Appeasement Disadvantage - MSDI 2013

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack
Appeasement DA
Appeasement DA
1NC (1/3) ................................................................................................................................................... 2 1NC (2/3) ................................................................................................................................................... 3 1NC (3/3) ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Appeasement Ext. (1/3) ............................................................................................................................ 5 Appeasement Ext. (2/3) ............................................................................................................................ 7 Appeasement Ext. (3/3) ............................................................................................................................ 9 Credibility Good (1/3) ............................................................................................................................. 10 Credibility Good (2/3) ............................................................................................................................. 11 Credibility Good (3/3) ............................................................................................................................. 12 Cuba UQ (1/2) ......................................................................................................................................... 13 Cuba UQ (1/2) ......................................................................................................................................... 14 2NC Iran (1/2).......................................................................................................................................... 15 2NC Iran (2/2).......................................................................................................................................... 17 Democracy 2NC (1/3) .............................................................................................................................. 18 Democracy 2NC (2/3) .............................................................................................................................. 20 Democracy 2NC (3/3) .............................................................................................................................. 21 Democracy Coming Now (Cuba) ............................................................................................................. 22 Cuba Democracy Links ............................................................................................................................ 24 Democracy Good..................................................................................................................................... 27 Aff: Appeasement Now (Cuba) ............................................................................................................... 29 Aff: No Impact (Cuba) ............................................................................................................................. 30 Aff: Credibility Bad .................................................................................................................................. 31 Neg: Appeasement Bad .......................................................................................................................... 35
Appeasement DA
1NC (1/3)
No appeasement in Cuba now. Too many obstacles. Paul Haven 2013 6/21 (Associated Press) Cuba, US try talking, but face many obstacles
<http://www.timesherald.com/article/20130621/NEWS05/130629930/cuba-us-try-talking-but-facemany-obstacles#full_story> To be sure, there is still far more that separates the long-time antagonists than unites them. The State Department has kept Cuba on a list of state sponsors of terrorism and another that calls into question Havanas commitment to fighting human trafficking. The Obama administration continues to demand democratic change on an island ruled for more than a half century by Castro and his brother Fidel. For its part, Cuba continues to denounce Washingtons 51-year-old economic embargo. And then there is Gross, the 64-year-old Maryland native who was arrested in 2009 and is serving a 15-year jail sentence for bringing communications equipment to the island illegally. His case has scuttled efforts at engagement in the past, and could do so again, U.S. officials say privately. Cuba has indicated it wants to trade Gross for four Cuban agents serving long jail terms in the United States, something Washington has said it wont consider. Ted Henken, a professor of Latin American studies at Baruch College in New York who helped organize a recent U.S. tour by Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, said the Obama administration is too concerned with upsetting Cuban-American politicians and has missed opportunities to engage with Cuba at a crucial time in its history. I think that a lot more would have to happen for this to amount to momentum leading to any kind of major diplomatic breakthrough, he said. Obama should be bolder and more audacious. Even these limited moves have sparked fierce criticism by those long opposed to engagement. Cuban-American congressman Mario Diaz Balart, a Florida Republican, called the recent overtures disturbing.
Lifting the embargo would send a signal of indecisiveness and weakness. Jos Ral Perales 2010 August The United States and Cuba: Implications of an Economic
Relationship (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Latin American Program, Senior Program Associate) <http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_Cuba_Implications.pdf>
According to Snchez, one of the main reasons for the establishment of the U.S. embargo against Cuba was neither Cold War calculations nor Cuban Americans angst. Rather, it was the fact that the Cuban regime had expropriated assets belonging to U.S. businesses and citizens. Additionally, while the embargo became law in 1962, it can be said to only have truly begun in 1992. Up until President George H.W. Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act in 1992, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies (such as Coca-Cola Mxico, for example) were allowed to do business with Cuba. On top of this, with the Soviet Union as its benefactor, Cuba was receiving over USD $6 billion in aid per annum throughout this period. Snchez proposed that if one thinks of the embargo as effectively beginning in 1992, then it has actually been quite successful. From 1992 until 2000when Cuba located another foreign benefactorthe regime was forced to make positive changes: the economy was dollarized, assets were sold off, and foreign investment was pursued. This is not to say that the embargos status quo is preferable, but just that the ineffectiveness of the embargo is overstated. The U.S. embargo may need to be changed; however Snchez vehemently opposed its complete elimination.
The Helms-Burton Act created a clear roadmap stipulating the conditions by which the embargo could be suspended and ended. These include: legalization of political activity, the release of all political prisoners, dissolution of the Cuban Ministry of the Interiors Department of State Security, establishment of an independent judiciary, and a government that does not include the Castro brothers. Only when these conditions are met and democracy is reestablished should the embargo be scrapped. Elimination of the embargo prior to meeting these conditions will rightly be perceived as weakness in the face of political pressure. For instance, the Obama
administration has little intention of signing a free trade agreement with Colombiaa staunch ally with whom the United States has a very positive economic relationshipbecause of concern over the countrys inadequate labor rights.
Imagine the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy were it to punish a consolidated democracy with strong, albeit imperfect, labor rights, yet capitulate and reward the Cuban government for systematically abusing labor rights. What sort of message would that send to the world? 2
Appeasement DA
1NC (2/3)
That destroys U.S. credibility
Bolton, 2009 (John Bolton, Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, LA Times, The danger of
Obama's dithering October 18, articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/18/opinion/oe-bolton18) Weakness in American foreign policy in one region often invites challenges elsewhere, because our adversaries carefully follow diminished American resolve. Similarly, presidential indecisiveness, whether because of uncertainty or internal political struggles, signals that the U nited S tates may not respond to international challenges in clear and coherent ways. Taken together, weakness and indecisiveness have proved historically to be a toxic combination for America's global interests. That is exactly the combination we now see under President Obama. If anything, his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize only underlines the problem. All of Obama's campaign and inaugural talk about "extending an open hand" and "engagement," especially the multilateral variety, isn't exactly unfolding according to plan. Entirely predictably, we see more clearly every day that diplomacy is not a policy but only a technique. Absent presidential leadership, which at a minimum means clear policy direction and persistence in the face of criticism and adversity, engagement simply embodies weakness and indecision. Obama is no Harry Truman. At best, he is reprising Jimmy Carter. At worst, the real precedent may be Ethelred the Unready, the turn-of the-first-millennium Anglo-Saxon king whose reputation for indecisiveness and his unsuccessful paying of Danegeld -- literally, "Danish tax" -- to buy off Viking raiders made him history's paradigmatic weak leader. Beyond the disquiet (or outrage for some) prompted by the president's propensity to apologize for his country's pre-Obama history, Americans increasingly sense that his administration is drifting from one foreign policy mistake to another. Worse, the current is growing swifter, and the threats more pronounced, even as the administration tries to turn its face away from the world and toward its domestic priorities. Foreign observers, friend and foe alike, sense the same aimlessness and drift. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to remind Obama at a Sept. 24 U.N. Security Council meeting that "we live in the real world, not a virtual one."
Makes laundry list of global conflicts inevitable Victor Davis Hanson (professor of classics at California State University, Fresno, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution) December 2009 Change, Weakness, Disaster, Obama http://pjmedia.com/blog/changeweakness-disaster-obama-answers-from-victor-davis-hanson/ BC: Are we currently sending a message of weakness to our foes and allies? Can anything good result from President Obamas marked submissiveness before the world? Dr. Hanson: Obama is one bow and one apology away from a circus. The world can understand a kowtow gaffe to some Saudi royals, but not as part of a deliberate pattern. Ditto the mea culpas. Much of diplomacy rests on public perceptions, however trivial. We are now in a great waiting game, as regional hegemons, wishing to redraw the existing landscape
whether China, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria, etc. are just waiting to see whos going to be the first to try Obama and whether Obama really will be as tenuous as they expect. If he slips once, it will be 1979 redux, when we saw the rise of radical Islam, the Iranian hostage mess, the communist inroads in Central America, the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, etc. BC: With what country then Venezuela, Russia, Iran, etc. do you believe his global repositioning will cause the most damage? Dr. Hanson: I think all three.
I would expect, in the next three years, Iran to get the bomb and begin to threaten ever so insidiously its Gulf neighborhood; Venezuela will probably cook up some scheme to do a punitive border raid into Colombia to apprise South America that U.S. friendship and values are liabilities; and Russia will continue its energy bullying of Eastern Europe, while insidiously pressuring autonomous former republics to get back in line with some sort of new Russian autocratic commonwealth. Theres an outside shot that North Korea might do something really stupid near the 38th parallel and China will ratchet up the pressure on Taiwan. Indias borders with both Pakistan and China will heat up. I think we got off the back of the tiger and now no
one quite knows whom it will bite or when.
Appeasement DA
1NC (3/3)
Those all escalate to nuclear war US credibility controls the direction of all conflicts David Bosco (a senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine) July 2006 Forum: Keeping an eye peeled for
World War III http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06211/709477-109.stm The understanding that small but violent acts can spark global conflagration is etched into the world's consciousness. The
reverberations from Princip's shots in the summer of 1914 ultimately took the lives of more than 10 million people, shattered four empires and dragged more than two dozen countries into war. This hot summer, as the world watches the violence in the Middle East, the awareness of peace's fragility is particularly acute. The bloodshed in Lebanon appears to be part of a broader upsurge in unrest. Iraq is suffering through one of its bloodiest months since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Taliban militants are burning schools and attacking villages in southern Afghanistan as the United States and NATO struggle to defend that country's fragile government. Nuclear-armed India is still cleaning up the wreckage from
The world is awash in weapons, North Korea and Iran are in the early stages of what I would describe as the Third World War," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently.
a large terrorist attack in which it suspects militants from rival Pakistan. developing nuclear capabilities, and long-range missile technology is spreading like a virus. Some see the start of a global conflict. "We're Certain religious Web sites are abuzz with talk of Armageddon. There may be as much hyperbole as prophecy in the forecasts for world war. But it's not hard to conjure ways that today's hot spots could ignite. Consider the following scenarios: Targeting Iran: As Israeli troops seek out and destroy Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, intelligence officials spot a shipment of longer-range Iranian missiles heading for Lebanon. The Israeli government decides to strike the convoy and Iranian nuclear facilities simultaneously. After Iran has recovered from the shock, Revolutionary Guards surging across the border into Iraq, bent on striking Israel's American allies. Governments in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia face violent street protests demanding retribution against Israel -- and they eventually yield, triggering
a major regional war. Missiles away: With the world's eyes on the Middle East, North Korea's Kim Jong Il decides to continue the fireworks
show he began earlier this month. But this time his brinksmanship pushes events over the brink. A missile designed to fall into the sea near Japan goes astray and hits Tokyo, killing a dozen civilians. Incensed, the United States, Japan's treaty ally, bombs North Korean missile and nuclear sites. North Korean artillery batteries fire on Seoul, and South Korean and U.S. troops respond. Meanwhile, Chinese troops cross the border from the north to stem the flow of desperate refugees just as U.S. troops advance from the south. Suddenly, the world's superpower and the newest great power are nose to nose. Loose nukes: Al-Qaida has had Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in its sights for years, and the organization finally gets its man. Pakistan descends into chaos as militants roam the streets and the army struggles to restore order. India decides to exploit the vacuum and punish the Kashmir-based militants it blames for the recent Mumbai railway bombings. Meanwhile, U.S. special operations forces sent to secure Pakistani nuclear facilities face off against an angry mob. The empire strikes back: Pressure for democratic reform erupts in autocratic Belarus. As protesters mass outside the parliament in Minsk, president Alexander Lukashenko requests Russian support. After protesters are beaten and killed, they appeal for help, and neighboring Poland -- a NATO member with bitter memories of Soviet repression -- launches a humanitarian mission to shelter the regime's opponents. Polish and Russian troops clash, and a confrontation with NATO looms. As in the run-up to other wars, there is today more than enough tinder lying around to spark a great power conflict. The
question is how effective the major powers have become at managing regional conflicts and preventing them from escalating. After two world wars and the decades-long Cold War, what has the world
learned about managing conflict? The end of the Cold War had the salutary effect of dialing down many regional conflicts. In the 1960s and 1970s, every crisis in the Middle East had the potential to draw in the superpowers in defense of their respective client states. The rest of the world was also part of the Cold War chessboard. Compare the almost invisible U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo today to the deeply controversial mission there in the early 1960s. (The Soviets were convinced that the U.N. mission was supporting a U.S. puppet, and Russian diplomats stormed out of several Security Council meetings in protest.) From Angola to Afghanistan, nearly every Cold War conflict was a proxy war. Now, many local crises can be handed off to the humanitarians or simply ignored. But the end of the bipolar world has a downside. In the old days, the two competing superpowers sometimes reined in bellicose client states out of fear that regional conflicts would escalate. Which of the major powers today can claim to have such influence over Tehran or Pyongyang? Today's world has one great advantage: None of the leading powers appears determined to reorder international affairs as Germany was before both world wars and as Japan was in the years before World War II. True, China is a rapidly rising power -- an often destabilizing phenomenon in international relations -- but it appears inclined to focus on economic growth rather than military conquest (with the possible exception of Taiwan). Russia is resentful about its fall from superpower status, but it also seems reconciled to U.S. military dominance and more interested in tapping its massive oil and gas reserves than in rebuilding its decrepit military. Indeed, U.S. military superiority seems to be a key to global stability. Some theories of international relations predict that other major powers will eventually band together to challenge American might, but it's hard to find much evidence of such behavior. The United States, after all, invaded Iraq without U.N. approval and yet there was not even a hint that France, Russia or China would respond militarily. There is another factor working in favor of great-power caution: nuclear weapons. Europe's leaders on the eve of World War I can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding the carnage they were about to unleash. That generation grew up in a world of short wars that did limited damage. Leaders today should have no such illusions. The installation of emergency hot lines between national capitals was a recognition of the need for fast and clear communication in times of crisis. Diplomatic tools have advanced too. Sluggish though it may be, the U.N. Security Council regularly gathers the great powers' representatives in a room to hash out developing crises. So there is reason to hope that the major powers have little interest in playing with fire and the tools to stamp it out. But complacency is dangerous. The British economist Norman Angell once argued persuasively that deep economic links made conflict between the great powers obsolete. His book appeared in 1910 and was still in shops when Europe's armies poured across their borders in 1914.
Appeasement DA
Appeasement Ext. (1/3)

American consistency on threats and promises are key to U.S. credibility. Amitai Etzioni professor of international relations at George Washington University March-April 2011
Military Review The Coming Test of U.S. Credibility http://icps.gwu.edu/files/2011/03/credibility.pdf
THE RELATIVE POWER of the United States is decliningboth because other nations are increasing their power and because the U. S. economic challenges and taxing overseas commitments are weakening it. In this context, the
credibility of U.S. commitments and the perception that the United States will back up its threats and promises with appropriate action is growing in importance. In popular terms, high credibility allows a nation to get more mileage out of a relatively small amount of power, while low credibility leads to burning up much greater amounts of power. The Theory of Credibility One definition of power is the
ability of A to make B follow a course of action that A prefers. The term make is highly relevant. When A convinces B of th e merit of the course A prefers, and B voluntarily follows it, we can refer to this change of course as an application of persuasive power or soft power. However, most applications of power are based either on coe rcion (if you park in front of a fire hydrant, your car is towed) or economic incentives and disincentives (you are fined to the point where you would be disinclined to park there). In these applications of power, B maintains his original preferences but is either prevented from following them or is pained to a point where he will suspend resistance. Every time A calls on B to change course, A is tested twice. First, if B does not follow As call, A will fail to achieve its goals (Nazi Germany annexes Austria, despite protests by the United Kingdom and F rance). Second, A loses some credibility, making B less likely to heed As future demands (Nazi Germany becomes more likely to invade Poland). On the other hand, if B heeds As demand, A wins twice: it achiev es its goal (e.g., the United States dismantles the regime of Saddam Hussein and establishes that there are no WMDs in Iraq), and it increases the likelihood that future demands will be heeded without power actually being exercised (e.g.
the higher a nations credibility, the more it will be able to achieve without actually employing its power or by employing less of it when it must exercise its power. Political scientists have qualified this basic version of the power/credibility theory. In his detailed examination of three historical cases, Daryl G. Press shows that in each instance,
Libya voluntarily dismantles its WMD program following the invasion of Iraq). In short , the Bs made decisions based upon their perception of the current intentions and capabilities of A, rather than on the extent to which A followed up on previous threats. Thus, if A does not have the needed forces or if As interests in the issue at hand are marginal, its threats will not carry much weight no matter how credible A was in the past. For example, if the United States had announced that it would invade Burma unless it released opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest (she was eventually released in November 2010), such a threat would not have carried much weightregardless of past U.S. actionsbecause the issue did not seem reason enough for the United States to invade Burma, and because the U.S. Army was largely committed elsewhere. Another political scientist, Kathleen Cunningham, has shown that the credibility of promises as opposed to the credibility of threatsis much more difficult to maintain because the implementation of promises is often stretched over long periods of time. 1 The bulk of this essay focuses on dealing with threats, rather than promises. Declining U.S. Power and Credibility Over the last few years, much attention has been paid to the relative decline of U.S. power, but much less has been said of changes in U.S. credibility. While there has been some erosion in the relative power of the United States measured since 1945 or 1990), the swings in the level of its credibility have been much more pronounced. When the United States withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973, its credibility suffered so much that many observers doubted whether the United States would ever deploy its military overseas unless it faced a much greater and direct threat than it faced in Southeast Asia. Additional setbacks over the next decades followed, including the failed rescue of American hostages in Iran during the last year of the Carter administration and President Reagans withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Lebanon after the October 1983 Hezbollah bombing of U.S. barracks in Beirut. The bombing killed 241 American servicemen, but it elicited no punitive responsethe administration abandoned a plan to assault the training camp where Hezbollah had planned the attack. 2 Operation Desert Storm drastically increased U.S. military credibility. The United States and the UN demanded that Saddam Hussein withdraw from Kuwait. When he refused, U.S. and Allied forces quickly overwhelmed his military with a low level of American causalities, contrary to expectations. S addams forces were defeated with less than 400 American casualties. 3 The total cost of defeating Saddam was $61 billionalmost 90 percent of which was borne by U.S. allies. 4 When Serbia ignored the demands of the United States and other Western nations to withdraw its hostile forces and halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO forces defeated the Serbs with little effort, losing only two troops in a helicopter training accident. 5 U.S. credibility reached a high mark in 2003, when the United States, employing a much smaller force than in 1991, overthrew Saddam Husseins regime swiftly and with a low level of American casualties, again despite expectations to the contrary. In the first phase of the warup to 1 May 2003, when the Saddam regime was removed and no WMDs were foundthere had been only 172 American
Those who hold that credibility matters little should pay mind to the side effects of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya did not merely stop developing WMDs or allow inspections, it allowed the United States to pack cargo In short, the higher a nations credibility, the more it will be able to achieve without actually employing its power 4 March-April
casualties. 6 Only $56 billion had been appropriated for Iraq operations. 7
MILITARY REVIEW planes with several tons of nuclear equipment and airlift it from the country. 8 The country surrendered centrifuges, mustard gas tanks, and SCUD missiles. It sent 13 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to Russia for blending down, destroyed chemical weapons, and has assisted the United States in cracking down on the global black market for nuclear arms technology. 9 The reasons are complex, and experts point out that Muammar al-Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, was under considerable domestic pressure to ease his countrys economic and political isolation. 10 Gaddafi also believed he was next in line for a forced regime change. In a private conversation with Silvio Berlusconi, Italys prime minister, in 2003, Gaddafi is reported to have said, I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid. 11 Irans best offer by far regarding its nuclear program occurred in 2003, at a time when U.S. credibility reached its apex. In a fax transmitted to the State Department through the Swiss ambassador, who confirmed that it had come from key power centers in Iran, Iran asked for a broad dialogue with the United States. The fax suggested everything was on the tableincluding full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups. 12 (The Bush administration, however, considered the Iranian regime to be on the verge of collapse at the time, and, according to reports, it belittled the initiative.) 13 Richard Haass, who at the time was serving as director of policy planning at the State Department, stated that the offer was spurned because the bias *in the Bush administration+ was toward a policy of regime change. 14 Still, in 200 4, Britain, France, and Germany secured a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment in Iran. 15 It lasted until 2006, when American credibility began to decline. 16 Also in 2004, Iran offered to make the European Three a guarantee that its nuclear program would be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, as long as the West would provide firm commitments on security issues. 17 In 2005, as U.S. difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan mounted and its level of casualtiesas well as those of its allies and of the local populationsincreased without a victory in sight, U.S. credibility was gradually undermined. Since 2005, more than 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, and the direct cost of military operations in the country has exceeded $650 billion. 18 The same holds true in Afghanistanonly more stronglyalready the longest war in which the United States has ever engaged, with rising casualties and costs. Both credibility-undermining developments were the result of a great expansion of the goals of the mission. In Iraq, the mission was initially to overthrow the regime and ensure that it has no WMDs. In Afghanistan, the mission was initially to eradicate Al-Qaeda. But in both countries, the mission morphed into the costly task of nation buildingalthough other terms were used, such as reconstruction and COIN (counterinsurgency) which includes building an effective and legitimate government composed of the native population. In popular terms, the United States won the wars but has been losing the peace. The distinction between the pure military phase (which was very successful in both countries) and the troubled nationbuilding phase that followed has eluded the Nations adversaries, who have focused on the fact that the United States seems to have great difficulties in making progress toward its expanded goals. Thus, even if the United States achieves its extended goals Saddam Hussein is seen in this image from video broadcast on Iraqi television, 2003. in these two nations, it will have done so only with great efforts and at high costs. And many observers are very doubtful that these nations will be turned into stable governments allied with the United Stateslet alone that they will be truly democratic.
The fact that the United States is withdrawing from Iraq (and is on a timeline, however disputed, to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan)regardless of whether its goals are fully accomplishedfurther feeds into the significant decline in its credibility. This stands out especially when compared to the credibility it enjoyed in 2003 and 2004. The fact that the
United States has, on several occasions, made specific and very public demands of various countries, only to have these demands roundly ignoredwithout any consequences has not added to its credibility. On several occasions, the United States demanded Israel extend the freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and cease building in East Jerusalem. While one can question whether such a call for a total freeze was justified, especially as no concessions were demanded from the Palestinians, one cannot deny that, as Israel ignored these demands and faced no consequences, U.S. credibility was diminished. The same has occurred in Afghanistan. The United States voiced strong demands,
Appeasement DA
only to be rebuffed very publicly by a government that would collapse were it not for American support. Moreover, the United States was forced to court President Hamid Karzai when he threatened to make peace on his own with the Taliban and was courted by Iran. A particularly telling example took place on 28 March 2010, when President Obama flew to Kabul and delivered pointed criticism to Hamid Karzai over pervasive corruption in the Afghan government. 19 Then-National Security Advisor James Jones voiced the presidents concerns, stating that Karzai needs to be seized with how important the issue of corruption is for American efforts in the country. 20 But Karzai was angered and offended by the visit. 21 Only days later, he made a series of inflammatory remarks about Western interference in his country, accused foreigners of a vast fraud in the Afghan presidential election, and threatened to ally himself with the Taliban. 22 A few weeks after these statements, Karzai was in Washington as a guest of the White House, where he was wellreceived, and all seemed forgiven. The Next Test As I will show shortly, in recent years a
large and growing number of U.S. allies and adversaries especially in the Middle Easthave questioned American commitment to back up its declared goalsthat is, they question the Nations credibility. Hence, the way the United States conducts itself in the next test of its resolve will be unusually consequential for its position as a global power. I cannot emphasize enough that I am not arguing that the
United States should seek a confrontation, let alone engage in a war, to show that it still has the capacity to back up its threats and promises by using conventional forces. (Few doubt U.S. power and ability to act as a nuclear power, but they also realize that nuclear power is ill-suited for many foreign policy goals.) However, I am suggesting that the
ways in which the U.S. will respond to the next challenge to its power will have strong implications for its credibilityand for its need to employ power. Ones mind turns to two
hot spots: North Korea and Iran. North Korea is an obvious testing ground for American resolve. While Iran is denying that it is developing a military nuclear program, North Korea flaunts its program. While Iran is using its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, to trouble U.S. allies in the Middle East, North Korea has openly attacked the U.S. ally South Korea, both by reportedly torpedoing a South Korean ship in March 2010, killing 46 sailors, and by shelling a South Korean island in November, killing two South Korean soldiers. While Iran is spewing over-the-top accusations against the West, its rhetoric is no match for North Koreas bellicose statements and actions. In short, North
Korea would seem to be the place where U.S. credibility is most being tested and will continue to be in the near future. At the same time, many military experts agree that on the Korean peninsula, the United States will be deterred from responding
effectively to North Korean provocations and assaults. North Korea already has nuclear arms, roughly 1,000 missiles, many of which could devastate Seoul and other South Korean targets. 23 It has between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons (including sarin and mustard gas) that could be mounted on missiles, a sizeable conventional army, and leaders who are difficult to deter because they are considered irrational. 24 Hence, after the 2010 hostile acts by North Korea against a key U.S. ally, both Secretary of State 6 MarchIEW Clinton and President Obama called on China for help. That is, the United Statesunable to actwas publicly beseeching another power to come to the rescue. At the same time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, made a hasty trip to the region to discourage unilateral South Korean action. 25 All of these statements seem very prudent, even unavoidable. In fairness, I do not discern another course the United States could have followed. However, it does not build credibility or trust among allies. In short, unless the North Korean challenge grows much more severe, and arguably, even if it does, the United States is unlikely to enhance its credibility by the ways it responds to the challenges it currently faces there. Next Test: The Middle East This brings us to Iran. The president has consistently stated both as a candidate and since taking office that an Iran with nuclear arms is unacceptable. 26 Shortly after his election in November 2008, Obama declared that Irans development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. 27 In February 2009, he repeated that statement, saying Iran continue*s+ to pursue a course that would lead to *nuclear+ weaponization and that is not acceptable. 28 In March 2010, after a meeting with European leaders, Obama stated, The long-term consequences of a nucleararmed Iran are unacceptable. 29 When signing into law a new round of sanctions against Iran in July 2010, Obama repeated, There should be no doubt the United States and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. 30 Indeed, this has been a consistent stance throughout different U.S. administrations. In 2007, then-Vice President Cheney said, We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. 31 In 2009, Secretary of State Clinton declared, We are going to do everything we can to prevent you *Iran+ from getting a nuclear weapon. Your pursuit is futile. 32 Moreover, many see the acquisition of nuclear arms by Iran as a game changer because it would embolden Iran to become a regional hegemon. And yet many in the Middle East doubt that the United States will use its military force to stop Iran from gaining nuclear arms if sanctions fail. All
the nations in the Middle East, including the United States closest and strongest allies, are already indicating that they have serious doubts about the U.S. commitment to the region, although the steps they have
taken so far in response vary a great deal. The nuclear issue is the last cause for these concerns, which stem from many sources. They are due, in part, to the perception that the United States is overextended. Its military is held to exhaustion and mired in Afghanistan. It still seeks to play a role in practically all international and even domestic conflictsfrom Colombia to Burma and from Sudan to Kosovo. It extends some form of aid to over 150 nations, including countries of rather limited global significance or relation to U.S. interestsEast Timor, for instance. 33 The United States own economy is viewed as challenged, and its polity is often gridlocked. The
notion of a post-America period of international relations is gaining currency. 34 Le ade r s ove r s e a s a l so not e tha t influent i a l American public intellectuals
are calling on the United States to scale back its global activities. Michael Mandelbaum, Peter Beinart, and others argue that the next era of American foreign policy will be characterized by a much more constrained approach to the world.
Appeasement DA

Even small gestures of weakness embolden enemies.
Press, 2005 (Daryl G. Press, Assistant Professor in the Government Department at Dartmouth College,
International Security, The Credibility of Power; Assessing Threats during the "Appeasement" Crises of the 1930s Winter, lexis) In 1933 Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany and immediately began breaking his country's international agreements. From 1933 to 1938 Germany violated its treaty commitments by rearming, remilitarizing the Rhineland, and seizing Austria. n1 Although Britain and France complained after each German violation, they refused to respond with force. In September 1938 Hitler threatened to invade
Czechoslovakia unless Germany was given a piece of Czech territory called the Sudetenland. Once again, the British and French acquiesced to German demands; at the infamous Munich conference, they agreed to pressure Czechoslovakia into surrendering the Sudetenland to Germany. Finally, in 1939, as Germany was preparing to invade Poland, Britain and France took a firm stand. They warned Hitler that if he attacked Poland, they would declare war on Germany. By this time, however, Hitler no longer believed their threats. As the German leader told a group of assembled generals, "Our enemies are worms. I saw them in Munich."n2 The lessons of Munich have been enshrined in international relations theory and in U.S. foreign policy. For deterrence theorists, the history of the 1930s shows that countries must keep
their commitments or they will lose credibility . n3 U.S. leaders have internalized this lesson; the most costly and dangerous moves undertaken by the United States during the Cold War were motivated by a desire to preserve credibility. Concerns about credibility led the United States to fight both in Korean4 and in Vietnamn5; during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy risked nuclear war rather than back down and risk damaging U.S. credibility. n6 And even after the end of the Cold War, the fear of breaking commitments continues to be a powerful force in U.S. foreign policy.n7 The notion that a country's credibility depends on its history of keeping its commitments is widely accepted, but is it true? n8 Does credibility depend on a history of resoluteness? More broadly, what causes credibility in international politics? To answer these questions, this article tests two competing theories of credibility. The first, which I call the "past actions" theory, holds that credibility depends on one's record for keeping or breaking commitments. I test this theory against the "current calculus" theory, which argues that decisionmakers evaluate the credibility of an adversary's threats by assessing (1) the balance of power and (2) the interests at stake in a given crisis. n9 If an adversary issues a threat that it has the power to carry out, and an interest in doing so, the threat will be believed, even if that country has bluffed in the past. But if it makes a threat that it lacks the power to carry out, or has no interest in doing so, the credibility of that threat will be viewed with great skepticism. To test the past actions and current calculus theories, this article uses evidence from German decisionmaking during three crises from the 1930s: the Austrian crisis, the Sudetenland crisis, and the crisis over Poland. These cases offer easy tests for the past actions theory. Nevertheless the current calculus theory performs significantly better. Although the British and French backed down repeatedly in the 1930s, there is little evidence to support the argument that their concessions reduced their credibility in German eyes. The credibility of Britain and France did fluctuate from one crisis to the next, but these fluctuations are better explained by the current calculus theory. Furthermore, German discussions about the credibility of their adversaries emphasized the balance of power, not their history of keeping or breaking commitments.n10 The past actions theory is intuitively appealing because it accurately describes how people assess credibility in their everyday interactions with friends, colleagues, and family. Parents know that if they do not keep their promises and carry out their threats, their children will learn to disregard their rules. Moreover, people quickly discover which friends are reliable and which ones frequently break their promises. But people reason differently in their daily lives than they do in high-stakes international crises. In their daily lives, people quickly estimate the odds of friends showing up on time, and children carelessly calculate the odds that parents will punish bad behavior. But when faced with momentous decisions, leaders abandon the simple heuristics that people employ in mundane circumstances; they model the situation more carefully. n11 The intuition behind the past actions theory, however appealing, is based on a dubious leap from behavior in daily life to decisionmaking in life-and-death crises. This article offers both good and bad news for U.S. foreign policy. The good news is that power is a key determinant of credibility. In this age of U.S. hegemony, the United States should have little trouble establishing credibility to defend the world's only superpower will encounter difficulty when trying to appear credible in crises over minor issues . The U nited S tates frequently becomes engaged in disputes that involve U.S. preferences, but not vital U.S. interests (examples of the former include U.S. involvement in Somalia in 1993 and Kosovo in 1999). In such situations, adversaries will doubt whether the U nited S tates will take costly actions to defend interests of secondary or
important national interests. The bad news is that even tertiary importance.
Radical leaders perceive appeasement as weakness

Michael Chertoff, former Secretary, Dept. of Homeland Security, October 17, 2007 The Battle for Our Future: Remarks by Secretary Chertoff at Westminster College, Dept. of Homeland Security, http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/sp_1193063865526.shtm, So as I stand here in Westminster College, I ask myself -- and I have done this in the past -- what would Winston Churchill say about the nature of our enemies and the ideological threat that we face at the beginning of the 21st century? Well, first and foremost, I believe he would repeat what he said right here at Westminster about the Soviet Union in 1946: "There is nothing they admire so much as strength, and
there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness." Simply put, this is how ideological fanatics view the world. Whether it's Hitler or Stalin, bin Laden or President Ahmadinejad of Iran, for every fanatic weakness is provocation. And that's why we have to remain strong. That's why we must act in strength. That's why we must never fool
ourselves into thinking that submissiveness is a path to peace.
Appeasement DA
Appeasement DA

Historical examples prove the danger of appeasement Hanson 10 (a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University victor davis hanson,july 1 2010, (Even a Few) Words
Matter, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/01/even_a_few_words_matter_106161.html)
Chamberlain was ecstatic after the Munich Conference of 1938. He bragged that he had coaxed Adolf Hitler into stopping further aggression after the Nazis gobbled up much of Czechoslovakia. Arriving home, Chamberlain proudly displayed Hitler's signature on the Munich Agreement, exclaiming to adoring crowds, "I believe it is peace for our time. ... And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds." But after listening to Chamberlain's nice nonsense, Hitler remarked to his generals about a week later, "Our enemies are little worms, I saw them at Munich." War followed in about a year. Sometimes deterrence against aggression is lost with just a few unfortunate words or a relatively minor gesture. Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a comprehensive address to the National Press Club in early 1950. Either intentionally or by accident, he mentioned that South Korea was beyond the American defense perimeter. Communist North Korea, and later China, agreed. War broke out six months later. Well before the Soviets invaded Afghanistanin 1979, and sent aid to communist rebels in Central America,
British Prime Minister Neville President Jimmy Carter announced that America had lost its "inordinate fear of communism." In 1981, Britain, as a goodwill gesture in the growing Falkland Islands dispute, promised to withdraw a tiny warship from the islands. But to the Argentine dictatorship, that reset-button diplomacy was seen as appeasement. It convinced them that the United Kingdom was no longer the nation of Admiral Nelson, the Duke of
after a horrendous war with Iran, would Saddam Hussein have risked another one with Kuwait? Perhaps because he believed that the United States would not stop him. That was a logical inference when American ambassador April Glaspie told him, "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait ... the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." Saddam invaded a little over a week later. These examples could be expanded and serve as warnings. In the last 18 months, the Obama administration has made a number of seemingly insignificant remarks and gestures -- many well-intended and reasoned -- that might be interpreted as a new U.S. indifference to aggression.
Wellington and Winston Churchill. So Argentinainvaded the Falklands. Why,
Weakness has a ripple effectthe U.S. act with strength

Paul Wolfowitz, Former Undersecretary of Defense, FNS, September 16, 1998 MR. WOLFOWITZ: I would just say amen. And I think just as I believe weakness in
one area affects another, if we think that Saddam Hussein and the North Koreans aren't talking to one another I think we're dreaming. But strength in one area sets an example elsewhere. As a matter of fact, if you go back and look at the history of our dealings with North Korea, among the few concessions they ever made to us were in late 1991 and early 1992, when they first agreed to inspections. And there are different theories about why this happened, because there were multiple causes. But I was convinced that one of the reasons was because they saw what we were doing in terms of dismantling Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capability, and they were trying to wiggle out from under that. Unfortunately now they can see that even the Iraqis don't have to worry too much . I
think if we could get serious -- and I believe the public would support it -- in one place, it would begin to have positive ripple effects elsewhere.
Appeasement DA
Credibility Good (1/3)

Best studies of credibility prove it influences international relations Douglas M. Gibler Department of Political Science University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa The Costs of
Reneging: Reputation and Alliance Formation The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jun., 2008), pp. 426-454 I argue above that alliance formation provides an excellent alternative for testing the effects of state reputation. More isolated from the strategic selection of deterrence situations, with a public signal that remains relatively constant across time, region, and even perhaps situation, state reputations formed by honoring or violating alliance commitments offer many advantages for testing a seemingly intangible quality like reputation. Thus, using a relatively simple research design, this article was able to establish what international theorists have suspected, but empirical tests have thus far been unable to prove: reputations have important consequences for state behavior.
Credibility theory is true- literature supports that states learn Mark J. C. Crescenzi, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina Reputation and Interstate Conflict American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 51, No. 2, April 2007, Pp. 382-396
Finally, the concept of reputation, learning, and adaptation has a long-standing presence in the study of international relations (e.g., Dixon 1983; Farkas 1998; Huth 1988; Jervis 1976; Leng 1983, 1988, 1993, 2000; Levy 1994; Maoz 1990, 1996; Mercer 1996; Press 2005; Reiter 1996; Snyder 1991). Learning is a key component of the theory presented below. Specifically, learning is assumed to be experiential in that states learn from the experiences and behavior of other states; diagnostic in that states use the experiences of others to update their beliefs about the intentions of others; and vicarious, or diffuse, in that states learn from experiences in which they are not directly involved (Jervis 1976; Leng 1983; Levy 1994).
Credibility matters Joseph S. Nye, Jr., is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University 11-8-2011 World
Politics Review The Changing Nature of Coercive Power http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Content/assets/Document/713/WPR_Coercion_11082011.pdf This does not mean that the coercive role of military resources is no longer important in a global information age. Coercive diplomacy depends upon the same underlying resources as those that produce competence in kinetic fighting and destruction, but it also depends upon the credibility and cost of the threat. A threat of force can be used to compel or to deter, but the latter is often more credible. Credibility matters, for if a threat is not credible, it is unlikely to produce the desired outcome and could have an impact on the coercing states reputation. In general, failed threats are costly, not only in terms of the target, but also in terms of third par ties observing the outcome.
10
Appeasement DA

Perceived weakness causes free trade and US leadership fall apart.
Eaglen, 2009 (Mackenzie Eaglen, Research fellow for National Security Studies at the Heritage Foundation, Defense
News, How to Dismantle a Military Superpower, Setptember 13, defensenews.com/story.php?i=4275078)
As militaries expand and modernize, the probability of miscalculation grows. Military weakness, real or perceived, encourages enemies to act. Threats to the global system of trade (which rests on the foundation of the U.S.-led security structure) would increase. This delicate system would become more vulnerable to attempts to disrupt access to vital resources. Weakness opens the opportunity for hostile powers to more likely dominate East Asia, Europe or the Persian Gulf. The U.S. defense budget will continue to favor people over platforms and immediate needs over long-term readiness. The procurement holiday of the 1990s instituted by the Clinton administration and agreed to by a Republican-led Congress put the United States on course to relinquish its superpower military status. The Bush administration, after Sept. 11, was able to slow the advancement down that path, but couldn't reverse course. Another procurement holiday championed by President Obama would see the U nited S tates move further away from where it needs to be, and perhaps, ultimately, relinquish its position as the world's sole military superpower.
Collapse of leadership causes extinctionseveral scenarios.

Ferguson, 2004 (Niall Ferguson, July/August 2004 A World Without Power, FOREIGN POLICY Issue 143)
So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous-roughly 20 times more--so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. Technology has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization--the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. The reversal of globalization--which a new Dark Age would produce--would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of aids and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the U nited S tates retreats from global hegemony--its fragile selfimage dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier--its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity--a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.
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Appeasement DA

Trade collapse causes nuclear war.
Spicer, 1996 (Michael Spicer, economist, Former Member of British Parliament, The Challenge from the East and
the Rebirth of the West 1996 p. 121)
The choice facing the West today is much the same as that which faced the Soviet bloc after World War II: between meeting head-on the challenge of world trade with the adjustments and the benefits that it will bring, or of attempting to shut out markets that are growing and where a dynamic new pace is being set for innovative productions. The problem about the second approach is not simply that it wont hold: satellite technology alone will ensure that consumers will begin to demand those goods that the East is able to provide most cheaply. More fundamentally, it will guarantee the emergence of a fragmented world in which natural fears will be fanned and inflamed. A world divided into rigid trade blocs will be a deeply troubled and unstable place in which suspicion and ultimately envy will possibly erupt into a major war. I do not say that the converse will necessarily be true, that in a free trading world there will be an absence of all strife. Such a proposition would manifestly be absurd. But to trade is to become interdependent, and that is a good step in the
direction of world stability. With nuclear weapons at two a penny, stability will be at a premium in the years ahead.
12
Appeasement DA
Cuba UQ (1/2)
No appeasement in Cuba now. Too many obstacles. Paul Haven 2013 6/21 (Associated Press) Cuba, US try talking, but face many obstacles
<http://www.timesherald.com/article/20130621/NEWS05/130629930/cuba-us-try-talking-but-facemany-obstacles#full_story> To be sure, there is still far more that separates the long-time antagonists than unites them. The State Department has kept Cuba on a list of state sponsors of terrorism and another that calls into question Havanas commitment to fighting human trafficking. The Obama administration continues to demand democratic change on an island ruled for more than a half century by Castro and his brother Fidel. For its part, Cuba continues to denounce Washingtons 51-year-old economic embargo. And then there is Gross, the 64-year-old Maryland native who was arrested in 2009 and is serving a 15-year jail sentence for bringing communications equipment to the island illegally. His case has scuttled efforts at engagement in the past, and could do so again, U.S. officials say privately. Cuba has indicated it wants to trade Gross for four Cuban agents serving long jail terms in the United States, something Washington has said it wont consider. Ted Henken, a professor of Latin American studies at Baruch College in New York who helped organize a recent U.S. tour by Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, said the Obama administration is too concerned with upsetting Cuban-American politicians and has missed opportunities to engage with Cuba at a crucial time in its history. I think that a lot more would have to happen for this to amount to momentum leading to any kind of major diplomatic breakthrough, he said. Obama should be bolder and more audacious. Even these limited moves have sparked fierce criticism by those long opposed to engagement. Cuban-American congressman Mario Diaz Balart, a Florida Republican, called the recent overtures disturbing.
No major concessions now. Too many opponents on both sides. Yoani Sanchez 2012 11/14(Huffington Post) The Embargo: Both Sides Are Still Living Out the Cold
War < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/the-embargo-both-sides-ar_b_2130520.html> Year after year the issue of the U.S. embargo against Cuba is presented in the United Nations. Year after year, the majority of countries votes against this fossil of the Cold War. But even though the existence of such economic sanctions has been condemned 21 times, they remain in force. On both sides of the Florida Straits there are too many interests who want to perpetuate the situation, even though the political discourse says otherwise. On one side are the many who believe that financially strangling the Cuban government will produce democratic change in Cuba. These are the people who hold the view of the "pressure cooker" on which they just have to put greater and greater pressure until it explodes. For these defenders of the embargo, if daily life on the island becomes ever more miserable due to lack of material goods, Cubans will finally throw themselves into the streets to overthrow the current system. This theory has demonstrated its failure over five decades. What has actually happened is that when the economy hits bottom, people prefer to escape from the Island, legally or illegally -- in some cases to literally throw themselves into the sea -- rather than confront the powers-that-be. The others who dream of continuing the embargo are all those ideologues of the Cuban government who have run out of arguments to explain the dysfunction of this system. They are those who need, as in a child's fairy tale, a big bad wolf to blame for everything. They say it is because of the "blockade" that we can't enjoy the Internet, that we can't freely associate with others who share our ideas, that we can't even travel freely. They try to justify everything based on the existence of this mistaken policy of Washington. Trapped in the middle of these two positions are eleven million Cubans, caught between the absurd restrictions of some and the implausible justifications of others. 13
Appeasement DA
Cuba UQ (1/2)
No major concessions coming on the Cuban embargo. Rajan Menon 2012 4/26 Wanted -- A New Cuba Policy (Huffington Post)
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajan-menon/wanteda-new-cuba-policy_b_1450392.html> In contrast to all of this activity, Washington's Cuba policy remains frozen. Diplomatic relations, severed soon after Castro ousted the pro-American dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and nationalized various U.S. economic assets, have not restored. The economic embargo was tightened by the 1996 Helms Burton Act. That legislation failed to generate democratization in Cuba. It certainly did not benefit ordinary Cubans, whose interests successive American leaders have claimed to be guided by. But it did provoke protests from governments in South America, Europe, and Canada because of its provisions for penalties against foreign companies, and overseas affiliates of U.S. firms, conducting business with Cuba.
14
Appeasement DA
2NC Iran (1/2)

There is a high risk of Middle East conflict in the absence of U.S. credibility. Robert Kagan is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. JAN 24, 2011, VOL. 16, NO. 18 The Weekly Standard The Price of Power
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/price-power_533696.html?nopager=1 Today the international situation is also one of high risk. The terrorists who would like to kill Americans on U.S. soil
constantly search for safe havens from which to plan and carry out their attacks. American military actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere make it harder for them to strike and are a large part of the reason why for almost a decade there has been no repetition of September 11. To the degree that we limit our ability to deny them safe haven, we increase the chances they will succeed. American forces deployed in East Asia and the Western Pacific have for decades prevented the outbreak of major war, provided stability, and kept open international trading routes, making possible an unprecedented era of growth and prosperity for Asians and Americans alike. Now the United States faces a new challenge and potential threat from a rising China which seeks eventually to push the U.S. militarys area of operations back to Hawaii and exercise hegemony over the worlds most rapidly growing economies. Meanwhile, a nuclear-armed North Korea threatens war with South Korea and fires ballistic missiles over Japan that will someday be capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. Democratic nations in the region, worried that the United States may be losing influence, turn to Washington for reassurance that the U.S. security guarantee remains firm. If the United States cannot provide that assurance because it is cutting back its military capabilities, they will have to choose between accepting Chinese dominance and striking out on their own, possibly by building nuclear weapons. In
the
Middle East, Iran seeks to build its own nuclear arsenal, supports armed radical Islamic groups in Lebanon and Palestine, and has linked up with anti-American dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere. The prospects of new instability in the region grow every day as a decrepit regime in Egypt clings to power, crushes all moderate opposition, and drives the Muslim Brotherhood into the streets. A nuclear-armed Pakistan seems to be ever on the brink of collapse into anarchy and radicalism. Turkey, once an ally, now seems bent on an increasingly anti-American Islamist course. The prospect of war between Hezbollah and Israel grows, and with it the possibility of war between Israel and Syria and possibly Iran. There, too, nations in the region increasingly look to Washington for reassurance, and if they decide the United States cannot be relied upon they will have to decide whether to succumb to Iranian influence or build their own nuclear weapons to resist it. In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union had collapsed and the biggest problem in the world
seemed to be ethnic conflict in the Balkans, it was at least plausible to talk about cutting back on American military capabilities. In the present, increasingly dangerous international environment, in which terrorism and great power rivalry vie as the greatest threat to American security and interests, cutting military capacities is simply reckless. Would we increase the risk of strategic failure in an already risky world, despite the near irrelevance of the defense budget to American fiscal health, just so we could tell American voters that their military had suffered its fair share of the pain? The nature of the risk becomes plain when one considers the nature of the cuts that would have to be made to have even a marginal effect on the U.S. fiscal crisis. Many are under the illusion, for instance, that if the United States simply withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and didnt intervene anywhere else for a while, this would have a significant impact on future deficits. But, in fact, projections of future massive deficits already assume the winding down of these interventions. Withdrawal from the two wars would scarcely make a dent in the fiscal crisis. Nor can meaningful reductions be achieved by cutting back on waste at the Pentagonwhich Secretary of Defense Gates has already begun to do and which has also been factored into deficit projections. If the United States withdrew from Iran and Afghanistan tomorrow, cut all the waste Gates can find, and even eliminated a few weapons programsall this together would still not produce a 10 percent decrease in overall defense spending. In fact, the only way to get significant savings from the defense budgetand by significant, we are still talking about a tiny fraction of the cuts needed to bring down future deficitsis to cut force structure: fewer troops on the ground; fewer airplanes in the skies; fewer ships in the water; fewer soldiers, pilots, and sailors to feed and clothe and provide benefits for. To cut the size of the force, however, requires reducing or eliminating the missions those forces have been performing. Of course, there are any number of think tank experts who insist U.S. forces can be cut by a quarter or third or even by half and still perform those missions. But this is snake oil. Over the past two decades, the force has already been cut by a third. Yet no administration has reduced the missions that the larger force structures of the past were designed to meet. To fulfill existing security commitments, to remain the worlds power balancer of choice, as Leslie Gelb puts it, to act as the only regional balancer against China in Asia, Russia in eastern Europe, and Iran in the Middle East requires at least the current force structure, and almost certainly more than current force levels. Those who recommend doing the same with less are only proposing a policy of insufficiency, where the United States makes commitments it cannot meet except at high risk of failure. The only way to find substantial savings in the defense budget, therefore, is to change American strategy fundamentally. The Simpson-Bowles commission suggests as much, by calling for a reexamination of Americas 21st century role, although it doesnt begin to define what that new role might be. Others have. For decades realist analysts have called for a strategy of offshore balancing. Instead of the United States providing security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher Layne has long proposed passing the mantle of regional stabilizer to a consortium of Russia, China, Iran, and India. In East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others manage their own problems, without U.S. involvementagain, until the balance broke down and war erupted, at which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if necessary, intervene with its own forces to restore peace and stability. Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the only genuine alternative to the one
15
Appeasement DA
the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit, Layne and others who support the concept of offshore balancing have eschewed halfway measures and airy assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either the United States is actively involved in providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are frank in calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II, perpetuated through the Cold War, and continued by four successive post-Cold War administrations. At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy. The
idea of relying on Russia, China, and Iran to jointly stabilize the Middle East and Persian Gulf will not strike many as an attractive proposition. Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to have a stabilizing effect on that region. The prospects of a war on
the Korean Peninsula would increase. Japan and other nations in the region would face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking unilateral steps for self-defense, which in Japans case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable nuclear arsenal. Layne and other
offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John Mearsheimer, point to two notable occasions when the United States allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years against Iran in the hope that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in the 1920s and 1930s,
when the United States allowed the great European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out. Whether this was really American strategy in that era is open for debatemost would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered strategic judgment but as an end in itself. Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first decades of the 20th century, however, would we really call that strategy a success? The
United States wound up intervening with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in
Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful wars in human history. It was with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar years had been mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy that the United States has pursued ever since. Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, American leaders determined that the safest course was to build situations of strength (Achesons phrase) in strategic locations around the world, to build a preponderance of power, and to create an international system with American power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air bases to enable the rapid projection of force to strategically important parts of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the
offshore balancing strategy, and they did so because they believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again. They believed their new global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and less expensive in the long run.
Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the proper course in many areas of foreign policy, have all agreed on this core strategic approach. From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious and too expensive. At the dawn of the Cold War, Walter Lippmann railed against Trumans containment strategy as suffering from an unsustainable gap between ends and means that would bankrupt the United States and exhaust its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of imperial overstretch, arguing that American decline was inevitable if the trends in national indebtedness, low productivity increases, *etc.+ were allowed to continue at the same time as massive American commitments of men, money and materials are made in different parts of the globe. Today, we are once again being told that this global strategy needs to give way to a more restrained and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face in coming years is not caused by the present, largely successful global strategy. Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy that is taken for granted. The enormous benefits that this strategy has provided, including the financial benefits, somehow never appear on the ledger. They should. We might begin by asking about the global security order that the United States has sustained since Word War IIthe prevention of major war, the support of an open trading system, and promotion of the liberal principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order worth? What would be the cost of its collapse or transformation into another type of order? Whatever the nature of the current economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global prosperity than any time in human history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-backward nations have become economic dynamos. And the American economy, though suffering ups and downs throughout this period, has on the whole benefited immensely from this international order. One price of this success has been maintaining a sufficient military capacity to provide the essential security underpinnings of this order. But has the price not been worth it? In the first half of the 20th century, the United States found itself engaged in two world wars. In the second half, this
global American strategy helped produce a peaceful end to the great-power struggle of the Cold War and then 20 more years of great-power peace. Looked at coldly, simply in terms of dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs. The danger, as always, is that we dont even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided. Many assume that the world has simply become more peaceful, that great-power conflict has become impossible, that nations have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is what counts. This belief
in progress and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions of international order is always alluring to Americans and Europeans and other children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the first years after World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people spoke of the end of history. It
is always tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained with its power can exist in the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden assumption of those who call for a change in American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its role and yet all the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in. This is a great if recurring illusion, the idea that you can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not fall over. 16
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2NC Iran (2/2)

Iran regional dominance causes nuclear war- US engagement key to prevent it Herbert London is President Emeritus of Hudson Institute and Professor Emeritus of New York University June 23, 2010 The Coming Crisis in the Middle East Hudson Institute
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=7101&pubType=HI_Opeds Iran is poised to be the hegemon in the Middle East. It is increasingly considered the strong horse as
American forces incrementally retreat from the region. Even Iraq, ironically, may depend on Iranian ties in order to maintain internal stability. From Qatar to Afghanistan all political eyes are on Iran. For
Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia regional strategic vision is a combination of deal making to offset the Iranian Shia advantage and attempting to buy or develop nuclear weapons as a counter weight to Iranian ambition. However, both of these governments are in a precarious state. Should either fall, all bets are off in the Middle East neighborhood. It has long been said that the Sunni tent must stand on two legs, if one, falls, the tent collapses. Should that tent collapse and should Iran take advantage of that calamity, it could incite a Sunni-Shia war. Or feeling its oats and no longer dissuaded by an escalation scenario with nuclear weapons in tow, war against Israel is a distinct possibility. However, implausible it may seem at the moment, the possible annihilation of Israel and the prospect of a second holocaust could lead to a nuclear exchange. The only wild card that can change this slide into warfare is an active United States policy. Yet curiously, the U.S. is engaged in both an emotional and physical
retreat from the region. Despite rhetoric which suggests an Iran with nuclear weapons is intolerable, it has done nothing to forestall that eventual outcome. Despite the investment in blood and treasure to allow a stable government to emerge in Iraq, the anticipated withdrawal of U.S. forces has prompted President Maliki to travel to Tehran on a regular basis. And despite historic links to Israel that gave the U.S. leverage in the region and a democratic ally, the Obama administration treats Israel as a national security albatross that must be disposed of as soon as possible. As a consequence, the
U.S. is perceived in the region as the weak horse, the one that is dangerous to ride. In every Middle East capital the words unreliable and United States are linked. Those seeking a moderate course of action are now in a distinct minority. A political vacuum is emerging, one that is not sustainable and one the Iranian leadership looks to with imperial exhilaration.
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Democracy 2NC (1/3)

Cuba is on the verge of a democratic rebirth. Removing sanctions would crush this movement increasing the communists hold on power. Ron Radosh 2013, 3/18 PJ Media columnist and Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute.
The Time to Help Cubas Brave Dissidents Is Now: Why the Embargo Must Not be Lifted, PJ Media, http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/03/18/the-time-to-help-cubas-brave-dissidents-is-now-why-the-embargo-must-not-belifted/?singlepage=true. The presence this week in the United States of dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, the most well-known of
Cubas brave dissident community, has again brought to the forefront the reality of the situation facing the Cuban people in the Castro brothers prison state. Last week, Sanchez spoke at both Columbia University and New York University, where she recalled how different things were a decade ago during what Cubans refer to as the Black Spring, when independent journalists were given a summary trial and large jail sentences. It was the arrest of these opponents of the regime that led to the Ladies in White, the wives and mothers of prisoners who regularly marched in silence in front of government buildings each week. Ten years ago, Sanchez pointed out, there was no access to the internet for anyone in Cuba, it barely existed, and there were no flash drives to record information and no social networking sites to spread the word about the states repression. Now, bloggers like Sanchez who gains access to tourist hotels, posing as a Westerner so she can use their internet facilities have managed to get past the regimes ban on
use of the internet and to freely reveal to the world the reality of life in Cuba. Many independent journalists and peaceful activists who began their work precariously have now resorted to blogs, for example, as a format to circulate information about programs and initiatives to collect signatures, Snchez said. She and others have done just that, getting
signatures on petitions to demand the release in particular of one well-known Cuban journalist. In addition, Sanchez is circulating a petition known as the Citizens Demand to pressure the Cuban regime to ratify the UN political rights agreements signed in 2008. The signers are calling for a legal and political framework for a full debate of all ideas relevant to the internal crisis facing the Cuban people on the island. In effect, this demand for democracy is nothing less than a call for creation of a political democracy that would, if implemented, lead to the collapse of the edifice of the Communist one-party state. As Sanchez put it: It is important to have initiatives for transforming the law and demand concrete public spaces within the country. Since a totalitarian state does not allow for such space and prohibits a real civil society from emerging, the actions of the dissidents are a mechanism for forcing such change from below. They are fighting what her fellow blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo called a culture of fear over the civil society that the secret police seek to enforce. For liberals and leftists in the United States, the main demand they always raise is to lift the embargo. According to the argument they regularly make, the embargo has to be lifted for the following reasons: 1) it is not effective; 2) it gives the regime the excuse to argue to the Cuban people that the poverty they suffer is the result of not being able to trade with the United States and other nations honoring the embargo; 3) lifting the embargo would hence deprive Fidel and Raul Castro from their main propaganda argument, revealing that the reasons for a collapsed economy are the regimes own policies; and 4) trade and travel from the United States would expose Cubans to Americans and others who live in freedom, help curb anti-Americanism, and eventually lead to slow reform of the system. What these liberals and leftists leave out is that this demand lifting the embargo is also the number one desire of the Cuban Communists. In making it the key demand, these well-meaning (at least some of them) liberals echo precisely the
propaganda of the Cuban government, thereby doing the Castro brothers work for them here in the United States. And, as we know, many of those who call for this actually believe that the Cuban government is on the side of the people, and favor the Cuban Revolution which they see as a positive role model for the region. They have always believed, since the 1960s of their youth, that socialism in Cuba has pointed the way forward to development and liberty based on the kind of socialist society they wish could exist in the United States. Another brave group of Cuban opponents of the regime has actually taped a television interview filmed illegally in Havana. Young Cuban democracy leader Antonio Rodiles, an American
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The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack Democracy 2NC (1.5/3) Contd
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support group called Capitol Hill Cubans has reported, has just released the latest episode of his civil society project Estado de Sats (filmed within Cuba), where he discusses the importance U.S. sanctions policy with two of Cubas most renowned opposition activists and former political prisoners, Guillermo Farias and Jose Daniel Ferrer. The argument they present is aimed directly at those on the left in the United States, some of whom think they are helping democracy in Cuba by calling for an end to the embargo. In strong and clear language, the two dissidents say the following: If at this time, the [economic] need of the Cuban government is satisfied through financial credits and the lifting of the embargo, repression would increase, it would allow for a continuation of the Castros society, totalitarianism would strengthen its hold and philosophically, it would just be immoral If you did an opinion poll among Cuban opposition activists, the majority would be in favor of not lifting the embargo. Next, they nail the claim that travel without restrictions by citizens of our country to Cuba would help spread freedom. The men respond: In a cost-benefit analysis, travel to Cuba by Americans would be of greatest benefit to the Castro regime, while the Cuban people would be the least to benefit. With all of the controls and the totalitarian system of the government, it would be perfectly able to control such travel. We know this, as I reported a few months ago, about how a group of Americans taking the usual state-controlled Potemkin village tour came back raving about how wonderful and free Cuba is, and how Cuban socialism works. Finally, the two former prisoners made this point about lifting the embargo: To lift the embargo at this time would be very prejudicial to us. The government prioritizes all of the institutions that guarantee its hold on power. The regimes political police and its jailers receive a much higher salary and privileges than a doctor or engineer, or than any other worker that benefits society. Weve all seen municipalities with no fuel for an ambulance, yet with 10, 15, 20, 50 cars full of fuel ready to go repress peaceful human rights activists. Indeed, just this past week, more evidence came out substantiating how the secret police killed Cubas leading political opponent Oswaldo Paya,
and sought to blame it on a car crash for which he and those with him were responsible. Last week, the Washington Post in a tough editorial made the point: Mr. Pay, who pioneered the Varela Project, a petition drive in 2002 seeking the guarantee of political freedom in Cuba, was killed in a car wreck July 22, along with a youth activist, Harold Cepero. The driver of the vehicle, ngel Carromero, a Spaniard, was convicted and imprisoned on charges of vehicular homicide; in December, he was released to Spain. He told us in an interview published on the opposite page last week that the car carrying Mr. Pay was rammed from behind by a vehicle with government license plates. His recollections suggest that Mr. Pay died not from reckless driving but from a purposeful attempt to silence him forever. This is the kind of treatment effective opponents of the regime get from Cubas secret police, measures taken upon orders of Raul Castro, whom useful idiots like Danny Glover and Sean Penn regularly visit. They fawn at his feet and those of his ailing brother, Fidel Castro. This week, Sanchez and her colleague come to testify before Congress. They will speak as well at a public forum today, Tuesday, at the Cato Institute. You can watch on a live stream at 12:30 p.m. on the organizations website. The Cuban people have suffered long enough at the hands of a regime that came into power promising freedom and democracy, and instead inflicted on the Cuban people a totalitarian government modeled on that of the old Soviet Union. Cuba is finally on the verge of change, and it is time the people of our
country give whatever support we can to those within Cuba bravely working for the creation of a real democracy in Cuba, and an end to the decades of rule by the Castro brothers.
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Appeasement DA
Democracy 2NC (2/3)

Peaceful democratic transitions in Latin America will set off a new wave of democratization around the world. Democratic solidarity is key. Carl Gershman 2013 May 15 (President of the National Endowment for Democracy) Towards a New
Birth of Democracy in our Hemisphere < http://www.ned.org/about/board/meet-ourpresident/archived-presentations-and-articles/towards-a-new-birth-of-democracy-> According to The Washington Post, the government of Ecuador has all but abolished independent media, taking over five television channels, four radio stations, two newspapers and four magazines; and closing 11 other radio stations. In addition, President Correa repeatedly uses a law that allows him to commandeer the national airwaves for any purpose and at any time; and the media monitoring organization Fundamedios reported 173 acts of aggression against journalists in 2012, including one killing and 13 assaults. Yet again, the response has been silence. And in Cuba, brave democrats like Oswaldo Paya, Laura Pollan, and Harold Cepero have lost their lives under circumstances that cry out for independent investigation. Cuban activists, who continue the fight for democracy, are exposed to great danger and need political and moral support. But once again, there is silence. To repeat, I applaud the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which itself is under attack by Ecuador and other opponents of democratic freedoms. But where is the Organization of American States? Of what value is the Democratic Charter of the Americas if the OAS and democratic leaders in the hemisphere stand by passively while the institutions of democracy are demolished and captured by unaccountable autocrats? The picture is by no means all bleak. Democracy has made gains in Chile, Brazil, Peru and other countries, and significant progress has been made in the region in reducing poverty and inequality. Through some 150 grants annually, NED supports grassroots groups throughout the region that are working to advance democracy, often in the most difficult situations. Moreover, despite the threat to democracy and human rights that I have noted, the opportunities for democratic progress are actually growing as the regions populist autocracies are failing politically and economically, and with the Cuban dictatorship now entering what I believe is the final stage of its inexorable decline and inevitable fall. But we cant take advantage of these opportunities without a new rebirth of democratic solidarity. One of the twenty books written by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinens father Enrique Ros, who died just last month at the age of 89, is entitled Cuba: Mambises Born in Other Lands. The book details the participation of foreigners in the struggle for Cuban independence during the last third of the 19th Century not just American citizens and Dominicans, Venezuelans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians and Peruvians, but also people from Spain, France, Italy, Poland and even China. The book conveys a message of democratic solidarity that is relevant today, but with one caveat. The challenge today is not liberating people from foreign oppression. It is supporting their nonviolent struggle for human rights and democratic citizenship against a controlling and oppressive state. It is this principle that we now have to proclaim and act upon. To those who say that defending this principle in the case of people fighting for democratic rights against a home-grown dictatorship is interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, we should recall what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Lecture in 1970: There are no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! And mankinds sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business. If we act upon this principle in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Latin America and the Caribbean who are bravely fighting for freedom, and who need our moral and political support, we shall help fulfill the promise of a hemisphere united in freedom and democracy. And if that promise is fulfilled, we will give hope to brave people in other regions of the world who are engaged in the same struggle for democratic freedoms and human dignity.
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Democracy 2NC (3/3)

The spread of democracy prevents human extinction. Diamond 1995 (Larry- Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Prof. or Political Science Stanford)
Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, 1995) This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy , with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.
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Democracy Coming Now (Cuba)

Cuban opposition movement is strong --- Chavezs death creates an opening. Andrs Simonyi and Jaime Aparicio Otero 2013, 3/12/2013. Ambassador Andrs Simonyi (60) is the
Managing Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.; and former Ambassador of Bolivia to the United States. Cuba's Future Transition to Democracy Can Be a Success, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andras-simonyi/cubas-future-transition-t_b_2859520.html. It is too early to say how Hugo Chavez's passing will effect developments elsewhere in the region. One wonders first and foremost about the consequences on and in Cuba. It is a reminder to the Castro brothers that power is ephemeral. Cuba is ready for change. In spite of the efforts by the regime to paint a rosy picture, eye witnesses tell a sad story. Living conditions are bad, the economy survives only at the mercy of Venezuela. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission,
in its 2012 a report on Cuba, speaks of "permanent and systematical violations of the fundamental rights of Cuban citizens." Ironically, however while the Cuban people suffer, the regime is internationally stronger than ever. Progressive rock musicians, like Gorki in the band Porno Para Ricardo, are prevented from writing and performing freely. The international pressure for the respect for human rights is weak and inefficient. It seems like the ethic conscience of the west is comfortable with the situation. It shouldn't be. Solidarity with the people submitted to human rights violations by dictatorships is a moral imperative. However ,
the opposition movement is gaining voice, even in face of a forgetful international community. They are increasingly self-confident. Oswaldo Paya is now dead, but others, like Yoani Sanchez stepped into his place. Courageous people, who defy threats and speak more and more openly about the true state of the country. They deserve all the support they ask for. Cuba is ripe for change.
Economic democracy is emerging now but the regime will fight for a statist model. Roger Burbach 2013 5/25. Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, CA and is the
author with Michael Fox and Federico Fuentes of Latin Americas Turbulent Transitions: The Future of 21st Century Socialism. Restructuring Cuba's Economy Creates Debate over Democracy and Socialism in the 21st Century, CounterPunch, http://www.solidarityeconomy.net/2013/05/25/a-cuban-spring-the-debates-are-engaged/.
This is a fruitful period of experimentation and debate in Cuba. It is now almost seven years since Ral Castro replaced his brother Fidel, first as interim president in 2006 and then as president in 2008. Under Ral, the country is taking steps to transform the economy, and a critical discussion is erupting over the dismantling of the authoritarian Communist model. Julio Daz Vzquez, an economist at the University of Havana, declares: With the updating of the economic model, Cuba faces complex challenges . . . in its social and political institutions. . . . The heritage of the Soviet model makes it necessary to break with the barriers
erected by inertia, intransigence, *and+ a double standard. He adds, These imperfections have led to deficiencies in *Cubas+ democracy, its creative liberties, and its citizens participation.1 Among the most important changes that have echoed internationally is the decree that took effect January 14 allowing Cubans to travel abroad without securing a special exit permit. Also, homes and vehicles can now be bought and sold openly, recognizing private ownership for the first time since the state took control of virtually all private property in the early 1960s. The government is distributing uncultivated land, which constitutes about half of the countrysides agriculturally viable terrain, in usufruct for 10 years in 10-hectare parcels with the possibility of lease renewal. To date there are 172,000 new agricultural producers. Beyond agriculture, 181 occupations filled by self-employed or independent workers such as food vendors, hair stylists, taxi drivers, plumbers, and shoe repairmen can now be licensed as trabajo por cuenta propiaself-employment. As of late 2012, about 380,000 people are self-employed in a work force of 5 million. The most dramatic move against the old economic order came in April 2011, when the
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Sixth Communist Party Congress issued 313 lineamientos, or guidelines. A potpourri of measures and recommendations, the document calls for autonomy for the state enterprises, an expansion of cooperatives, new taxing laws, and changes in the system of subsidies, including modification of the monthly food rationing system. The government established a committee of over 90 people, led by former minister of
economy Marino Murillo, to implement the policy recommendations. A major weakness of the lineamientos, according to Armando Nova of the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, is that they fail to tackle major macroeconomic challenges. While the lineamientos acknowledge the countrys low economic productivity, as well as large trade deficits, there is no analysis of how to overcome these systemic problems. Moreover, the lineamientos contain no overarching conceptualization of where the society is headed other than a general commitment to socialism. What type of socialism is being referred to? Nova as ks.2 Is the new socialism akin to what Lenin outlined in the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, when Russia permitted small-scale peasant production and private businesses? What is the role of private property in Cuba, and how can a new economy curb the growth of inequality? These are all critical questions that the Sixth Party Congress failed to address. There are, however, different schools of thought on how to move the economy forward. Camila Pieiro Harnecker, in an essay titled Visions of the Socialism That Guide Present-Day Changes in Cuba, describes three different visions: (a) a
statist position, largely reflecting the old guard, (b) a market socialist perspective, advanced by many economists, and (c) an autogestionario, or self-management, stance that calls for democratic and sustainable development primarily through the promotion of cooperatives. The statists recognize that Cuba
faces serious economic problems but argue that they can be corrected through a more efficient state, not through a dismantling of the state. They call for more discipline and greater efficiency among state industries and enterprises. A loosening of state control, they contend, would result in greater disorganization and even allow capitalist tendencies to emerge. This position points to the disaster that occurred in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s after an attempt to end central control over state enterprises. The statist position is most deeply entrenched among midlevel bureaucrats and the party cadre, who fear a loss of status and income with the end of direct control over Cubas economy. Some heads of the Cuban military enterpriseswhich include food and clothing factories, as well as hotels, farms, and telecommunication storesalso manifest this tendency, although surprisingly many officers, including Ral Castro, are in favor of decentralization and a greater use of market mechanisms. Those committed to a socialist market economy contend that only the market can unleash Cubas productive forces. To increase productivity and efficiency, the state needs to grant more autonomy to enterprises and allow competitive forces to drive the market. In the short term, privatization is necessary, even if this means an increase in inequality, the exploitation of wage workers, and environmental degradation. As the country develops, the state can step in to level the differences and distribute the new surpluses to support social programs. The economists who argue for market socialism tend to be located in what is referred to as academiathe research institutes and centers, many of which are affiliated with the University of Havana.4 Academia looks to the Chinese and Vietnamese experiences, particularly their appeal to foreign investment, although they believe that Cuba should do a better job of controlling corruption. This position also finds support among state technocrats and some managers who want to see their enterprises expand and become more profitable as they are privatized. There is also significant support for the market economy among self-employed and working people who feel that they can enjoy the material prosperity of China or the Western world only through more individual initiative and private enterprise via the market.
The autogestionario position, which Pieiro advocates, has a fundamentally different view from the economists over how to break with the old statist model. Instead of relying on competition and the market to advance productivity, the democratic socialist values of participation, association, and solidarity should be at the heart of the workplace and the new economy. Control should not come from the top down but from the bottom up, as workers engage in self-management to further their social and economic concerns. As Pieiro writes, The autogestionarios emphasize the necessity of promoting a socialist conscience, solidarity,
and a revolutionary commitment to the historically marginalized. These principles can be practiced in cooperatives and municipal enterprises, leading to increased consciousness and productivity in the workplace.5 Pieiro admits that support for the autogetionario position is less consolidated, coming from intellectuals, professionals, and those involved in the international debates over 21st-century socialism. One of the problems is that the old statist model used the terms participation, autonomy, and workers control to characterize the relations in the factories, enterprises, and cooperatives t hat operated poorly in Cuba, and this language has now fallen into disfavor. Today those who try to revive these terms are often seen as making a utopian attempt to resuscitate failed policies. Ultimately, Pieiro is optimistic, seeing a new path
for the nation. It will be a hybrid composed of a state socialism better organized, a market, and a truly democratic sector. 23
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Cuba Democracy Links

Concessions will reinforce despotic regimes. Jennifer Rubin 2011 (The Washington Post) Obamas Cuba appeasement
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obamas-cubaappeasement/2011/03/29/gIQAjuL2tL_blog.html> Former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams explained, It is especially offensive that we were willing to negotiate over support for democracy in Cuba, for that would mean that the unjust imprisonment of Gross had given the Castro dictatorship a significant victory. The implications for those engaged in similar democracy promotion activities elsewhere are clear: local regimes would think that imprisoning an American might be a terrific way to get into a negotiation about ending such activities. Every American administration faces tough choices in these situations, but the Obama administration has made a great mistake here. Our support for democracy should not be a subject of negotiation with the Castro regime.The administrations conduct is all the more galling given the behavior of the Castro regime. Our willingness to relax sanctions was not greeted with goodwill gestures, let alone systemic reforms. To the contrary, this was the setting for Grosss imprisonment. So naturally the administration orders up more of the same.Throughout his tenure, President Obama has failed to comprehend the cost-benefit analysis that despotic regimes undertake. He has offered armfuls of goodies and promised quietude on human rights; the despots behavior has worsened. There is simply no downside for rogue regimes to take their shots at the United States. Whether it is Cuba or Iran, the administration reverts to engagement mode when its engagement efforts are met with aggression and/or domestic oppression. Try to murder a diplomat on U.S. soil? Well sit down and chat. Grab an American contractor and try him in a kangaroo court? Well trade prisoners and talk about relaxing more sanctions. Invade Georgia, imprison political opponents and interfere with attempts to restart the peace process? Well put the screws on our democratic ally to get you into World Trade Organization. The response of these thuggish regimes is entirely predictable and, from their perspective, completely logical . What is inexplicable is the Obama administrations willingness to throw gifts to tyrants in the expectation they will reciprocate in kind.
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Lifting the embargo opens up access to U.S. credit strengthening the Castro regime. Silvio Canto 2013, 3/21/2013. Yoani Sanchez is wonderful but wrong about the embargo, American
Thinker, <http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/03/yoani_sanchez_is_wonderful_but_wrong_about_the _embargo.html> Yoani Sanchez is a wonderful lady. She has single handily put Cuba's repressive state on the front pages. Her trip to the US and other places has been a great success even if there were demonstrators calling her a CIA agent. I hope that they don't email the editors of American Thinker that I am an agent of the CIA, too. By the way, do these demonstrators know that such demonstrations are not allowed in Cuba? It's amazing to me the extent to which the left will go to make fools of themselves. Yoani is wrong about the embargo. I am not angry with Yoani about that. I think that she has never been told, or heard about, the real story of the embargo and why the Castro dictatorship is desperately trying to lift it. Cuba does not have an embargo problem. Instead, it has a "we can't get credit anymore" problem. Cuba also has a "socialism does not work" problem. Cuba can do business with any country on earth. The world is ready and willing to sell its goods and services to Cuba. Unfortunately for the Castro dictatorship, "credit lines" are not being extended. No one wants to sell Cuba on credit, a reflection of the island's inability to service its debts. I repeat: Cuba has a "socialism is a GRANDE PROBLEMA" problem! Cuba restructured its foreign debt in November 2011. In fact, Cuban debt is such "basura" (Spanish for junk) that some speculators are buying it at "6 to 10 cents on the dollar" hoping that they can make a huge return after Castro dies: "Leadership change is frequently good for deadbeat sovereign bonds!" Who would benefit from lifting the embargo? Not the Cuban people! Not Yoani and her husband! Not my cousin and family still living in Cuba! The real beneficiary will be the Castro dictatorship who will now have access to US credit lines, specifically export financing available to US companies. For example, Alabama sells to Cuba but on a "cash" basis. The second beneficiary is the Castro family businesses. There is no "free press" in Cuba but we understand that the family fortune is over $1 billion! These businesses operate in tourism and other trade with Cuba. "Castro Inc" is a huge capitalist enterprise operating for the benefit of Fidel and Raul Castro, the same two who are greeted by leftist crowds all over as champions of the poor and providers of free health care for their people. In fact, the only thing that Fidel & Raul Castro know about poverty is that they've created lots of it! And the only thing that they know about health care is that they rely on foreign doctors when they get sick. With all due respect to Yoani, she is wrong about lifting the embargo. We learned from Yoani that there are many dissidents in Cuba, such as Dr Biscet, who do not want a relaxation of the embargo. Let's hope that they convince Yoani so that we can expedite the collapse of the Castro dictatorship. In the meantime, please let me repeat that Yoani is a wonderful but very wrong on the embargo.
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Increasing economic engagement with Cuba will only strengthen the Castro regime. Mitchell Bustillo 2013 5/9/2013. First-generation Cuban-American, a Hispanic Heritage Foundation Gold Medallion
Winner, and a former United States Senate Page, appointed by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Time to Strengthen the Cuban Embargo, International Policy Digest, http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2013/05/09/time-to-strengthen-the-cubanembargo/.
Washingtons goal in its dealings with Havana is clear: facilitate the introduction and growth of democracy while increasing personal freedoms. There are many who argue that the best way to spread democracy is by lifting the embargo and travel restrictions. U.S. Rep. Michael Honda argues that an influx of politically enlightened U.S. travelers to Cuba would put Havana in a difficult place, leading to their own people calling for change. However, this is erroneous. Due to the fractured and weakened state of the embargo, over 400,000 U.S. travelers visited Cuba in 2011, making the United States the second-largest source of foreign visitors after Canada, according to NPRs Nick Miroff. Obviously, this influx of what has been theorized to be liberty-professing tourists has not resulted in an influx of such democratic ideals into this overwhelmingly federally controlled country. One example is the case of Alan Gross, an American citizen working for USAID. He was arrested in Cuba in 2009 under the allegations of Acts against the Independence and Territorial Integrity of the State while distributing computers and technological equipment to Jewish communities in Cuba. He is currently serving the fourth of his fifteen-year conviction, is in poor health, and receiving little to no aid from the U.S., according to the Gross Family website. In light of this, it is hard to believe that the U.S. would be able to protect a large number of tourists in a hostile nation, especially when they plan to profess political freedom. This view is further promoted by the Ladies in White, a Cuban dissident group that supports the embargo.
They fear ending it would only serve to strengthen the current dictatorial regime because the real blockade, they claim, is within Cuba. Allowing American travelers to visit Cuba does not help propel the cause of Cuban democracy; it hampers it. Still there is the idea that further increasing American tourism to this nearby Caribbean island will at least aid their impoverished citizens in some manner, but this is neither a straight-forward nor easy solution. From the annual throng of American visitors, U.S. Senator Marco Rubiodeclared at a 2011 Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Hearing that an estimated, $4 billion a year flow directly to the Cuban government from remittances and travel by Cuban Americans, which is perhaps the single largest source of revenue to the most repressive government in the region. These remittances are sent by Americans to help their Cuban families, not support the Cuban government. It is also a common belief that the Cuban embargo is a leading cause of poverty among the Cuban citizens and that lifting the embargo would go a long way toward improving the Cuban standard of living. However, no amount of money can increase the living standards there as long as their current regime stands. After all, the authorities were already skimming 20 percent of the remittances from Cuban-Americans and 90 percent of the salary paid to Cubans by non-American foreign investors, states Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Senior Fellow of The Center on Global Prosperity at The Independent Institute. However unfortunate it may be, Cuba, in its current state, is a nation consisting only of a wealthy and powerful few and an impoverished and oppressed proletariat, who possess little to no means to escape or even improve their fate. Lifting the trade embargo will not increase the general prosperity of the Cuban people, but it will increase the prosperity of the government. Ergo, the poverty and dire situation of the Cuban people cannot be blamed on the United States or the embargo. No doubt, it has been a fruitless 50 years since the embargo was enacted. Little has changed as far as democracy and human rights are concerned. To maintain control, Cuba has managed to offset much of the effects over the years in large part because the Soviets subsidized the island for three decades, because the regime welcomed Canadian, Mexican and European capital after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and because Venezuela is its new patron, according to Llosa. However, Venezuela is now undergoing a political transition of its own with the recent death of Hugo Chvez, its president for the past 14 years, and the controversial election of Nicols Maduro. Despite being Chvezs handpicked successor, Maduro only won by a narrow margin and will likely be forced to cut spending on social programs and foreign assistance in an effort to stabilize Venezuelas dire economic problems. Therefore, now is the ideal time to take action. Without Venezuelas support, the Cuban government will assuredly face an economic crisis. Strengthening the embargo to limit U.S. dollars flowing into Cuba would place further pressure on the Cuban government and has the potential to trigger an economic collapse. A change in the Cuban political climate is within reach.
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Appeasement DA
Democracy Good
Democracies prevent global nuclear conflict Joshua Muravchik (Resident Scholar at the AEI) 2001 Democracy and Nuclear Peace
July 14, http://www.npec-web.org/Syllabus/Muravchik.pdf, Date Accessed 7/29/2006) That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all history, was inevitable. So many peoples were swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries' democratic evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be for the world as a whole. Nonetheless, the overall trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands higher today than
ever before. This progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The danger of nuclear war was radically reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism and turned to democracy. For other ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race between the emergence or growth of nuclear arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the greatest cause for worry may rest with the Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy may be still more remote.
Democracy is key to prevent extinction. Spencer R Weart (Director of the Center for the History of Physics at American Institute of Physics) 1998
Never at War: Why Democracies will not fight, 1998 p.2-3 That surprising stretch of peace is only one of many such cases that turn up in odd corners of history, wherever there were republics. When states avoid war so thoroughly, can that be a mere accident, or is there some deeper reason? If a general reason exists then we may already have at hand, in peaceful democratic regions like Western Europe, the blueprint for a solution to the problem of war. Such a solution becomes more essential every year. All sorts of nations are learning to build nuclear weapons. Still more unspeakable devices will someday be easy to make, in the zone where microelectronics and biochemistry and converging. Sooner than many people think, any substantial fragment of a nation will be able to do any city in the world what the Serbs did to Dubrovnik. In the
long run, we may not survive unless we avoid all warsnot just among some states, but among all of them: not just for the next couple of decades, but for all time. What international order can achieve so much?
Democracy solves a slew of global problems that culminate in nuclear war G John Ikenberry (Prof of Political Science at UPenn) 1999 Why Export Democracy Wilson Quarterly,
Spring We led the struggle for democracy because the larger the pool of democracies, the greater our own security and prosperity. Democracies, we know, are less likely to make war on us or on other nations. They tend not to abuse
the rights of their people. They make for more reliable trading partners. And each new democracy is a potential ally in the struggle against the challenges of our time-containing ethnic and religious conflict; reducing the nuclear threat; combating terrorism and organized crime; overcoming environmental degradation.
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Appeasement DA
The lack of liberal democracy is a far bigger internal link to your impacts. Dafoe 11 (Allan Dafoe, Ph.D. candidate in the Travers Department of Political Science, Berkeley,
Statistical Critiques of the Democratic Peace: Caveat Emptor, American Journal of Political Science, Volume 55, Issue 2, pages 247262, April 2011) The democratic peacethe inference that democracies rarely fight each other is one of the most important and empirically robust findings in international relations (IR).1 The apparent empirical association2
between joint democracy3 and peace has been debated and challenged since its first discovery by political scientists to the present (Gartzke 2007). Scholars have argued that this empirical association is in fact a product of other confounding factors, such as Cold War alliances (Farber and Gowa 1997; Gowa 1999), satisfaction with the regional status quo (Kacowicz 1995), shared foreign policy interests (Gartzke 1998, 2000), unmeasured factors such as dyadspecific effects (Green, Kim, and Yoon 2001), stable borders (Gibler 2007), and capital openness and development (Gartzke 2007; Gartzke and Hewitt 2010). Despite the large number of serious challenges, most current
quantitative analyses continue to find a substantial, robust, and statistically significant association between joint democracy and the absence of militarized conflict. This article will analyze a recent
challenge to the democratic peace (Gartzke 2007), situate it in the context of other statistical challenges to the democratic peace, and show that the democratic peace persists as a compelling finding. In so doing, this article also identifies new features of the democratic peace. It is important to be clear about what this empirical association implies about international politics. Despite the robustness of this result to different model specifications, this observational finding by itself does not prove that it is characteristics of democracies such as regular competitive elections, constraints on the executive, liberal norms, or civil rights that make these countries more peaceful toward each other. Even less does it prove that the forceful spread of democracy in particular regions of the world will reduce the frequency or severity of wars. Justifying causal claims such as these exclusively using analyses of observational data requires the leverage of strong assumptions. It is for this reason that there is less agreement about the actual causal mechanisms of the democratic peace than that around the underlying explanandum. Scholars have proposed that the democratic peace arises because of shared norms (Maoz and Russett 1993), restraint on democratic leaders (Bueno deMesquita et al. 1999),more credible communication through transparency (Schultz 1998) or domestic audience costs (Fearon 1994; Tomz 2007; Weeks 2008), greater capacity to reach stable bargains (Lipson 2003), and other possible causal pathways. On the other hand, it may not be a democratic characteristic at all that accounts for the peace, but some other co -occurring or preceding factor, such as shared strategic circumstances, shared political systems, capitalism, prosperity, liberal economic norms, or other factors. Nonetheless, the democracy-peace empirical association remains of paramount importance because,
despite our best attempts to control for other possible correlates of this peace, the fact that two countries are democratic remains strongly associated with them having peaceful relations. Furthermore,
under relatively modest assumptions this apparently peaceful proclivity seems unlikely to have arisen by chance (that is, the finding is statistically significant). This empirical association is foundational to a vast
literature testing, refining, and extending theories about the apparent relationship between regime type and peace. Thus it matters greatly whether this association is robust to potential confounders (for reviews of
this literature, see George and Bennett 2004; Ray 1995).
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Appeasement DA
Aff: Appeasement Now (Cuba)

Obama making concessions on immigration and mail now. Matthew Lee and Paul Haven 2013 6/19(Associated Press) US and Cuba agree to resume migration
talks <http://www.wral.com/us-and-cuba-to-resume-migration-talks/12569417/> The United States and Cuba have agreed to resume bilateral talks on migration issues next month, a State Department official said Wednesday, the latest evidence of a thaw in chilly relations between the Cold War enemies. Havana and Washington just wrapped up a round of separate negotiations aimed at restarting direct mail service, which has been suspended since 1963. Both sets of talks have been on hold in recent years in a dispute over the fate of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross, who is serving a 15-year jail sentence in Havana after he was caught bringing communications equipment onto the island illegally. The migration talks will be held in Washington on July 17. The State Department official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publically, spoke on condition of anonymity. "Representatives from the Department of State are scheduled to meet with representatives of the Cuban government to discuss migration issues," the official said, adding that the talks were "consistent with our interest in promoting greater freedoms and respect for human rights in Cuba." Word of the jump-started talks sparked an angry reaction from Cuban-American Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who blasted the Obama administration for what she saw as a policy of appeasement.
Postal talks are a sign of a broader strategy of concessions. Guy Taylor 2013 6/18 U.S.-Cuba mail talks spark speculation of wider outreach ()
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/18/us-cuba-mail-talks-spark-speculation-wideroutreac/?page=1> Some Cuba policy experts suggested the postal talks could lead to something more ambitious. This is the way diplomacy is conducted, said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Council of the Americas in New York. The idea some have, that these talks represent a concession, when it fact it will open up precisely the channels of communication we want to have, defies the very notion of diplomacy and the stated goals of our Cuba policy. For the past couple of years, there has been little movement at all the U.S. has insisted that the unconditional release of Alan Gross was a prerequisite to any action on other issues, and the relationship seemed stuck, added Geoff Thale, a program director at the Washington Office on Latin America. But in the last months, weve seen small steps on both sides. Months prior to Mr. Gross December 2009 arrest, President Obama signaled an interest in opening a new era of relations with Cuba. The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba, he said during a speech at the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago that year. Advocates of such an opening were largely unimpressed Monday by the announcement that postal talks will be held this week. Any step taken toward expanding the free flow of information and resources from the United States to the Cuban people is a step in the right direction, but it does fall short of Obamas stated goal of really seeking a new beginning and a new relationship, said Ricardo Herrero, deputy executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a Washington-based Cuban exile organization.
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Appeasement DA
Aff: No Impact (Cuba)

There is no impact to appeasing Cuba. Arturo Lopez-Levy 2011 1/10 Appease Cuba? What Would Winston Churchill Say? (The Havana
Note) <http://thehavananote.com/node/845> Of course, this is delusional. The Cuban communist political system and command economy might have prevented economic development of the Cuban people and repressed its civil and political liberties but there is little evidence about genocidal or expansionist tendencies in Raul Castros government. The U.S. inclusion of Cuba in the terrorist list of the State department is seen as the world paradigm of political manipulation of a core theme of American foreign policy for domestic political reasons. So, where does a policy of engagement - or as critics would call it, appeasement - fit in? In fact, appeasement shouldnt be a bad word for U.S. policy towards Cuba since the island is a minor power with limited capacity to cause damage to U.S. national interests. As Winston Churchill, the main opponent of appeasing Hitler, wrote in 1950: The world appeasement is not popular but appeasement has its place in all policy. Make sure you put it in the right place. Appease the weak. Defy the strong. Cuban nationalism and its sense of victimhood have never been a stronger conviction of the Cuban people. But the Cuban states power position versus foreign powers is the weakest since 1959 . Under the weight of the Special Period, the period of crisis that began in 1989 and amount to forty percent of post-revolutionary history, the Castros regime is economically exhausted. This is why Raul Castro is attempting a serious reform. Now is most likely the optimal time for the United States to address appeasable Cuban nationalism and engage Cuban post-revolutionary society. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, the question should be whether Cuban power holders see virtue in a permanent conflict with the United States, or there is space for accommodation of Cubas national interests in a U.S. led world order. Only through engagement can Obama test whether Cubas new leaders are rooted in a Cold War opposition to the United States, or are just defending their interests, values and privileges against U.S. impositions.
Appeasement has been historically proven to be a smart policy decision Juan Cole, Historian of the Modern Middle East and South Asia, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, July 20 , 2005, The
th
Crock of Appeasement, http://www.antiwar.com/cole/ Britain gave up India (and Pakistan) in 1947. Was
that "appeasement?" You may be assured that the British Right saw it that way. Without this sort of realism, Britain would have tried to keep India and there would have been a bloodbath . Likewise, any attempt by Britain to hold on to Kenya past the early 1960s would have led to even more violence than the
Mau Mau and British reprisals (20,000 imprisoned, many tortured) had. And with decolonization, the Mau Mau and violence subsided. Problems do have solutions, and war is not always the best solution. Sometimes the withdrawal of the imperial power itself solves the problem. You will note that you never hear that Britain "appeased" the Stern Gang, Irgun, Haganah, and other Zionist forces that sometimes engaged in terrorism in Palestine, when it departed that territory in 1948. France "appeased" Lebanon and Syria by granting them independence in 1943. It "appeased" Morocco by giving it up in 1956. It "appeased" Algeria in 1962. Britain likewise "appeased" all of its former colonies. The political Right in each of these imperial countries fought decolonization tooth and nail (I do not admire Albert Camus as much as many Americans of my generation, because of his reactionary stance on Algeria). Or let us take Cory Aquino's people power movement that challenged U.S.-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980s. The first instinct of Reagan and the right-wingers around him was to help Marcos crush Cory and her movement. Anything else would have been "appeasement." But Senator Dick Lugar went to the Philippines, looked around, and wisely decided that the only feasible course of action for the U.S. was to acquiesce in people power. Lugar managed to persuade Reagan, thus averting disaster. Were Lugar and Reagan guilty of "appeasement"? All counterinsurgency struggles have to be waged at both the military and the political levels. The political side of the struggle requires that we attempt to understand what is driving the insurgents, that we negotiate with them and attempt to bring them into the system. That is not appeasement. It is counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency by simple brute military force has never worked, except where its wielder has been willing to commit genocide or something close to it. Is negotiating with the leadership of the Ba'ath guerrilla movement in Iraq appeasement? I favor it if it would save the lives of U.S. troops. Would declaring an amnesty for Ba'ath Party members who cannot be proved to have committed a crime be appeasement? I favor it. Would internationalizing Iraq and drawing down U.S. troops be appeasement? I favor it.
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Appeasement DA
Aff: Credibility Bad

Thedrive for credibility is methodologically flawed- Empirically justifies intervention in credibility wars and encourages free-riding that erodes primacy
Walt 2011 (Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, December 5,
2011, Does the U.S. still need to reassure its allies?, Foreign Policy, http://goo.gl/hsThU)
A perennial preoccupation of U.S. diplomacy has been the perceived need to reassure allies of our
reliability. Throughout the Cold War, U.S. leaders worried that any loss of credibility might cause dominoes to fall, lead key allies to "bandwagon" with the Soviet Union, or result in some form of "Finlandization." Such
concerns justified fighting so-called "credibility wars" (including Vietnam), where the main concern was not the direct stakes of the contest but rather the need to retain a reputation for resolve and capability. Similar fears also led the United States to deploy thousands of nuclear weapons in Europe, as a supposed counter to Soviet missiles targeted against our NATO allies. The possibility that key allies would abandon us was almost always exaggerated, but U.S. leaders remain overly sensitive to the possibility. So Vice
President Joe Biden has been out on the road this past week, telling various U.S. allies that "the United States isn't going anywhere." (He wasn't suggesting we're stuck in a rut, of course, but saying that the imminent withdrawal from Iraq doesn't mean a retreat to isolationism or anything like that.) There's nothing really wrong with offering up this sort of comforting rhetoric, but I've never really understood why U.S. leaders were so worried about the credibility of our commitments to others. For starters, given our remarkably secure geopolitical position, whether U.S. pledges are credible is first and foremost a problem for those who are dependent on U.S. help. We should therefore take our
allies' occasional hints about realignment or neutrality with some skepticism; they have every incentive to try to make us worry about it, but in most cases little incentive to actually do it. Don't get me wrong: having allies around the world
is useful and some attention needs to be paid to preserving intra-alliance solidarity, especially when the ally in question does have important things that we want or need. But an excessive concern
for credibility encourages and enables allies to free-ride (something most of them have done for decades), and it can lead Washington to keep pouring resources into shaky endeavors lest allies elsewhere doubt our resolve. This logic is wrong-headed, because squandering billions on fruitless endeavors (see under: Afghanistan) ultimately leaves one weaker overall and eventually diminishes public support for active
engagement abroad. By contrast, liquidating a costly burden enables you to rebuild and regroup and puts you in a better position to respond in places that matter. The real message that Biden and other U.S. representatives should be telling their listeners is that getting out of Iraq (and eventually Afghanistan) is going to improve America's ability to protect its real interests, and that important U.S. allies need not be that
If other states were a bit less confident that the U nited S tates would come to their aid if asked, they would be willing to do more to ensure that we would. If key U.S. allies are not entirely convinced of U.S. support no matter what they did, they would be less likely to engage in dangerous or provocative acts of their own. Moreover, playing "hard to get"
concerned. More importantly, worrying a bit less about our credibility and "playing hard to get" on occasion would have real benefits. reduces the likelihood that the United States will be perceived as a trigger-happy global policeman. As the cases of the Balkans in the 1990s and the recent Libyan intervention illustrate, when Washington is more reluctant to take on collective burdens, it ends up being appreciated (and less feared) when it finally does get involved. Thus, worrying a bit less
about U.S. credibility is a way to get
others to do more, and to resent what we do less.
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Appeasement DA
Intervention to maintain credibility is self-perpetuating and forces limitless security commitments

Layne 2006 (Christopher Layne, Professor of International Relations at Texas A&M University, 2006, The Peace of Illusions, Google Books)
Coupled with the need to prevent turmoil from spilling over from the peripheries to the core, the
need to maintain American credibility leads inexorably to the expansion of U.S. security commitments. Although some proponenets of
hegemony, notably Robert J. Art, argue that hegemony only requires selective, limited U.S. commitments in areas of core strategic concern, this evidently is not true. The United States continually is forced to expand the geographical scope of its strategic commitments.
Core
and periphery are- or, more correctly, are perceived to be- interdependent strategically. However, while the
core is constant, the turbulent frontier in the periphery is always expanding. U.S. policymakers fear what might happen- falling dominoes and closure- if the United States does not intervene and broaden its defensive perimeters. Thus, the United States finds itself extending its
this process, which tends to become self-perpetuating , because expansion tends to feed on itself in order to protect what is acquired. Each new defensive perimeter is menaced by turmoil on the other side of the line, which requires yet another outward push of the security frontier. Americas security frontiers are, in reality, frontiers of insecurity. Two examples of this dynamic
security frontier ever farther into the periphery. There is, however, no obvious stopping point to are the origins of U.S. involvement in Indochina and the interventions in the Balkans.
Commitment traps escalate and result in irrational nuclear lash-out to demonstrate resolve
Huntley 2006 (Wade L. Huntley, Threats All the Way Down: US Strategic Initiatives in a Unipolar World, Review of International Studies,
Vol. 32, No. 1, pg. 49-67) Less well recognised is that establishing the credibility of extended deterrence threats relies
more on an
adversary's own assessments than on deterrence threats themselves. Threats can be readily discounted by adversaries,
particularly when made in the context of crises; the threatened understand that threateners 'have incentives to misrepresent their intent to increase pressure on the adversary to back down'.49 Tangible evidence of commitment carries more weight. Thus, the United States sought to reinforce deterrence of North Korean attack on South Korea by placing US troops in the line of such an attack, visibly raising the US interests at stake.50 Although specific retaliation threats can be discounted in this fashion, they still bolster deterrence credibility in a more roundabout
making the threat increases the 'reputation costs' to the threatener of failing to follow through if deterrence fails. After a biological or chemical attack, US leaders might reckon that failure to respond with nuclear
way, because the act of weapons - after having threatened implicitly or explicitly to do so - would undermine the credibility of threats of nuclear response against similar attacks in the future, thereby making such attacks more likely. Avoiding a reputation for 'backing down' would increase incentives for a US president to retaliate in the first instance; thus, 'a president's deterrent threat does not just reflect a commitment to retaliate; it creates a commitment'.51 The adversary's perception of the threatener's potential reputation costs, separate from the threat itself, raises the adversary's belief that the retaliation would be forthcoming, bolstering deterrence. However, this commitment
is also a trap because the mechanism of credibility - desire by the threatener to credibly make similar threats in the future - is detached from the circumstances at hand. The commitment to a nuclear threat would tend to induce a nuclear response in the event deterrence fails, even if the proximate situation does not warrant such escalation. 'The greatest danger created by US nuclear threats is that they provide an incentive to respond with nuclear weapons, for the sake of maintaining the reputation for honoring one's commitments, to attacks that otherwise would be responded
to with conventional retaliation only'.52
Commitment trap ensures US involvement in nuclear great power wars

Layne 2006 (Christopher Layne, Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, 2006 The Peace of Illusions, google books)
Rather than being instruments of regional pacification, today America's
alliances are transmission belts for war
that ensure that the U.S. would be embroiled in Eurasian wars. In deciding whether to go war in Eurasia, the U nited S tates should
not allow its hands to be tied in advance. For example a nongreat power war on the Korean Peninsulaeven if nuclear weapon were not involvedwould be very costly. The dangers of being entangled in a great power war in Eurasia, of course, are even greater, and could expose the American homeland to nuclear attack . An offshore balancing grand strategy would extricate the United States from the danger of being entrapped in Eurasian conflicts by its alliance commitments.
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Appeasement DA
US involvement in foreign conflicts is a force multiplier

Gholz Press and Sapolsky 1997 (Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press, doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, Professor of Public Policy and Organization in the Department of Political Science at M.I.T. and Director of the M.I.T. Defense and Arms Control Studies, Spring 1997, Come Home America- The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4)
The larger long-term cost of selective engagement is the risk of involvement in faraway great power wars. Great power conflicts will continue to be a rare occurrence, but when they happen, the U nited S tates is much better off staying as far away from the combatants as possible. World War II resulted in the deaths of 400,000 Americans, many times that
number wounded, and nearly 40 percent of GDP devoted to defense (compared to 4 percent today).76 A new great power conflict, with the possibility of nuclear use, might exact even higher costs from the participants. World War II was fought to prevent the consolidation of Europe and Asia by hostile, fanatical adversaries, but a new great power war would not raise that specter. The
biggest cost of selective engagement is the risk of being drawn into someone else's faraway great power war. The global economy may be disrupted by war, depending on who is involved, but even in the worst case, the costs would be
manageable. Trade accounts for roughly 20 percent of the American economy,77 and sudden, forced autarky would be devastating for American prosperity. But no great power war could come close to forcing American autarky: essentially all goods have substitute sources of supply at varying marginal increases in cost. Furthermore, wars never isolate the fighting countries completely from external trade. Some dislocation is a real possibility, but these short-term costs would not justify the risks of fighting a great power war. The risk of nuclear
escalation is a reason to worry about great power war, but it is a highly suspect reason to favor a military policy that puts U.S. forces between feuding great powers. Nuclear weapons may not be
used in a future great power war; the fear of retaliation should breed great caution on the part of the belligerents.78 But the larger point is
possibility of a faraway nuclear exchange is precisely the reason that America should keep its military forces out of other country's disputes.79 An Indo-Pakistani nuclear war would be a terrible thing, but it makes no sense to get in the middle. Distant wars would be costly, but
that the not nearly as costly as the solution that selective engagers propose.
US can never be credible enough- States will act to secure their interests independently
Up until now, other states have foregone overt counterbalancing because they benefit from American hegemony. However,
Washington's ability to provide other major states with collective goodsin both the security and economic spheresis a wasting asset. Although other states have relied on U.S. security guarantees to protect them against regional rivals and instability, the credibility of America's extended deterrence commitments is increasingly problematic. As other major states experience growing doubts about whether they can count on the United States to protect them, they will moveand, indeed, in some cases already have--to acquire military capabilities so that, if necessary, they can defend themselves without U.S. assistance.67 When other major states build up militarily as a
hedge against abandonment by the United States, they open a second avenue to multipolarity. Regardless of how multipolarity comes about as the result of balancing against the United States, or as a result of others arming themselves as a hedge against regional rivalsthe consequences for America's hegemonic grand strategy are the same. Precisely because multipolarity is antithetical to the Open Door world that the United States seeks, the aim of American grand strategy is to prevent the other major powerseven U.S. alliesfrom gaining autonomy in the realm of security.
Causes US draw-in to great power war

Advocates of hegemony claim that it is illusory to think that the United States can retract its military power safely from Eurasia. The answer to this assertion is that the risks and costs of American grand strategy are growing, and the strategy is not likely to work much longer in any event. As other statesnotably Chinarapidly close the gap, U.S. hegemony is fated to end in the next decade or two regardless of U.S.
doubts about the credibility of U.S. security guarantees are driving creeping re-nationalization by America's Eurasian allies, which, in turn, is leading to a reversion to multipolarity. In this changing geopolitical context, the costs of trying to hold on to hegemony are high and going to become higher. Rather than fostering peace and stability in Eurasia, America's military commitments abroad have become a source of insecurity for the United States, because they carry the risk of entrapping the U nited S tates in great power Eurasian wars.
efforts to prolong it. At the same time, understandable
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Appeasement DA
Policymakers perceive threats to be interdependent- Lowers the threshold for getting involved in peripheral conflicts
Layne 1998 (Christopher Layne, professor of International Relations at Texas A&M University, Summer
1998, Rethinking American Grand Strategy: Hegemony or Balance of Power in the Twenty-First Century?, World Policy Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, pg 8-28) For the strategy of preponderance to work, the credibility of U.S. security guarantees must remain robust. As a former high-ranking Pentagon official puts it: "The credibility of U.S. alliances can be undermined if key allies, such as Germany and Japan, believe that the current arrangements do not deal adequately with threats to their security. It could also be undermined if, over an extended period, the United States Is perceived as lacking the will or capability to lead in protecting their interests...."20 Concern
with credibility leads to
the belief that U.S. commitments are interdependent. As the strategic theorist Thomas C. Schellinghasput it:
Few parts of the world are intrinsically worth the risk of serious war by themselves...but defending them or running risks to protect them may preserve one's commitments to action in other parts of the world at later times."21If others perceive that the United States has acted irresolutely in a specific crisis, they will conclude that it will not honor its commitments in future crises. Hence, as happened repeatedly 18 in the Cold War, the U nited S tates has
taken military action in peripheral areas- Bosnia, for example- in order to demonstrate to both allies and potential adversaries that it will uphold its security obligations
in core areas. Notwithstanding its perceived complexities, it appears that extended deterrence "worked" in Europe during the Cold War and was easier to execute successfully than generally was thought. One should not assume, however, that extended deterrence will work similarly well in the early twenty- first century. If extended deterrence indeed worked during the Cold War, it was because of a set of unique conditions that are unlikely to be replicated in the future: bipolarity; a clearly defined, and accepted, geopolitical status quo; the intrinsic value to the United States of the protected region; and the permanent forward deployment by the United States of significant military forces in Western Europe. The number of great powers in the system affects extended deterrence's efficacy. During the Cold War, the bipolar nature of the U.S.Soviet rivalry in Europe stabilized the superpower relationship by demarcating the continent into U.S. and Soviet spheres of influence that delineated the vital interests of both superpowers. Each knew it courted disaster if it challenged the other's sphere. Also, during the Cold War, the superpowers were able to exercise control over their major allies to minimize the risk of unwillingly being dragged into a conflict by them. In the early twenty-first century, however, the international system will be multipolar and, arguably, less stable and more conflictprone than a bipolar international system. Spheres of influence will not be delineated clearly. And because other states will have more latitude to pursue their own foreign and security policy agendas than they did during the Cold War, the
risk will be much greater that the U nited S tates could be dragged into a conflict because of a protected states irresponsible behavior. Extended deterrence is bolstered by a Clearly delineated geopolitical status quo and undermined by the
absence of clearly defined spheres of influence. The resolution of the 1948-49 Berlin crisis formalized Europe's de facto postwar partition. After 1949, the very existence of a clear status quo in Europe itself bolstered deterrence. In deterrence situations of this type, the defender enjoys two advantages: the potential attacker must bear the onus (and risk)of moving first and the defender's interests generally outweigh the challenger's(hence the defender is usually willing to run greater risks to defend the status quo than the challenger is to change it). In the postCold War world, however, the
number of political and territorial flashpoints where the status quo is hotly contested- the Senkaku Islands, the Spratly Islands, Taiwan, Tokdo/Takeshima, and in a host of potential disputes in East Central and Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia- is on the rise.
34
Appeasement DA
Neg: Appeasement Bad

Appeasement causes 1,000 years of darkness. Ronald Wilson Reagan 1964 10/27 (Actor) A Time for Choosing
<http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/timechoosing.html> Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems.
Well, perhaps there is a simple answernot an easy answerbut simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace and you can have it in the next secondsurrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our
well-meaning liberal friends refuse to facethat their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demandthe ultimatum. And what thenwhen Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He
has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us .
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this beginjust in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And thisthis is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spiritsnot animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. 35

Appeasement Disadvantage - MSDI 2013

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The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Appeasement Ext. (1/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Appeasement Ext. (2/3)

Radical leaders perceive appeasement as weakness

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Appeasement Ext. (3/3)

Weakness has a ripple effectthe U.S. act with strength

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Credibility Good (1/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Credibility Good (2/3)

Collapse of leadership causes extinctionseveral scenarios.

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Credibility Good (3/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

2NC Iran (1/2)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

2NC Iran (2/2)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Democracy 2NC (1/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Democracy 2NC (2/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Democracy 2NC (3/3)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Democracy Coming Now (Cuba)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Cuba Democracy Links

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Aff: Appeasement Now (Cuba)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Aff: No Impact (Cuba)

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Aff: Credibility Bad

about U.S. credibility is a way to get

others to do more, and to resent what we do less.

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Intervention to maintain credibility is self-perpetuating and forces limitless security commitments

Commitment trap ensures US involvement in nuclear great power wars

alliances are transmission belts for war

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

US involvement in foreign conflicts is a force multiplier

Causes US draw-in to great power war

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

with credibility leads to

The Missouri State Debate Institute Starter Pack

Neg: Appeasement Bad

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