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DEATHSTAR CP Deathstar Counterplan Index

2011

Death Star Counterplan Death Star Counterplan NC Lasers Cost Efficient Emperically Proven A2:Perm A2:Solvency A2: Extra-Topicality Heg solves terrorism Heg solves proliferation Heg solves economy and 3rd world nations Hard power key for peace Heg solves democracy, nuke war, trade etc A2: Counterplan SpaceRace Ruins US Security Space weaponization status quo Ruins International relations Economic Failure Lasers solve asteroids

. ...2 ..4 ...5 ..6 ..7 ...8 .. 11 ..12 13 ..14 ...15 .. ..16 ..17 .18 ..19 ..20 ......21

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Death Star NC
Counterplan text- The United States should create a Spaced-Based Lasers antinuclear missile defense system. States should continue to possess nuclear weapons.
(Arms Control Association. The Boeing Company. Federation of American Scientists. GlobalSecurity.org. Missile Defense Agency.SpaceBased Laser Team Defines Requirements for Experimental Missile Defense System. Space Daily, 4 April 2001.)

Each SBL would be located on a satellite roughly 20 meters long and weighing about 17,500 kilograms. The acquisition and tracking system, the eyes of each SBL, would detect the bright plume of a liquid-fueled missile as it rises above the clouds (in its boost phase). The tracker would then lock on to the
missile, compute its position and velocity, and predict how far it would have to travel in the amount of time the laser beam takes to cover the

Within a three-meter long cylinder, hydrogen and fluorine gas would react and produce HF molecules in an excited state. An optical resonator would extract energy from the HF molecules and produce the actual beam. The
distance. Once locked on to the enemy missile, the SBL would then fire its megawatt-class high power beam. beam control system would then aim the laser at the enemy missile, correct any aberrations in the beam itself, and transfer it to the beam directora large mirror designed to focus the laser on the enemy missile.

Once released, the high-powered beam would rush into the vacuum of space at the speed of light, penetrate the earths atmosphere, and destroy the missile just above the clouds. The entire process, from detection to elimination, would take seconds. Each SBL would carry enough fuel for about one hundred shots. Competition The CP is mutually exclusive because it mandates that states possess nuclear weapons while the AC necessitates disarmament. It also competes through net benefits. Net benefits- NC SolvencySpaced-based lasers can stop any launch of nuclear missiles; it is the ultimate deterrence and its existence promotes more anti-missile defense systems. Federation of American Scientists. Space Based Lasers [SBL]. FAS Space Policy Project. May 30, 2008 http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

The SBL program could develop the technology to provide the U.S. with an advanced BMD system for both theater and national missile defense. BMDO (ballistic missile defense organization) believes that an SBL system has the potential to make other contributions to U.S. security and world security as a whole, such as inducing potential aggressors to abandon ballistic missile programs by rendering them useless. Failing that, BMDO believes that the creation of such a universal defense system would provide the impetus for other nations to expand their security agreements with the United States, bringing them under a U. S. sponsored missile defense umbrella
And, nuclear missiles can be disabled without detonating the warhead.

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2011

(William H. Possel, Lt Col July 1998 Occasional Paper No. 5. Center for Strategy and Technolog.y Air War College. Air University Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/docs/occppr05.htm)
The key factor in designing a cost effective weapon architecture is determining the exact amount of laser energy required to destroy a missile. In order for a laser weapon to destroy a ballistic missile, the missile skin must be heated, melted, or vaporized. For a laser to disable a

missile, it must concentrate its energy on certain parts of the missile and hold the beam steady for a long enough time to heat the material to the failure point. The effectiveness of the laser depends on the beam power, pulse duration, wavelength, air pressure, missile material, missile velocity, and the thickness of the missile's skin.38 If the laser could specifically target the electronic circuits, which are used for guidance control, it would render the missile incapable of staying on course.39 These circuits are relatively easy to destroy but difficult to target precisely. Another kill mechanism is to melt a section of the material surrounding the missile's fuel tank and detonate the fuel. A third and more realistic approach is to heat the missile skin until internal forces cause a failure of the skin around the fuel tank. This type of failure produces a rupture of the missile given the enormous internal pressure in the fuel tank. It also requires the least amount laser energy to destroy the missile.40

Finally, spaced-based weaponry can stop any nuclear ballistic missiles. Federation of American Scientists 08,
(Federation of American Scientists. Space Based Lasers [SBL]. FAS Space Policy Project. May 30, 2008 http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm)

Current SBL planning is based on a 20 satellite constellation, operating at a 40 inclination, intended to provide the optimum TMD threat negation capability. At this degree of deployment, kill times per missile will range from 1 to 10 seconds, depending on the range from the missile. Retargeting times are calculated at as low as 0.5 seconds for new targets requiring small angle changes. It is estimated that a constellation consisting of only 12 satellites can negate 94% of all missile threats in most theater threat scenarios. Thus a system consisting of 20 satellites is expected by BMDO to provide nearly full threat negation.

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

The cost for a SBL system is low.

(Federation of American Scientists. Space Based Lasers [SBL]. FAS Space Policy Project. May 30, 2008 http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm)

The Space-Based Laser is planned to be a spacecraft weighing 17,500 kg, though this weight could grow to 19,000 kg. The spacecraft would be 20 meters long with a diameter of over 4.5 meters. As of mid-2001 the SBL Integrated Flight Experiment was scheduled for launch in 2012, with an intercept test to be conducted in 2013. The SBL test facility is being built at NASA s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The project passed a Systems Requirements Review in March 2001, with a System Definition Review planned for fall 2001. Accelerating the schedule of the SBL prototype would require funding increases over the initially estimated $2-3 billion cost of the test. Some estimates suggest that a full 20satellite constellation could cost $40 billion, plus launch costs.

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Lasers are empirically proven to work on moving targets.

(Ewen Macaskill. US 'Star Wars' lasers bring down ballistic missile. The Guardian. Friday 12 February 10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/12/star-wars-laser-ballistic-missile)

The US this week achieved a goal that has eluded it since Ronald Reagan's Star Wars programme by knocking out a ballistic missile using a high-powered laser beam mounted on a plane.The successful test was carried out yesterday in California, the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) said, making real what had previously been confined to the realms of science fiction. The plane uses a combination of lasers to lock on to the missile and track its trajectory, and then bring it down with a single shot fired from the nose turret, all in less than 12 seconds. According to analysts, the breakthrough could have an
impact on the North Korean and Iranian missile programmes, forcing them to develop faster missiles and adopt measures to counter the laser beams.The MDA said today: "The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defence, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometres, and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies."

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Perm answers 1. The permutation does not give any sort of reasoning as to why nuclear weapons are bad, because lasers still solve for the arguments that my opponent is making. As such, we can only look to my benefits of nuclear weapons and the permutation gains no ground for the affirmative because my opponent is unresponsive to actually how lasers solves for my opponents arguments. 2. Space based lasers are not suitable for ground targets. Lasers target ballistic missiles during the boost launch phase, which is between the missile taking off and getting into stable flight. The missile, at this point in time, is under the most stress and is extremely vulnerable. Lasers, when used on ground targets, would require massive amounts of continous power on a target, and because of this is militarily and economically unsuitable towards ground targets.
(Federation of American Scientists. Space Based Lasers [SBL]. FAS Space Policy Project. May 30, 2008 http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm)

However, for slower targets or alternative missions in which the lasers owner can choose the time and geometry of engagement, this surplus target capacity could be put to use without compromising the constellations capability against ballistic missile targets, which would presumably avoid launching at times of peak lethality. For example, a laser whose wavelength has been chosen to penetrate low enough into the atmosphere could be used against airplanes or cruise missiles in flight or even against terrestrial targets, such as above-ground fuel tanks, missiles still on their launchers or transporters, fuel trucks, and other relatively thin-skinned or flammable targets. To the degree that such targets are vulnerable to the kind of surface-heating damage that a laser can inflict, engaging them should require amounts of laser fuel similar to those for a missile target. Of course, any use of the excess kill rate capacity would still have to fit within the logistic limits of energy storage (electrical or chemical) and replenishment.

3. Only having the space-laser system as a defense against possible nuclear missile launches is possible. Cross apply The Federation of American Scientists 08 saying that nations will go along with it as a nuclear deterrence. If used for other purposes, the system will lead to, rather than unity, more conflict. If used as in the permutation that my opponent is arguing, such as against ground and conventional ballistic missiles, it will seem to other nations as a personal way for the United States to control other nations, rather than a missile defense. This would only lead to more conflict.

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Answers to solvency 1. If a laser was to attack a nuclear weapon, it would be in its boost-phase, which is when the system is designed to attack missiles and while it s still over the opposing nations territory. So, three things can happen a. The laser system would disarm the missile in its boost phase without detonating the warhead. b. Nuclear missiles are usually unarmed when fired until it reaches its target. Because of this, the nuclear device would be disabled and be unarmed when it falls back to earth. c. Even if the laser fails to safely disarm the nuclear weapon and it is armed, the nuclear device would then be brought down over enemy territory and fallout/chemical/biological impacts would rain down on the opposing nation s territory. This creates even more deterrence and cross-apply Federation of American Scientists 08 saying that lasers deter, because a nation wouldn t launch a nuclear device that would be exploded over its own territory. 2. Ground-transported nuclear bombs are ineffective because: a. Nuclear weapons transported by air and land means cannot reach its target and can be stopped by conventional means. I.E. If a nuclear bomb was to be transported by plane to the United States, it could be stopped by the Air force. b. Nuclear weapons are too bulky and heavy to transport by land or air based means. ICBM were created specifically to transport massive nuclear weapons to its intended target without the other nation having sufficient defensive capabilities.
3. Space lasers can be used on lower-flying missiles as well. Cross-apply Federation of American scientists 01 and Lasers are empirically proven to work on moving targets.
(Ewen Macaskill. US 'Star Wars' lasers bring down ballistic missile. The Guardian. Friday 12 February 10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/12/star-wars-laser-ballistic-missile)

The US this week achieved a goal that has eluded it since Ronald Reagan's Star Wars programme by knocking out a ballistic missile using a high-powered laser beam mounted on a plane.The successful test was carried out yesterday in California, the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) said, making real what had previously

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

been confined to the realms of science fiction. The plane uses a combination of lasers to lock on to the missile and track its trajectory, and then bring it down with a single shot fired from the nose turret, all in less than 12 seconds. According to analysts, the breakthrough could have an
impact on the North Korean and Iranian missile programmes, forcing them to develop faster missiles and adopt measures to counter the laser

"The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defence, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometres, and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies."
beams.The MDA said today:

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DEATHSTAR CP
Block to Extra Topicality

2011

EXTRA-TOPICALITY GOOD
A) Counter-Interpretation: The neg may run an extra-topical plan as long as the solvency advocate of the plan advocates both the extra-topical and topical action and as long as neg fiat does not exceed aff fiat. B) Violation: I meet. My solvency advocate advocates my entire advocacy and the extra-topical plan does not exceed aff fiat [SPECIFIC WARRANT (ie. the affsays the United States will do this action, I also say the US will do an equally probable action)] United States will develop weapons in space no matter what. ( Unclassified National Space Policy , Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the US President, October 6, 2006 http://www.globalissues.org/article/69/militarization-and-weaponization-of-outer-space) The United States considers space capabilitiesincluding the ground and space segments and supporting linksvital to its national interests. Consistent with this policy, the United States will: preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests; The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space. Proposed arms control agreements or restrictions must not impair the rights of the United States to conduct research, development, testing, and operations or other activities in space for U.S. national interests; C) Standards: 1) Reciprocity: The aff can run an infinite number of non-topical arguments that solve for the harms of the neg better than the plan. The negative must be able to run extra-topical arguments in order to maintain reciprocity, since the round would be skewed in favor of the affirmative if they were the only one able to run arguments outside the scope of the resolution. I am not denying the aff any CP ground because they can still advocate the nontopical section of the neg plan; if he can prove competition, that would prove a disadvantage to doing the neg. I am not claiming some utopian plan like cure AIDS because my fiat matches the fiat of the negative. Reciprocal ground is key to fairness, since allowing one side access to more arguments creates an inherent inequity in the round.

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2011

2) Breadth: Allowing debaters to be extra topical lets us talk about the most important issues, even if they arent directly within the scope of the debate. For example, if lifting sanctions would be a prerequisite to rebuilding relations between the U.S. and Cuba, it may be beneficial to allow a debater to advocate that the U.S. rebuild relations with Cuba because of the political relevance of this issue. This allows for debaters to gain a more useful education in the round, since they can discuss the resolution as it relates to real issues, rather than in the abstract.

3) Real-world Decision-making: Policymakers never make decisions in a

vacuum; they only reject a plan if there is no better alternative, as the plan would otherwise be the best possible option. Thus, advocating alternatives that include extra-topical and topical action reflect the policymaking mindset. This has the strongest link to education. Strait and Wallace write,
4) The ability to make decisions deriving from discussions, argumentation or debate, is the key still. It is the one thing every single one of us will do every day of our lives besides breathing. Decision-making transcends all boundaries between categories of learning like policy education and kritik education, it makes irrelevant considerations of whether we will eventually be policymakers, and it transcends questions of what substantive content a debate round should contain. The implication for this analysis is that the critical thinking and argumentative skills offered by real-world decision-making are comparatively greater than any educational disadvantage weighed against them. It is the skills we learn, not the content of our arguments, that can best improve all of our lives. While policy comparison skills are going to be learned through debate in one way or another, those skills are useless if they are not grounded in the kind of logic actually used to make decisions.1

L. Paul Strait (George Mason University) and Brett Wallace (George Washington University). The Scope of Negative Fiat and the Logic of Decision Making. WFU Debaters Research Guide. 2007. [http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/2007/The%20Scope%20of%20Negative%20Fiat%2 0and%20the%20Logic%20of%20Decision%20Making.pdf]

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Heg solves terrorism

DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Walt 02 professor of international affairs at Harvard (Stephen, American Primacy http://www.nwc .navy.mil/press/review/2002/spring/art1-sp2.htm)) Perhaps the most obvious reason why states seek primacyand why the United States benefits from its current positionis that international politics is a dangerous business. Being wealthier and stronger than other states does not guarantee that a state will survive, of course, and it cannot insulate a state from all outside pressures. But the strongest state is more likely to escape serious harm than weaker ones are, and
it will be better equipped to resist the pressures that arise. Because the United States is so powerful, and because its society is so wealthy, it has ample resources to devote to whatever problems it may face in the future. At the beginning of the Cold War, for example, its power enabled the United States to help rebuild Europe and Japan, to assist them in developing stable democratic orders, and to subsidize the emergence of an open international economic order.7 The United States was also able to deploy powerful armed forces in Europe and Asia as effective deterrents to Soviet expansion. When the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf increased in the late 1970s, the United States created its Rapid Deployment Force in order to deter threats to the Wests oil supplies; in 199091 it used these capabilities to liberate Kuwait. Also

, when the United States was attacked by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in September 2001, it had the wherewithal to oust the networks Taliban hosts and to compel broad international support for its campaign to eradicate Al-Qaeda itself. It would have been much harder to do any of these things if the United States had been weaker. Today, U.S. primacy helps deter potential challenges to American interests in virtually every part of the world. Few countries or nonstate groups want to invite the focused enmity of the United States (to use William Wohlforths apt phrase), and countries and groups that have done so (such as Libya, Iraq, Serbia, or the Taliban) have paid a considerable price. As discussed below, U.S. dominance does provoke opposition in a number of places, but anti-American elements are forced to rely on covert or indirect strategies (such as terrorist bombings) that do not seriously threaten Americas dominant position. Were American power to decline significantly, however, groups opposed to U.S. interests would probably be emboldened and overt challenges would be more likely.

Heg solves prolif

Rosen 03 Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University (Stephen, An Empire, If you can keep it, The National Interest, Spring)
Rather than wrestle with such difficult and unpleasant problems, the

United States could give up the imperial mission, or pretensions to it, now. This would essentially mean the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the Middle East, Europe and mainland Asia. It may be that all other peoples, without significant exception, will then turn to their own affairs and leave the United States alone. But those who are hostile to us might remain hostile, and be much less afraid of the United States after such a withdrawal. Current friends would feel less secure and, in the most probable post-

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2011

imperial world, would revert to the logic of self-help in which all states do what they must to protect themselves. This would imply the relatively rapid acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Iraq and perhaps Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. Constraints on the acquisition of biological weapons would be even weaker than they are today. Major regional arms races would also be very likely throughout Asia and the Middle East. This would not be a pleasant
world for Americans, or anyone else. It is difficult to guess what the costs of such a world would be to the United States. They would probably not put the end of the United States in prospect, but they would not be small. If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive

Primacy is key to the global economy and helping Third World countries
Thayer 07 Associate Professor at Missouri State University [Bradley American Empire: A Debate (pg 43-44)] Economic prosperity is also a product of the American Empire. It has created a Liberal International Economic Order (LIED)a network of worldwide free trade and commerce, respect for intellectual property rights, mobility of capital and labor marketsto promote economic growth. The stability and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly states in the Third World. The American Empire has created this network not out of altruism but because it

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2011

benefits the economic well-being of the United States. In 1998, the Secretary of Defense William Cohen put this well when he acknowledged that "economists and soldiers share the same interest in stability"; soldiers create the conditions in which the American economy may thrive, and "we are able to shape the environment [of international politics] in ways that are advantageous to us and that are stabilizing to the areas where we are forward deployed, thereby helping to promote investment and prosperity...business follows the flag." Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the American Empire comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat, researcher at the World Bank, prolific author, and now a professor who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India that strongly condemned empire. He has abandoned the position of his youth and is now one of the strongest proponents of the American Empire. Lal has traveled the world and, in the course of his journeys, has witnessed great poverty and misery due to a lack of economic development. He realized that free markets were necessary for the development of poor countries, and this led him to recognize that his faith in socialism was wrong. Just as a conservative famously is said to be a liberal who has been mugged by reality, the hard "evidence and experience" that stemmed from "working and traveling in most parts of the Third World during my professional career" caused this profound change.' Lal submits that the only way to bring relief to the desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the American Empire. Empires provide order, and this order "has been essential for the working of the benign processes of globalization, which promote prosperity."62 Globalization is the process of creating a common economic space, which leads to a growing integration of the world economy through the increasingly free movement of goods, capital, and labor. It is the responsibility of the United States, Lal argues, to use the LIEO to promote the well-being of all economies, but particularly those in the Third World, so that they too may enjoy economic prosperity.

Military power is the crucial factor for securing peace David Talbot, Salon.com, January 3, 2002
From the Gulf War on, the hawks have been on the right side in all the major debates about U.S. intervention in the world's troubles. The application of American military power -- to drive back Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, stop Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal campaigns in the Balkans, and destroy the terrorist occupation of Afghanistan -- has not just protected U.S. interests, it has demonstrably made the world safer and more civilized.
Because of the U.S.-led allied victory in the Persian Gulf, Saddam -- the most blood-stained and dangerous dictator in power today -- was blocked from completing a nuclear bomb, taking control of 60 percent of the world's oil resources and using his fearsome arsenal (including biological and chemical weapons) to consolidate Iraq's position as the Middle East's reigning force. Because of the U.S.-led air war against Milosevic, the most ruthless "ethnic cleansing" program since the Holocaust was finally thwarted -- first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo -- and

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2011

the repulsive tyrant is now behind bars in the Hague. And in Afghanistan, the apocalyptic master plan of the al-Qaida terror network was shattered by America's devastatingly accurate bombing campaign, along with the medieval theocracy that had thrown a cloak of darkness over the country. These demonstrations of America's awesome firepower were clearly on the right side of history. In fact, the country's greatest foreign policy disasters during this period occurred because the U.S. government failed to assert its power: when President George H. W. Bush aborted Operation Desert Storm before it could reach Baghdad and finish off Saddam (whose army had only two weeks of bullets left) and when he failed to draw a line against Milosevic's bloody plans for a greater Serbia; and when President Bill Clinton looked the other way while a genocidal rampage took the lives of a million people in Rwanda and when he failed to fully mobilize the country against terrorism after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the later attacks on American targets abroad -- a failure that extended through the first eight months of Bush II.

US leadership solves nuke war, democracy, free trade, and conflicts globally
Khalilzad 95 Defense Analyst at RAND, (Zalmay, Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War The Washington Quarterly, RETHINKING GRAND STRATEGY; Vol. 18, No. 2; Pg. 84) Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global

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2011

environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

Nuclear weapons in space would cause a massive arms race.

(Outer Space Militarization, weaponization, and the prevention of an arms race. Reaching Critical Will. Kache Productions. 2008. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/paros/parosindex.html)
The weaponization of space will destroy strategic balance and stability, undermine international and national security, and disrupt existing arms control instruments, in particular those related to

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2011

nuclear weapons and missiles. These effects will inevitably lead to a new arms race. Space weaponization would seriously disrupt the arms control and disarmament process. The United States'
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 and the development of US ground- and sea- based missile defenses have already increased tensions with Russia and have led to increased missile proliferation.The deployment of these

technologies or the development of space-based technologies will likely cause Russia, as well as the United States (in response to Russia), to make smaller and smaller reductions of their nuclear arsenals and to reject the development of new treaties to regulate nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. China would likely build more warheads to maintain its nuclear deterrent, which could in turn encourage
India and then Pakistan to follow suit.

Weaponization of space would ruin United States security.

(Theresa Hitchens, Weapons in Space: Silver Bullet or Russian Roulette?, The Policy Implications of US Pursuit of Space-Based Weapons, Center for Defence Information, April 18, 2002. http://www.cdi.org/missile-defense/spaceweapons.cfm)

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Unlike in Star Trek,

DEATHSTAR CP

2011

the 'final frontier' has yet to become a battlefield. But if the current trends continue, that will change not in the distance future of science fiction, but within the next several decades. Emerging Bush administration plans and policies are clearly aimed at making the United States the first nation to deploy space-based weapons. There are several drivers behind this goal, including the very real concern about the vulnerability of space assets that are increasingly important to how the U.S. military operates, and the administration's decision to pursue missile defense. Unfortunately, the administration has done little thinking at least publicly about the potential for far-reaching military, political and economic ramifications of a U.S. move to break the taboo against weaponizing space. There is reason for concern that doing so could actually undermine, rather than enhance, the national security of the United States, as well as global stability. Thus it behooves the administration, as well as Congress, to undertake an in-depth and public policy review of the pros and cons of weaponizing space. Such a review would look seriously at the threat, both short-term and long-term, as well as measures to prevent, deter or counter any future threat using all the tools in the U.S. policy toolbox: diplomatic, including arms control treaties; economic; and military, including defensive measures short of offensive weapons. There is nothing to be gained, and potentially much to be lost, by rushing such a momentous change in U.S. space policy

Weaponization of space will occur in status quo.

(Theresa Hitchens, Weapons in Space: Silver Bullet or Russian Roulette?, The Policy Implications of US Pursuit of Space-Based Weapons, Center for Defence Information, April 18, 2002. http://www.cdi.org/missile-defense/spaceweapons.cfm)

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2011

The Pentagon's just-revised missile defense plans include a much greater emphasis on the potential for space-based system, in particular for shooting down enemy missiles in their boost phase as they begin to ascend through the atmosphere. Although it is unclear if these plans are a deliberate foot in the door to the weaponization of space, their implementation would have that effect. A decision to move forward with space-based missile defense systems would end today's policy of restraint with or without an overt move to rewrite the National Space Policy. The newly named Missile Defense Agency (formerly the Ballistic Missile Defense Agency) has proposed spending $1.33 billion from 2003 to 2007 on developing "Space-Based Boost" in essence reviving the Reagan-era concept of Brilliant Pebbles, a constellation of orbiting, kinetic kill vehicles designed to knock out enemy ICBMs in their boost phase. "Concept assessment" is due to be completed in
early 2003, according to Pentagon fiscal year (FY) 2003 budget documents, with an aim to "support a product line decision not earlier than FY 2006."213

The development program is being designed to include at least limited experiments in space.

Space race weaponization will ruin international relations.

(Michael Wallace, Ballistic Missile Defense: The view from the cheap seats, WagingPeace.org (Nuclear Age Peace Foundation)

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2011

"[T]he poorer and weaker nations and peoples of the world regard the entire BMD controversy with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. For the world's richest nation [USA] to spend such enormous sums on unproven and provocative technologies while failing to pay the full amount of their dues to the UN, refusing to agree to total debt relief for the poorest nations, and denying full access to American markets for such key Third World products as textiles and sugar, seems utterly incomprehensible. To put this in specific perspective: it was estimated by a Greenpeace activist from the Cook Islands that the $100 million wasted on the failed July 7, 2000 test could have built and run a hospital and provided free university education for the entire population of the Cook Islands for many decades. Surely, American security would be better served by spending money on such worthy projects than by a futile attempt to create an unattainable Fortress America."

Weaponization of space will be an economic failure.

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Richard F. Kaufman et. al, The Full Costs of Ballistic Missile Defense, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, January 2003 http://www.globalissues.org/article/68/star-wars-phantom-menace-or-new-hope) Ballistic missile defense is technologically extremely challenging and efforts to solve the technical challenges, including those of evolving countermeasures, are inevitably laden with uncertainty and, therefore, are expensive. The Bush administration's interest in building a comprehensive, or "layered," missile defense system could lead to extraordinary defense budget costs over the next twenty to thirty years. The projected costs of all the layers and components of a layered missile defense are seldom in public view, and never all at one time. Moreover, the projected future costs over the plausible life cycles of missile defense systems are rarely examined and poorly understood by key decision makers, at least outside the missile defense realm itself. Presentations of the technical and cost issues needed for congressional accountability frequently conceal more than they reveal. Assessments of the likely cost of missile defense architectures that are intelligible to the public as a whole hardly exist. ... Once longer term operations and support costs are added to acquisition costs to give a picture of the total life cycle costs for each missile defense system in the overall system, we find that the likely future cost of layered missile defense would be, on the Low Estimate side, between $785 billion and $825 billion dollars at least, and on the High Estimate side, between $1.1 trillion and $1.2 trillion.

Lasers solve for asteroids.

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DEATHSTAR CP

2011

Kelly Young Could lasers zap away dangerous asteroids? Newscientist. 19 March 2007 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11413-could-lasers-zap-away-dangerous-asteroids.html Now, researchers say a lightweight, space-based laser could eliminate these problems gradually altering the trajectory of a threatening asteroid. Though the technology may take two decades or so to mature, "this is something that is doable", says Richard Fork, who heads the Laser Science and Engineering Group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, US. One of the great advantages of using lasers is that their beams remain relatively tightly focused over long distances, allowing them to study asteroids from farther away than is currently possible. Today, observatories such as Arecibo in Puerto Rico bounce radar off asteroids to characterise them and track their orbits. But they can only study objects from a distance equivalent to 0.1 times that between the Earth and the Sun. A laser could examine the features of an asteroid from 10 times as far away.

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