mitchell 15, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a
foreign-policy institute dedicated to East-Central Europe, “The Case for Deterrence by
Denial,” Aug 12, http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/08/12/the-case-for-
deterrence-by-denial/
[this evidence has been modified for gendered language; Note- the study referenced about
deterrence successes is this: What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980 Paul
Huth and Bruce Russett, World Politics, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 496-526]
Second, America’s rivals are becoming better armed. In the words of one senior Pentagon official, Russia and
China are “fielding very advanced capabilities at an extremely rapid pace. ” They are investing in
many of the types of technology—long-range missiles, stealth, next-generation fighter aircraft, and electronic jamming—in which the United States has long maintained a commanding

Both China’s build-up of Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) weapons and Russia’s “escalate-to-
lead.

deescalate” tactical nuclear doctrine are examples of efforts to deprive the United States of
escalation dominance in future contests. While they have virtually no effect on U.S. nuclear deterrence, these changes
erode the effectiveness of deterrence by punishment by reducing the certainty that America
could manage escalation and successfully impose high costs for acts of aggression.2
They increase the presumed reliance of the United States on nuclear deterrence for
managing even small confrontations—a recourse that America’s competitors rightly assume it will be loath to use in an era of public aversion
to casualties (both inflicting and suffering them).

Third and most importantly, America’s rivals are developing tactics for evading
retaliatory deterrence. Russia and China have introduced limited-war techniques
designed to avoid trigger mechanisms of extended deterrence—for Russia, “jab and
grab” land incursions; for China, the creeping militarization of maritime zones. Both
techniques operate below the threshold of deterrence by punishment and seek to create
territorial faits accomplis that lower the costs of revisionism. Such methods pose
serious problems for deterrence by punishment, which is predicated on aggression
being identifiable and therefore punishable. In a limited war setting, punishment
quickly morphs into compellance—not just dissuading an enemy but dislodging him and forcing a withdrawal from his limited, stealthy
conquest. As Thomas Schelling has argued, compellance (“a threat intended to make an adversary do something”) is

inherently harder than deterrence (“a threat to keep him from starting something). Limited war shifts the
psychological burden of conflict—fear of retaliation—away from the aggressor and
places it on the shoulders of the defender—fear of escalation. It puts the defender in
the position of perpetually under-responding to ambiguous provocations (and
thereby losing control of strategically vital spaces by default) or over-responding
(and risking war).
Diversifying Deterrence Options
So far, America’s response to erosions in its military position has been mainly
technological: to bolster its competitive advantages against rivals and thereby shore up the credibility of existing deterrence methods. Attempts at
reassuring frontline allies through the deployment of tripwires (most recently, in Eastern Europe); the push
to refocus U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine on deterring major war; and some (though not all) of the components of the Pentagon’s third offset are all examples of how the United States
is “doubling down” on punishment. These efforts are likely to yield positive results in bolstering key components of retaliation and ensuring that deterrence by punishment remains

the backbone of America’s extended deterrent for the foreseeable future.However, as America’s lead in advanced weaponry
narrows amid prolonged cuts in defense spending, the United States may face limits to how
far it can go in using technology to deter its rivals. Unlike its past responses to the problem of competitor “catch-up” (for
example, Eisenhower’s “New Look” and the Offset Strategy of the 1970s), the United States will need to look for other sources of

comparative advantage with which to maintain its primacy.

One such advantage is geography. America’s possession of extensive security
relationships with states along the rimlands of Eurasia offers natural strategic advantages
that have not been systematically exploited in post-Cold War strategy. It was hard to employ such
states effectively in past U.S. extended deterrence systems, since the very act of threatening punishment to rivals with America’s vast arsenal dis-incentivized self-help among its allies
(the famous “free-rider” problem). More often than not, allies were viewed as liabilities, either because they required acts of assurance to maintain or because, if over-assured, they

as the global geopolitical environment turns

might themselves become sources of provocation (the “entrapment” problem). But

predatory, frontline states now have a powerful incentive to do more for themselves
in defense: self-preservation. Thus motivated, many are arming and aligning with
similarly placed neighbors in an effort to contain large powers.
These dynamics create an opportunity for the United States. America’s extensive frontline
alliances offer a natural means of pursuing a strategy of deterrence by denial, both
as an end in itself for containing growing rivals , and as a compliment to deterrence by punishment. Historically, Great Powers
have often employed alliances with states located near rivals in this way. Prior to the nuclear era, denial was a more common way to achieve extended deterrence, since the tools for

When facing rivals that were numerous or far away, it was

projecting decisive military force were less reliable.

often more effective to make it physically harder for them to expand rather than by
threatening to punish them . Such denial strategies were especially common among
maritime or status quo powers attempting to raise the costs of revisionism in key
strategic zones. Since they worked with the momentum of the small states’ desire to remain independent, deterrence by denial had
the added benefit of being cost-effective, particularly at moments of power
transition.
Three Ways to Deny

there are three ways that a Great Power can achieve extended deterrence
Generally speaking,

by denial. One is to make an ally or piece of territory harder to take. This usually
involves placing defensive attributes of some kind in the place that is likely to be the object of the revisionist
power’s desire—either using the forces of the patron or, far better, those of the targeted ally. The crucial difference between this

approach and the “trip-wires” used for deterrence by punishment is that forces
deployed for denial are intended not to die and trigger punishment but to live and
inflict pain on the attacker. The most common way to ensure this is to help the
frontline ally beef up its defensive properties. The classic example is 18th-century Britain’s policy of providing subsidies and arms
to Europe’s smaller states to deter the expansion of continental rivals. Another, bolder method is to help the ally acquire offensive capabilities.3 This requires the ally to be large
enough in size and capabilities to attempt a conventional deterrent of its own. France’s alliances de revers of the 17th and 18th centuries, for example, created an extended deterrence
based on denial by building a bulwark of aggressive mid-sized frontier states (Sweden, Poland, and Turkey). Through subsidies, advisers, and shared technology, France encouraged
these states to adopt eastward-facing offensive postures (Charles XII’s famous exploits were largely funded by France) to keep Russia on the defensive and impede its expansion into
Europe proper.
A second form of deterrence by denial is to make the revisionist’s coveted object
harder to keep. This is usually the best option when the ally in question is too weak to mount a credible defense but
possesses sufficient willpower to make it indigestible for an attacker. Since the
ultimate goal of revisionist powers is to achieve quick, easy grabs, this strategy seeks
to make them prolonged and costly—what could be called the “bitter pill” strategy.
Sixteenth-century Switzerland is one such example; another is 20th-century Finland. Both used scrappy defensive techniques and small but well-trained forces to advertise
indigestibility to predators. In extended form, this approach can involve a Great Power providing weapons of a type or number that enable an otherwise indefensible state to be
capable of waging guerilla war against an attacker and outlasting occupation. Britain used such an approach with the Netherlands in the early 18th century by funding mercenary
armies and encouraging the flooding of Holland’s fields; in the early 19th-century, it supplied weapons and fortifications to Portugal to resist French encroachments. ¶

The third form of deterrence by denial is to make the ally or territory in question stronger industrially than the attacker. Unlike the methods above, which focus on militarily
penalizing an attack, this form of deterrence is long-term and mainly economic. Since a major goal of revisionist aggression is to break alliances, denying them their objective can be
aided by strengthening the ties between the target country and its patron. Abundant evidence shows that extended deterrence is most effective when the military relationship

A study of 54 cases of deterrence between

between two states is undergirded by economic ties, particularly in strategic industries.

1900 and 1980 found that defensive alliances characterized by close political ties and
even small amounts of trade succeeded in deterring aggression seven times out of eight, compared

to much lower success rates in alliances based purely on military relations. France famously
sought to build up the resiliency of its CEE alliances not just by aiding and advising their militaries but by providing investment to build up strategic industries and railways, and to
fuel economic growth.

, the goal of these strategies is to deter a revision of the overall

Whether by short- or long-term methods

system by deterring the conquest of specific places . Where deterrence by punishment

leaves certain frontline terrain unguarded and thereby involves an assumed
sacrifice—both of tripwire troops and the soil of the target state—deterrence by denial seeks to make the
conquest of the target an altogether unattractive prospect. The two forms of deterrence are not mutually exclusive;
indeed, combining them can strengthen the credibility of both. Having the ability to punish while cultivating the local means to resist creates a virtuous cycle, communicating to the
ally that self-defense is not hopeless and to the revisionist that he may have to pay twofold for whatever gains his aggression may yield.

Alliances as Denial Tools

America has abundant opportunities to inter-weave denial methods into its wider
punishment-based system. Rimland alliances offer natural tools for managing multiple, large Eurasian competitors. In both Europe
and Asia, the United States possesses alliances with small states with the motivation to oppose local hegemons. A U.S. strategy
to “activate” these alliances as instruments for discouraging attempts at control of
important real estate could include all three of the forms of denial mentioned above. It would
use the military geography of frontline allies to make them and nearby real estate
harder to take. America’s archipelagic Asian allies can employ naval mines,
submarines, and an increasingly advanced array of missiles to turn the region’s
narrow waterways into clogging mechanisms for impeding Chinese naval expansion.
Similarly, in Eastern Europe, allies in the Baltic-Black Sea corridor can be turned into

“bitter pills” bristling with anti-tank and anti-ship missiles. Mid-sized states (like
Poland, Finland and Romania) can be armed with offensive weapons like the AGM-158 JASSM and
Tomahawk missiles to keep revisionists off balance and diverting budgets to defensive capabilities. Tiny but determined allies like the
Baltic States can be made harder to hold in an invasion by, for example, offering pre-set U.S. packages of nasty weapons like landmines that are automatically released on the first sign

In both regions, a strategy to instigate and organize dense networks of

of aggressive behavior.

intra- and inter-regional cooperation in strategic industries and R&D would thicken the “hide” of
allied frontiers on a longer-term basis.
Incorporating denial into the U.S. extended deterrence system would offer important advantages for the United States. Strategically, it would
focus scarce resources to the places where conflict is most likely to occur . Technologically, it
would play to many of America’s emerging areas of competitive strength, including
in defensive weapons like surface, air, and naval missiles favored in the third offset,
while prompting greater clarity in Pentagon thinking on the as-yet underexamined role for alliances in the offset strategy.
In defensive terms, it would provide tools that, should deterrence fail, are more easily

employed to fight and win a conflict than those used for punishment. Geographically, denial
would play to America’s latent, underdeveloped advantage: its wide range of frontline allies with
the predisposition and location to disrupt rivals’ offensive moves. Organizing these states for stronger self-
defense would raise the visible costs of revision without necessarily adding commensurate defense burdens for the United States. By systematically bolstering the denial capabilities of

. Strengthening frontline resistance

frontline allies, the United States could concentrate its own resources on higher-tier punishment weapons

would also reinforce and clarify the trigger mechanisms for deterrence by punishment
and help to make extended deterrence as a whole more solvent against hybrid-war
threats.
Injecting greater emphasis on denial into U.S. strategy could also have a political
benefit for America’s alliances. Traditionally, frontline states have had an aversion to
patron relationships that are overly reliant on punishment, especially when the patron in question is a maritime
power. Unlike retaliation, which can seem remote and beyond control to the state being

defended, denial is immediate and in the obvious self-preservation interests of the

ally, which therefore has strong incentives to deny the enemy the immediate and narrow
objective of conquest. Whereas relying primarily on deterrence by punishment from the
patron may weaken the alliance, leading to fears of abandonment and being merely a

great-power bargaining chip, joint investment by the patron and ally in denial strengthens the
political bonds of the alliance.
Most importantly , a greater focus on denial could help to shift the psychological burden of 21st-
century conflict back where it belongs: on the shoulders of states that wish to
rearrange the international order. Whereas limited-war techniques enable
revisionists to believe they can avoid triggering retaliation and thereby get away with an
easy victory, denial signals that they will pay a steep price for aggression at the place
it occurs, ranging from a sharp rebuff to a war of attrition . From Eastern Europe to the
Western Pacific, the goal should be the same: to limit options for easy revisions and
to increase the immediate cost and difficulty of grabbing and holding territory .
Building up such mechanisms will help the United States avoid the predicament of holding
together through compellance what it could not through deterrence. The goal should be to restore a
healthy sense of fear in would-be predators. Doing this now, while the century is still young and revisionists

are still mulling over their options, will be a far cheaper policy in the long run than
waiting for deterrence by punishment to fail and then trying to regain lost ground
through coercion.

Asset removal is key – Chinese fears stem from U.S. presence, not
declaratory policy – carrier removal is a prerequisite to deterrence-by-
denial
Michael Ryan Kraig 13, assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command
and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base; and Leon J. Perkowski, PhD candidate in the
history of US foreign relations senior instructor in the Department of International Security
and Military Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, Summer 2013, “Shaping Air and
Sea Power for the “Asia Pivot”: Military Planning to Support Limited Geopolitical
Objectives,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, p. 114-136
Indeed, recent literature by Air Force and Navy officers has begun to define and argue for a range of capabilities that flexibly threatens not only greater or lesser military costs, but also lesser or greater policy stakes. For instance, evolving
concepts focused on countering A2/AD anti-access and area denial ( ) strategies— such as A S B the ir- ea attle—rightly argue the U that nited

S should seek to maintain “escalation agility”

tates and to “manage” escalation “to avoid relying on . . . capabilities that existentially threaten another nation or its leadership.”30

even escalation with certain

Traditionally, the notion of an “existential threat” has been tied firmly to nuclear forces and nuclear strikes. This article, however, proposes that

conventional deep-strike capabilities may be viewed by some competitors as

approaching an existential threat, given the geopolitical realities of a globalized East
Asian operating environment . Thus, we further emphasize the point raised briefly by Vincent Alcazar in this same journal that an important element of escalation agility31— especially when dealing with an
adversary that holds some major interests in common with the United States—is the capability to thwart without escalation the enemy’s ability to consolidate its objectives.

we propose the operational concept of

That is, under the umbrella concept of strategic denial at the level of military strategy and campaign planning, further and define , battle-level

persistent denial: the ability to apply sustainable pressure at a given escalation

threshold to raise the adversary’s perceived cost of an anti–status quo action both prior to and during

By avoiding escalation that would immediately threaten core interests

a militarized crisis. defense of a sovereign

which could quickly escalate

competitor— stakes to an escalation spiral—lower- the political involved, possibly leading

level military capacities might give added credibility to US deterrent threats and plans in a tense

reducing
environment, the prospect of fullscale warfare.
the likelihood that the United States be confronted with either “backing down” or committing to actions that raise In sum:

the ability to credibly and capably impose negative costs without dramatically
escalating the political stakes involved would facilitate the eventual resumption of a
stable peace.and at least partially cooperative

the question when considering employment and procurement policies in East

In this regard, different

Asia is whether Beijing could distinguish between limited versus extensive US

leaders in

policy intentions Limited US intentions may be especially hard to

based on the threat and possible use of such force. policy

signal in operational applications of weapon systems that possess the ability to

future may

strike targets deep in sovereign Chinese territory

hundreds and perhaps thousands of due to the with relative impunity. That is,

deep-strike, precision, forces being called for under speed, and stealth of some new conventional missile and bomber the generic banner of both conventional

ASB China may in a crisis

prompt global strike (CPGS) and ir- ea be hard-pressed to assess the
attle, a rising over limited geopolitical claims

scope of immediate US intentions, given the innately strategic effects of such

platforms in terms of their ability to “decapitate” leadership or cause widespread “societal disruption.”32

To the extent that the US Department of Defense is pursuing the latter specific goal in particular, it is courting the danger of making too little of a distinction between the universal, timeless need for decisive combat at the tactical level and the far rarer need to win an all-out
war with a competitor at a truly strategic level of policy objectives. We infer these troubling consequences based on the core military characteristic often attributed to CPGS or global strike forces: to create “strategic level” military effects on deep Chinese target sets, a military
operational and tactical goal that implicitly encompasses all-out political and/or military strategic objectives.

For instance, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a leading, highly influential defense think tank with myriad Pentagon contracts and personal military connections,33 has fretted that “the Air Force’s current bomber force lacks the capabilities and
capacity needed to penetrate contested airspace to strike thousands of targets in future air campaigns.” In answer to this perceived deficit in the US deterrent and war-fighting posture, the CSBA has called for “one hundred new optionally manned penetrating bombers with
all-aspect, broadband stealth, a payload capacity of approximately 20,000 pounds, and a range of 4,000–5,000 nautical miles. The bomber should have on-board surveillance and self-defense capabilities to permit independent operations against fixed and mobile targets in
degraded C4ISR environments.”34

the traditional Air Force focus on

This policy argument strongly resembles the capability to US “strategic offensive interdiction,” broadly defined as

deliver strategic paralysis that disarms the enemy without having to repeatedly
a form of literally

fight its frontline forces . The latter has generally been achieved (or at least attempted) by applying pressure against more indirect political, industrial, infrastructural, and other military-supporting as well as societal
targets, which in turn has been meant to undermine overall enemy political will and decision-making coherence. The latter exercise is generally what is meant by the term offensive strategic interdiction, whether advocated by theorists such as Giulio Douhet and B. H. Liddell
Hart, or by the Air Corps Tactical School in the form of the “Industrial Web Theory,” or more recently, in the planning documents and writings of Col John Warden III.35

would have the simultaneous

Although the historical and intellectual pedigree of such ideas is undeniable, what is often missed in the debates is that this traditional approach to strategic airpower

effect of destroying PRC sovereign defense capacities overall, meaning it

or seriously degrading that

would confront Beijing with not just degraded power projection but a severely even
degraded ability to defend its own homeland given the PRC’s historical focus on the . And

sanctity of its current borders —as shown in both its intervention in the Korean War and later in bruising battles with both the Soviet Union and Vietnam in the 1970s, costing tens of thousands of

degrading Beijing’s ability to ensure its own sovereign defense is likely to

casualties36—

escalate any hostilities rather than lead to a stable crisis resolution such threats . Indeed,

would almost certainly run afoul of the innate nationalist impulses implicit in the
millennia-long existence of collective Confucian culture in China ,37 and especially its felt “victim status” as a result of the “century
of humiliation” visited upon it by external colonial powers from 1839 to 1945.38

One might argue the capability to win such a large war decisively would
that deter an inherently

opponent from escalating to that point. However the empirical reality , in the security studies literature, concept and

of destabilizing capabilities has been thoroughly analyzed

diplomatically weapons and described under the rubric of “offensive dominance,” as

Large dataset statistical testing with in-depth case studies

opposed to “defense” or “deterrence dominance.” , together covering the great-power

have shown across different methodologies that when major

periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, together

powers harbor weapons at an operational level that can easily preempt the other
side’s forces quickly this exacerbates international anarchy The
, the grand strategy–level condition known as “ .”

decision calculus can quickly veer toward preventive war because decision or preemptive strikes

makers are tempted through opportunity and genuine fear to “strike first” to keep a both

rival from gaining a decisive strategic edge. operational, and hence, 39

a US approach to force procurement

Thus, that is overly focused on offensive and employment

strategic interdiction could easily have a deleterious strategic

in order to secure victory—even of a nonnuclear variety—

political effect during both periods of “general deterrence” in peacetime and during
a diplomatic-military crisis . In essence, Bernard Brodie’s 1959 assessment of nuclear deterrence strategies is generally applicable here: “[A] plan and policy which offers a good promise of deterring war is . . . better
in every way than one which depreciates the objectives of deterrence in order to improve somewhat the chances of winning” (emphasis added).40
2AC
 Naval Strategy

Deterrence by denial is goldilocks for assurance – punishment is seen as

too escalatory
Eirik Torsvoll 15, research assistant at PluriCourts, ARTICLE: Deterring Conflict with
China: A Comparison of the Air-Sea Battle Concept, Offshore Control, and Deterrence by
Denial, 39 Fletcher F. World Aff. 35, Winter, 2015, lexis
[Note: DBD = Deterrence by Denial]
U.S. treaty allies, such as Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea, will certainly find it
in their national interests to prevent China from seizing any of the islands over
which they are currently in dispute with Beijing. In the event of a Chinese assault,
these states would most likely demand assistance from the United States. DBD,
therefore, provides a strategy for guaranteeing and enforcing their defense. Australia and
Thailand, America's other Asian-Pacific allies, are not currently in any island disputes with China but would undoubtedly want to deter
and prevent Chinese maritime [*53] aggression as well. n94 This goal is similarly shared by other U.S. regional partners lo cked in island
disputes with China, such as Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. DBD's
proposal for a proportional
response to a limited problem could make the approach more readily acceptable in
allied capitals, rather than the greater escalations proposed in ASB and OSC.¶ There is a risk,
however, of China taking advantage of the probable discrepancy between U.S. allies in their support of forceful responses to lower-levels
of conflict, like the Scarborough Shoal incident. The
country directly involved would most likely want
U.S. assistance, while countries without a claim might view military support as an
unnecessary escalation. The opportunities for simple and bloodless operations for
China seem to be slowly disappearing, as the countries in the region bolster their
own navies and coast guards. n95 Consequently, if Beijing did try to capture maritime
territory through so-called "salami slicing" tactics in the future, it might have to use
force in such a way that the support for a U.S. reaction would be strong. ¶ DBD would
probably also be well-received in allied capitals based on the fact that it builds on
current military capabilities, in addition to supporting their own A2/AD systems. Not
requiring substantial investments into developing or adopting new technology is an
asset. Furthermore, DBD's potency could be demonstrated in peacetime exercises where
drills with similar content and deterrence messages are already taking place . n96 This
would mean its feasibility could be displayed both to allies and to China in advance,
which is an advantage DBD shares with OSC over ASB.

Assurance low now --- un-fulfilled redlines

- CP can’t solve unfulfilled redlines --- already happened in Syria
Bruce Klinger 14, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia @ The Heritage Foundation’s
Asian Studies Center, “Asia’s Big Fear: Is America Emboldening China and North Korea?”
July 17, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2014/7/asias-big-fear-is-
america-emboldening-china-and-north-korea
Despite these reassurances and the Obama administration’s loudly proclaimed “Asia
Pivot,” Asian nations increasingly question U.S. military capabilities and resolve. The
pivot strategy is sound only if Washington devotes sufficient resources to deploy the requisite military
forces in the Pacific. Without this, it fails to reassure allies or deter potential opponents. But even well

before sequestration, it was obvious that the Obama administration was underfunding U.S.
defense requirements.
Hagel commented in February 2014 that, due to sequestration, the military readiness
Secretary of Defense

and modernization budget would be cut, leading to “a hollow force . . . that is not ready,
that is not capable of fulfilling assigned missions. In the longer term . . . the resulting force would be . . .
too small to fully execute the President's defense strategy.”
The Asia Pivot—which never provided for new permanent deployments of additional military forces to the Pacific—has been
derailed by defense budget cuts. Beyond that, Seoul and Tokyo were flummoxed by Obama’s
refusal to live up to the pledged military response when Syrian President Assad crossed the U.S.
redline against using chemical weapons against civilians. The allies have privately expressed fears that
Obama might similarly abandon U.S. defense commitments if North Korea or China
attacked them. Similarly, U.S. inability or unwillingness to prevent Vladimir Putin’s actions in
Crimea generated concerns that China would be encouraged take similar action against
areas Beijing claims as its own.
Despite strong U.S. rhetoric, America’s opponents haven’t moderated their behavior. Our
Asian allies now fear that the administration’s slashed defense budgets and unfilled ‘red
lines’ will embolden Beijing and Pyongyang to employ more coercive diplomacy—or
worse.

Carrier worse for cred -- decks deterrence and assurance --- nobody
takes the carrier seriously
Jerry Hendrix 15, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the director
of its Defense Strategies and Assessments Program, former Navy captain, “The U.S. Navy
Needs to Radically Reassess How It Projects Power,” April 23,
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417306/us-navy-needs-radically-reassess-how-
it-projects-power-jerry-hendrix
This argument as it regards the U.S. Navy is taking place with special vigor. The budget will have serious consequences for the size of the fleet and its ability to maintain combat readiness, which in turn will have

If the Navy wants to address its budget crisis, its falling ship count, its
consequences for U.S. strategy.

atrophying strategic position, and the problem of its now-marginal combat

effectiveness — and reassert its traditional dominance of the seas — it should embrace
technological innovation and increase its efficiency. In short: It needs to stop building
aircraft carriers. This might seem like a radical change. After all, the aircraft carrier has been the dominant naval platform and the center of the Navy’s force
structure for the past 70 years — an era marked by unprecedented peace on the oceans. In the past generation, aircraft have flown thousands of sorties from the decks of American carriers in support of the nation’s wars.
 But the economic, technological,
For the first 54 days of the current round of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, the USS George H. W. Bush was the sole source of air power.

and strategic developments of recent years indicate that the day of the carrier is over
and, in fact, might have already passed a generation ago — a fact that has been obscured by the preponderance of U.S. power on the
seas. The carrier has been operating in low-threat, permissive environments almost

continuously since World War II. At no time since 1946 has a carrier had to fend off
attacks by enemy aircraft, surface ships, or submarines. No carrier has had to establish a sanctuary for operations and then defend
it. More often than not, carriers have recently found themselves operating unmolested closer to enemy shores than previous Cold War–era doctrine permitted, secure in the knowledge that the chance of an attack ranged
between unlikely and impossible. Such confidence in the dominance of the carrier encouraged naval architects to put more capabilities into their design, going from the 30,000-ton Essex-class carrier in 1942 to the
94,000-ton Nimitz-class carrier in 1975. Crew size of a typical carrier went from 3,000 to 5,200 over the same period, a 73 percent increase. Costs similarly burgeoned, from $1.1 billion for the Essex to $5 billion for the
Nimitz (all in adjusted 2014 dollars), owing to the increased technical complexity and sheer physical growth of the platforms in order to host the larger aircraft that operated at longer ranges during the Cold War. The
lessons of World War II, in which several large fleet carriers were lost or badly damaged, convinced Navy leaders to pursue a goal of a 100,000-ton carrier that could support a 100,000-pound aircraft capable of carrying
larger bomb payloads, including nuclear weapons, 2,000 miles or more to hit strategic targets, making the platform larger, more expensive, and manned with more of the Navy’s most valuable assets, its people.

Today’s new class of carrier, the Ford, which will be placed into commission next year, displaces 100,000 tons of water, and has a crew of
4,800 and a price of $14 billion. The great cost of the Cold War–era “super-carriers” has resulted in a reduction of the carrier force, from over 30 fleet carriers in World
War II to just ten carriers today. While the carrier of today is more capable, each of the ten can be in only one place at a time, limiting the Navy’s range of effectiveness. This points to the

first reason the U.S. should stop building carriers: They are too valuable to lose. At $14 billion
apiece, one of them can cost the equivalent of nearly an entire year’s shipbuilding budget.

(Carriers are in fact funded and built over a five-year period.) And the cost of losing a carrier would not be only monetary.

Each carrier holds the population of a small town. Americans are willing to risk their lives for important reasons, but they
have also become increasingly averse to casualties. Losing a platform with nearly 5,000 American souls onboard would
not just raise an outcry, but would undermine public faith in elected officials — and the officials know it.

It would take an existential threat to the homeland to convince leaders to introduce

carriers into a high-threat environment. Yet any hesitance to do so would create a cascading
failure. Carriers are the central cogs in the U.S. war-fighting machine. They don’t just launch planes for air strikes: They also provide airborne command and control, host the staffs of strike-group and fleet-
commanding admirals, and provide underway refueling and resupply of other ships in their strike group. In addition, they house much of the fleet’s ordnance in their cavernous magazines. If they were

removed from the arena as a result of a political decision not to risk their damage or
loss, current plans to defend U.S. interests would collapse. For this reason, the modern carrier
violates a core principle of war: Never introduce an element that you cannot afford
to lose. There can be no indispensable person or platform in war, for as soon as that
element is identified, the enemy will risk everything to destroy it, and in that
moment a war can be lost. The carrier has done well in the benign environments of
recent decades, but in the face of current rising threats, in which U.S. credibility is on
the line, there are serious questions about its continued worth. In 1996, China found itself embroiled in a controversy
with a government in Taiwan that was intent on declaring its formal independence. To send a message, China conducted a series of tests that involved firing missiles into the waters around Taiwan and built up forces to
conduct an amphibious exercise in the Taiwan Strait. In response, President Bill Clinton sent two aircraft-carrier strike groups to the strait. China, chastened, embarrassed, and well aware of the United States’ recent
demonstration of its ability to project power at will into Iraq and the former Yugoslavia from seaborne air bases, set about developing a series of capabilities that could credibly threaten American aircraft carriers and
push them back beyond the combat range of their aircraft. In the years that followed, China developed long-range aircraft equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles, submarines, surface ships with long-range missiles, and

Today, any carrier operating within 1,000 miles of the

land-based ballistic missiles capable of knocking a carrier out of action.

Chinese coast knows that it can be targeted at any moment. And the problem looks even more serious when we consider that
China has often exported military technologies to other nations willing to pay for them. The United States, the center of technological

innovation, thus finds itself in the position of being out-innovated. To counter emerging “anti-access/area denial”
(A2AD) technologies that include ballistic and cruise missiles that can reach ships over a thousand miles from shore, the U.S. Navy has invested billions of

dollars in anti-A2AD capabilities — such as electronic-spectrum jamming, directed-energy weapons, electromagnetic rail guns, and ballistic-missile defenses — in
a vain attempt to defend the carrier. An objective outside observer can easily
identify who is imposing costs on whom in this competition. The same outside
observer would also discern where the difficulty with the carrier design lies. The efficacy of the
carrier lies not in the ship but in the capabilities of its planes. Today, most of those planes are F/A-18 Hornets — a superb aircraft that has undergone many improvements in its lifetime but remains limited by its original
light-attack-mission requirements. In the past 14 years of combat operations, in which Navy aircraft have flown tens of thousands of sorties, we have learned a number of things. First, nearly 80 percent of a Hornet’s
9,000-flight-hour lifetime is spent maintaining the flight qualifications of its pilots. Second, if we factor in the life-cycle costs of the aircraft — including the cost of buying it, maintaining it, fueling it, and training its pilots
— and then divide that cost by the number of bombs dropped in combat, we arrive at an average cost per bomb of nearly $8 million. This is seven times the cost of a Tomahawk precision-strike cruise missile. Third,
the current average combat range of a carrier light-attack plane is only 500 miles. This
means that, even steaming at 30 knots, the carrier would spend 15 hours under an A2AD

threat in order to carry its planes close enough to hit land targets. The Navy has consistently opposed investing in
the type of unmanned long-range combat strike platforms that could renew its relevance, and today’s carrier planes do not have sufficient in-flight refueling capacity to significantly extend the range of the attack aircraft.
Proposals to use large “big-wing” U.S. Air Force tankers to extend the refueling capacity beyond what carriers can provide ignore the fact that these aircraft will not be able to operate within the A2AD threat bubble
unescorted by single-seat fighters, whose pilots cannot remain physically effective throughout the long 14-hour missions.

ASB destroys alliance credibility --- ineffective, risky, and too anti-China -
-- causes militarization
Richard A. Bitzinger 15, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Military Transformations
Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2015, “China’s Military
Buildup: Regional Repercussions,” in China's Power and Asian Security, p. 57-58
The political and military establishment in the U.S. emphasizes the growing importance and complexity of East Asia's security challenges,
including the strategic and operational consequences of China's ongoing military modernization. U.S.
allies in East Asia,
however, have not fully embraced the ASB concept or the rationale behind it. Indeed, South
Korea, Japan, Australia and other U.S. partners in the region have been relatively quiet on the
implications of ASB, largely because they do not possess the full extent of the planned operational details, which remain
classified. Such hesitance is also attributable to concerns, from the allied perspective, over the
extent to which ASB provides strategic reassurance as opposed to representing
abandonment by the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. DoD has not clarified the link between the ASB
concept and its "rebalancing strategy " in the Asia-Pacific region, nor what particular aspects of
ASB will be relevant for future allied interoperability requirements and involvement. Moreover,
at the operational level, U.S. allies question whether implementing ASB would actually mitigate
military effectiveness and the defense of proximate U.S. allied bases in the region.
At this point, no
U.S. ally or potential military partner in Northeast or Southeast Asia is anywhere near equipped
at this point to make much of a contribution to U.S. AirSea Battle operations. Japan is
probably the most concerned about a rising Chinese military threat , as reflected in its 2011
National Defense Program Guidelines and its embrace of a "dynamic defense force." This "dynamic defense" emphasizes high-mobility, an
expeditionary capacity (to specifically defend off-shore islands), jointness (within the entire Japan Self Defense Forces (JSDF)) and
interoperability with U.S. forces.29 At
the same time, the JSDF remains overwhelmingly a
defensively oriented military; its major potential contributions to ASB are in
providing secure forward basing to U.S. forces, missile defense, and a small but growing
capacity for power projection (e.g. new helicopter carriers, an expanding submarine force, additional sea- and airlift).
According to Benjamin Schreer: "Japan's defense planning has thus started to shift toward complementarity in a possible 'Allied AirSea
Battle' concept. Militarily, it's increasingly well placed to 'plug and play' in a future Sino-US conflict."30 On the other hand, Japan remains
militarily and strategically hamstrung by an extremely tight defense budget that limits the acquisition of ASB-supporting equipment or
infrastructure, and a continuing pacifist streak that runs through the general populace; its ability to make a substantial contribution to
ASB operations is still limited, therefore.

For their part, most

other countries in the region are even less prepared, either militarily
or politically (or both) to support ASB. Most Southeast Asian militaries, for instance, possess little in the way of area
denial capabilities - especially sea denial - when it comes to countering China. Even more importantly, it is highly unlikely that Southeast
Asia countries - even Singapore, a close partner with the U.S. military which possesses the resources to play a "supporting role in an
AirSea Battle concept" - are prepared to commit themselves to "an operational concept that could see [them] involved in a major war
with China."31 Embracing
ASB would also place them too explicitly in the U.S. camp, violating
most of these countries' nonalignment strategies and/or balanced approaches
toward both U.S. and Chinese relations; this would also likely undermine their
priorities to engage Beijing via statecraft and diplomacy in order to extract
peaceable concessions from China.
In this context, U.S.
allies and partners in the region may even question whether and to what
extent ASB foresees active multinational participation in the envisioned "deep-strike
missions" targeting China's military infrastructure on the mainland. This operational
uncertainty in turn translates into broader strategic uncertainty, in which future
alliance credibility may be compromised. Consequently, if ASB indeed comes to shape U.S.
operational conduct, U.S. allies and partners in the region may feel the need to devise
alternative defense strategies, and rethink the pace, direction and character of their
military modernization, including their resource allocation and weapons acquisition
priorities.

Bases in Japan and South Korea solves

David W. Kearn 14, is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Politics
at St. John’s University, “Air-Sea Battle, the Challenge of Access, and U.S. National Security
Strategy,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 36:34-43
Given the presence of U.S. forward bases and deployed assets, which are, indeed, at
great risk, it is simply unclear whether U.S. allies in East Asia need a further signal of
commitment than the likely loss of U.S. personnel and matériel in the defense of their
cause. At the same time, it is also not clear that existing U.S. platforms and munitions
and those under development are incapable of clearly presenting Beijing with the
strong likelihood of paying prohibitively high costs in the event of a conflict.48 These
two realities confront Beijing with a fairly robust deterrent that ASB would seem to
improve only marginally. However, the downsides of adopting a plan like ASB in the
context of a crisis with China could be significant. The next section will explain four potential ways ASB could
undermine U.S. national security interests and make a damaging conflict with China more likely.

Allied prolif isn’t destabilizing

Christine M. Leah 14, Yale Grand Strategy Fellow @ The National Interest, 12-3-20, “Time
for Japan to Get Its Own Nuclear Weapons?” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/time-
japan-get-its-own-nuclear-weapons-11773
Tailored proliferation would not likely be destabilizing. Asia is not the Middle East.
Japan, South Korea, Australia, and even Taiwan are strong democracies. They have
stable political regimes. Government leaders are accountable to democratic
institutions. Civilian control of the military is strong. And they don’t have a history of
lobbing missiles at each other—they are much more risk-averse than Egypt, Syria or Iran. America’s allies
would be responsible nuclear weapon states.

China’s anti-ship cruise missiles will neutralize the carrier in a crisis

Robert Haddick 14, Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal, independent contractor to U.S.
Special Operations Command, he has advised the State Department, the National
Intelligence Council, and U.S. Central Command, Fire on the Water: China, America, and the
Future of the Pacific, Naval Institute Press, 2014, ebook no pg #s
Note: ASCM = Anti-Ship Cruise Missile
China has similarly aimed the missile and sensor revolution at the sea. China
has fielded a variety of missile-
based strategies with the goal of keeping adversary surface warships, including U.S. aircraft
carriers, away from its Near Seas. These strategies again exploit China’s continental position and the basing and range
advantages it provides.

By next decade, the

missile and sensor revolution will allow China to dominate the sea
from the land out to unprecedented distances. China plans to control its maritime approaches without
having to match the U.S. Navy warship for warship. A side-by-side comparison of the two fleets is not the relevant measure of naval
power and, therefore, the likelihood of strategic success .
What matters is what the U.S. Navy can do to cope
with China’s antiship missile coverage, which by next decade will extend two thousand kilometers from China’s
coast.

China’s possesses a wide variety of antiship cruise missile (ASCM) types, whose range,
speed, and performance will increasingly threaten U.S. surface ships. China employs
ASCMs from aircraft like the Flanker, surface ships, submarines, small fast patrol
craft, and land-based mobile TELs. U.S. surface naval forces will thus encounter a
thickening defense of ASCM launch platforms as they approach China’s coast.
Chinese Flanker aircraft, armed with the latest models of ASCMs, will present one of the
first, and perhaps most dangerous, threats to U.S. surface ships, such as those in carrier
and expeditionary strike groups. As mentioned above, China’s Flankers have a combat radius of
1,500 kilometers. They can be armed with up to six ASCMs, including the highly capable Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic
ASCM, with a range of about 250 kilometers, or the Chinese-built YJ-91/12 ASCM, with a range of up to 400 kilometers.46 The
Flanker-ASCM combination can thus attack targets 1,750 to 1,900 kilometers from
the Flanker’s last refueling point.
China’s most advanced ASCM models—the Sunburn, the Russian submarine-launched SS-N-27 Sizzler, and
the YJ-91/12—are especially dangerous to adversary surface warships . These missiles
approach their targets at wave-top heights to avoid detection and fly at supersonic
speeds while executing very sharp terminal attack maneuvers to thwart ship defense
systems. These missiles use both inertial and satellite navigation and acquire their targets with active radar, infrared tracking, and
homing on the target’s own electronic emissions.47 There are grave doubts about the capacity of U.S.
warships to defend themselves against ASCMs that have acquired their targets,
especially when launched in coordinated, multi-axis volleys.48
China’s acquisition of long-range air-launched ASCMs like the Sunburn and YJ-91/12 has greatly
increased the danger to U.S. carrier strike groups. Previously, when China’s air-launched ASCMs had ranges
under one hundred kilometers, U.S. aircraft carriers and their air defense escorts would be able to prepare
for the incoming attackers and employ the full range of the strike group’s defenses. The carrier’s early
warning aircraft and combat air patrols could detect incoming formations of enemy
aircraft many hundreds of kilometers from the strike group. This would allow the carrier time to launch
more interceptors to battle the incoming attackers before they reached a launch point for their ASCMs. Even worse for the
adversary, that launch point would be well within the range of the strike group’s surface-to-air missiles, directed by the powerful Aegis
combat system.

But the addition of the YJ-91/12 has shifted the advantage to China. The four
hundred kilometer–range of this missile places its launch point beyond the range of
the Aegis and its missiles. It also allows very little time for the carrier to get more
interceptors into the air to battle the inbound Flankers before they reach the four
hundred–kilometer launch point. A hypothetical attack by two Flanker regiments
would involve forty-eight aircraft, about 12 percent of China’s Flanker inventory in 2020. These two
regiments could approach the carrier strike group from at least two axes. Since such an
attack could arrive at any time, the strike group could maintain a continuous combat
air patrol of only a few interceptor aircraft. Although the strike group could rush a
few more interceptors to the air defense perimeter before the Flankers reached their missile launch
points, the Flankers would heavily outnumber the defenders and would likely approach
from more axes than the Navy fighters could defend.
Accepting that the strike group would shoot down some Flankers before they
launched their antiship missiles, the strike group would still have to contend with 125
to 200 incoming ASCMs, which would make wave-top, supersonic approaches to the

U.S. ships. In past engagements of antiship missiles against alerted surface warships, 32
percent of attacking missiles scored hits.49 If only 5 percent of the ASCMs scored hits,
the carrier strike group’s ships would still receive five to ten missile impacts, likely causing enough damage to
render the group ineffective and possibly defenseless against another attack. Even if few or no
ASCMs achieved hits, the carrier strike group would still very likely have to retire, having
exhausted its defensive missile magazines.
U.S. naval
forces will also have to contend with Chinese attack submarines armed with
ASCMs and wake-homing torpedoes. In 2012 China possessed twenty-nine attack submarines, each armed with up to eight advanced
ASCMs. Eight of these submarines are Russian-built Kilo-class boats armed with the supersonic Sizzler ASCM.50

China’s attack submarine force will continue to expand, with two indigenous models the focus of production. The Type 041 Yuan-class is
a new diesel-electric submarine. The Yuan-class submarine is expected to have air-independent
propulsion (AIP), for sustained and very quiet subsurface operations. Unlike nuclear-powered
submarines, diesel-electric submarines like the Type 041 are not well suited for long-range operations. But AIP-equipped diesel-
electric submarines present a particular challenge to antisubmarine forces, especially
when operating in the relatively shallow waters such as those in the First Island
Chain zone.51 The Yuan boats are armed with new models of long-range land-attack and
antiship cruise missiles, wired-guided and wake-homing torpedoes, and naval mines (China has over fifty
thousand naval mines). The Congressional Research Service estimated that China added five Yuan submarines to its fleet in 201 2,
presumably with a similar production rate in the future.52

In 2015 China is expected to begin production of a new Type 095 nuclear-powered attack submarine, which will feature improved
quieting technology. Although somewhat easier to detect than the Type 041 Yuan, as a nuclear-powered boat the Type 095 will be
capable of wide-ranging missions in the Pacific, including intelligence gathering and land-attack strikes on bases in the Second Island
Chain (e.g., Guam) and beyond. China’s total attack submarine force is expected to reach more than seventy units by 2020 and become
increasingly modern and well armed, as new models replace obsolescent types.53

China also operates thirteen destroyers and twenty-two frigates armed with ASCMs.
Four of China’s destroyers are the Russian-built Sovremenny-class ships, each armed with sixteen of the supersonic Sunburn ASCMs.
Closer to shore, the PLAN operates over eighty fast attack craft, each armed with eight ASCMs. In
almost all cases, the
ASCMs China deploys on surface ships outrange the U.S. Navy’s Harpoon ASCM. In a
hypothetical surface engagement, U.S. warships would have to endure missile volleys
from China’s surface forces before they closed to the Harpoon’s range. Finally, China’s
land-based ASCM batteries, deployed on TELs, will be able to strike naval targets out to
160 kilometers.54

China’s layers of ASCM launch platforms thus present a substantial challenge to the
U.S. Navy’s long-favored method of projecting power ashore. Since the closing months of World War
II and up through the employment of carrier-based strike aircraft over Afghanistan, U.S. fleet commanders have enjoyed the freedom to
sail their aircraft carriers close to an enemy’s shore, confident that these adversaries had little or no capacity to interru pt the carriers’
flight operations. With
the missile and sensor revolution, the rules have changed
dramatically. In a conflict with China, it will be highly dangerous for U.S. aircraft carrier strike
groups to operate within 1,100 kilometers of China, the maximum combat radius of the
carrier’s strike aircraft. We should expect the missile and sensor revolution to continue, with ASCM ranges increasing,
pushing the U.S. Navy’s airpower capability even farther from shore.
 SCS
Defensive strategy key to tailored deterrence which deescalates crises
Michael Johnson 14, a Senior Defense Research Analyst at the RAND Corporation, and
Terrence K. Kelly, Tailored Deterrence: Strategic Context to Guide Joint Force 2020,
http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-74/jfq-74_22-29_Johnson-
Kelly.pdf
the United States should develop a defense strategy based on tailored
To guide strategic choices driven by reduced resources,

approaches to deter the principal threats to national security while preserving flexibility to account for their
uncertain trajectories and potential shocks. This hybrid approach would provide a strategic framework to ensure that defense planning scenarios are realistic and necessary, indicate the missions and forces required to

A defense strategy based in part on tailored

execute clear policy, and guide defense spending to provide the greatest return on investment.

deterrence would thus discipline any “irrational exuberance” for operational

concepts and capabilities intended to solve military-technical problems by ensuring
that they remain consistent with rational foreign and defense policies.
To support the development of such a defense strategy, this article considers broadly what it means to “deter and defeat aggression” in specific cases and outlines the supporting missions and forces. As a framework, it
provides direction for the development of deterrence policies and empirical analysis of supporting military plans by analyzing how deterrence is being operationalized within the force-sizing scenarios and suggesting

DOD is overinvesting in offensive Air-Sea Battle capabilities beyond what is

alternative approaches. It concludes that

necessary and prudent to deter China from attacking U.S. allies, but underinvesting in the balanced joint force
necessary to deter rogue states from conducting an expanded range of hostile acts and to secure
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in failing states .

Deterrence in the DSG

A deterrence strategy seeks to prevent or discourage a specific hostile actor from performing specific undesirable acts by introducing doubt in its ability to succeed or fear of retaliation. As the DSG states, “Credible
deterrence results from both the capabilities to deny an aggressor the prospect of achieving his objectives and from the complementary capability to impose unacceptable costs on the aggressor.”3 Linking deterrence
with capability, the DSG describes a decisive joint campaign to defeat aggression that includes the ability to “secure territory and populations and facilitate a transition to stable governance.”4 The DSG implies some
measure of continuity with the two-war construct by stating, “our forces must be capable of deterring and defeating aggression by an opportunistic adversary in one region even when our forces are committed to a large-
scale operation elsewhere.”5 While consistent with deterrence theory and joint doctrine, the DSG does not take the next steps to specify whom and what to deter, or how, which is necessary to guide development of Joint
Force 2020 given declining defense resources.

As a result, there is disagreement among defense leaders about the types of forces required to deny objectives and impose costs when it comes to force-sizing. For example, to deter a wide range of threats, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey considers that the essential task of a flexible joint force is to prevail in simultaneous contingencies wherever and whenever they occur:

Now, there’s been much made . . . about whether this strategy moves away from a force structure explicitly designed to fight and win two wars simultaneously. Fundamentally, our strategy has always been about our
ability to respond to contingencies wherever and whenever they occur. This won’t change. . . . We can and will always be able to do more than one thing at a time. More importantly, wherever we are confronted, and in
whatever sequence, we will win.6

Yet others contend that the DSG represents a significant change that would use air and naval forces in lieu of ground forces to deter and defeat aggression. For example, retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary
Roughead suggests that fighting “two land wars simultaneously is not the Obama strategy.”7 His interpretation of a significantly different force-planning construct would use air and naval power to deny objectives or
impose costs in emergent challenges:

The defense strategy set forth by Defense Secretary Panetta in January 2012—a significant departure from prior Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ focus on winning our current land wars—seeks to rebalance our force
toward facing emergent challenges, which will be predominantly air and maritime in nature. . . . The structure of a force to meet these needs would maintain the Navy and Air Force at current objectives. . . . The active
duty Army would be reduced by [an additional] 200,000 soldiers from the 490,000 planned in the FY 2013 budget.8

Military leaders have different views about the requirements to deter and defeat aggression because the DSG never moves beyond the doctrinal template for deterrence to provide specific strategic guidance. It does not
define the adversary and hostile acts the United States seeks to deter or the military missions and forces to deny the (unknown) objective or impose the (unspecified) cost. Deny and defeat are ambiguous terms that vary
with the strategic objective in different cases. For example, the joint force could be required to:

• Deny the aggressor’s ability to attain the objective (that is, successful defense). Examples include preventing Iraq from seizing oilfields in Saudi Arabia and preventing North Korea from striking the United States with a
ballistic missile.

• Deny the aggressor’s ability to retain the objective (that is, successful offensive to restore the status quo ante bellum). Examples include restoring the 38th parallel in Korea in 1950 and reversing Iraqi aggression by
liberating Kuwait in 1991. This would also include a limited offensive to deny North Korea’s ability to strike Seoul with long-range artillery.

• Defeat the aggressor to prevent future attacks (that is, a successful offensive to defeat military forces and remove the regime as punishment for crimes against humanity). Examples include defeating Germany and Japan
in World War II and the Taliban in 2001.

• Threaten to punish the aggressor with nuclear weapons (that is, in extreme cases, threaten to retaliate in kind or overcome a conventional imbalance). During the Cold War, the strategy of flexible response incorporated
direct defense by conventional forces to resist an attack and gain time for a diplomatic resolution. If defense became untenable, deliberate escalation included the limited use of nuclear weapons to blunt an attack and
signal the will to proceed to the next stage—a general nuclear response against the enemy’s homeland.

the missions and forces required to deter and defeat aggression are highly
These examples reveal that

dependent on the circumstances in specific cases. Rather than assuming that air and
naval power are sufficient to deny objectives in all second contingencies, DOD should
develop tailored approaches to deter the principal future challenges to U.S. national
security interests as the basis for deriving realistic force-planning scenarios, military
missions, and joint forces.
Deter Aggression by China

There is inherent tension within the U.S. strategy to engage China while simultaneously deterring aggression and assuring allies. The National Security Strategy states that the United States is “working to build deeper and
more effective partnerships” with countries, including China, “on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect.”9 However, the underlying defense strategy since 1991 has been to sustain U.S. military dominance to

desire to sustain American primacy in Asia is accelerating the

prevent the rise of a peer-competitor.10 This

security dilemma by increasing fear of containment in China.11 Furthermore, the high financial
cost and risk of escalation associated with defeating China’s antiaccess/ area-denial (A2/AD)
capabilities suggest that policymakers should weigh this approach against a
defensive form of flexible response that would provide more time to reach a political
resolution in future crises.12
The current approach is apparently to deter China with the Air-Sea Battle concept—at least that is how
Beijing sees it.13 China’s land-based missiles, which can strike aircraft carriers and air
bases at extended range, create a military-technical problem. The fear is that if the U.S. Navy and Air Force could be
denied access to the East and South China seas, then China could dominate Asia because the United States would be unable to deter its aggression. The proposed military-

technical solution is to develop the offensive strike and cyber capabilities to destroy
China’s sensor, command, and missile systems to “break the kill chain” by striking hundreds
of targets on the mainland.14
The advantage of sustaining military dominance (if possible) is the ability to preserve freedom of navigation by protecting aircraft carriers and tactical aircraft operating close to China. The capability to project power

attacking a great power with nuclear weapons and

despite A2/AD is necessary to defeat a rogue state such as Iran and North Korea, but

the second largest economy is another matte r. Yet the lack of clearly articulated defense
policy to deter China is resulting in a force planning process that presumes that
breaking the kill chain in China is militarily necessary and politically realistic
despite obvious questions and considerations .15
The political and strategic disadvantages of offensive Air-Sea Battle become clear when
policymakers consider likely Chinese reactions to destroying hundreds of targets on the
mainland they deem essential for self-defense. China is no more likely to accept the loss of

its A2/AD system than the United States would be willing to accept the loss of its Pacific fleet
without escalating and making nuclear threats. An offensive doctrine to destroy
China’s A2/ AD system is destabilizing because each side would have a military incentive to
strike first based on a use-it-or-lose-it calculus. This incurs high risk of immediate
vertical escalation, leaving policymakers with little or no room for developing
political solutions to defuse a crisis.
In other words, recommending the use of Air-Sea Battle to break the kill chain in China would offer the President an escalatory option in the same vein that Helmuth von Moltke the Younger offered Kaiser Wilhelm II in
1914 (execute the Schlieffen Plan), Douglas MacArthur offered Harry Truman in 1951 (bomb mainland China), and Curtis LeMay offered John F. Kennedy in 1962 (bomb Cuban missile sites). American policymakers today
should realize that their predecessors rejected similar options because there is no credible theory to “defeat” a great power with nuclear weapons at acceptable risk, especially when the Chinese threaten “unrestricted
warfare” to defend their core interests. Policymakers should therefore drive the creation of more acceptable military options to defend U.S. interests while minimizing the incentives to strike first and escalate attacks.

An alternative approach would start by recognizing that A2/AD works in both

directions. The United States could leverage the inherent cost and technical advantages of
A2/AD to deter China by providing defensive options to protect U.S. allies (that is, Australia, Japan,
South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand). The United States and its partners should invest in A2/AD to interdict Chinese ships,

aircraft, and missiles that could be used in an amphibious assault or punitive

strikes.16 In effect, the “near seas” would become contested commons in which both sides
could deny access, but neither side need strike first to protect their forces.
Submarines, bombers with longrange missiles, and land-based antiship missiles
could defeat the Chinese navy at less cost and risk ; thus, it is not necessary to use aircraft carriers and tactical aircraft to achieve this
objective.17

To provide survivable and reinforcing joint fires, the Army could develop land-based antiship missiles for its existing rocket artillery systems, consider investing in antiship cruise and ballistic missiles, and increase the

Partners would
number of Patriot batteries in a new theater A2/AD brigade. It could then train with partners to develop A2/AD capabilities and tie them into U.S. systems if mutually beneficial.

become more capable of deterring China while the close relationship would
demonstrate U.S. commitment to extended deterrence. Even if China invests billions
to project power despite our A2/AD defenses, the risk of escalation, including the use
of nuclear weapons, would be sufficient to deter aggression. 18
This part of a deterrence strategy in Asia based on flexible response is similar to the
defensive posture that deterred the Soviet Union from attacking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.19
U.S. conventional forces were never built to attack and defeat the Soviets in a decisive joint campaign;
on the contrary, the United States recognized its ground forces in Europe were vulnerable to
attack. Their strategic purpose was to prevent a rapid fait accompli and trigger the

uncertain process of escalation at a local conventional level . Thomas Schelling explains why the “manipulation of risk”
succeeded in deterring the Soviets from attacking the isolated garrison in Berlin, which was surrounded by overwhelming force in multiple crises:

It has often been said, and correctly, that a general nuclear war would not liberate Berlin. . . . But that is not all there is to say. What local military forces can do, even against very superior forces, is to initiate the uncertain
process of escalation. One does not have to be able to win a local military engagement to make the threat of it effective. Being able to lose a local war in a dangerous and provocative manner may make the risk . . .
outweigh the apparent gains.20

Asset vulnerability causes deterrence failure

Michael Swaine 15 et al., Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, former Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, PhD from Harvard, Nicholas Eberstadt, Ph.D. is a political
economist and a demographer by training and is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research; M. Taylor
Fravel, Ph.D. is an associate professor of political science and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT; Mikkal
Herberg is research director of the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Energy Security Porgram; Albert Keidel is a
nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an adjunct graduate professor in the Georgetown University Public
Policy Institute; Evans J. R. Revere is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy
Studies; Alan D. Romberg is distinguished fellow and the director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center; Eleanor
Freund, junior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Rachel Esplin Odell, Junior
fellow at Carnegie, Audrye Wong, Junior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for international peace, “Conflict and Cooperation
in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Strategic Net Assessment,” April 2015

from a purely military perspective, even if implemented as designed, this strategy

Finally,

could prove to be an ineffective deterrent and might aggravate instability in a crisis.

Under an ASB concept, for example, it is by no means clear that the United States could identify and
target the large number of critical PLA assets (many mobile) that would need to be struck in
the early stages of a conflict. Even a barrage of cyberattacks, counter-space attacks, and inland
bombing could still leave some critical C4ISR networks intact , along with many mobile
missile launchers. At the same time, the United States would remain, to some extent, reliant on immobile
aircraft shelters and runways at a few forward bases, in Japan or Guam or elsewhere in the Western Pacific; static or
passive defenses would not be able to guarantee the safety of these fragile assets against the sort
of powerful, accurate, and sophisticated ballistic missiles China possesses . Likewise, even
under a high-capacity U.S. trajectory, American aircraft carriers might remain highly
vulnerable to Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles and PLAN submarines, thereby significantly reducing their utility as part
of the ASB concept.¶ Also, though proponents argue that a robust ASB concept could
create more options in a crisis, in fact, the likely need to carry out deep strikes early
in a conflict could make escalation control far more problematic. The stress on early
preemptive strikes against the 210 Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific
Region PLA would likely compress the time available to decisionmakers in a crisis. In
addition, early, conventional deep strikes against Chinese C4ISR assets in a conflict
could easily be misconstrued in Beijing as an attempt at destroying preemptively
China’s retaliatory nuclear options. Under intense pressure, it would be hard to limit
a dramatic escalation of such a conflict—including, in the worst case, up to and
beyond the nuclear threshold.7

ASB deterrence fails – China thinks it can win

T. X. Hammes 13, research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies @ National
Defense University, “Sorry, AirSea Battle Is No Strategy,” August 7, 2013,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/sorry-airsea-battle-no-strategy-8846
AirSea Battle fails to deter, assure, or guide¶ Deterrence is based on the other side believing
you can deny its goals as well as punish it for trying. While we have no unclassified statement of the
AirSea Battle concept, it does seem to rely heavily on a “networked, integrated force” that
can strike deep. This implies heavy use of digital networks as well as comprehensive
surveillance of major portions of the Chinese mainland. China has clearly been
working to defeat these capabilities. On January 11, 2007, China destroyed a satellite in Low Earth Orbit. From
2006 to the present, they have repeatedly used lasers to dazzle U.S. satellites in Low Earth Orbit. From
TITAN RAIN to BYZANTINE ANCHOR, China has also demonstrated the ability to penetrate U.S.
cyber systems—even classified systems. If China believes it can defeat ASB through action
against U.S. space and cyber systems, then ASB loses much of its deterrent effect.¶ In
fact, the very existence of a serious AirSea Battle capability is escalatory. In a recent article in Foreign
Policy, David Gompert and Terrence Kelly note that ASB pushes China to a first strike.¶ Given that, to be most effective, AirSea Battle
would need to take down Chinese targeting and strike capabilities before they could cause significant damage to U.S. forces a nd bases. It
follows, and the Chinese fear, that such U.S. capabilities are best used early and first—if not
preemptively, then in preparation for further U.S. offensive action . After all, such U.S. strikes have
been used to initiate conflict twice in Iraq. This perception will, in turn, increase the incentive for the
PLA to attack preemptively, before AirSea Battle has degraded its ability to neutralize
the U.S. strike threat. It could give the Chinese cause to launch large-scale preemptive
cyber- and anti-satellite attacks on our AirSea Battle assets. Indeed, they might feel a need, out of
self-defense, to launch such attacks even if they had not planned to start a war. It is a
dangerous situation when both sides put a premium on early action.
In contrast, Offshore Control moves into place deliberately—and since it can be executed without full space or cyber capabilities, the
incentive for first strike is reduced. Equally important, we don’t have to attack their warning systems, and differentiate be tween their
tactical networks and their strategic warning systems. Inadvertently
blinding the assets used to direct
their strategic-response systems could be the trigger to a first use. We do not have much
historical evidence for evaluating conflict between nuclear-armed powers. In the US-USSR Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR-Chinese
Zhenbao Island Incident, and the India-Pakistan Kargil Crisis, the leaders on each side sought to slow and contain the crisis. Do we
really want to select a military strategy that puts the President in the position of
conceding great advantage if he fails to strike preemptively? Given that Truman and Johnson
refused to strike China when hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops were in combat, are we sure a future President will authori ze an
extensive strike campaign into China? Even worse, do
we want to select an approach that convinces
Chinese leaders they must strike first to protect their homeland?

ASB strikes will be conducted by the carrier strike group --- it’s highly
threatening to China
Henry Holst 14, M.A. Candidate at Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies, has previously worked at the National Defense University’s College of
International Security Affairs, “The U.S. Military's Ultimate Fear: Are Aircraft Carriers Too
Big To Fail?” Aug 12, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-militarys-ultimate-
fear-are-aircraft-carriers-too-big-11066?page=3
How it Could Happen:

If the Navy’s worst nightmare came true and U.S. adversaries strengthen their ability
to threaten aircraft carriers, how does the Navy reorganize itself to project power?
The entire concept of a carrier strike group (CSG) is based on putting bombs on
target by primarily carrier-based planes. This is a large part of the Navy’s new
operational concept, Air-Sea Battle. Air-Sea Battle (ASB) integrates forces from all domains: space, air, land, sea, and cyber, in order to defeat
“adversaries equipped with sophisticated anti-access and area denial capabilities.” An asymmetric weapon that can bypass a carrier’s layered defenses and have even a remote chance
at hitting a carrier would throw a wrench in a plan that may be costing U.S. taxpayers around half a trillion dollars.

Too Many Eggs in One Basket?

While the chances of a U.S.-China conflict are remote, Beijing is investing heavily in
A2/AD weapons. More importantly, in our current age of breakneck technological
development and cyber espionage, nobody can predict what military technologies U.S. rivals may
have in five or ten years. Those who believe in the invincibility of the U.S. carrier
strike group are tempting fate. The U.S. Navy may be limiting its options by putting
too many of its eggs--or shrinking defense dollars--in one basket.

There’s no political willpower to base carriers in SEA

Bruce Klinger 12, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia, and Dean Cheng is Research
Fellow in Chinese Political and Security Affairs, in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage
Foundation, U.S. Asian Policy: America's Security Commitment to Asia Needs More Forces,
Aug 7, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/americas-security-
commitment-to-asia-needs-more-forces
This report will hardly be seen as a genuine improvement in American capability. Rather than putting forth paper tigers, the United
States needs to project real, credible power. To this end, the Administration should work with Canberra, Tokyo, and Seoul to homeport
additional U.S. forces in Asian ports, much as the George Washington carrier
battle group is currently
homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.¶ Ideally, these new homeportings would comprise a
carrier strike group or a Marine Expeditionary Unit (typically, three amphibious assault ships plus a number of escorts),
perhaps in Southeast Asia, to complement the forces currently stationed in northeast Asia. Although political
realities make it unlikely that such high visibility forces would be allowed to
permanently base in any nation in the region (including Australia), it might be possible to base
one or more U.S. submarines in Asian ports, especially as these vessels are, by their very nature, stealthy. Having several a dditional attack
submarines permanently based in Asia would significantly reduce transit time, allowing these subs to spend much more of their time on
patrol in Asian waters, rather than shuttling to and from Pearl Harbor.
 T

C/I – military presence should be described based on mission

James S. Thomason 2, Senior Analyst-Strategy, Forces and Resources Division, Institute for
Defense Analyses, Transforming US Overseas Military Presence: Evidence and Options for
DoD, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES,
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a415954.pdf
WHAT IS OVERSEAS MILITARY PRESENCE? Our working definition of US overseas
military presence is that it consists of all the US military assets in overseas areas that
are engaged in relatively routine, regular, non-combat activities or functions. 1 By this
definition, forces that are located overseas may or may not be engaging in presence
activities. If they are engaging in combat (such as Operation Enduring Freedom), or
are involved in a one-time non-combat action (such as an unscheduled carrier battle group deployment from the
United States aimed at calming or stabilizing an emerging crisis situation), then they are not engaging in presence

activities. Thus, an asset that is located (or present) overseas may or may not be “engaged in
presence activities,” may or may not be “doing presence.”
We have thus far defined presence activities chiefly in “negative” terms—what they
are not. In more positive terms, what exactly are presence activities , i.e., what do
presence activities actually entail doing? ¶ Overseas military presence activities are
generally viewed as a subset of the overall class of activities that the US government
uses in its efforts to promote important military/security objectives [Dismukes, 1994]. A
variety of recurrent, overseas military activities are normally placed under the “umbrella”
concept of military presence. These include but are not limited to US military efforts
overseas to train foreign militaries; to improve inter-operability of US and friendly
forces; to peacefully and visibly demonstrate US commitment and/or ability to defend
US interests; to gain intelligence and familiarity with a locale; to conduct
peacekeeping activities; and to position relevant, capable US military assets such that
they are likely to be available sooner rather than later in case an evolving security
operation or contingency should call for them. 2
 CP

Asset removal is key – Chinese fears stem from U.S. presence, not
declaratory policy – carrier removal is a prerequisite to deterrence-by-
denial
Michael Ryan Kraig 13, assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command
and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base; and Leon J. Perkowski, PhD candidate in the
history of US foreign relations senior instructor in the Department of International Security
and Military Studies at the Air Command and Staff College, Summer 2013, “Shaping Air and
Sea Power for the “Asia Pivot”: Military Planning to Support Limited Geopolitical
Objectives,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, p. 114-136
Indeed, recent literature by Air Force and Navy officers has begun to define and argue for a range of capabilities that flexibly threatens not only greater or lesser military costs, but also lesser or greater policy stakes. For instance, evolving
concepts focused on countering A2/AD anti-access and area denial ( ) strategies— such as A S B the ir- ea attle—rightly argue the U that nited

S should seek to maintain “escalation agility”

tates and to “manage” escalation “to avoid relying on . . . capabilities that existentially threaten another nation or its leadership.”30

even escalation with certain

Traditionally, the notion of an “existential threat” has been tied firmly to nuclear forces and nuclear strikes. This article, however, proposes that

conventional deep-strike capabilities may be viewed by some competitors as

approaching an existential threat, given the geopolitical realities of a globalized East
Asian operating environment . Thus, we further emphasize the point raised briefly by Vincent Alcazar in this same journal that an important element of escalation agility31— especially when dealing with an
adversary that holds some major interests in common with the United States—is the capability to thwart without escalation the enemy’s ability to consolidate its objectives.

we propose the operational concept of

That is, under the umbrella concept of strategic denial at the level of military strategy and campaign planning, further and define , battle-level

persistent denial: the ability to apply sustainable pressure at a given escalation

threshold to raise the adversary’s perceived cost of an anti–status quo action both prior to and during

By avoiding escalation that would immediately threaten core interests

a militarized crisis. defense of a sovereign

which could quickly escalate

competitor— stakes to an escalation spiral—lower- the political involved, possibly leading

level military capacities might give added credibility to US deterrent threats and plans in a tense

reducing
environment, the prospect of fullscale warfare.
the likelihood that the United States be confronted with either “backing down” or committing to actions that raise In sum:

the ability to credibly and capably impose negative costs without dramatically
escalating the political stakes involved would facilitate the eventual resumption of a
stable peace.and at least partially cooperative

the question when considering employment and procurement policies in East

In this regard, different

Asia is whether Beijing could distinguish between limited versus extensive US

leaders in

policy intentions Limited US intentions may be especially hard to

based on the threat and possible use of such force. policy

signal in operational applications of weapon systems that possess the ability to

future may

strike targets deep in sovereign Chinese territory

hundreds and perhaps thousands of due to the with relative impunity. That is,

deep-strike, precision, forces being called for under speed, and stealth of some new conventional missile and bomber the generic banner of both conventional

ASB China may in a crisis

prompt global strike (CPGS) and ir- ea be hard-pressed to assess the
attle, a rising over limited geopolitical claims

scope of immediate US intentions, given the innately strategic effects of such

platforms in terms of their ability to “decapitate” leadership or cause widespread “societal disruption.”32

To the extent that the US Department of Defense is pursuing the latter specific goal in particular, it is courting the danger of making too little of a distinction between the universal, timeless need for decisive combat at the tactical level and the far rarer need to win an all-out
war with a competitor at a truly strategic level of policy objectives. We infer these troubling consequences based on the core military characteristic often attributed to CPGS or global strike forces: to create “strategic level” military effects on deep Chinese target sets, a military
operational and tactical goal that implicitly encompasses all-out political and/or military strategic objectives.
For instance, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a leading, highly influential defense think tank with myriad Pentagon contracts and personal military connections,33 has fretted that “the Air Force’s current bomber force lacks the capabilities and
capacity needed to penetrate contested airspace to strike thousands of targets in future air campaigns.” In answer to this perceived deficit in the US deterrent and war-fighting posture, the CSBA has called for “one hundred new optionally manned penetrating bombers with
all-aspect, broadband stealth, a payload capacity of approximately 20,000 pounds, and a range of 4,000–5,000 nautical miles. The bomber should have on-board surveillance and self-defense capabilities to permit independent operations against fixed and mobile targets in
degraded C4ISR environments.”34

the traditional Air Force focus on

This policy argument strongly resembles the capability to US “strategic offensive interdiction,” broadly defined as

deliver strategic paralysis that disarms the enemy without having to repeatedly
a form of literally

fight its frontline forces . The latter has generally been achieved (or at least attempted) by applying pressure against more indirect political, industrial, infrastructural, and other military-supporting as well as societal
targets, which in turn has been meant to undermine overall enemy political will and decision-making coherence. The latter exercise is generally what is meant by the term offensive strategic interdiction, whether advocated by theorists such as Giulio Douhet and B. H. Liddell
Hart, or by the Air Corps Tactical School in the form of the “Industrial Web Theory,” or more recently, in the planning documents and writings of Col John Warden III.35

would have the simultaneous

Although the historical and intellectual pedigree of such ideas is undeniable, what is often missed in the debates is that this traditional approach to strategic airpower

effect of destroying PRC sovereign defense capacities overall, meaning it

or seriously degrading that

would confront Beijing with not just degraded power projection but a severely even

degraded ability to defend its own homeland given the PRC’s historical focus on the . And

sanctity of its current borders —as shown in both its intervention in the Korean War and later in bruising battles with both the Soviet Union and Vietnam in the 1970s, costing tens of thousands of

degrading Beijing’s ability to ensure its own sovereign defense is likely to

casualties36—

escalate any hostilities rather than lead to a stable crisis resolution such threats . Indeed,

would almost certainly run afoul of the innate nationalist impulses implicit in the
millennia-long existence of collective Confucian culture in China ,37 and especially its felt “victim status” as a result of the “century
of humiliation” visited upon it by external colonial powers from 1839 to 1945.38

One might argue the capability to win such a large war decisively would
that deter an inherently

opponent from escalating to that point. However the empirical reality , in the security studies literature, concept and

of destabilizing capabilities has been thoroughly analyzed

diplomatically weapons and described under the rubric of “offensive dominance,” as

Large dataset statistical testing with in-depth case studies

opposed to “defense” or “deterrence dominance.” , together covering the great-power

have shown across different methodologies that when major

periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, together

powers harbor weapons at an operational level that can easily preempt the other
side’s forces quickly this exacerbates international anarchy The
, the grand strategy–level condition known as “ .”

decision calculus can quickly veer toward preventive war because decision or preemptive strikes

makers are tempted through opportunity and genuine fear to “strike first” to keep a both

rival from gaining a decisive strategic edge. operational, and hence, 39

a US approach to force procurement

Thus, that is overly focused on offensive and employment

strategic interdiction could easily have a deleterious strategic

in order to secure victory—even of a nonnuclear variety—

political effect during both periods of “general deterrence” in peacetime and during
a diplomatic-military crisis . In essence, Bernard Brodie’s 1959 assessment of nuclear deterrence strategies is generally applicable here: “[A] plan and policy which offers a good promise of deterring war is . . . better
in every way than one which depreciates the objectives of deterrence in order to improve somewhat the chances of winning” (emphasis added).40
 TPA DA

Laundry list of pounders -- partisanship, gun legislation, healthcare,

time, leadership interests
Howard Gleckman 1/4, Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute, 1/4/2016, What Can
Congress and President Obama Accomplish in 2016?, TaxVox,
http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2016/01/04/what-can-congress-and-president-obama-
accomplish-in-2016/#sthash.ZIlcUgyU.dpuf
Can Congress and President Obama, who have battled over policy for seven years, reach consensus over key
tax and other issues in the months leading up to the 2016 election ? To ask the question is practically to
answer it, but it is worth taking a closer look at the policy dynamics. ¶ Start by building a Venn diagram that describes the priorities of
Obama, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They are obviously not the only players, but in a heated
election year, the goals of these leaders will take on outsized influence--at least until the parties settle on their Presidential nominees. ¶
time is short. The House, for example, plans to
The area of overlap among their priorities is very small. And
be in session for only about 110 days this year. Still, the leaders do share a modest
to-do list.¶ They all want to pass individual appropriations bills (for the first time in
years)—a task that should be a bit easier since Congress already has agreed to overall spending levels for this year. They may
try to tackle bipartisan criminal justice reform. A workout bill for Puerto Rico is
possible. And Congress may approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill, though McConnell has warned that
may not happen until after next November’s elections.¶ It is harder to see much
progress on big tax issues. Lawmakers may deal with tax extenders again , though, thanks to
the December budget deal, the number of expiring provisions will be much smaller than in the past. There is no chance that
Congress will pass broad-based tax reform. Obama seems uninterested and the gulf among
lawmakers on key issues is unbridgeable in 2016 .¶ Ryan has vowed to include a tax code rewrite as part of
a “bold, pro-growth agenda” that he promises for 2016. But it is unclear whether he’ll offer a full-blown plan. It is highly unlikely that just
months before an election GOP lawmakers would unilaterally endorse any proposal that eliminates popular tax subsidies, especi ally
since it is certain to go nowhere.¶ Some still hold out hope for business-only tax reform, and there have been quiet staff-level talks on this
issue for many months. But the odds of anything happening in 2016 are extremely remote. Ryan and Senator Chuck Schumer (D -NY),
who is in line to become his party’s Senate leader in 2017, continue to talk up the possibility. However, their public optimism may be as
much a fundraising ploy as a prediction. ¶ Any business tax reform faces huge hurdles. Would it raise the same
amount of money as current business provisions or cut taxes? Would it apply to all firms or just C corporations? If it does apply to pass-
through firms, how would Congress manage what would be a substantial gap between rates paid by business owners (including sole
proprietors) and salaried workers? If reform excludes pass-throughs, how will lawmakers explain to local businesses that they will not
be getting a rate cut while large public companies will? ¶ That leaves some form of international tax reform that would apply to U.S.-based
multinationals. Such a bill could be aimed at tax-motivated inversions, where a U.S. firm reduces its taxes by marrying a foreign partner.
Such a measure is possible, but because Democrats want to curb the practice directly while Republicans want to make it less attractive by
lowering rates, it is hard to imagine what a consensus bill would look like.¶ In
the end, policy will play second-
fiddle to politics. Ryan’s real goal this year is to turn the fractious House GOP caucus
into a cohesive group that can drive a realistic conservative agenda. McConnell wants
to preserve a tenuous GOP majority in the Senate. And Obama wants to elect a
Democratic majority in the Senate and, of course, another Democrat to replace him
in the White House.¶ Already, these hard-nosed political calculations threaten to
overwhelm any residual interest in reaching policy consensus. Within days, Obama
will attempt to curb gun sales through executive action, a step sure to enrage Hill
Republicans. Within weeks, Congress will send the president a bill repealing his
signature health reform--a measure he will promptly veto. And once the parties choose
their presidential standard bearers, this partisan tension will only worsen.¶ Of course,
outside events can derail even modest initiatives. A wave of terrorism, a foreign
policy crisis, or an unexpected economic meltdown can easily suck all the oxygen out
of even the best-planned agenda. But even if the world outside the Beltway remains
placid, don’t expect much action from Congress this year.

Won’t pass – there’s largescale opposition and delay

SEAN HIGGINS 1/4, reporter, 1/4/2016, Manufacturers endorse TPP after 'careful
analysis', http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/manufacturers-endorse-tpp-after-
careful-analysis/article/2579505
TPP faces a tough road in Congress, as Republican leaders have warned it may not be
possible to bring it up for a vote until later after the fall election, and many
Republicans oppose the deal as it stands now. The trade association noted its own problems with the deal,
which would lower tariffs and other trade barriers between the U.S., Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim nations, but urged lawmak ers to
affirm it nevertheless.¶ "We recognize this agreement is not perfect, and there are some principled objections to the TPP, so the NAM will
continue to work closely with its members to address remaining barriers, to raise standards, to promote the rule of law and to further
level the playing field for all. Importantly, we encourage the administration to work closely with the industry, congressional leaders and
the other TPP governments to address these key issues," said NAM President Jay Timmons. ¶ Though negotiated by President Obama's
administration, the proposed deal faces considerable opposition from Democrats. Key
constituency groups like environmentalist groups and organized labor are lobbying
heavily against it, and say it would hurt U.S. workers and the environment. Both of
the top Democratic candidates to replace Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are opposed.¶ That has put Obama in the unusual position of relying
on Republican support to pass the deal. But Republican objections are significant
too, and last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who backs the deal, said it was too volatile
an issue to bring up until after the election. ¶ Business trade groups, usually the
strongest backers on trade bills, have been notably less than enthusiastic and are
worried about the details in TPP. On Monday, NAM said it had decided to back the deal
after "careful analysis."

PC fails in the context of TPP – Obama’s strategy repels both sides

Dan Ikenson 12/11, trade expert @ Forbes, “Miscalculation And Mrs. Clinton: Why The
Trans-Pacific Partnership May Be Trans-Presidential, Too,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2015/12/11/miscalculation-and-mrs-clinton-
why-the-trans-pacific-partnership-may-be-trans-presidential-too/
It is apparent that the president underestimated what it would take to win support
for trade liberalization. The inadequacy of his outreach efforts was reflected in the
paucity of Democratic support for trade promotion authority last June, when only 28 House
Democrats voted to grant TPA to the president. That outcome convinced the president to defy recent history and avoid the path of least
resistance, which was to focus on securing more easily attainable Republican votes, in favor of winning more support from fellow
Democrats for eventual TPP ratification.

That was a gamble that President Obama probably had to take. It is one thing for a Republican president to
work exclusively with a Republican majority in Congress over the objections of Democrats–which is
how the Bush administration succeeded in securing ratification of the numerous trade agreements it concluded–but quite
another for a Democratic president to shun his party and reject its orthodoxy,
wrong-headed as it may be.
So far, the president’s efforts to woo Democrats have backfired. His aversion to making a comprehensive
moral and economic argument for TPP, focusing instead on
the deal’s “progressive” features–
enforceable labor and environmental provisions, anti-tobacco provisions,
limitations on intellectual property protection for pharmaceutical products– has
attracted fewer Democrats than it has repelled Republicans. That formula begs for
failure, or at least deferral, of TPP ratification.

Plan’s not controversial – Congress opposes ASB

Matteo Dian 15, Professor of Political Science at James Madison University, Ph.D. in
Political Science from the Italian Institute of Human Sciences, “The Pivot to Asia, Air-Sea
Battle and contested commons in the Asia Pacific region,” Jan. 6, The Pacific Review, 28:2,
237-257
adoption of ASB stimulated a widespread controversy within the
The announcement and the

American institutions and armed forces.

ASB has been officially endorsed by Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. In 2012, Vice Chiefs of Staff of all the four services of the US armed forces approved a
memorandum, which established a framework to implement ASB with the aim of developing the capacity to overcome sophisticated anti-access strategies
and preserve freedom of action in the global commons (Air-Sea Battle Office 2013).

Despite the approval of the Pentagon and the strong support of the Navy and the Air Force
the new operational concept has been facing consistent opposition within the
government, in Congress and even between other branches of the armed forces. The
House Armed Service Committee in its FY 2014 National Defense Authorisation Act advanced a number of
concerns about the concept and the efficacy of the newly established ASB Office in
advancing interoperability and cooperation between Navy and Air Force (US House of
Representatives 2013). In addition to that, the Army and Marines have expressed their concerns about

the shift of resources towards the Navy and the Air Force caused by the adoption of
ASB. Moreover, ASB has not been fully approved by the President.

Protectionism is super low---liberalization doesn’t help interdependence

Paul Krugman 3/26, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, "Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal: Few Benefits,
Many Questions", 2015, truth-out.org/opinion/item/29887-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal-few-benefits-
many-questions
So, about the deal. The first thing you need to know is that almost everyone exaggerates the importance of trade
policy. In part, I believe, this reflects "globaloney": Talking about international trade sounds glamorous and forward-
thinking, so everyone wants to make it the centerpiece of their remarks.¶ Also, there's an odd dynamic involving the role of
international trade in the history of economics. Comparative advantage was an early, classic example of how economic reasoning can
lead to results that are correct but not obvious; naturally, economists have always wanted this intellectual victory to be important in the
real world, too. This has led to a peculiar dynamic: Comparative advantage says, "yay free trade!,"

but also suggests that once trade is already fairly open, the gains from opening it further are small. But because
economists want to keep shouting, "yay free trade!," they look for reasons that those gains might be larger, even
though the stories they end up telling are inconsistent with the competitive model that was the basis for their free
trade advocacy in the first place.¶ Oneparticular misuse of the yay-free-trade sentiment is the persistent effort
to make protectionism a cause of economic slumps, and trade liberalization a route to recovery. How many
times have you seen the Kindleberger "spiderweb" chart showing declining world trade in the early years of the Great
Depression, which is then invoked as showing the evils of protectionism (see Slide 2 of my talk)?In fact, it shows no
such thing.¶ The fact is that today trade is fairly free, and estimates of the costs of protectionism
from standard models suggest that these costs are quite small. Trade restrictions just aren't a major drag on
the world economy these days, so the gains from liberalization must be slight.
1AR
 Naval Strategy

Japan prefers mutual-denial strategy – it’s an easier political sell

Kyle Mizokami 15, co-founder of the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch,
“Japan's Master Plan to Defeat China in a War,” February 28, 2015,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/japans-master-plan-defeat-china-war-12338
Nonetheless, most of the systems to support this strategy are already in place. Others, such as a
SOSUS network for the Ryukyus, secure digital communications, and joint operations proficiency are easily attainable and not terribly
expensive. Still other improvements, such as the XASM-3 hypersonic anti-ship missile, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and more Aegis
destroyers are already on the way.¶ Japan’s A2/AD plan would be the strategic equivalent of
aikido, the Japanese martial art that emphasizes self defense. Aikido emphasizes turning the enemy’s strength and
momentum against himself. Similarly, the SDF would draw the enemy out into the Ryukyus, away
from its land-based power, where it could be defeated. Such a strategy is more in
tune with the Japanese public’s pacifist tendencies and an easier sell politically.¶
Japan cannot hope to match China’s defense spending. Although Japan has raised defense spending two
years in a row, the increases have been modest and in line with Japan’s mediocre economic performance. An A2/AD strategy
is an economical way to deter China in peacetime and defeat it in wartime.

Base vulnerability wrong – this only applies to LAND ATTACK missiles

Joshua Shapiro 13, War on the Rocks, “1000 PAPER TIGERS: CHINA’S CONVENTIONAL
MISSILE FORCES,” Oct 9 2013, http://warontherocks.com/2013/10/1000-paper-tigers-
chinas-conventional-missile-forces/
China’s main strategic objective in cross-strait conflict is presumably the complete reintegration of Taiwan. China will likely attempt to accomplish this objective through coercion as
opposed to total military conquest due to the logistical infeasibility of an amphibious and airborne invasion. Thus, the PRC can only attempt to coerce Taiwan’s reintegration before

the coercer must destroy enough of the target’s

U.S. forces arrive in theatre. As stated in the aforementioned paragraph,

military capability to make further resistance irrational. However, though popularly

speculated or even expected, a conventional strike campaign cannot accomplish this
objective. The sheer volume of ballistic and land attack cruise missiles would be more than enough to over saturate any sea- or
land-based missile defense system. Still, their relative inaccuracy (i.e. circular area probability of 100 meters)

makes the destruction of hardened targets (e.g., integrated air defense systems,
command and control nodes, and armored/mechanized troop formations) difficult, if
not impossible. For the PLA to effectively execute a denial strategy, they would have to reduce Taiwan’s forces—nearly two million combined active duty and
reservist troops—to the point that less than six PLA divisions could conduct an effective landing and hold a beachhead against a fully mechanized opposition force for the
approximately 20 hours it would take for Chinese reinforcements arrive. The implausibility of this scenario makes a denial strategy that many analysts fear almost laughable.¶ This
leaves the punishment and risk coercive strategies on the table. The SAC’s conventional forces certainly have the capability to target the Taiwanese population, hoping they force the
Republic of China to surrender or face mass uprisings. History has shown this to be a naïve and baseless expectation. During the Second World War, Germany was unsuccessful in
forcing the British to surrender despite conventional missile attacks against London. Allied European strategic bombing campaigns saw a total of 2,770,540 tons of ordnance dropped
in Europe, causing some 600,000 deaths. Japan saw the destruction of 67 cities by way of 503,000 tons of ordnance, leaving 500,000 dead and five million displaced. Despite these
lengthy and destructive campaigns, neither state capitulated until it faced total defeat after years of conventional force-on-force conflict. Some 30 years later, American and allied
forces expended 864,000 tons of munitions during the strategic bombing campaigns targeting North Vietnam, yet the Communists continued their war and eventually attained victory.
Even with the advent of precision guided munitions, strategic bombing failed to produce a victory in Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. Both the First

China has
and Second Gulf Wars were only won after the destruction of Iraq’s military forces made further resistance irrational or impossible.¶

approximately 1,200 conventional SRBMs—each capable of delivering 500kg warheads—and 200 launch
vehicles. This translates to a mere 110 tons of deliverable ordnance per launch cycle
of 30 minutes. With history as a guide, it is safe to assume that China’s conventional
missile capability is not the trump card many believe it to be. In the event that a cross-strait crisis occurs and
PLA missiles bombard Taiwan, history suggests that the Taiwanese will rally around their leaders, their military will mobilize, and the fight will continue despite the inevitable
destruction of large surface-area targets such as airfields. With the threat of a fait accompli almost inconceivable, there would be no need for a quick kinetic response to suppress short
range ballistic missile launchers located in mainland China.¶ What does this mean for Taiwanese and U.S. strategy in the event of cross-strait conflict? Taiwan’s ability to passively
absorb a conventional missile attack allows the island to implement a deterrent strategy transcending this tactical threat. Such a plan would cease procurement of expensive fixed-
wing aircraft due to its vulnerability to a first strike and low survivability in the event of follow-on strikes by the qualitatively and quantitatively superior PLA Air Force. Instead,
defense spending should be allocated for mobile missiles and the continued hardeningof existing missile batteries, coastal defensive positions, C2 nodes, logistical infrastructure, and
its newly operational phased array early warning system. This more efficient strategy not only costs less, but enhances Taiwanese integrated air defense system (IADS) survivability
and effectiveness. Such a strategic shift will fundamentally alter China’s strategic calculus due to its inability to accurately destroy mobile and hardened targets with a conventional
missile strike. A robust and hardened IADS – expanding upon the eleven electronic warfare facilities (including the powerful PAVE PAWS) conducting air surveillance and the twenty-
two fixed missile batteries employing HAWK, Patriot, and Tien Kung SAM systems – could decrease the utility of a follow-on air attack to the point that Chinese leadership deem they
would lose too many assets in a bid for air superiority, thus creating a successful deterrent.¶ Nation states do not capitulate easily, especially when surrender means annexation or

Strategic conventional bombing is more of a nuisance than an existential threat

destruction.

to modern states. While the Second Artillery Corps’ tactical capabilities should be
taken seriously, U.S. policy makers and strategists should not allocate exceedingly
scarce resources to countering what amounts to a paper tiger . A strategy based on rationality and fiscal
responsibility should be adopted. That is, instead of focusing on penetrating a defense-in-depth, the U.S. should encourage Taiwan to procure its own Anti-Access/Area Denial
capability.

ASB makes Japan conventional buildup inevitable

Michael D. Swaine 13 et al., senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, Mike M. Mochizuki, Japan-U.S. Relations Chair at the Elliott School of International
Affairs at George Washington University, Michael L. Brown, retired Army officer, Paul S.
Giarra, president of Global Strategies & Transformation, Douglas H. Paal, vice president for
studies at Carnegie, Rachel Esplin Odell, research analyst at Carnegie, Raymond Lu, junior
fellow at Carnegie, Oliver Palmer, junior fellow at Carnegie, and Xu Ren, junior fellow at
Carnegie, “China’s Military & The U.S.-Japan Alliance in 2013,” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/net_assessment_full.pdf
An ASB–oriented force posture would likely include several components:
• A well-developed suite of long-range strike capabilities, and the willingness to support deep
penetrating strikes on Mainland targets at the outset of a conflict; some of these targets may be of
possible strategic (that is, nuclear) value to the PRC;

• A large carrier fleet with a modified role that likely emphasizes rear-area support
in the early stages of a conflict, along with more traditional forward-based power
projection missions after China’s A2/AD-type defenses are subdued;
• A commitment to expensive, albeit selective, hardening of existing military bases in Japan and
Guam, along with an expansion of temporary basing and access for U.S. forces across
Northeast and Southeast Asia and in Australia;
• A large and integrated missile defense system across air, sea, and land, requiring a
high degree of interoperability between U.S. and Japanese ballistic missile defense (BMD) for regional
bases, across services and systems;

• An expanded C4ISR network spanning undersea, airborne, surface, and space

environments, with robust connectivity and coordination with Japan;
• Robust offensive and defensive space-based kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities
(including cyber and possibly space-based systems) that can work in rapid succession to “blind” Chinese ISR;

and
• A high level of integration of doctrine, missions, and capabilities between the U.S.
Air Force and U.S. Navy, to enable counter-A2/AD campaigns across multiple domains in operationally difficult environments.
One variation of this concept would emphasize long-range, stealth airpower over forward-based or carrier-deployed airpower. As discussed in detail in
chapters 2 and 4, Chinese A2/AD-type capabilities, principally the implementation of long-range precisionguided munitions, put at risk the present U.S.
conception of air and naval power, which currently relies on large aircraft carrier platforms and short-range tactical aircraft (TACAIR) for local air
superiority and power projection. An alternative to such a U.S. reliance on carriers and TACAIR would involve the heavy use of long-range conventional
precision-strike capabilities, long-range stealth bombers, and long-range stealth unmanned aerial vehicles capable of penetrating Chinese airspace. Though
shifting away from a primary emphasis on aircraft carriers and TACAIR-based power projection, this new conception would in principle enable the alliance
to maintain a credible level of deterrence at longer ranges, as part of the ASB concept.

According to U.S. defense officials and analysts, the purpose of such capabilities and accompanying doctrinal approaches would be to perpetuate the viability
and hence the credibility of U.S. power projection and access to the global commons and to prevail in the event of any conflict involving maritime spaces.
This ability to prevail in a conflict would presumably also deter China from being tempted to engage in coercion, aggression, or other actions judged
threatening to stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and would reduce the perceived need to withdraw U.S. military assets from forward positions due to their
growing vulnerability to missile and air attacks.

Under this strategy, regardless of the level of reliance on forward-deployed carriers

or aircraft, Tokyo would probably need to significantly increase the effort and
resources it would devote to defense of the home islands and disputed territories , along
with various types of noncombat support for U.S. forces, while also clarifying Japan’s commitment to providing necessary U.S. access to facilities. More
this strategy would almost certainly require a high level of integration
important,

between Japan and the United States in some key areas, most notably C4ISR, as well
as missile defense and antimine/antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capabilities, along
with more ambitious and more frequent joint exercises in areas surrounding Japan.
Japan might be required to make significant, unprecedented
In terms of specific roles and missions,

contributions in a variety of areas, including:

• Operational and strategic level ISR;
• National logistics, infrastructure, and base defense and support;
• Defense acquisition rationalization;
• Defense production industrial base;
• Defensive counterair capacity;
• Cruise and ballistic missile defense;
• ASW; and
• Naval mine warfare.
Such enhanced capabilities would, in turn, likely require major changes in Japan’s
attitude toward military power, involving something close to the “normalization” of
its force structure and a reinterpretation of the collective defense concept to include many combatrelated missions beyond its home islands.
This, in turn, would likely require a considerable increase in defense spending
levels.
Plan doesn’t cause rearm – too much opposition
Gregory Kulacki 10, expert on cross-cultural communication between the United States
and China, China project manager @ Union of Concerned Scientists, earned a doctorate
degree in political theory and a master’s degree in international relations from the
University of Maryland in College Park, 3-2010, “Japan and America’s Nuclear Posture,”
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nwgs/japan-
american-nuclear-posture.pdf
The government of Japan is not requesting a strengthened nuclear deterrent. Japan’s
prime minister, foreign minister, and 204 members of the Diet have officially communicated their strong desire for a change in U.S.
declaratory policy stating that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to the use of nucle ar weapons by another
country. While there are concerns about the credibility of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent among some conservative Japane se
cannot be resolved by preserving the TLAM/N,
security officials and analysts, these analysts agree their concerns
nuclear-armed bombers, high alert levels, or an
ambiguous declaratory policy that leaves open the
possibility that the United States would initiate the use of nuclear weapons.
There is a strong and longstanding consensus among Japanese security officials and
experts that there is no imaginable scenario in which developing nuclear weapons
would be advantageous to the defense of Japan, even in a scenario in which Japan was without
the protection of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the NPT ceased to exist. U.S. nuclear policy in Asia
should not be predicated on the assumption that changes in U.S. policy , including changes in
declaratory policy, would cause the government of Japan to decide to develop nuclear
weapons.
The Japanese public strongly opposes the reintroduction of U.S. nuclear weapons
into the territory of Japan, including Japanese territorial waters and Japanese ports. The Obama administration wisely
informed the Japanese government that it is retiring the TLAM/N.xvii

There appear to be dramatic differences between Japanese and American perceptions of Japanese concerns and intentions regarding
nuclear weapons policy. In a consensus opinion firmly held for more than four decades, Japanesesecurity officials and
experts see the acquisition of Japan’s own nuclear deterrent as counter to overall
Japanese interests. In contrast, some U.S. officials and experts, who seem to take a more
narrow military view of the issue, see a serious risk that Japan will seek to acquire
nuclear weapons—serious enough that the United States should constrain U.S. decisions on nuclear weapons policy, even
when it runs counter to the president’s nonproliferation and arms control policy. Both governments should address
this misunderstanding at the earliest possible opportunity.
 SCS

Only scenario for Chinese revisionism is U.S. strike presence

Michael D. Swaine 15, Ph.D., senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, former senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, The Real Challenge in the
Pacific: A Response to “How to Deter China,” Foreign Affairs, May/June
The barriers to maritime predominance, however, apply to China as well as the United
States. The Carnegie Endowment study also concluded that U.S. military power in Asia will almost certainly remain very strong and that even increased
Chinese regional military capabilities will not offer Beijing unambiguous superiority.
Any Chinese attempt to establish predominance in Asia would fail, therefore, both because it would
be difficult for China to surpass the United States and because a scenario of this kind would frightten bystanders and drive them into Washington’s arms.

Chinese leaders understand this and so are highly unlikely to seek predominance if
they feel that they can achieve a decent amount of security in less confrontational
ways. They are likely to seek some form of predominance (as opposed to acting merely opportunistically
and in a more limited manner) only if Washington’s words and actions convince them that even the

minimal level of security they seek requires it. Unfortunately, the United States’ adoption of aggressive military
concepts—such as Air-Sea Battle, Offshore Control, or even Archipelagic Defense—would

deny them such security and thus contribute to an ever-worsening security dilemma.